Jodhpur

Jodhpur is the second-largest city of Rajasthan state in northwestern India (population about 1.3 million), at the eastern edge of the Thar Desert about 600 kilometers southwest of Delhi. The city was founded in 1459 by Rao Jodha, a Rajput chief of the Rathore clan, who built the original Mehrangarh Fort on the rocky 125-meter Bhakurcheeria hill ('Mountain of Birds'). For 500 years, Jodhpur was the capital of the Marwar Kingdom — the largest of the Rajput princely states, controlling the desert trade routes between northern India and the Arabian Sea ports of Gujarat. The maharajas of Jodhpur ruled through the Mughal era (when they intermarried with the Mughal imperial family), through British colonial rule (when Jodhpur State was the largest princely state by area in British India), and through to Indian independence in 1947 when the kingdom was peacefully integrated into the Indian Republic. The current Maharaja of Jodhpur, Gaj Singh II (in office since 1952), still lives in the upper floors of the Umaid Bhawan Palace, which is divided into a working royal residence, a Taj-managed luxury hotel, and a small museum.

The defining visual feature of Jodhpur is the blue-painted old town spreading out below Mehrangarh Fort. The blue color (indigo dye, applied with limewash for centuries) reportedly originated with the Brahmin caste who painted their houses blue to differentiate from other castes; the practice gradually spread through the broader old town for both cultural and practical reasons (the blue paint reflects heat in the brutal Thar Desert summers and reputedly repels termites). The walled old city of about 6 square kilometers contains thousands of blue-painted houses tightly clustered in a labyrinth of narrow alleys, with the giant Mehrangarh Fort rising 125 meters above on its sandstone cliff. The view from the fort ramparts looking down over the blue city — particularly at sunrise or sunset when the warm light catches the indigo facades — is one of India's most-photographed urban landscapes.

Mehrangarh Fort itself is one of the most architecturally impressive forts in India. Construction began in 1459 and continued through the 17th-and-18th centuries; the surviving complex covers 5 hectares with walls 36 meters high and 21 meters thick at the base. The seven internal gates (Jaya Pol, Fateh Pol, Loha Pol, etc., each commemorating a Marwar military victory) lead through a sequence of fortified courtyards to the inner palaces — the Moti Mahal (Pearl Palace, the 16th-century royal council chamber), the Phool Mahal (Flower Palace, the 18th-century private living quarters with elaborate gold-leaf decoration), the Sheesh Mahal (Mirror Palace), the Jhanki Mahal (Queens' Palace with the famous concealed-viewing balconies), and the Daulat Khana Treasury. The on-site Mehrangarh Museum (one of India's best-curated royal museums) houses the surviving Marwar royal collections — palanquins, paintings, weapons, costumes, and the famous Sheekha-Bibi gunpowder rocket battery from the 18th-century Marwar wars with the Mughals. Beyond Mehrangarh, the major Jodhpur attractions include Jaswant Thada (the white-marble cenotaph of Maharaja Jaswant Singh II, 1899, often called the 'Taj Mahal of Marwar' for its delicate marble work), the Umaid Bhawan Palace (the world's largest private royal residence at 26 acres, completed 1943, with the small museum and the 5-star luxury hotel sections), the Clock Tower Market (the central old-town bazaar with the famous Sardar Market specializing in Rajasthani textiles and spices), and the Mandore Gardens (12 km north, the medieval Mandore capital with the Hall of Heroes royal cenotaphs). Most international visitors stay 2-4 nights as part of the standard Rajasthan circuit (commonly Delhi-Jaipur-Jodhpur-Udaipur-Jaisalmer).