BIKANER A Day In The Life

But I just had to laugh,

I saw the photograph. Surely no coincidence Sgt Pepper looks so similar to that photo. Look at the Jain temple below, too. Pure Pop Art. The Beatles visited India in 1967.

Bikaner was a fine, final magical history tour before we hit Pushkar for a few days rest.

Second Hand Rose

A scruffy working town full of mud and cows, the historical Bikaner Old Town where we stayed at Tanisha's haveli guesthouse (below, first), was wall-to-wall haveli buildings, with ornate facias full of fine detail, tiny temples on the streets and market places dotted all around.

Kim's new friend.

The town had a couple of small temples. The Laxminath was cartoon cute, but the interior of the Bhandasar Jain temple was beautifully painted like an old-fashioned fairground ride.

The Lalgarh Palace was a Raj special, now a hay-clarss hotel, through which we tramped on a quiet Sunday afternoon, like a pair of hobos.

The Junagarh Fort and museum was yet another corker full of ridiculously ornate rooms and decorative bric-a-brac, with the interesting Prachina cultural and crafts centre added on.

Lord Lucan alive and well. He gave me a private view of the secret zenana - good man!

The most curious site in Bikaner was the Karni Mata Temple, twenty miles out of town and home to approximately 25,000 rats who are fed, watered and revered by the locals.

The rodents are believed to be reincarnations of the people of their town, part of a convoluted 'tail' to do with a goddess saving the townsfolk from another bad god and one of them turning into a rat, or something.

"Oh Bert, look at the state of your trousers!"

Anyway, it was a good laugh lining up to see the little beasts frolicking about, grown men prostrating themselves in front of the shrine, and hence getting rats' p*ss all down their good clobber, plus us posing for the all-important selfies.

Bet Donald Trump wasn't asked for so many selfies, but then he wouldn't have been out of place as King Rat in Karni Mata.