Bikaner beckons

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The shrine to Ramdev, a revered 17^th century do-gooder who tended the needs of the poor, is approached through street upon street of stalls hawking offerings to this demigod. We wonder who buys it and where it all goes? How much prasaad (sacred food offering) can be strewn around a temple, and how many plastic keepsakes desired or donated? With shoes customarily discarded, our freezing feet shuffle in behind a long line of pilgrims awaiting their moment of “pujah” (devotions) before the deity’s image. Their devotion is evident in the slow pace of passing and we the unenlightened finally give up, sneaking a view from a different vantage point. On returning through the carnival atmosphere of peddlers lining the path to the temple, we contemplate the paradox of commercial enterprise and religion common to all societies and cultures.



Arriving 2 minutes ahead of a bus load of German tourists we order lunch at another wayside retreat and urge the waiter to try and beat the rush. The helpful young man delivers a cold Kingfisher, resisting claims of our erstwhile fellow tourists that the beer was part of their order. So cold it had frozen in the bottle, we check our thirsty anticipation of sipping the chilled ale while the desert sun restores its amber fizz. Our vegetable dishes and tandoori naan* are excellent and we almost believe we have lost interest in meat. In an unusually garrulous outburst, Govind who enjoyed a similar dish with chappati explains the former* is made from rice flour and the latter from wheat. So that’s the difference!



It is not clear why the relatively well to do village of Khichan scatters 600 kg of grain each day for the thousands of Demoiselle Cranes that spend 6 months encamped around the village lake, but it makes for an extraordinary sight. Tailed by a flock of children intent on showing us this spectacle, our attention for the birds is distracted by requests for chocolate, pens for school and of course money. We do our best to accommodate.



Looking up from the laptop we realize we have arrived in….Jaisalmer? No… Bikaner! The likeness of one desert stronghold to another is striking. We drop our bags at the dangerously wired Harasar Haveli and head for the old bazaar. By now accustomed to the stray dogs, wandering cows, litter and filth, we still didn’t appreciate how unpleasant it really is to put one’s foot in something squishy in a dark back alley L Jill assures Rob it will dry and crumble off and is best left alone for the time being. Stumbling unexpectedly upon a beautiful sari shop Jill hastened to acquire a traditional Rajasthani garment before the “only Hindi” speaking owner shut up shop for the night, regretting only that time constraints restricted her bargaining power and opportunity to select more than one sample at a snip. Suitably .satisfied, Rob restored his spirits with several shots of Old Monk and coke in the courtyard oasis of the exquisite Haveli, which had eluded us all evening and that we stumbled upon miraculously quite by accident. Our evening was back on track



Lonely Planet’s recommended restaurant looks empty and uninviting, so we are lured to the open kitchen of Krishan restaurant 100 meters up the road, despite its dank interior. The vegetable curries and chapatti are cooked in front of us and we settle down to a simple but wholesome meal. A short tuk tuk ride deposits us back at the hotel for a restless night, featuring the baying of hounds, a cacophony of incessant music, train horns and the whine of generators. Day dawns at last and all is quiet at the adjacent Karni Singh velodrome!

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