Transcendental Meditation is such a great thing for travel. You can do it anywhere. In airport departure lounges, on planes, all over the place. And you feel so fresh and clear afterward.

For instance, this A. M. we meditated at the poolside of our Ajit Bhavan Palace resort in Jodhpur, one of the 20 places I’m pleased I went to before I die.

I’m ranking this place alongside my favorite spots in the world:The great Canadian Rocky Mountains, Grundlesee in Austria, Pokhara and Kathmandu n Nepal, Sun City, Bantry Bay in Cape Town, South Africa’s Kruger National Park, and the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina.

We are visiting Jodhpur in north-west India. Its in Rajasthan, the province of the rajas.. Its the second biggest city in Rajasthan and has many names including “Gateway to the Thar”, “The Blue City” and incredibly enough if you are a South African like me, “Sun City”. It gets very very hot here from April.

Jodhpur Fort Meherangarh

With a population of about 1 million, Jodhpur is dominated by a huge menacing fort, Meherangarh, perched on a pink ridge just to the west of the town centre. The fort was set up in 1459 and now houses a great museum with a top-flight audio-guided traveller facility. We saw a superb royal collection of palanquins, howdahs, musical instruments, outfits and arms which gave us a feeling for the enormous depth of this culture. Hats off to the trustees who had the vision to utilize this place to sustain Indian culture.

Jodhpur is an incredible town spread along the edge of the Great Thar desert, and yes, you guessed right, it gave its name to the riding trousers familiar to horse lovers.

Jodhpurs on doorman

It’s a tangle of winding streets, and is built usually of pink sandstone in a characteristic Cubist design. It smells of incense, rosewater and sewers, and sells everything from iPods to saffron. The people wear brightly coloured turbans and deep pink saris.

Its also famous for its antiques. It is not walking country, as the pavements only seem to be maintained for few metres along storefronts. The term blue city comes from the blue paint utilized for buildings, especially in the Brahmapuri village area to the south of the fort. Blue is the brahmins colour, gives a subjective coolness and is held to repel insects.

One of Jodhpur’s most colourful forefathers, Maharaja Umaid Singh built a superb 350 room castle, Umaid Bhavan Palace, in the 1930s. The palace overlooks our place, Ajit Bhavan, also built by him. He had RAF wings, founded Jodhpur airport in 1924 and had world air traffic in here before Delhi. He was in our grandpas’ cohort, born in 1903. The airport now houses squadrons of Indian Air Force Mig 29s and Sukhois which could be seen barreling out over the desert after their deafening roaring takeoffs. I even saw one landing with its braking chute from by vantage outside Umaid Palace gate.

Vicki raided a charming shop called Divas today for kurtas. Manchester-educated owner Basant is typical of the new India and has opened four boutiques already. His eCommerce website will despatch you great handprints by DHL. His dad is into vedic science, and runs an ashram of sorts.

So what type of exotic meditation destinations have you come across?

Where was your best-ever meditation? Mine was on the 7th floor of a building in Sauer Street in Johannesburg in the old days, sitting with a bunch of steel merchants doing a meditation course!

Dr Richard Broome runs the Houghton TM Centre in Johannesburg with his psychhologist wife Vicki. He’s got a doctorate from the University of Cape Town. He was formerly a military and airline pilot and management expert. His dissertation was on stress management at the worksite.

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