Bikaner - city of camels, cows and dust

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The usual surge of touts jumped on us when we got off the train in Bikaner - we were tired and hungry and not feeling tout friendly so headed across the road to a cafe to eat. Whilst in the cafe we were still constantly approached by people offering us rooms or tours. A schoolboy will talk to you and 5 minutes later his brother or cousin arrives and hands you a business card for a hotel. Everybody is a tout in India - or at least it feels like it sometimes! It can get very annoying. We ended up staying at the hotel next door to the cafe and it was a great choice. Brand new and very clean. We loved this city though. It was very hot - 45” - and incredibly dusty. A large dust storm blew up on our first night and our first purchases were cotton scarves to cover our faces with. There were camels everywhere pulling carts, also many bullock carts. The women are dressed in saris glowing with fluorescent colours and there are many strange looking pilgrims everywhere. It is on the tourist trail now but is not yet visited by crowds. It's a large city - you don't realise how large these places are until you ask a rickshaw driver to take you somewhere as you tend just to stay around your hotel area. We spent 5 nights in Bickaner and despite the heat spent a lot of time wandering the back streets. Despite our initial pressure from the touts we got very little pressure put on us once in the city centre. It constantly amazes us that if you spend a longer time in any city in India (and I mean only 4 or 5 days as opposed to the usual 2) that everybody knows you when you walk around. They tell you that you're from Australia, that you're staying at such and such, that you arrived on this day.....
We spent one afternoon at the Camel Research Centre which was interesting as you were allowed to wander at will around the camels. Most are out grazing during the day and we were there when they came in - all the baby camels were making hideous noises as their mums walked in. We treated our selves to a camel milk icecream - one was enough! Kevin Rudd probably wouldn't be popular here as he's culling camels in Australia and they're trying to develop faster ones here. Another day we took our life in our hands yet again and went on another tour of the old city by auto rickshaw - always a little scary (but a lot of fun) as the drivers speed around cows, corners, between cars and people, through market stalls - all with total disregard to anybody else. We had walked the area before but like the thrill of the rides! The old town was full of narrow streets, many of them lined with old stone haveli houses. These are very big houses built around central court yards, with wooden windows and very heavy carved wooden doors. They are made from sandstone which has been intricately carved. Many in Bundi are not lived in and I guess some will gradually be developed into tourist hotels.
We were very impressed with Junagarh Fort, built in 1588. It was a fortified palace and though we've seen more since this one is still my favourite! Unlike the others we've seen since it was not set up on a hill but was still impressively large with red outer walls though many of the inner areas were yellow sandstone. Inside it was beautifully decorated with shell inlays, mirror, gilding, plaster work heavily painted with flowers etc. One beautiful room glowed with red and gold lacquer detail. The window screens were finely carved from sandstone - so finely it looked like lace. There were a lot of decorated rooms, many more than the well known palaces we have visited since. After visiting the palace I visited the museum next door - it was full of dozens of traditional dresses made from vibrant silks embroidered with gold and silver threads. It was also one of the best museums re display that we've visited in India. The silver on display was actually shiny and the display cabinets free of grime. Another morning we visited Lalgarh Palace - current home of the Maharajah's remaining family and two 5* hotels. We toured one of the hotels - 100 rupees to get in - but it was worth it though I don't think the main suite was worth 14,000 rupees a night. The walls were lined with hunting trophies from when His Highness was ruling and allowed to kill tigers. He was one of dozens of Maharajahs in Rajasthan who all killed the animals - no wander there are barely any tigers left here.
Rajasthan was divided into 18 princely states where the leaders lived in incredible wealth (Arabian nights style - harems etc) until 1956 when the various principalities were absorbed into the new state of Rajasthan after India received independence from Britain. The successors of the Royal family have lost power but retain considerable political influence. Most have turned their palaces into hotels for extra income. Our tour of the palace hotel finished with morning tea in the breakfast room, decorated with gold and blue flowers and hung with blue glass chandeliers from Belgium. One of the rooms in the hotel has been closed - it used to be a function room for wealthy clients - after the wealthy clients started peeling the 24 carat gold off the walls! When we went into the hotel a sandstorm had blown up outside and by the time we left it had got much heavier. It continued for the rest of the day. You get very dirty in India - you constantly feel grimy - and I'm always amazed at the colour of the water after we've washed our clothes.
We did experience one afternoon of monsoon weather here - for half an hour it rained very heavily and the streets were immediately knee deep in rushing water. Everybody was happy that it was raining and went on with their day as much as possible. We sheltered in a chai shop and ended up nearly as wet as we would have been in the rain. Rain ran down the walls and lights, covering the old fridge and then splashed all over us. The owner seemed most unconcerned about the water mixing with electricity and kept making us our chai. It took over an hour for most of the water to flow away and we spent that time highly entertained by everybody as they maneuvered their way through the flood. The mud made a pleasant change from the dusty conditions for a few hours.
One of the most interesting temples we've ever visited was the Karni Mata Madir Temple 33 klms from Bickaner. It is known as the rat temple as the worshipers believe that the rats that live there are reincarnated saints so they feed them on sweetened milk and sugar crystals. There are a lot of rats there, many not thriving on the diet as they looked decidedly unhealthy. It is a Jain Temple so the exterior was beautifully carved in white marble - the inside I can't describe because I was too busy watching where I put my feet to actually see the walls. It was totally over run with rats and mice, hanging off the railings, nibbling on the blessed sugar and scurrying all over the place. I had bought a pair of new socks for the occasion - I left them there - as I was not going in there in bare feet! The worst thing I've ever seen were the people eating the sugar from the temple floor after the rats had eaten and run through it. If you stand on a rat it's means bad karma (Jerry did) and if you see the white rat it's good karma (Jerry did too). So I guess one canceled out the other! We enjoyed our visit there a lot, including the ride to and from on the very crowded local bus.
Another interesting thing that happened to us in Bikaner was when we went to the tourist office which was in the grounds of the government run hotel on our first morning. The office was closed so we had breakfast in the hotel whilst we waited A man approached us and said that it was tree planting day in India and would we like to plant a tree in the hotel grounds. We ended up planting a tree with a government minister and got our photos in the paper next day. They gave us a big morning tea (straight after breakfast) which we ate with the government minister whilst everybody else who was there stood around the table and watched us eat. It was a funny experience!
We thoroughly enjoyed our 5 nights in Bikaner. It was a very interesting city - great little alleyways to wander in with camels on the streets all the time. We even saw one camel with signs hanging from his hump advertising mobile phones - it looked really funny! And there were dozens of cows wandering around - more then we've seen in any other Indian city - they have cast iron stomachs as they eat anything. It is annoying sometimes to constantly have to step around the piles of cow (and camel) dung which covers the roads. One afternoon we visited the a Hindu temple with an interesting history - it had been built in the 15th century on foundations with 40,000 kgs of ghee used to bind the rock and mud base - and today the oil from the ghee still seeps through the marble tile edge. The temple guardians have been the same family since it was built and whilst we were visiting it we watched a man painting over the original patterns inside it. His family painted the temple in the 16th century and today their ancestors still repaint it regularly. It was whilst we were at this temple we discovered that the cows actually have homes to go to each evening. Around all the temples are buildings where the cows go at the end of the day - worshipers, before they go to pray, buy bundles of grass from street sellers and take it to these barns for the cows. As if the cows haven't already eaten enough during the day! I guess it makes a change from cardboard boxes and plastic bags.
India is trying hard to become more environmentally aware - the government is planting trees everywhere, providing clean drinking water and many states have banned plastic bags. Rajasthan has not unfortunately, though we didn't see any in Punjab or Himachal Pradesh. Whenever we bought anything in those areas it was put into bags made from old newspapers. We saw women delivering piles of these to shops - they earn an income by cutting, folding and gluing newspapers into these bags. A great idea but none of the bags were very strong and split easily. We left Bikenar (and another very bad duststorm) by train - and were very impressed with the railway station as it was immaculate - heading to Jodpur. A great trip as we virtually had the carriage to ourselves. The six hour trip passed very quickly - I spent the whole trip watching rural India and listening to a downloaded book about Rajasthan on my ipod. We had booked a hotel online in Jodpur and caught an autorickshaw to it upon arrival, discovered the swimming pool there and spent the rest of that day cooling down. Jodpur felt even hotter than Bikaner had been.

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Comments

[Ritesh]

Hi After enjoying himachal cold weather........you are now enjoying hot weather of Rajasthan..........:)