Well I am now in Rajasthan the land of Maharajas and camels. My train got into Bikaner in northern Rajasthan at 2am in the morning, 2 hours later than it was supposed to.. Luckily for me the guy from the hotel I had arranged to pick me up waited and I got safely and easily to the wonderful Vino Guest house!
Obviously at 2am there wasn't much to see, but the first noise I heard (at 5am) was a camel braying, and the first thing I sore when I took a walk in the morning was a camel cart, and then lots and lots of camels pulling loads to and from everywhere, so I was definitely in Rajasthan!
Bikaner was a hot dusty city, it isn't heavily touristed (yet) so you can walk down the street and see everyday life without lots of tourist shops and touts, which was nice. The Junargh fort was quite interesting, it was started 500 years ago and finished by the British so there was a real mix of architectures. The Jain temples where also really spectacular.
The most unusual temple I have visited so far though has to be the Karni Mata temple just out of Bikaner. Here, they worship rats, the temple is full of rats, which they feed and... anyway like most hindu temples you have to take your shoes off to go inside, so I was in and out of there pretty quick smart, very very bizzare.
From Bikaner I took a bus to Pushkar, and I have to say the Rasjasthani roads are really quite good. Pushkar is a holy city (I know.. theres alot of holy cities..) situated on a lake in the middle of the desert and is quite a tourist town, so there is alot of 'hassle' here which is a little annoying.
I went the other night on an overnight camel safari, the camel owner takes you to his house on the camel ride, his Mum cooks a great dinner and you sleep there the night and ride the camel back the next day. As it was so warm we where able to sleep on the roof of the house under the beautiful stars. It is actually an unusual thing to look up at the stars and realise they aren't your stars.
I am currently spending 3 days some yoga/natural therapies sessions. I get treatments, like mud packs and amazing massages in the morning, and am having a prescriptive yoga session in the evening, where we are doing yoga specifically to work on my posture and back issues. This morning though, as part of the cleansing he suggested having a colonic irrigation, I said a definite NO! But he is still quite adamant I have one tomorrow.. AAggggh.
Anyway, I am quite enjoying Rajasthan, I do have to say I don't love it as much as I loved the mountains, but it us interesting and different, annd theres lots of camels!
