Remarkable Rajasthan

Last weekend was Tom's birthday, so we escaped Delhi, took Sophie to her favourite place, the airport, and boarded a Jet Konnect twin prop to Jodhpur. 1 hr 20 minutes later, bags collected, car waiting - we were on our way to the RAAS hotel.

The journey was fairly mainstream until we hit the old town. At entering the gates of the Clock Tower you travel back in time to donkey carts and extraordinary narrow lanes - not made for Toyota Innova's!

The RAAS impressed from the moment we pulled through the grand old gates. We were greeted by lovely staff who applied tilak (red powder dot) to our foreheads and offered a refreshing ginger and lemon drink. Before we saw our room, we were escorted around the grounds, shown the frog pond, the pool and you couldn't ignore the imposing view of the Fort. It was a beautiful hotel of a mere 31 rooms.

We stayed in room 123, this was our view.

View from 123!

As you can see from this pic, this beautiful place is also right next to a mosque.... and it was Friday..... so our first welcome to Jodhpur was the call to prayer, that goes on for a really long time on Friday. However it really doesn't matter and certainly didn't bother us - kind of added to the ambiance.

Friday we spent at the hotel, had lunch, swam, arranged a babysitter and that was about it. Luckily a very nice lady arrived at 8pm to a very wide awake Sophie and we took our leave. Tom and I had a walk around the streets of Jodhpur, met some lovely convincing spice and fabric sellers, witnessed little people worshipping and singing at the foot of Ganesh statues and we dodged inevitable cow poo! We returned to find Soph still awake and running rings around the lovely babysitter!

Saturday was tour day and we left the hotel via the very funky blue tuk tuk....

The streets of Jodhpur are full of amazing things, yes you are in India, so you get used to a certain level of craziness but I really liked the vibe of this town - it was friendly, casual and colourful -always colourful!!!

The first thing I saw on our travels was a funeral procession, a body being carried above the shoulders of its loved ones wrapped in bright, colourful fabrics.... not a piece of black in sight! The crowd chanted, sang and rang bells as they moved toward the cremation site.

As we wound our way through the streets of Jodhpur we saw all kind of things... cows, pigs, dogs, Gods of Sex....

but the team favourite was the elephant

No getting passed this...

An elephant and his Mahout.

Aren't they beautiful? We stopped, Sophie fed him 20 rupees, which he dutifully passed to his Mahout.

Following on from the elephant spot, we moved on to the reservoir - which was lovely and actively being used by worshippers and also by random dogs to take care of their families.

Reservoir near the Fort

Ganesh ji

I spot puppies under the pavement!!!!

Of course Jodhpur is also famous for being the 'blue city' - houses are painted blue and the reasons vary from keeping the place cool to repelling mosquito's.

and lovely Ganesh statues are everywhere

The afternoon saw us at the Mehrangarh Fort, this place is spectacular. Built right up on the hill there it has a lovely breeze and the architecture is amazing, not hard to believe it never was successfully attacked.

Walls of the Fort

 

Entrance to the Fort

 

Beautiful Fort and a must see.... for the Fort and the view

Umaid Palace in the distance

 

One of the great things about the day was our very nice guide - Ram. He didn't take us to one shop, didn't push us to do anything and was brilliant taking care of our daughter throughout the day. If you are going to Jodhpur and need a guide call Ramniwas (Ram) 09314709126.

So then back to the hotel, more swimming, relaxing and listening to the AFL finals series on the iPad with the free Wi-Fi..... oh and some frog spotting!

All in all Jodhpur was great, the hotel was perfect and nothing was too much trouble - the staff were all amazing and I was quite sad to leave.
 

Jaipur for Janmashtami

For the long weekend of Krishna's birthday, known as Janmashtami, we left the fasting Anna Hazare back in Delhi and headed to Jaipur. We decided to drive and was told the 230kms would take about 5 hours. Seriously 5 hours???? This is a shorter distance than Perth to Yallingup! This seemed crazy but I also know the roads here so I didn't doubt them.

We set off at 6am on Saturday morning. The road had sections of complete insanity, especially as the monsoon rains had caused a fair bit of flooding.

Thankfully not on this bus!

School on a Saturday and this...... bit tough.

Unbelievable conditions on the great highway.

Beside the rain, the other problem is the massive, colourful, completely erratic trucks. They drive those things like they are hatchbacks! Just insane and of course accidents are never far away.

The woman driving this Honda was furious but the truck just drove away....

Broken axle and a jack-knife - awesome!

Thankfully we avoided the accidents and arrived to the old wall of Jaipur 6 hours after we left Delhi. For those of you considering a trip to Jaipur there is a 40 min flight...... I strongly advise it.

Welcome to Jaipur

Jaipur is striking when you arrive, the amazing Amber Fort perched on the hill, the kilometres of pink walls protecting the city, camels, elephants, dogs everywhere. It's pretty amazing!

We went straight to our accommodation at Samode Haveli. It is a 200 year old house which is still in the same family. We had a great room overlooking the gardens, heaps of space but I had left S's cot at home! Agh .... They offered me a cot that would barely have kept a newborn safe let alone a walking busy toddler so I "politely" declined and S was given a bed on the floor of the walk in wardrobe.

Once I had regained my composure over the bed fiasco we headed to lunch. I chose poorly so I won't review this lunch but S enjoyed some of the local music.

Then to the pool. It was a great pool for families with a big pool, a toddler pool, a spa and also a walk out ledge that toddlers could play on. There was also a bar that served us an ice coffee or a mojito!

S and T enjoying the wading ledge

Saturday night we headed out to eat at 1135 AD but Anna Hazare protests had blocked off a couple of streets and we weren't going to make it up to the restaurant so we headed back and ate in the courtyard of the hotel. We had a Rajastahani feast and it was very good. Lots of meats and breads and all washed down with a couple of bottles of very good Australian red.

Sunday was tour day at the Fort. We paid our Rs900 and hopped on our elephant and 'zoomed' our way to the top. We had a fast elephant called Rani whereas our friends hilariously had the slowest elephant on the planet.  We managed to resist purchasing anything on the way up and enjoyed the slow swagger of sitting on an elephants back while soaking up a pretty speccy view.

Rani's mahoots orange turban

A very pretty Hati

Stunning view from the back of our elephant

The Amber Fort in Jaipur is impressive. Its a huge fort, full of sprawling rooms, grounds and makes for a really interesting tour. We visited the hammam, the gardens, the wall of mirrors and the water chamber. It was excellent. There are some also pretty interesting things to see at the end of the tour - snake charmers, stores Hot Pink and Tulsi plus a modern art gallery. Impressive!

Manicured gardens of the fort

Following a good two hours at the Fort we took the stroll down the hill, wound our way through the old city and ended up at Anokhi cafe for lunch. It is a European menu of pizzas, fritters, salads and pasta and really very good. It's attached to a large Anokhi store so you an do some shopping while you wait.

My friend M and I then left the kids with their dads and went shopping. There is so much shopping to do in Jaipur and we barely scratched the surface. We searched out some sparkly bangles, blue pottery and some nice fabrics but a return trip is a must!

After a splash in the pool, a mojito and leaving the kids with their babysitter we tried again with 1135 AD restaurant. This restaurant is at the Amber Fort and it is beautiful. They have refurbished one of the rooms in the Fort and it is stunning, completely over the top but that's it's charm. The meal was sensational and the garlic naan was possibly the best I have ever tried. There is no booze served here due to its location near the temple and the price for 4 was about Rs4500.

Inside of 1135 AD

With our friendly waiter

So our last day in Jaipur saw us chilling by the pool before we battled the highway back to Delhi.

It was a lovely weekend shared with great people and Jaipur is definitely worth another visit in the not to distant future.

Mulligatawny Soup

On a 33 degree what do you feel like - soup! Yes that's right, my cook has suggested it as the perfect meal for this weather and who am I to argue? According to Wikipedia:

Mulligatawny (pronounced /ˌmʌlɨɡəˈtɔːni/) is a curry-flavoured soup of Anglo-Indian origin.[1]
Translated literally from Tamil, "Mulligatawny" means "pepper water"[2] ("Millagu" மிளகு means pepper and "Thanni" தண்ணீர் means water). The dish the Anglo-Indians call "pepper water" is actually closer to Tamilian ரசம்-rasam (pronounced Russ-um) than "mulligatawny".
There are many variations on the recipe for mulligatawny.[3] In the West, the soup typically has a turmeric-like yellow colour and chicken meat, beef, or lamb meat. Often it is thickened with rice.

Here is Vasinee's recipe:

1/4 cup red lentils
1 kg chicken thighs
1 3/4 litres water
1 teaspoon salt
60g butter
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp grated ginger
1 tbl curry powder
1/2 tsp garam masala
1/4 tsp chilli powder
pinch cinnamon
2 tbl flour
2 tomatoes
2 chicken stock cubes
1 tbl tomato paste
1 green pepper
2 sticks celery
1 carrot
S&P
285 ml coconut milk
cooked rice

Pour enough hot water over lentils to cover well, set aside. Place chicken in pan with water and salt. Bring to the boil and then reduce heat, simmer covered for 1 1/4 hours. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Remove fat from stock.

Melt butter in a large pan, add chopped onion and cook until transparent. Add ginger and garlic cook for one more minute before adding curry powder, chilli powder, garam masala and cinnamon. Stir over low heat for 2 minutes.

Add flour to pan, stir over low heat. Stir in peeled and chopped tomatoes, reserved stock, tomato paste, crumbled stock cubes and drained lentils. Bring to boil, add sliced pepper, sliced carrot and chopped celery. Reduce heat, simmer uncovered for 15 minutes. Cover simmer for 30 minutes. Season with S&P.

Push veges and liquid through a sieve and puree. Return soup to pan bring to boil, reduce heat and stir in coconut milk and shredded meat from chicken thighs. Sprinkle a spoonful of cooked rice on top of each bowl and serve with poppadoms.


This week I am also going to learn to make chapatti!!!! So photos of Mulligatawny soup and chapatti making coming up!

Some photos

Some snaps.

So it's time to get some pics up..... 

First, a popcorn/onion/tomato seller in Hauz Khas village. This is a pretty cool village full of slightly funkier shops. More independent clothes and books shops plus some lovely galleries My highlights were a brilliant furniture shop and Ogaan which had some lovely (and more expensive) clothing. Another visit will be required to have a proper look around.

Remind you of anything?? This is Humayun's Tomb in the middle of Delhi and the big guy (Taj Mahal) was modelled on her. This building is stunning and has some really lovely manicured gardens where you can sit and relax. It is so peaceful here.

Celebrities..... well at least our baby is.... This is the first of many photos taken of our bug.

S's lunch spot... a lurking dog nearly stole her food but luckily she got in all down first!

Another beautiful relaxing place in Delhi, Lodi Gardens. You could be in Hyde Park.... this park was full of families and many a courting couple. On this beautiful 'winters' day in Delhi it was the place to be. 

Gunpowder restaurant in Hauz Khas village - this is the Fish Curry. Really tasty curry but their paratha was AMAZING!

McDonalds...... delivers...... sad but true (Khan Market). Then again everyone seems to deliver here, very convenient.

S with my new scarves. Long one is from Kashmir and the one she is holding is a cheapy but a goody. I think it cost $A4.

Lunch at Ploof Deli in Lodi Colony. Great burger!

T and S in Hauz Khas village on our way to lunch.

Til next time x