Jodhpur: “Excuuuuse me, ma’am! You know what is wool?”

Purl Interrrupted

We raced into Jodhpur (home of the big-hipped pants) for one night only, so there is not a whole lot to tell you (I hear your sighs of blog-overload relief and curse you).

Where the pants are from

Where the pants are from

It began with a tidal wave of hassle (we are now calling it ‘The Hass’) as we stepped off the ‘luxury’ bus (luxury means that you can open the windows to throw up if you like). Rickshaw drivers in Jodhpur are a little bit vulture-like, and even Jorg (still with us from Udaipur) was a bit taken aback as they sniped at each other in furious Hindi to see who would get us into their rickshaw first, and he’s been here tons of times.

The deal used to be that if a driver pulled up to the hotel they could claim you and thus get a fat commission from the hotel for bringing you there. This in turn bumps up the price of your room. Hotels now tell you that this is not the case, some of them even have “Do not believe rickshaw drivers. They lie!” painted cheerfully on their walls.

In our case our driver tried but failed as we already had a reservation. He hung about doing a not-really-with-you walk as we went inside, until we told him it was ok he could go. He sloped off reluctantly and then reappeared when we did (we wandered off to find another room due to price confusion) and followed us to a second hotel. In this case the manager barked him away. Fun fun fun.

Short time in Jodhpur meant just a quick wander about the market, where piles of spices were waved under our noses.

Spicy...

Spicy...

While we browsed about constant streams of ‘come look my shop’ battered us. It gets a little tiring as all you really want to do is have a look and take your time, and the shopkeepers seem to think the best way to get you inside is to badger you with a list of their shop contents.    sighs
There was quite a crafty feel about the city. I saw many an ancient sewing machine (I want one)
Sewingness

Sewingness

Huge pairs of what looked like holey crochet undies

Holey crochet pants, Batman

Holey crochet pants Batman

And some oddly huge balls of yarnlike stuff, which wasn’t yarn (I poked to check).

Not yarn

Not yarn

At one point, a bit yarn hungry by now, I happened upon a dusty bag of nasty pink acrylic wool. A small boy leapt from the shadows of the shop, “Excuuuuse me, ma’am! You know what is wool?” he demanded. I did know what is wool. That wasn’t wool. I told him I didn’t want to buy. He looked crestfallen. A tragic moment.

A rooftop beer and a goodbye to antique-hunting Jorg and we were off the next morning to Jaisalmer. Leaving Jodhpur and its Hass behind us.

It did have a changey-colour clocktower though. Look…  points

See?

See?