Camels and rats - Bikaner

Bikaner

I had heard about the international camel festival in Bikaner so I mentioned it to Bobby who told us ‘as you want’…10 hours later and we were there. Completely off our route and poor old Bobby was in desperate need of his ‘medicine’ by the time we arrived. These distances across India would take less than half the time in the UK but the roads are terrible so you need to allow a good few hours to go less than 100km.

 

Another hotel, another cockroach, or two actually. By this stage we were definitely past caring and we were at the stage where we would rather just stay put than pack up our gear and change rooms. 

The camel festival was a 2 day event and when we arrived at the stadium where it was being held, I began to worry that I had made a bit of a boo-boo making us all travel so far for a little local fair, but actually it was really good to see a traditional event like this. I didn’t get where the international part of the festival had come from – unless they meant the 50 or so tourists that were there.

Camel, shaved and dyed

We saw a fantastic procession of camels; some dyed, some shaved, all majestic, even those dressed in ridiculous outfits. Some were made to dance which was a huge crowd pleaser, although I suspect the animals were doing it under duress which was sad, rather than because they felt like cutting some shapes on the dancefloor.

We saw men with moustaches that were 2 metres long, although they had them artistically rolled up. We sampled camel milk kulfi, which the locals avoided – they will eat goats’ feet and sheeps’ brains, but the thought of camel milk was disgusting to them.

Bikaner Fort

The next day we went to the fort in Bikaner. Beautiful as all the forts in India are, but we are beginning to lose the will to live with the amount of forts we’ve seen!

Karni Mata

We left Bikaner to head for Jaisalmer, but first we stopped off at Karni Mata Temple just outside of Bikaner, which is a temple dedicated (and full of) rats! 20,000 rats live in this temple, all descendants of a Hindu God of course. And if you spot a white one, you are doubly lucky so they say…which we didn’t.

Of course, being a Hindu temple, shoes were not allowed which was a real treat. I really enjoyed this stop, but I can’t say the same for Baby D! After nearly 8 years together I am only now finding out how much of a germaphobe he is!

#bikaner #bikanercamelfestival #rajasthan #karnimatatemple #bikanerfort