Desert citadel

Rajasthan is maybe the most charmed and well portrayed place in India. A hybrid between arab world, and far east, and is that situation that offers us such a diverse and awesome place.
Biggest cities in the state, has their own accent, each of them has known how to build its own atmosphere.

Jaipur, pink city, is the first of them. Strategically placed between camel routes to the Thar desert, and the indian heart, close to famous cities as Agra or even Delhi, with which makes the 'Golden Triangle', a true refference for travelers. There we can find Hawa Mahal, also known as wind shrine; a huge facade full of perfectly ellaborated windows and niches.

We can also see the maharaja Jai Singh II's astronomical observatory. And everything with the touch of the ubiquitous pressence of those pink houses, that rise up even more the warm style of this dry landscape.


Jodhpur, blue city, keep a similar style to its big sister, but this time is the blue in the walls the one that refresh the ambient and offers a magical touch to the scene.



And how to forget Udaipur, indian Venice. A romantic city that came from a tale, with a palace in its first lake.

However, there is still one place, much more hidden to traveler's eye, than all of this. A place close to Pakistan frontier, filled with a constant desert smog.

It appears like a mirage, a citadel of red walls that rules the surounding space. A fastuous place where see a sunset has no prize. From which camel caravans start their travel through desert, where craftsman and fire-eaters provide us a medieval scene.

Just imagine for a moment to walk through the narrow streets ruled by 'havelis', big houses built by nobles and merchants that some day in the past amassed a huge fortune, while you get surprised by the most ancient purity. You look up to the sky and see the most star-filled firmament that you can conceive. It seems like Chronos forgot this place.




Jaisalmer, avatar of nostaliga.


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City of yurts

Today I'm going to talk to you about a city that impressed me since I knew some interesting data.
It's Ulaanbaatar, capitol city of Mongolia. Not a populous city, nor big and with huge skyscrapers. The fact is that what makes it special, is that has none of those things.
It's a very particular city.

Placed in middle-north of the country, it suffers from being one of the most distant places to sea. In fact, the closest coast is about one thousand and five hundred kilometers in straight line. And what does it means? Basically, the weather is hellish.

Ulaanbaatar is considered the coldest capital city on Earth. In winter, the hard continental weather wins the match against influences of the sea. Many often, temperatures go under minus forty degrees. This situation, in a modern city without any social distinction would not be absolutely catastrophic.

But what if some part of the population has no place to runaway from cold? Hundreds of people, including a lot of homeless kids, have to survive during the long winter. Those kids are called ''rat kids'' because they only found salvation on being close to warm gasoducts under the city. It's not funny that you find holes in the street through which you can see those poor kids.

One of the most stunning things of this city, is the anarchy that rules on urbanism, the mixture of styles. You can see a huge and sordid communist building, and see to the other side and find a delicated and fragile temple that restores the oriental spirit of the scene.


Even with this, there is one thing that dominates the sight. An infinite sea of yurts, the typical tents of mongolic people. This kind of construction that were been given by their powerful and dangerous ancesters, the Hunes. are easily built up and picked up.

This show us the pilgrim nature of mongolian inhabitants. Is like in every moment of their lifes could be a war starting and they should runaway from that place.


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