Bikaner

We left Delhi early this morning on a train to Bikaner. The journey took around 7 hours, and we watched as the landscapes changed from literal rubbish piles in/around Delhi to peaceful and clean farmlands in the countryside. We arrived around 4pm, were picked up by our lovely little guesthouse, where we relaxed, talked to our host about his life in Bikaner and ate a homemade vegetarian dinner.

The next day, we did the one thing we came to Bikaner to do (besides break up the massive journey from Delhi to Jaisalmer) - visiting Karna Mati Mandir! Karna Mati Mandir is the only temple in the world that worships rats, and people visit from all over the world to feed and give offerings to the 25,000 freely roaming rats. We visited around midday when, apparently, there are less rats and we were glad we did - even with less rats around, they were still everywhere, there was rat food and poo everywhere and the rats were constantly running over and under your feet. We could only handle about 30mins before we had to leave - an interesting experience for the books, but not one we'd repeat again.

After the rat temple, we headed back to Bikaner and had lunch at a restaurant recommended to us called Laxmi, where we had delicious butter naan, dahl makhani and malai kofta. We then went back to our guesthouse because Cass had to nap after our experience at the rat temple, and then we helped our hosts prepare our dinner. Mike was a natural at rolling out chapati and if there is one thing this trip has taught us, is that Mike's true calling is to be a baker.Read more