A place of worshipped rats and camels - Bikaner

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<pre style="margin: 0px; padding: 5px; border: 1px solid #cccccc; vertical-align: baseline;">After a night in Delhi, we had our first proper day exploring the crazy city. From the Jama Masid the largest mosque in India, capable of holding 25 000 people, to the Sikh Gurdwara, Sisganj we experienced both the riches and poverty of Delhi. It's hard to walk past a child who is rubbing his stomach and asking for food when you have been told not to do it as it would only cause more trouble. However the Gurdwara was an amazing place, all of us were fascinated by the singers and the overall nature of the Sikh religion, by which everyone is equal and where all group together to help the poor in need. Other than that we have explored the backstreets filled with colour and spices, and more people riding bloody motorbikes! Everywhere you look are people on Tuktuks and motorbikes riding through extremely small gaps. From there we had a 12 hour overnight train to Bikaner, a place famous for its camels. We travelled in the best class available on the train, with 6 beds to a 3m by 2m cabin it was more than a squeeze. saying that the sleep was pretty good following on from a night of Indian stories told by our tour guide, Ruby. So we have moved out of the crazy capital of Delhi and onto Bikaner, a place filled with camels and well, camels! We were escorted by the taxis to the camel safari where we met our animal for the next day. They were massive! Stood a good 8 feet off the ground. Once we were on, we had a 3 hour trek through a semi sandy desert to the campsite, bypassing checkpoints for lunch prepared by the 'camel boys' as they are called. When we reached the campsite it was already set up. It had been arranged so that when we got there the beds were out of the tents ready for a night with the stars. It was a night we won't forget, starting with a desert sunset and chai tea, continuing with songs from local singer and ending with a campfire. After all that we got to see the clearest night sky and fall asleep under the stars and the Milky Way With nothing more than a rug to cover us. It was freezing! Laura ended shifting into my bed for body heat and taking every bit of the rug with her. No one had a good nights sleep. We were up by 6 30 to watch the sunrise from the top of a sand dune, warming the place up pretty much immediately. In the day we headed back to Bikaner on camel carts, and then back to the hotel which looked just like the one from the 'Best Exotic Marigold Hotel', very authentic and covered in colour (Ill get some pictures up when I can), with the rooms hand painted in reds, gold and silver. We headed out to the Junagarh fort, a huge building made in the 1500's. It was very similar to a museum tour at home, with the head sets on and taken on by mainly European tourists. There was a local school there whfascinate ray interested that white people had come to see their for so demanded a good 15 minutes worth of photo. It was after lunch however when it got interesting, we went to a temple occupied by predominantly rats, initially I thought there was 50 000 which turned out to be 7000, worshipped apeople else believe that once you die you are reincarnated as a rat and visa versa. But even still there was a lot of grubby little rats running pretty very close to your feet although none touched. We wanted to do it properly so opted for the no shoes/socks on approach, big mistake, we left with rat poo all over our feet and no choice but to leave them like that until the hotel, needless to say its a once in a lifetime opportunity that we wouldn't do again. All in all its been an awesome couple of days, but ready for a good nights sleep! We have also learnt almost everyone's names! </pre><pre style="margin: 0px; padding: 5px; border: 1px solid #cccccc; vertical-align: baseline;"> </pre><pre style="margin: 0px; padding: 5px; border: 1px solid #cccccc; vertical-align: baseline;"> Over and out</pre>

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