Ok, so what did we have this week? Jaipur, Bikaner, Jaisalmer. Jaipur
with Raj, seeing the city and local life. Bikaner with its forts and rat
temple, and Jaisalmer, a city straight from Aladdin.
I left Jaipur on the 24th and arrived at Bikaner at 11pm,
going straight to the hotel I booked earlier. I have something to say about
sites like booking.com, it's very hard to decide on a hotel based only on
reviews of people you don't really know. You don't know what the numbers are
compared to. Did the people making the reviews have a look at the different
hotels in the same city/area before they booked? Is it important to them to
have a clean room? The rates are very subjective, and although the final rate
is based on everyone, it still doesn't tell you much. Is an 8 rated hotel in
one city the same as an 8 rated hotel in some other city? Which rooms of the
hotel did they see?
For instance, I went to the Jamna
Niwas guest house, it's rated good (7.5) on booking.com. The written
reviews were very positive and I decided to book it for one night. Arriving
there, I got a room without windows, which was very dirty and with a strange
tunnel between all the rooms under and above my room. I woke up at 8am,
thinking it was the middle of the night (no windows), and hearing sounds from
other rooms as if the people were in my room. Very strong TV sounds. I couldn't
understand why someone would turn the TV so loud in the middle of the night.
Looking on my phone I figured it was already morning, and I'm missing the sun.
After trying to change a room without luck, I decided to go to another
hotel. The other hotel I checked was very nice, it wasn't based on Booking.com,
but it was recommended by one of the Jamna Niwas staff, and I'm really happy to
have made the decision. A bit farther away from the center, but still not so
far, and very quiet and spacious. It had a nice rooftop and nice garden. And a
very nice coffee shop nearby. The guesthouse is called Chandra Niwas. After
that, and after checking some more places I decided it's time for me to rest. I
took the rest of the day in the hotel, to eat, sit at my computer, watch some
shows. I even found a nice park across the street, where I could go for a short
run.
I didn’t run since I'd been in Amsterdam (almost 2 months ago), and it
was amazing. I'm a barefoot runner, which means that I'm mostly running without
shoes. I love the feeling of earth under my feet, I also almost never suffer
from aches afterwards. Well this time is was one of those almost never, I guess
that I have time to get back in shape.
I woke up the next day at 5am, right in time to catch the train to
Deshnok. It's a little village situated 30 KMs from Bikaner. The attraction in
Deshnok is a temple called Karni Mata (there's also one in Bikaner, so don't be
confused), or the rats' temple. On the floors of the temple you can find an
estimated number of 20000 rats walking freely, eating from big bowls of food
the pilgrims left them.
Actually there wasn't much to see. The temple is nice, but after walking
a few minutes, barefoot in the middle of a swarm of rats, I wanted to leave
already. It was definitely an experience, not sure if good or bad :) I stayed
at Deshnok for about 1 hour, taking the local bus to Bikaner.
Taking local busses is always a good experience (for now). The locals
are very nice, and always curious to meet a stranger. They ask many questions,
and they are very welcoming and warm. This time, they sat me in the front by
the driver, one was asking me questions and one was translating for the rest of
the bus, passing my answers to the next guy. I felt like in some interviewing
show.
The bus dropped me in the city and I went to see Junagarh Fort; it's
where the king (or maharajah) of Bikaner used to live until the beginning of
the 20th century when he moved to Lalgarh Palace just a
few kilometers away. Like other forts/palaces in Rajasthan it is very majestic
and well done. You have a route inside the fort that you follow. A guide is
mandatory, but our guide only spoke Hindi, so I walked mostly alone. I
recommend it very much.
I planned to go on the same day to Lalgarh Palace and even to Gajner
lake and palace. A guy from Bikaner I met on the train to Bikaner recommended
me these places. But when I finished my tour in Junagarh, I was very tired
after waking up so early, so I went back to my hotel and had a siesta. When I
woke up most things were closed, so I had to give up on them.
The day after I left for Jaisalmer. The golden city. The city is
situated in the Thar desert. In the middle of the city you can find a big fort,
in which, unlike in Jaipur and Bikaner, you can actually find hotels and
houses. A lot of the houses in Jaisalmer are very beautiful, finely sculptured.
Every house looks like a small palace. The day I arrived, after watching the
desert sunset, I went for a walk in the city, got a little lost in the streets
of it and saw many admirable houses.
I totally recommend coming to Jaisalmer, much more than the other Rajasthan
cities I have been . The environment is very relaxing, and the desert wind is
so comforting.
The guest house I booked, Tofu Safari,
was very surprising. The room costs 90 rupees, and I read good reviews on it
and said, ok, it's 90 rupees, something like 1$, worst case I just go to a
different hotel. The hotel entrance looks like an entrance to Aladdin's palace,
and you get inside to a very clean and spacious lobby. My room missed the AC that
was promised, but a fan is good for me, and it was very clean and big. Hot
water was only available in a bucket, but it so hot here, you don't really need
it.
I booked for the next day a camel safari tour through Tofu, the owner of
the guest house. I joined a group of
tourists that booked the safari with him. We left at the afternoon of the next
day, taking a jeep ride to the national park where the riding took place. On
the way we stopped at a ghost town, a small deserted town where they take all
the tourists there. We took some pictures and went on with the tour.
It was nice riding the camels, for a few minutes, afterwards you just
want the camel to move faster, or to go down and walk beside it. The tour took
us to somewhere in the dunes of the desert, where we made camp for the night.
We sat and watched the sunset; Afterwards we ate thali for dinner and sat
together watching the bright stars, drinking beer delivered to us cold from a
nearbyvillage. I don't think I ever saw so many stars. It was a very cold night.
Even though I was ready and brought warm clothes, I woke up many times and I
was very happy to see it end.
After a short breakfast, we went back on the camels. Well most of us did,
I decided to do what I said before and walk with the camels. They walk slowly,
so it was very easy. About one and a half hours walk and we arrived to the
village from which we started the day before, packed our stuff on the jeep and
left back to Jaisalmer.
Tomorrow is Diwali, it's an indian holiday celebrated by many religions,
each one has a different meaning, but it all comes down to shooting many
fireworks in the air. They already started with that a month ago when we were
in Daramshala, and tomorrow is the main day. I'll stay here for a few more
days, after that I will continue to Jodphur.
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