after jaisalmer was the town of bikaner...we ended up getting off the train at the wrong station w/out realizing it, but that was a blessing in disguise...as usual, someone approached us quickly about a place to stay, and also handed us a schedule...(we went to bikaner because we had heard about a camel festival and wanted to check it out)...the price sounded good enough, it was family run, and we always knew we could go somewhere else if we hated it...staying in that guesthouse turned out to be a great decision...the father was super friendly, as were the wife and kids...three kids...one of the girls spoke pretty good english, and could read and write as well...the wife cooked great food, and the portions were HUGE...the father was fantastic about helping us with directions, and suggesting things to do...
the first full day there we went to the fort in the morning...it's totally different from the fort in jaisalmer...this fort was originally the residence of the local maharajah, and most of the original decorations and furnishings are still in the fort...the entrance fee includes a required guide, and for once, we were happy that we had the guide...w/out him, we wouldn't have found all the little hallways and palaces, etc...the interior decoration is pretty fancy, and it was neat to go up on the roof...in several rooms there are old pictures on the wall, from maharajah parades and such...
that afternoon, we took a bus out to the camel festival...AWESOME!!!!! it was in the village of ladera, not too far from bikaner...we got to see decorated camels, and of course took lots of pictures...we saw a dune race, which wasn't all that exciting...at one point, layna joined in a long jump contest, running and jumping down a dune...(a photographer took her picture, and it ended up in the paper the next day:)...we watched camel races, during which not all the jockeys could control their camels...they didn't always go in a straight line, and they weren't always able to stay on the camels...funny...we got to watch the women play musical chairs...it sounds tame, but some of them really wanted to win...each woman seemed to have a cheering section, and when some of them were out, those cheering sections were NOT happy...at one point we were told we should get out of the crowd, as it was getting rowdy, and we were told the police might have to use force...we got to watch a cultural show, which had exhibitions of traditional song, dance, music and costumes...they had announcements in punjabi and english, so we always knew what was coming up next...though the english announcements were, how can i put this, very flowery and slow...after the cultural show the last event of the evening was a fire dance...only men in a certain caste of a certain faith could participate in the dance...first a bonfire was burned down to nothing but red hot embers, then the men danced through and around the embers...very cool...at the end, they used their feet to spread out the embers, so they were no longer a danger...after it was over, we saw one old man pick up embers twice and put them in his mouth...they said that true believers would not feel the pain of the fire...either way, it was pretty impressive...we took the same bus back to bikaner, and it was a bit more of an adventure...not too long after we left, the guy taking money got into some sort of argument with some of the passengers...lots of yelling back and forth, layna and i sitting there clueless...it got so bad that the bus driver pulled over and stopped the bus, waiting until it was all sorted out...when it was sorted out, many of the passengers cheered, i still wish i knew what it was all about!!!
the next day was more fun...we went out to the karni mata temple, also known as the rat temple...i'm not sure of the story, but the end result is that rats are allowed to run freely all over this temple...they're supposed to be the incarnation of something, or someone...we were told there are 30,000 rats living there...who knows what the actual number is, but it's a lot...there are large bowls of milk set out in several places, it's both creepy and fascinating to watch all the rats perched on the edges, leaning down and drinking...it's said that it's good luck if the rats run across your feet (did i forget to mention that you take off your shoes before going into the temple?)...they did run across our feet...there is one white rat (albino) and it's also said to be good luck if you see him...and we did...so i guess we're double lucky:) ...seeing and being around all those rats was definitely not in my comfort zone, that's for sure!! in the afternoon we went to a camel farm...officially called the national camel research centre, or something like that...it's either the only one in india, or the only one in asia (depends on who you ask, or what you read)...we learned a lot about camels (i won't bore you with the facts unless you ask)...we got to see camels milked, see camel products (made from camel bone, camel hair, etc) and more...while standing next to one corral, several camels came over to investigate us...several kisses and attempted bites later, we had some new friends:) ...we also tried camel milk ice cream...YUM!!!
after bikaner we went to jaipur, the capital of the state of rajasthan, because we had heard about a kite festival...jaipur is just as bad as delhi in terms of touts and the aggressiveness of the city...after finding a guesthouse, we were told by several different people that it's impossible to walk around and see the sights of the city...i guess layna and i are different than most, because we don't consider 5K very long to walk to get to something...not at all...anywho, we did walk...during the day, layna ended up talking to a guy on the street trying to sell us traditional rajasthani puppets...the conversation resulted in an invitation for both of us to come spend the day with his family for the kite festival the next day...SO MUCH FUN!!! we got to his neighborhood, and spent the majority of the day on the roof...we learned how to cut kites (the idea being that you use your kite string - while flying of course - to cut the string of someone else's kite) and were served the best chapati we've had...we met the entire family, and all the cousins/friends/neighbors who were close...all the roofs in this neighborhood were made of sheets of corrogated tin held in place by rocks...and most of the roofs were very close to each other, so we didn't have to go down to the ground to move around...we got a LOT of attention from all the kids (particularly guys) in the area...i was proposed to twice, but since both were just teenagers, i decided to wait on matrimony...hee hee...seeing all the people on the roofs, flying kites was awesome...mostly kids, but some adults as well...in reading the newspaper the next day, it seemed everyone had been in on the fun...politicians and other big wigs even took a few hours out of their work days to fly kites!!! jaipur is known as the pink city because the old city is painted entirely pink...it was originally done to welcome the prince of wales (who later became king charles something or another) and the tradition has remained...it's also a great place to shop, if you have the desire...shoes, fabrics, electronics, bikes, toys, food, etc...it's all there...
our last evening in jaipur we decided to go to a bollywood movie...it was our first, and we had been told about a great theater by a couple different locals...the theater was indeed fancy...the story was that the person who had designed it had suffered some sort of mutilation afterward so he couldn't design anything that great again...i don't know that i trust that story...anywho, watching a bollywood movie was definitely an experience...at the first flash of the stars on the screen the crowd cheered...they cheered, clapped and generally got involved with the plot of the movie as it was playing...it definitely wasn't quiet...i can't remember how many times mobile phones started ringing, and people answered them!!! the movie followed the same storyline that seems to be common...people fall in love, there are difficulties, and by the end of the movie, everything is hunky dory...they even hug at the end!!
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