Jodhpur- the blue city

And blue it is.  Traditionally only Brahmins (highest of the 4 castes in India) could paint their houses blue as a symbol of status but somewhere along the line everyone started doing it so the city is a wonderful sea of blue and white houses.  Jodhpur is my favorite place in India so far.  The city has a great energy to it, has an extremely impressive desert fort (they're all about those here in Rajasthan) and is basically one huge market, so naturally I love it here.  We spent our time here taking a fantastic audio tour of the fort, tasting lots of the typical Rajasthani sweets and wandering around, taking pictures of the endless markets streets and tiny alleyways.


As we've successfully been eating our way through India we've also been trying to take every opportunity available to learn how to cook Indian food.  Our favorite dishes overall are malai kofta and any kind of vegetable paneer.  Naturally, these are the fatty dishes and I think are mainly used for celebratory occasions.  But we eat them everyday :) We of course are also devouring all the curries, roti and tali we can get our hands on.  Being the food wimp that I am I was a bit worried about the food here but I have absolutely loved all of it.  Indian food is so flipping satisfying and flavorful its ridiculous.  We think it has to be all the wonderful spices but we're hoping to know how to at least attempt to make these dishes back at home... we'll see about that.  

We got a great chance to learn how to cook vegetable curry at our little family guesthouse in Jodhpur.  The very interesting mother and daughter-in-law combo that run the place offered for us to watch them cook their dinner and eat at the guesthouse too; we excitedly agreed.  We had a lovely time getting to know these women, hanging out in the outrageously hot but good-smelling kitchen, chatting about family, children and their backgrounds... little did we know we were getting swindled the whole time.  When it came time to pay the next morning they slapped us with a bill from dinner that basically charged us 4 times the normal amount.  My feelings were hurt... weren't we friends? I thought we had bonded past the point of your typical interaction where they try to stealthily take advantage of you. Sike!  Vasae and I have dealt with the pain from our old lady robbery but it really can be tough on you when it seems like the motivation for every encounter in India is only because someone wants something from you.  We really hope to meet some Indians we genuinely connect with and with whom we can chat without any strings attached.  Alas, the woes of a talker in a foreign land.