Travel Photography | Rajasthan | Jodhpur | Blue City

Jodhpur is the second largest city in the Indian State of Rajasthan, It is also referred to as Blue City due to the blue-painted houses around the Mehrangarh Fort. From New Delhi to Jodhpur is about twelve hours by train, luckily we manage to get A/C Sleeper Class so our long journey quite comfortable, since our journey from Old Delhi Train Station depart at night 8:30PM there’s not much photo opportunity along the way, I woke up a bit late actually, thanks to the A/C coach, maybe too comfortable for me. The train that we took from Old Delhi is 2461 Mandore Express.

We have never book our hotel here in advance but we have few hotel in mind as recommended by Lonely Planet Travel book. As a backpackers our chosen hotel is budget hotel, somewhere between Rs500 to Rs1000 Indian Rupee. We decided to stay in Govind Hotel just five minute walk from the train station to the right, according to the Lonely Planet book, Govind Hotel were located just the opposite of Jodhpur main post office, there are  many shops and hotel just outside the train station, so the best thing we can do is to search for the post office and then look for the hotel. It’s so true, after we found the post office we can see Govind Hotel just across the road.

We don’t want to waste our precious times wandering around looking for another hotel, our time is precious, so we decided to stay here at Govind Hotel, it was quite a nice place to stay, they have roof top restaurant where we can see Mehrangarh Fort from a distance. After we check in, take a quick bath, we head down and it’s time to explore the city. Our first destination is off course the Magnificent Mehrangarh Fort.

It was not difficult to get Auto Rickshaws here, a lot of them are waiting just outside the hotel, it is a matter of getting the good price, less than 30 minute Auto Rickshaw ride, we finally reached in front of the Mehrangarh Fort, let me tell you, it is very-very hot here. The entrance fee for Foreign Tourist to enter Mehrangarh Fort is Rs250 including camera.

The building material were chiselled from the rock on which the fort stands, the structure merges with its base. The fort built by Maharaja Man Singh in 1806 following his victory over rulers of Jaipur and Bikaner. From the top of the Mehrangarh Fort we can see clearly the Blue City down there, most of the building that surround  this fort were painted in blue. Traditionally, blue signified the home of a Brahmin, but non-Brahmins have got in on the act too, unfortunately due to time constraint we don’t have the time to explore the blue city throughly.

We spent more than three hours here inside the fort, forget to tell you that our Auto Rickshaws drivers are waiting for us outside the fort, during the ride they tell us that usually tourist will take around one hour in the fort, how wrong they were, we are not really a “Tourist” but a photographers, so spending three to four hours here in the fort is “normal”. There is so much to photographed for, waiting for the right light, looking for a better vantage point or scouting for some interesting angle, all this took a lot of time, we want to get a great shot, we come along the way from Malaysia you see. It’s  a;long way home.

There is a souvenir shops here inside the Mehrangarh Fort, just one souvenir shop runs by the fort itself, the merchandise there were quite good quality and everyone bought something from here, mostly T-Shirt and if you guys have a plan to visit here, please do buy few T-Shirts here, it is very good quality, we were regret when we reach New Delhi that we don’t buy more T-Shirt from here because it’s is hard to find a great T-Shirt in New Delhi, I mean T-Shirt that suit our taste, all we can find in New Delhi and Agra is a Taj Mahal picture on the T-Shirt without many variation in term of design, maybe they are great looking T-Shirt in New Delhi, we just don’t found it.

Since we spent too much time and “money” here, we don’t have much time left and are very tired, so we decided to get back straight to our hotel, the original plan is to visit some other places but we are very tired and the hot temperature here doesn’t help much.

*All pictures here were edited with the technique in my Photoshop Tone Secret eBook except for the Black and White.

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