Jodhpur and Jawai Greens

Back to Durag Niwas a funky guest house away from the old town. It is in a quiet street next to a sports hub and university. We like Jodhpur . It is not as crowded as Jaipur but has more happening in it than Jaislamer. The bazaars are fun to walk around

One little job can take hours over here. We had a package to send home. We headed to the main post office at 4.30pm. A tuktuk driver intercepted us in the driveway of the post office and suggested that the PO was closed. He offered to take us to a courier place. We figured that this was not quite correct and wandered into the post office. It is 4.55pm by this time. And like many government places all over the world the guy behind the counter was not at all interested in helping us so close to the end of his shift. He did tell us we had to wrap our parcels first though. There are no bubble bags or anything available in the PO. This required visiting some other guy across the road! When we came out into the sunshine “this other guy” from across the road is waving at us from the median strip. Hes a big solid guy - looked more like a Pacific NZer actually. He then gets into an argument with the tuktuk dude who it turns out was trying to steal his customers. It was a good argument, in the middle of the road, amongst tuk tuks, motor bikes, cars, people and cows. ‘Our guy’ gave the tuktuk guy his marching orders. So, we get to our guys little shop and it does have a “packing parcels” sign on the window. However...the post office is now closed so he suggests a courier. He is the middle man between parcel sender and the courier company. Hence the big argument with tuktuk man! We hope our parcel makes it to NZ.

We spent last night at Jawai Greens. A little place near Sumerpur. Craig discovered it when searching for Leopard Safari options. It is the most stunningly scenic place we have seen in a long time.

The safari business is more or less in its infancy and usually only caters to very wealthy Indian tourists. We think that Jawai Safari is a business run by a high-cast family - they consider themselves Rajputs (son of king) . This cast who consider themselves more or less royalty of Rajasthan. We are not sure there is any official acknowledgement of this. It is a bit like linking your whakapapa all the way back to Maori royalty. Anyway this appears to give this family the rights to operate safaris all over the land. Im not sure who actually owns the land but we get the impression that they are claiming ownership that their royal ancestors once had pre the Colonial times! Interesting similarities to NZ . However this family do not appear to want for much...the local villagers who farm the land do not live a luxurious life and we are not sure that safari money reaches their doorsteps.

We didn’t see a Leopard . He was there...but wouldn’t come out of the bushes. We had such a cool time exploring the area in the jeep though. Itis a part of India we would never have though to come to, off the beaten track so to speak.The area is covered in volcanic domes with nooks and crannies and caves. The jeeps drive straight up the rock faces and you end up on top of the dome sitting looking out over a vista that looks like something out of a movie set.

The guest house plunge pool. Filled up just for us from the well.

We stayed at a 2 room guesthouse. We indicated to Jawai Safari that their first suggestion of accommodation at $500 per night was a little out of our league. They then offered us this seriously cool guesthouse. $300 for accommodation, 2 x 3 hour safaris, breakfast, lunch and dinner. One of our most expensive nights yet - but real value for money in NZ standards. Close your eyes and we are in the middle of Greytown in a restored stone cottage.The place only opened in March and they have had no visitors during the monsoon. We were their first foreigners ever. They were a lovely couple with 2 teenage boys like us. Nareesh’s family sell Massey Tractors and Mahindra vehicles. We were enjoying their farm house as they live in town during the week - about 15km away. Their eldest son is studying tourism in Bombay and will come back and take over the family business. After the arranged marriage of course. They had 350 lemon trees surrounding the property. We enjoyed home cooked Rajasthani food - a lot of food in fact. Nareesh was so excited that we were there - he kept feeding Craig and mixing new tastes and combinations of food for him. A pampered boy...but craig ended up having to eat way more than he wanted! They were so keen that we tried every local delicacy.