BIKANER (Day 3)

In the morning, we visited the Junagarh fort . The 'Old Fort' was built from local red sandstone in 1593 by Raja Rai Singh, a general in Emperor Akbar's army. It is still surrounded by part of the 4-mile red wall built in the 18th century.

The place was amazing both inside and out! No picture can show the amount of detail carved into the outer stone facades or the amount of blinding glitter emanating from all the gold, mirrors and gemstones that decorated the many inner halls. Every square inch was painted with patterns and flowers, and along the halls were lovely shelves cut into the walls, presumably for candles. The size of the fort was also incredible. One could easily get lost in the constant maze of palaces, old living quarters, gardens, museums, etc.

A guided tour was required in order to enter, so we learned a lot of history about the area, the buildings and their contents. For example, the carpet in the spectacular throne room was all handmade and took many years to complete... but that didn’t matter since prisoners were forced to do the work! In the maharaja’s bedroom, the short bed was suspended from the ceiling. Normally his legs hung over the sides when he slept, but when he died, they put his legs up on the bed too. In the past, there were some rooms where women weren't allowed to enter; they could only look into them through carved window screens. In the museum, the swords were displayed in a wide range of lovely patterns so that they became works of art. Other exhibits contained WWII items, including a 10-foot long gun with the caption "stand by camel, kill tiger".

The amazing “cloud palace” was painted from floor to ceiling with oriental style clouds and shimmering gold lightning.

These men, who were also on our tour, belonged to the Jain religion. Dressed in white, they wore face masks and walked with small cloth brooms out in front of them as to not accidentally inhale or harm even the tiniest of living beings in their path. They believed in doing no harm to any creature. They were quite friendly and even asked us where we were from.

We left for Jaisalmer, the "golden city", located almost 200 miles away. As always, driving was an adventure. The horns on the cars and trucks had a wide variety of sounds, ranging from a very plain beep to songs (we even heard the Twilight Zone theme). At one point, we hit a bird, but since it had flown into the car by accident, it was not considered bad karma.

We stopped several times along the way for chai. Each time, many men gathered around to stare at us. There were almost never any women at these roadside places although plenty of them could be seen on the roads working and walking.

Since the town is located only a few miles from the Pakistan border, it was not surprising that we encountered a large military convoy with heavy artillery on the road. Fortunately they allowed us to cut through otherwise we would have been waiting for quite a while.

Once we arrived in Jaisalmer, we found a hotel. It left a lot to be desired. The floors were filthy and small brown cockroaches were everywhere. There was a lock on the outside of the bathroom door and we wondered if it was to be used against the roaches! The walls had wires sticking out of them but at least the ceiling fan worked.

That evening we sat on a hotel rooftop, with the huge fort illuminated by large spotlights in the distance, and watched traditional dances. The very ornately dressed woman proceeded to perform a variety of dances... such as on top of sharp swords and with a jug of fire balanced on her head. Equally as impressive were the accompanying musicians who explained and demonstrated a wide variety of local instruments.

The fort at night, high upon Trikuta Hill

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