Day 4 to 6 Bikaner - Rajasthan

On the morning of the last day of the year 2016, I arrived in Bikaner. Behind me is a very pleasant first train ride on the Indian Railway on this trip. It was quite comfortable as I traveled in the AC 2 Tier Class. Which means it's one class below the First Class (in India, there are apparently 7 classes). So I traveled with relative privacy (curtain) and fresh bedding. Thus, I survived this night reasonably well-rested. After arriving at the train station, I was overwhelmed by the rickshaw drivers and decided to walk to the guesthouse, which was about 500 m away. After a short time, a motorcycle stopped next to me and the driver greeted me. Just as I was about to dismiss him, he said something about Yamna Guesthouse.

And since, according to my memory, it was my guesthouse, I paused for a moment. It turned out that he was the brother of the guesthouse owner, so I hopped on the motorcycle and shortly thereafter I was already at the dark guesthouse, dark because power outages are a daily occurrence here. Nevertheless, I was able to check-in quickly and easily and relax. In the afternoon, the brother took me on his motorcycle to the local restaurant and then to the first sightseeing spot in Bikaner.

He led me through the "Kote Gate" (city gate), for me, the filled gateway to the state of Rajasthan. To the markets of Bikaner, which were located in a labyrinth of streets and lanes. There was the vegetable market, the fabric market, and the spice market. In the spice market, there were countless known and unknown spices. Among them was the king of spices, saffron, which is quite cheap here but is traded like gold in Germany and costs a small fortune.

Afterwards, I prepared for the evening, New Year's Eve. I looked inside myself and didn't make any resolutions. I celebrated the New Year with an Indian Kingfisher beer, and because it was very foggy, I only heard a small fireworks display in the distance... Happy New Year!

The next day, I took a rickshaw to Deshnok. There, the "Karni Mata" Temple was home to rats. Even the entrance was a true joy. At first, there were two lines of people waiting, then it turned into four or five. In the entrance gate, we encountered the outgoing people, and some clever Indians thought that they didn't need to wait in line, they could just enter. The following happened. There was pushing, shoving, and shouting... now we were all a big tangle of people which slowly dissolved after about 15 to 20 minutes. Unbelievable but true... India!

On the way back, we made a stop at a camel farm.

In the following days, I visited a maharaja's resting place, the Jain Temple "Bhandasar," and the highlight of Bikaner, the "Junagarh" Fort, which was truly impressive.

In between, I always had masala chai (black tea with milk, sugar, and spices), which was really enjoyable and always worth a short break.

In summary, Bikaner is a larger city (700,000 inhabitants) that unfortunately cannot hide the chaos and, I believe, in the not too distant future, is in danger of suffocating in a tangle of motorcycles, rickshaws, people, and cows. Finally, I recommend the old town with its old havelis (artful old town houses).

I spent the last evening at the train station for 7 hours, as the train was supposed to leave at 6:30 pm, but it only arrived at 11:30 pm. That is quite normal in India.

Good Luck...