bikaner and back to delhi

Following on from my previous blog entry: I've left Jaisalmer, moved on to Bikaner, had a look round, and have now moved on from there by night train to Delhi. I'm in Delhi right now. Back where I started three and a half weeks ago.

I went to Bikaner primarily to visit the Karni Mata Temple which is also known as the Temple of Rats. It's a rather macabre place inhabited as the name suggests by hundreds and hundreds of rats. According to legend Karni Mata asked Yama (God of Death) to restore to life the son of a grieving storyteller. Yama refused and in revenge Karni Mata reincarnated all dead storytellers as rats, depriving Yama of human souls. Karni Mata Temple is a memorial to all this, and the rats are highly revered. Many Indians make pilgrimage to Deshnok the village where it is located. It's certainly different.

Visiting didn't prove as straightforward as I had hoped. Karni Mata is 30km outside of Bikaner and to get there you must catch a bus from an area called Goga Gate. Goga Gate was too far to walk from my hotel, and more importantly I didn't have a clue how to get there, so I decided to take a Tuk Tuk. We got about three quarters of the way when the driver pulled up and said he wasn't going any further. I'd had my nose in my Lonely Planet and asked him why on earth not? He pointed ahead of us. I looked up. Massive and fearsome plums of smoke billowed from what must of been enormous flames straight ahead of us. The stretch of town in front of us seemed to be an inferno, and people were fleeing the area. It was quite frightening and naturally I didn't want to go any further. 'Is there another way round to the bus station?' I asked him. 'Er, that is the bus station,' he replied.

I had no option but to give up for the day and went instead to see the sandstone Junagarh Fort (on the opposite side of town). When I arrived I was told it was compulsory that I tour the Fort with a free guide. The guide I had misheard when I said my name 'Charlie' and spent the tour referring to me as 'Jelly.' It got hard at some stages to keep my face straight.

The following day I did make it to Karni Mata. I took off my shoes and stepped into the domain of the rats. I'd imagined a floor seething with millions of rats (like a scene in an Indiana Jones film) but it wasn't quite that full on. Having said that though there were a lot of rats, and they were all pretty much immobilised by the hot weather except for a few feeding from large silver bowls of food that had been laid out for them. I didn't stay too long (not because I didn't like it but because the place was quite small) and waited for the bus back in a sweet shop opposite the temple. I made the wait an opportunity for an Indian sweet taste tester session.

Ultimately I didn't have a lot of time for Bikaner itself, particularly the poor quality roads and the congestion, but they do have a beautiful Fort/Palace - I'm happy to give them that. Whilst in town I stayed at the Hotel Deluxe. To my surprise my dingy room had a black and white television set, and on the first of my two evenings in town I relaxed and watched a re-run of the film 'Dick Tracy' starring Warren Beatty, Al Pacino, and Madonna plus half of the film 'Beethoven.'

I slept like a log on the train ride from Bikaner to Delhi last night and can't tell you how much I appreciated the cool air which flowed in from the open windows (my room in at the Hotel Deluxe was oppressively hot). I left Bikaner at 7.40pm on Tuesday evening and arrived at Old Delhi train station at about 8am on Wednesday morning. Not much of note happened during the evening except for one incident - a man approached me and asked me for my autograph. I was, of course, happy to oblige. After all, I wouldn't be where I am if it wasn't for all my fans.

My return to Delhi means I've concluded the first segment of my trip and now it is time to begin the second, which is to head north of Delhi and explore parts of Uttranchal, Himachel Pradesh, and the Punjab. On Wednesday I'm catching the train up to Haridwar which was recommended to me by my friend and former work colleague Celine. I'm very much looking forward to getting out of this extreme heat for a while and catching my first glimpse of the Ganges. This is the part of the trip I'm looking forward to the most because I'll be going towards the edge of the Himalayas and into a more hilly/mountainous environment which really is my favourite kind of location.

Check out the picture of me riding on top a camel in my photos section - that's another one off the checklist and a photo to prove it. The camel was called Bublo and he was pretty comfortable to ride on although when he got up off the ground it was kind of frightening - if you're not careful you could get tossed in the air like a pancake.