We left Jaisalmer at 6:45AM and started the drive back to Jodhpur. After an hour we turned off to the town of Kichan, which is a small village where the citizens have been feeding the Demoiselle Cranes for 150 years. There is a large field in the middle of town where grain is spread out and the cranes descend at dawn to feed. We arrived there at ten and entered one of the two houses next to the field where tourists are welcome to enter and observe the spectacle. We met a group of birders who had left Jaisalmer at 4AM to drive here to see the cranes which, for some reason, were now sitting in an adjacent field, when the birds suddenly started rising up into the air in large groups, circling overhead and landing on the grain. It was really a spectacular sight with thousands of large blue-grey birds, with a long black ruff running down their necks, all crying at the same time, circling and soaring.
I don't know why the cranes delayed their feeding, but I'm glad we didn't get up any earlier than we did! The cranes were named by Marie Antoinette as she was so charmed by them after having received some from the Russian ambassador.
We drove on three more hours and entered the Jodhpur hotel grounds of the Bal Salmand Lake Palace, the hotel where we had stayed last week in the very nicely renovated former stables of the local Maharaja. This time, however, we were bumped up to suites in the Palace for our stay! The Palace is about 1/4 miles away from the restaurant so we were transported up there in small vans. We were driven into a large, red sandstone portico and entered a white marble hall with a grand stairway in the center. Hil got a large room downstairs and we climbed the long stairway and found suite 8, a spacious room with separate dining room and a marble bathroom with huge circular tub in the middle!
We had to leave and catch the jitney down the hill for an excellent lunch. Afterwards we loaded on the bus again and drove downtown and visited the Royal Mausoleum, a large ornate memorial to a former Maharaja, from which we could see the fort, Mehrangarh, looming over the city.
It rises 400' above the city on straight stone walls. We took an elevator up and reached the base of the palace,and still had five stories to climb. It is an incredible place, and is still owned by the Jodhpur Royal Family. Our local guide led us around, showing us views of the neighbor hood below with its blue houses - formerly only the Brahmins could paint their houses that color, but then it caught on, and every house was blue, but now the practice is fading out with only about 35% of houses that color.
The guide took us through rooms full of antique Howahs, fancy chairs made for riding on elephants, and palanquins that were used to transport the royal ladies around town up until the 1950s. There were rooms of fabrics, weapons. and other royal objects. We saw a demonstration of how a turban is put on, starting with about 30' of silk wound around the head and then the turban is moved 90 degrees and more twisting and coiling. The whole tour was an amazing glimpse into how the Maharajas once lived and, to some extent, still do.
The Maharaja's Bedroom
We returned to the hotel and our marble suites to change and were served an elaborate dinner outside surrounded by large fires. We could hardly hear ourselves think as a large wedding celebration was going on next door and we had to endure very loud Bollywood music which lasted until well after midnight.
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