Blue city stepwell

There is a raised edge surrounding the stepwell in Jodhpur, so you wouldn’t know it was there unless you walked right up to it and looked over. Behind the lip, Escher-like walls of stairs spiral down to a pool carved 300 feet deep into the city.

Now, instead of drawing water, everyone is swimming. Young boys and old men jump from varying heights into the well. Some stub their cigarettes on the steps a moment before diving, fully clothed. The well is a theatre: shouts of appreciation echo around the walls, confined to the space, as the divers perform. The stone is scorching hot on bare feet, and spray is constant and inescapable.

Izaak and I had been coming to watch the swimmers every day, and today we had decided to join them, along with some new friends from Bob homestay (one of a chain run by a folk enthusiast; the other, in Jaisalmer, is called Dylan). The first to arrive at the well was Ruben. He had walked from Mehrangarh fort. He was dripping with sweat and already stoned. Ruben was a 35 year old Norwegian man who had every country he’d visited tattooed on his legs, which were covered in assorted fonts. He seemed to know a lot about everything we talked about, but his self conviction made me wary of the things he said.

I shouldn’t have doubted his cliff-jumping ability. Where others hung onto the ledge, which jutted 12 metres above the water level, before letting go, Ruben took a run up before flinging himself over it, turning in the air and crashing into the water to whoops from the onlookers. He seemed pleased with the picture I took on his tiny digital camera.

Next to arrive were Jason and Carla: beautiful Swiss medics who got competitive playing cards with us in the evenings. They wanted a drink before jumping, so we sat in a cafe and watched them with their gin and tonics. Izaak and I had become so frugal that we couldn’t bear to pay more than a pound equivalent for anything other than accommodation (and 3 pounds maximum for that). The owner was excited to sing us a Coldplay song once he found out we were English. Jason chewed hemp while Izaak picked out the seeds from weed in exchange for our share of a joint. As we smoked, I became more and more nervous about the jump. No one else was. We left the café and walked back over to the well.

The old man who had been coming every day to take off his heavy shawl and hat to jump came and went. Izaak jumped with Jason and came back asking to do it with me.

We walked up to the top and climbed the wall to the ledge. I was shaking and I gripped the arm of an encouraging local guy in a way I normally would have been shy about. The ledge was burning hot and shorter than my feet.