Sunday Summary #18

Coronavirus in Jodhpur, India

Namaste ,

Welcome to An Urban Journey’s 18th Sunday Summary. This edition of the Sunday Summary was written in our hotel in Jodhpur, India. Today is the Janta (Hindi for People) Curfew in India. It’s a one day, 14 hour curfew which culminated in a rooftop celebration for the heroes of this global pandemic. It was truly a magical sight, seeing thousands of people celebrate on rooftops in the blue city, if you want to see it, check out our instagram story: https://www.instagram.com/stories/anurbanjourney/.

Last Week.

Last week was our last week exploring before India shut down. Here are some of the highlights! 

• Traveling on two full day trains, one first class and the other second class. They’ve turned out to be our favorite mode of transportation yet! 

• Exploring the Pink city of Jaipur and walking through their Central park. Inside the park and in India in general, we have seen an astonishing amount of birds.

• Taking a secret passage between Jaigarh Fort and Amber Palace and seeing a new species of Monkeys. Elliot thinks they are super cute, but Jenn is scared of them. 

Last week we released a few more Galápagos vlogs. Editing these vlogs has been so much fun as we relive these great memories! You can access it here if you missed it:

• Birthday Celebrations, Ecuador Style | Galápagos LUXURY Cruise Day 5

• Swimming with Marine Iguanas | Galápagos LUXURY Cruise Day 6

This Week and our Coronavirus Plan (so far).

This past week has been crazy with COVID-19 and global escalation, we’d like to walk you through our experience here in India. We weren't affected much from Coronavirus prior to this Tuesday. We were following the news closely and as global measures ramped up, India followed suit, and quickly. On Tuesday, India closed the Taj Mahal and all other ASI monuments until the 31st of March. On Wednesday, India closed other less-major monuments including the Hawa Mahal (Palace of Winds in Jaipur). On Thursday, PM Modi addressed the nation calling for social distancing, the Janta Curfew today, as well as India declared a 7 day International flight ban. Friday, the US elevated the world to travel advisor level 4 and called all citizens to return or remain for an indefinite period. Saturday, Jodhpur announced a 7 day city lockdown. Today, the government has announced closures of all non-mandatory services including the train network which services 23 million Indians every day. 

Basically, 5 days ago India was operating normally, and now, for the foreseeable future India will completely shut down as a means to halt this virus’ progression. We’ve considered coming back home to weather the storm among family and friends, however there are no available flights so we have decided to bunker down here in our hotel in Jodhpur. We are the only guests here, but our host has shown us great hospitality so far. We are hoping that everyone is in a safe place now, and is able to social distance or self isolate as much as possible. If we all work together, we can help slow the progress of this deadly pandemic.

Thank you to everyone reaching out with concerns, we hope everyone stays safe. 

Thank you for following our journey!

Namaste,Jenn + Elliot