Shanti House Bikaner

... white rat of the temple.<br><br>Fortunately, Bikaner has something more to offer than this temple. I visit the fort that was once the residence of the local Maharaja, and I admit it is quite an astonishing building of colossal dimensions with lavishly decorated rooms. And the city hosts as well some rich havelis, men with colorful turbans and big moustaches, women wearing colorful sarees, a bazar where they sell everything, some snake 'magicians', and ...

... a few of the shops to look at the crafts and throws. We ended up buying a painting a square cloth with an elephant hand sewn onto it. Elephants are a symbol of good luck in India. We got a good deal on our purchases as we were remarkably the first customers of the day and apparently that is also good luck and so means a good discount as the sale will bring the shopkeepers good luck for the rest of the day! Yeah right! They will say anything to get you to buy something ...

... the beauty of this city in luxury, one can hire car from Kota car rental service providing company. Visit to Kishor sagar, Jagmandir, Rao Madho Singh Museum, Haveli of Deaji, Chambal Gardens, City Fort Palace and many other heritage architectural building of Kota. The picturesque view of Kota is sure to steal visitor&#8217;s heart with the captivating beauty of its shrine, forts, palaces and ...

Travelling by private bus, we head deeper into the Thar Desert to the fortified town of Bikaner (approx. 5 hours journey). Bikaner was once an important staging post on the great caravan routes, the city still contains many bazaars within its impressive walls, as well as a superb fort and palace. From here, we travel out to the 600-year old Karni Mata temple, full of rats. Yes I said rats, they were quite cute actually, if rats can be ...

... called some friends on his mobile phone when Chrissy popped into the cupboard. After using his phone he kept looking around the corner and literally two minutes later a small group of young guys were at the front of the shop watching us! Our third port of call that day was Junagarh Fort. Chandra had said the ticket price for the Fort included a guide so we ignored the people at the gate who were tapping on the car window telling us we needed a guide ...

... according to legend, storytellers are reincarnated as rats to make sure that the God of death doesn't get their human souls. The rats also have the devine spirit of the Godess Karni Mata (not quite sure how these two elements tie up...) So to honour the dead storytellers/Karni Mata a temple was built to look after all the reincarnated ratty souls. Or at least those lucky enough to be born in Deshnok. Leaving our flip-flops outside (oh yes, no exception to the shoes ...

... which were unlike any official offices I could imagine. Very calm, minimal security and free for all to visit. The Tibetan culture is in such danger of disappearing entirely in occupied Tibet it was something both wonderful and tragic to get a glimpse of the original culture. And the food is something else! I'm hoping there's a Tibetan restaurant somewhere in the Uk or else I'll cry if I never eat another steamed momo again! Onwards we ...

... area and purchased our train tickets to Jaipur. We noticed while walking around that there are quite a few less tourists than the other cities we have visited. In addition, the locals seem to be much friendlier and willing to help you without being reimbursed or wanting you to visit their shop! For dinner, we ate in our hotel's courtyard where they had local performers to enterain us while we ate. We had a gentleman ...

... almost black and they seem smaller and have really big eyelashes and fur on their eye lids. Gujarat camels area about the same size as bikaner camels, but they tend to be more reddish in color and their fur is really curly, kinky fur. For dinner they made us more chipati, basmati rice and dal (lentils). We slept on thin mattresses with thick warm blankets out in the open. We were still too close to the city so the ...