Jojawar

some Langur monkeys along the road

Today we leave Ranakpur and go to Jojowar, no idea what we're going to do there because again nothing can be found about it in the traveling guides. I guess it's gonna be a surprise ;-)
Along the way Raju stops for his tea break and again I draw all attention because of my tattoos.
While Hilde takes pictures from the locals I share a biri and some tea with Raju.

Raju and a local kid

yours truly

A couple of hours later we reach Jojawar and our beautiful new hotel, again it seems to be an old fort. This little garrison fort was once a major principality of the Royal house of Marwar. Bestowed with the title of Rao, the nobles looked after this little fiefdom for about 2 centuries after its construction in the 18th century.
Known by the name of Rawla Jojawar the fort is now converted into a heritage hotel.
The whole hotel breathes the history of its former owners, pictures of long forgotten times hang everywhere and give each room its own character and beauty.
And guess what, again we have the opportunity to have a massage and we don't hesitate to book a session before dinner ;-)

Our hotel (pictures taken from their website)

But it's still early and there's nothing on our planning so we decide to take a peek in the village, accompanied by our "bodyguard" and my personal huggybear Raju.
As soon as we leave the hotel we are swarmed by schoolkids who all want their picture taken and show a high interest in .... yep, my tattoos, who could have guessed ;-)

While Hilde disappeared in a shop again (psssst, I think she's a shopaholic) I buy some sweets and hand them out to the kids, increasing my popularity by a shitload.
During our walk through the village Raju tells us about normal village life, about the meaning of the different colors of the turbans and most important how I can recognise married women ;-)

the market place

the local barber

After a tour through the village we spot a tea shack and Raju and me go for some tea while Hilde is off to some shop again.
Soon the locals start asking Raju some questions about me which he translates for me and before we know it we're having a lively conversation, mostly about my tattoos again which starts to bore me. To amuse myself and to avoid having to give the same answer over and over again I start being creative in my answers and let my imagination run freely. So everytime when they ask me a question I answer it with what pops op in my head first.
If they don't ask me about the tattoos they mostly want to know what I do for a living and up till now I've been a soldier, an IT geek (how funny), a firefighter, a contract killer (you should have seen their faces when I gave this answer ;-) ), a garbage collector and a teacher.
One of these days I'm gonna tell them that I'm a clini-clown and see how they react ^^
Well we're having fun, a good laugh with the locals and some of the people even go to get their kids to take a look at that strange white dude.

woooo, look at that scary white dude !!

After a while Hilde retreats to our hotel room because she's feeling sick, since a couple of days we're both having tourista and neither pill we tried so far seems to work.
Luckily our bowels have good timing so we never have to fight about who can use the toilet first, atleast one good thing.
But we're always on the lookout for a toilet and toilet paper has become a standard item in our bags.
Anyway, while Hilde left for the hotel Raju and me continue our tour through the village.
We end with sharing a beer in the stables behind the hotel together with some of the guys who work there.

Old man who wanted his picture taken

the shoemaker and a client

making an ice cone or what we call een ijslollie

local boy

At 6 it's time for our massage, woooohooo give it to me baby, I'm ready for ya !!!!
Seems that the local barber and his lovely wife are gonna give us the royal treatment but to my huge disappointment I get the guy instead of his lovely missus :-(
Although he's not my type the guy knows his stuff and it doesn't take long before I'm purring like a big lazy kittycat under his skilled hands.
What a massage this is, all muscles get the necessary attention and after an hour I feel like reborn. Definitely one of the best massages I ever got and almost as good as the massages I got from Rachmat on Lombok.

During diner we get a courtesy visit from the owner of the hotel, while asking questions he constantly stares at my tattoos (what do these people have with tattoos ??) which makes me think that this polite conversation is nothing less than an excuse for him to check out my skin paintings from up close.

local school

kids lining up and getting ready for morning gymnastics