Jodhpur - the pants that is

Who knew that Jodhpur pants were invented in India? Well, ok, some of you did already, but not me. We visited the town of Jodhpur where the polo playing Maharajah invented the pants. Here is another question? Did you know polo came from India? I thought is was an English thing.

So there was another big fort there, this one had a lot of cannons on the ramparts, not sure how effective cannons are on elephant mounted warriors! There is also marks on the walls of the fort where the cannon balls hit - the enemy ones I guess, unless they were a really bad shot! The gates of the forts have spikes at elephant forehead height so that the elephants can't charge the gates. I am thinking animal welfare was not high on their priority list in those days.

Some battles went on for years, usually invading Mughals or other Maharajah revenging something. If the fort was going to fall, rather than become prisoners, all the wives of the Royals and warriors would throw themselves onto a burning pyre and the men would go out to battle and expect to lose.

This was also the place where my ATM card decided to hide inside the ATM machine. Just after I put it in the satellite went down and the card hid from me. It took 2 trips to the bank the next day, but I finally was re-united with it. Yippee. You know, there was less red tape for me to get my card back than for Jo to buy a camera ticket at a temple!