Bikaner

Last day in Jaisalmer... the dust has settled a little and it's just as hot, We get the stuff, say good bye to the guy in white, who of course wants to make our trail of rupies longer, and deeper. After, "No," and, "No!," again, a little more forcefully, we leave for Bikaner, 240 kilometers east, and a little north, if anyone really cares. Halfway there, Raj finally hears me calling for tea, and stops. Turns out, as always, he heard me, but was waiting for his favorite dhabia, a roadside restaurant he knows that serves the best chai and panik - some fried kind of bread and vegetable thing that's sweet against the tea. This young guy comes out of the shadows and shade of this bus stop restaurant we share with Indian travelers waiting on the bus to Jaisalmer, and asks Raj to ask me if I want heroin. "Not today Raj, tell him not today." Everyone laughs, the guy disappears, then the bus comes, the women leave, we finish up and leave as well, without the heroin, sadly, but leave happily half way to Bikaner.

24 July

The road was really good to Bikaner, pretty much. The winds stopped after we left Jaisalmer and sand no longer builds up on the side of the road. That means less chance of having to play chicken with oncoming vehicles over who is going to move to the sand, or stop and wait. Raj does neither pretty much, and though there's less sand in the road, it seems our side of the highway is a little too cracked up, so Raj has taken to driving in the other lane for as long as he deems necessary. And that's often way too long for me. I've worn a divot in the floorboard of the passenger seat putting on my imaginary brake for the ten-thousandth time.Bikaner is higher, a little greener, and out of the wind. That all makes it hotter, and it is just hot, really hot.

We get there at the usual time - the heat of the day, and find the hotel unprepared and have to make our own arrangements, get put in the strangest room I've seen - a couple of rooms separated by stairs and curtains, the bathroom a large hall with a toilet and small, non-working bath. and no windows. This is a beautifully elegant, old hotel, clearly out of season and in neglect - and we're here. wrestle through the 'no-other-white-folk' thing and take drinks and eat in the huge dining room. There's a field between us and the road, peopled by gypsies and wagons, in the heat of the day. 105° we're told, more than that if your translating celsius. But we manage through the disdain of the manager, the 5-star grace of the waiter, and Raj, who wonders why we'll stay here an extra day. And our room is really OK, if you can figure out which switch does what, or which combination of switches you have to switch to get the desired effect. It seems Indian establishments have an obsession with switches and install these huge - I mean 10 to 20 switches per plate - switches in these rooms. It's what I'm calling 'Indian roulette,' because switching the wrong one brings the whole house down.We convince Raj we want to go to Bhandasan temple, the Jain temple in Bikaner that lays claim to being the oldest, and the only one built with a foundation made of concrete and ghee - no water. Raj doesn't believe us, of course, and we drive around Bikaner, my nonexistent Hindi even picking up him asking, "Where's the Jain temple made with ghee?" And remarkably, we get directions, he follows them, and we find it. It's is spectacular (and I am loosing descriptive words by now -), this subtle structure in the middle of the throng of a 2.4 million people city. Shoes off, we go inside, meet the youth and the elder, are allowed to take pictures and wander with impunity. the pusha we bought is no good here - we bought sweets and marigolds, the temple only wants roses. But this painted temple, the 'only painted Jain temple in the world,' is everything. Views of the Bikaner spice market. Views of mosques. Views of the cake-frosted Hindi temples everywhere. Views of these icons without someone wanting to tell me what I'm seeing. And it's hot enough the ghee spreads over some of the tiles. Hot, hot, hot, we find Raj, go home, sleep in the funny room until tomorrow. In the morning we're told we'll change rooms, and I'm showed this beautifully appointed Maharaja-style room with countless air-conditioners and very clean floors.

So I report back that things will be better, and we leave, pass through the road where the gypsies are fighting, and move out 30 km out of town to Karni Mat temple, the rat temple that Bikaner is famous for. Legend has it that Karni Mata, an incarnation of Durga, asked Yama, the god of death, to restore life to a grieving storyteller. When Yama refused, Karni Mata reincarnated all the dead story tellers as rats, so Yama could not have any human souls. And the temple is full of them. thousands of rats. We have to take our shoes off to walk through and half pray the rats will walk over our feet for good luck and pray very loudly they don't. And while I'm taking pictures I subconsciously brush what I think is a fly from my foot and find a rat attached to the dry skin on my foot. I say other prayers, dance a little and collect us to leave, which we do. Pass through Bikaner again, visit the fort then eat lunch at the only dark whiskey bar we've seen in India. It's cool, and dark, so none of the men can really lear. We go back looking for our new room, find nothing's really been worked out and sleep in an even more exaggerated version of the room we had last night. whatever. It's just hot. and the power keeps going out so the 'desert-coolers' die, everything dies and we squirm and fidget until morning, then settle unsettled affairs and leave. To Mondawa. On to Mondawa.