Jodhpur is Intense - Rajasthan Day 1 🇮🇳

If you steal, everyone will know. India was like in the mid-90s, I don't really remember it. Right now my internet isn't working, so I can't get an Uber. So I'll have to figure out how to get to my hostel with just a taxi or an auto. I'm pretty sure I'm getting scammed, but don't see any other way because my SIM card is not working. 400? You said there are no cars here, but I can see a car. It's more than 5 km away. If you steal, everyone will know. I'm pretty sure that auto just scammed me. So if you don't want to get scammed, don't get in that guy's auto. Okay, I just came to my hostel where I have a private room. And the room is okay, there's like a very ancient lock that I haven't used in a while. But the roof is the main thing. There's that sick-ass view of the whole fort right from here. And it's a lot closer than I thought it was. I think it's less than a kilometer away from here. So I'm probably going to go explore there. But first I'm going to go head into sort of the old town area and see some stuff. And get some food and everything. So I am in Sardar Market. Which seems to be a market right in the middle of old town. And it was named after Maharaja Sardar Singh. Who also built this huge clock behind me. Which is called Ghanta Ghar. There's all kinds of shops around here selling everything. Doesn't look like it's anything too pricey or fancy. So if you were to come shopping here, make sure you bargain. Or you'll end up paying like five times the price. Okay, now I'm hungry. And I'm going to try out this local favorite place called Shahi Samosa. I'm guessing they sell samosas. But the item that I was recommended here is called Piyas Ki Kachori. Which I guess has onions. Because Piyas means onions. But I have no idea what Kachori is. So I'm going to try it and find it out. This is so busy. There's barely any place to stand here. Anyways, I'm going to try out the Piyas Ki Kachori now. I don't know what that was. Guys, it was impossible to find a place to stand even there. Forget about finding a place to sit and eat. So I had to walk for a few minutes. Try these Piyas Ki Kachoris. They're basically some deep fried stuff with a lot of onion and dough in it. Alright, let's try this. This tastes a lot like a samosa basically. Definitely more onions in it than a samosa. But it's like a huge samosa. A few quick things that I've noticed about Jodhpur so far is that the auto rickshaws are usually a different color than the one I'm used to. So it's not yellow and black like it was in Kolkata and Mumbai. It's a lot more yellow and green. Speaking of colors, the people here are dressed in the most colorful outfits I've ever seen. All the women are super dressed up and wearing really really bright colors. Is this a saree? Yes sir, it's a dupatta saree. This is a dupatta. This is a saree. Definitely a lot of colorful clothing over here. And these are all handmade. And Jodhpur is in general very famous for being one of the biggest markets for handicrafts and handmade work in India. So the city of Jodhpur was actually founded in 1459 by this guy named Rao Jodha who established this as the capital of his kingdom. And the city went on to be very successful because it was on this very important trade route between Delhi and Gujarat. And the kingdom he established is called the kingdom of Marwar. The people who live here are called the Marwari people which is super interesting to me because when I was a kid growing up in Bangladesh my neighbors next door to me were actually Marwari people and they spoke the language with each other. Like they were from Bangladesh but their ancestors were all from Marwar. And they made the best vegetarian food I've ever had. So I'm excited to try more food from this place. So Jodhpur is often called Rajasthan's blue city. And it becomes pretty obvious where it gets that name when you walk around town and see all these blue buildings. So I'm trying to go up to the fort on this way that Google Maps is telling me to go. But everyone else told me to go the other way. So I'm probably going the wrong way but I just want to give it a shot. Because I know I can't get it in the fort anyways with my gimbal and cameras and everything. So I just want to try this route. So I'm still on route to this temple. At least I'm going somewhere. And once you sort of have a vantage point of the city it starts to be very clear that a lot of these houses are super blue. When I was walking around it looked like it was only like 20% but I guess a lot of these houses don't have like a blue exterior but have like a blue rooftop because it looks entirely blue from here. And one of the reasons the buildings are blue is because blue as a color is a good reflector of heat. And this place gets hot as hell in the summer. So I'm at this spot with a lot of cute little squirrels. And behind me is the main fort of Jodhpur, the Mehrangarh Fort which is also the largest fort in all of Rajasthan. This is a colossal fort. It's pretty much been here since the city of Jodhpur, I think. And in its 500 years of existence it has never been overtaken which is pretty obvious because it stands on this huge 150 meter high hill takes up all of it. And there's like 3 kilometers of walls protecting it on all sides. So it's pretty much impossible to capture from a medieval point of view. I can't really go up any further. I have to go around and go in. So I'm going to save the interior of the fort for tomorrow. But this is a perfect spot to sort of end the day because now I can get my aerial shots. So it turns out I didn't screw up that bad. And this is actually a sunset viewpoint. So I'm actually going to try to go home now before it gets too dark. So it's day 2 and I'm finally going inside the fort, the museum. I'm only doing this with my camera so it's going to be a little bit shaky. And I just got harassed by the security here for like the last 30 minutes. Usually I don't put up with that stuff but now I kind of had to because I need to catch a train in a couple of hours. Don't want any unexpected delays right here. Architecture all throughout this fortress. And on the rooftop when you come here you see like thousands of kites flying over the fortress. And that's because these kites are protected by the fort and they're fed every day. Like more than a thousand of them. It's crazy. So I'm on the rooftop of the fort and you can see all the cannons that were used to defend the fort back in the day. So behind me right there is the favorite temple of Rao Jodha and he used to come here every day. I don't really have time to go down there right now because I have to run and catch a train so I have to get out of here ASAP. But I'm pretty sure I was on the other side of the wall right behind that temple yesterday. So I guess it's coming full circle. Okay so right now I am at this spot next to the fort which is very special to me and is the reason that I came to Jodhpur. Ten years ago this movie came out from the Batman series The Dark Knight Rises and it is one of my favorite movies ever by one of my favorite directors ever about one of my favorite comic book characters ever and I was a pretty big comic book nerd back in the late 90s and early 2000s. There's this very famous scene where Batman sort of escapes a prison and there's a huge fort behind it and when I saw that in the movie I was like okay I need to go here I need to find where it is. When I looked it up it was in India surprisingly and then when I looked it up where exactly it was it was in Rajasthan and I knew I'd sort of been in the area when I was a little kid so I asked my mom like mom have we been to Jodhpur and she was like no we haven't and I marked it on my Google Maps like this is somewhere I definitely want to go when I have the chance and that's the reason I'm here in the city basically. But I came here and turns out it's not actually a well that he escapes from which leads to a prison. It's just like a four-foot wall and there's no hole in the middle going down anywhere no climbing needed or anything like that. Well let me tell you more about the scene because I think it's like super interesting. Batman is basically trapped in this underground prison but the only way to get out is to climb this very high well all the way to the top. He tries to climb it every time and he fails every time but every time he's doing it while he's carrying this heavy rope on his sides so that in case he fails he has something to like hold on to so he doesn't die. But then at the end he realizes that the added weight of the rope is what's holding him back from making this last jump that he needs to do to get out of the well and then he tries it without the rope and then he does it and he gets out and he saves Gotham. But I think there's a really important lesson to be learned here about how we can stop ourselves from succeeding if we're too afraid of failing. I'm getting one last look at it on the rooftop of my hostel. But anyways I'm gonna end this vlog here because I have to catch a train to Jaisalmer in the next hour and a half. If you like this video don't forget to hit the like button. If you want to see more videos by me from India and from everywhere else feel free to follow me or subscribe to my channel. And if you want real-time travel updates from me feel free to follow me on Instagram Catch you guys in the next video from somewhere else in Rajasthan.