Our guest house organised a guide to take us on a walking tour of the old city today. We weaved our way through the narrow streets as our guide pointed out things that we would have otherwise walked straight by. Like the little alcoves along the top of the houses for birds to nest in because birds bring good luck to the household. Or the stepwell and surrounding area for women to bath that’s hidden behind a huge wooden gate, separate from the men’s bathing area. Or the community well that’s available to all if their home water supply runs dry.
I was surprised at the number of new buildings within the old city. There are still plenty that are old, in varying stages of maintenance, but there are a number that have been built more recently with less ornate exteriors and presumably more mod-cons.
We walked our way into the retail area, past multiple shops selling items for the wedding season. The wedding clothes on offer aren’t quite as elaborate as what we’d seen in Delhi but they’re beautiful none the less.
The shops are organised into areas that all sell the same, cookware, textiles, silver jewellery, fruit & vege and sweets. We tried Gilab Jaman which are like a donut ball soaked in a sugar syrup. They reminded me of the golden syrup pudding that my grandmother used to make. Also a milk based sweet which I think was Kalakand.
We got taken to a textile wholesaler who did the hard sell on us, without success. And then to an “antique” shop owned by the same family where it was difficult to tell what was old and what just needed a good dust.
We got back to our guest house mid-afternoon.
BJ had got up early and gone for a walk up the hill along from the fort. As he left the guest house, I heard multiple dogs going nuts and I half expected to have him arrive back with a dog bite to his leg. He did in fact have to double back a couple of times due to groups of vicious looking dogs. The views were however worth it so, armed with a few stones (in case of dog encounters), we followed him back up the hill later in the afternoon. By this time the sky had cleared and this was the first day of our trip that our photos haven’t had a foggy haze in the background.
We have a long drive to Udaipur tomorrow so we had a quiet evening at the guest house and tried out a few more curries from their restaurant menu. BJ joined the cooks to see how they made the Rajasthani rice that we’d all enjoyed. By the sounds of it some of the recipe and cooking technique was lost in translation so we might have to search online for a recipe.
