So leaving Amritsar was more than we bargained for. We asked the Sikh reception man if he could put us on a train to Bikaner, this was going to be our first train. There are so many rules about getting a train in India that we decided to get an agent to get us the first one. It was great news when the man presented us with tickets after the golden temple as we had such a mission, failing to get tickets for anything, in Delhi.
It wasn't as straight forward as we thought though. First we had to get a bus to Bhatinda, a real random place with nothing in sight except a train station. The bus ride was amazing, we caught a government bus that cost around £3 for both of us for what turned out to be a 7 hour journey along some outback of Punjab. The ticket conductor asked Pippa and I if we had any foreign currency for his money collection, but all we had were dollars, so we gave him a $1 bill. After which he became our new best friend and couldn't do enough for us during our journey. So we got to Bhatinda after dark and found a thali restaurant near the station. It was only then that we realised how many flies were around in the city (remembering we were on the outskirts of a dessert). Literally every couple of seconds a fly would land on either you, your dinner or your drink, it was unbelievable.
Getting on the train was something new. We had previously been told in Dehli not to take the train in 'sleeper class' but the guy in Amritsar did. It was interesting to say the least, cramped beds, no air con, beggars and constant touts for tea and other useless food and drinks. The train took 8 hours and we arrived in Bikaner at around 5 in the morning. The hotel was just around the corner so we decided to walk it and then collapse in bed for a few hours.
After waking up, we had a little wander down to where a local bus for 14p took us to Deshnok. Around 45 minutes later we found ourselves in a tiny village in the dessert, a few drink stands and fruit stalls accompanied buy a small wall was pretty much all that was there. We dropped off our shoes and walked into the rat temple. This is literally a temple devoted to rats, sculpture and live!!
Apparently the Hindu God Shiva granted the village the right to live on after death as another God condemned the village. How the village lived on was in the form of rats! Shed loads of them! If you trod on one you had to buy a golden rat, god knows how much that would have cost! The temple was nice, with some carvings but was only to be swept away by the stench and the sight of hundreds of rats, minding their own business eating away at the offerings of the visitors.
The only other thing really to see in Bikaner are the camels. And we saw lots of camels. Around the town we came across camels pulling carts. This was amazing as the camels were gigantic beasts, prettified slightly by pompoms, tugging relatively small carts and even smaller guys. Extraordinary sight to see strolling round town.
We went up to the National Research centre for Camels where they breed camels, have a camel museum all about different camels and camel based products. There is a souvenir shop where you can buy camel jewellery, camel tapestries, camel skin bags, camel leather shoes, carved wooden camels. There is a camel dairy selling camel milk, camel milk tea, camel milk latte, and camel milk ice-cream (which despite trying with hopeful, open minds was gross.) Oh and they have fields and pens full of.... CAMELS! We were loving it. Camels are massive. They have really interesting cushiony feet.
It wasn't as straight forward as we thought though. First we had to get a bus to Bhatinda, a real random place with nothing in sight except a train station. The bus ride was amazing, we caught a government bus that cost around £3 for both of us for what turned out to be a 7 hour journey along some outback of Punjab. The ticket conductor asked Pippa and I if we had any foreign currency for his money collection, but all we had were dollars, so we gave him a $1 bill. After which he became our new best friend and couldn't do enough for us during our journey. So we got to Bhatinda after dark and found a thali restaurant near the station. It was only then that we realised how many flies were around in the city (remembering we were on the outskirts of a dessert). Literally every couple of seconds a fly would land on either you, your dinner or your drink, it was unbelievable.
After waking up, we had a little wander down to where a local bus for 14p took us to Deshnok. Around 45 minutes later we found ourselves in a tiny village in the dessert, a few drink stands and fruit stalls accompanied buy a small wall was pretty much all that was there. We dropped off our shoes and walked into the rat temple. This is literally a temple devoted to rats, sculpture and live!!
Apparently the Hindu God Shiva granted the village the right to live on after death as another God condemned the village. How the village lived on was in the form of rats! Shed loads of them! If you trod on one you had to buy a golden rat, god knows how much that would have cost! The temple was nice, with some carvings but was only to be swept away by the stench and the sight of hundreds of rats, minding their own business eating away at the offerings of the visitors.
The only other thing really to see in Bikaner are the camels. And we saw lots of camels. Around the town we came across camels pulling carts. This was amazing as the camels were gigantic beasts, prettified slightly by pompoms, tugging relatively small carts and even smaller guys. Extraordinary sight to see strolling round town.
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