Saturday, November 24, 2007

Bikaner


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First thing we did from Bikaner was go to the Karne Mata rat temple. As may or may not be immediately obvious, this temple was full of rats, holy rats, worshipped by the locals. Apparently there also dwells there a white rat, a sighting of which will bring you amazing good fortune. Unfortunately, it didn't show it's face, but given the amount of rat poo everywhere (you had to take your shoes off to go in!)
it might have been hard to tell it from the others. It's lucky if the rats run over your feet, and apparently it's also lucky to take some of the food that has been offered and now has rat salica on it. We did not partake. Anyway, here are some photos of rats in the temple. The rat temple was also the first time we experienced indians asking to take our photo. They came up and asked if they could take one and whipped out their camera phone. Not what we expected, but this was off the main Rahastahn tourist route. This was a taster of what we would experience later, especially Sarah!

After that we went to Bikaner fort. This was essentially to see the inside on a guided tour. The guide did his best to flatter/impress/pick-on me as he for some reason thought I was a good bet for a tip. Here's a photo of one of the lavish rooms we got to see, along with various deadly weapons and an old fashioned bi-plane indoors.

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