CHILL OUT DAY TO RECOVER

After the initial shock of the heat and humidity level in Kerala, we have spent the day recovering -we slept the first night adequately with periodic wake-ups to shower off the sweat - the thought crossed my mind of why are we here?  Anyway after an interesting breakfast on the rooftop in the trees watching the crows work in teams to come in and carry off the snacks we began to settle into the day's rhythm - Sheeba our hostess sorted me out a remedy for my chesty cough - you'd be pleased Maurice - an inhalation of vicks vapour rub which really cleared out the tubes... then a slow walk down to the sea front and a visit to one of the best hotels sorted us out with some ice cold kingfisher ultra strongs and a day pass for their underused pool on the beachfront for a £5 each - thought of you Tina... (BRISTOWS HOTEL -built as a lighthouse by an ancient brit who created Fort Cochin harbour.

We interspersed our dip in the pool with a stroll on the windswept beach and a swim in the warm warm ocean, watching the locals trying to catch anchovies with little nets,  Then we had a bit of retail therapy followed by a return to the same hotel for an amazing fish platter of lobster, crab and prawns and king fish with keralan fish cooked in banana leaf and keralan fish curry washed down with a fresh lime soda - then an evening stroll along the beach where all the locals were out playing volley ball and football on the beach with icecream and pop stalls open along the promenade.  We have had a lovely 5 star day and we all look and feel much better for it - probably going to do much the same tomorrow - you could get used to this life..

BREAKFAST AT 'GREENWOODS BETHLEHEM HOMESTAY'

PART TWO: IN THE SOUTH WEST OF INDIA

A three hour flight from Delhi has brought us to a tropical climate and the usual heat as you step out of the plane.  Then an hour's taxi ride to the 'Green Woods Bethlehem' which is what is called a 'homestay'. In fact you get a bedroom and bathroom in someone's house. It is a favourite in the Lonely Planet Guide and therefore always full.
We are sleeping under a mosquito net for the first time. Tropical humidity.
Fort Kochin is where we are staying. In the old part of the town that the Portuguese colonised around 1500 AD. We walked along the beach next to what I think is the Arabian Ocean. They still use these old Chinese fishing nets and you can buy the fresh fish at dusk from them.

Nearby is the oldest church in India and the area is quite a mix of Christian, Muslim and Hindu.
The place is a far cry from the North. The roads are in very good shape, no cows on the road, no hassle to buy when you go past the shops. Kerala was communist for 40 years, so there is excellent literacy, much less corruption and an average life span 5 years more than other states according to a French couple we were chatting with in the roof garden. 

Yvonne and Moira are still pretty badly hit by their colds but a good night's sleep has helped Yvonne a bit. 

John. 

OVERNIGHT IN DELHI

A fleeting stay in a Delhi hostel to enable us to catch our plane south on Thursday morning.
Here is the lane where the hostel is. This is taken at 4.00 am. Another 3 hours and the lane will be full of sound and action with motorbikes, people and the occasional cow.

Leaving Varanasi, the oldest religious centre in the world,

.... is a good thing to do!
We were warned that it was dirty and noisy. And it was true. The roads are awful, unlike Jaipur and Delhi where they are merely bad.

Also, in Varanasi, we encountered the Delhi thing where everyone who speaks to you is angling to get money from you. There appears to be no possibility of having a conversation with any local without it quickly turning into a conversation about how many ways you are going to give them money.

Anyway, we squeezed in a visit to Sarthan about 20km north of Varanasi on our way to the airport this morning. It is where Buddha (the Buddha?) preached his first sermon back around 550BC.  Several Buddhist temples there from Thailand, Japan, etc and a bijou modern museum (5 rupees entry fee. That's about 5 pence! ) but some  beautiful, serene sculptures of Buddha made in the 6th Century BC. And the statue of the 4 lions that is the symbol of India on all its coins etc. Is there. That's about 600AD,  the high point of Mauryan Art if you have ever watched one of those Michael Wood programmes about the history of India. Sadly, no photos allowed in there so instead, here is a pic of the nice (2013) Buddha statue from the Thai temple in its pleasant garden. This place is full of monks and wannabe European monks on ashram type courses. Quite a good vibe but again,  touts selling you tat all along the road and generally pestering you if you step outside the ashram.

Varanasi has toughened us up so that we give hardly any tips now. These people are not our friends. It is not that kind of a relationship! It's business and business works both ways. I pissed off our taxi driver from the airport (gave him no tip, just his fare) and some random bloke in the airport car park who grabbed our bag trolley and shouted 'helper! helper!' as he pushed the trolley to the taxi and loaded the bags in the boot. When he asked for a tip He didn't get one! His choice to help me, I didn't ask him. Same with the obsequious flunky in the airport toilet who saw me coming and rushed in from chatting to his mates to put on a show which included bowing, trying to put liquid soap on my hands (why weren't the dispensers filled? I ask myself) then waving me to the electric dryer. I walked out with wet hands. Quite enjoying this actually!

This all sounds very negative. I should say we have meet many very interesting and pleasant fellow travellers and the hotel owners are usually pretty good as well!  Most Indians will be fine. It's only those we get exposed to on the tourist trail that do this. In Mount Abu, off the trail, it was very different. No bad vibes. 

So then on a plane from Varanasi for a brief overnight stop in Delhi. This time at the Smyle Hotel. Four a.m. taxi back to the airport tomorrow and we are finally going South to Fort Cochin for four nights. We are glad we have visited these amazing places...  once.

Yvonne and Moira have got terrible colds and are dosed up with  paracetamol so I am doing the blog tonight. It has just rained lightly here. Wearing a jumper but not that necessary. Better get some sleep I guess.

John.

DASASWAMEDH GHAT AARTI CEREMONY VARANASI

We had a sleep this afternoon and nursed our chesty coughs (Moira and I) and then caught our first tuktuk as far as we could into the pedestrian precinct before we made our way onto the waterfront.  It is a rabbit warren of dirty narrow streets and suddenly we were on the river and easily walked along the ghat terraces as far as the Aarti ceremony ghat.  It is a rather staged affair and you felt the Hindu temple next to us was reacting by shouting their chants louder than usual to drown the sound of the touristy ceremony.  Luckily we found a seat on the stone steps and had quite a good view.  At the end we walked in the dark along the ghats and ended up having to cross one of the burning ghats that was rather a harrowing experience but we passed by as quickly as we could and caught a tuktuk on our own home with John guiding us with his gps.  We then had to use the headtorch to see our way down the streets to our hotel - we are getting to use all those gadgets we brought gradually - By the way Jeni, thanks for the sewing kit you gave us for Christmas - we used the folding scissors today!

Up at 8 tomorrow and a visit to the Buddha's temples in Sarnath before catching the plane back to Delhi for the night.

VARANASI

I have been lucky enough to see 3 kingfishers now - as we were rowing back to the hotel one perched on a houseboat beside us and just now as we were having our breakfast one stayed for ages on the TV aerial of our hotel - he was quite tame.

As we passed one neighbouring ghat there was a huge sow with piglets and sitting passively at the top of a sandbank were a group of passive looking water buffalo - on a couple of the ghats monkeys jumped around between packs of dogs and puppies - there are not so many cats here though.  As the morning passes the light mist has thickened a little and it is slightly grey in the distance as we look down the river to the Ghats.  

John met a German chap last night who comes here especially at this time to attend the holy singing festival at Tulsi Ghat - he says it is amazing so we will probably check it out around midnight tonight - we could hear the singing and drumming last night - also it would be good to see the Aarti ceremony at 7 tonight.  After the hectic day of travel yesterday we are enjoying being completely lazy.  

We have been talking to the French couple about their recent trip to the Andaman Islands where they spent 2 weeks on a small island at the end of the archipelago called Little Andaman - they stayed with a family and said it was lovely but there was absolutely nothing there but the sea and the sand and great snorkelling.

Apparently there is a beautiful unrestored fort across the river here which we might try to visit - but it is tempting to do absolutely nothing - this Rahul Guesthouse is a gem of a place- Well done John for finding us such a great first stopping off point!

DAWN ROW ON THE GANGES

Got up for 6:00 am start with the 3 of us and 2 other couples from the hotel - one French and one German.  The air was warm and still as the sun rose and gradually the people got about their daily business in front of us.  Many did the puja ceremony and women and men bathed themselves while the dobi wallers washed the hotel sheets on stones with soap.  Our boatmen told us both his parents had died and been burnt on the burning ghat for 500 rupees each - now it is 700 rupees for one.  On the burning ghats there were the remains of 3 or 4 pyres and one was still burning with the grieving family crouching around.  Another boatman offered a bowl of marigold flowers and a candle for you to float for 50 rupees.  Boats draped with marigold strung necklaces were rowed up and down and we passed all the different ghats and different temples.  There were pigs, dogs, cows alive and dead by the river.

I was amazed at how steep it was to climb down the mud to our boat - yet in Winter the river reaches the lowest balconies of the houses.  We heard some chanting mantras as we passed priests, monks and families - We passed nearby Tulsi Ghat where there is a music and singing festival going on for the next few days

Had a lovely night in our lovely room and bathroom but got bitten to death by mosquitos and gnats already - only me though.

We saw a dad washing his daughter in the river - thought of Stella and you kids getting Stella ready for the day - just the same.

John rowed us back as we approached the hotel - so now he has rowed on the Nile last year, the Ganges this year and who knows the Amazon next year.   It is a beautiful day and we are having breakfast of the rooftop restaurant. A chill out day today.

THE GREAT MOTHER GANGA - VARANASI - perhaps the oldest city in the world

Well....

The Heritage Home in Pahar Ganj in Delhi gave us a lovely comfortable night's sleep and we met our driver at 6:30 in a pea souper of a fog or smog en route to the airport.  The journey was fortunately quite simple and thanks to Nipu's dexterity on the road - we reached the airport swiftly and safely.  So glad it was not foggy when we arrived yesterday as we were able to see a bit of the amazing building going on in Delhi - completed and in progress.

The airport was like a small suburban one and worked quite well except for the huge queues for the women to pass through security and be almost strip searched by a bucksome wench - obviously they are used to the women being the terrorists or drug dealers here!

Had a nice breakfast pre-boarding and then the delay messages started to appear - due to the fog we were delayed 3.5 hours.  An hour before we boarded we were given complimentary food vouchers and ordered a strange masala dosa which was not what we wanted but was ok and like a stuffed pancake with coconut chutney and masala sauce - quite nice.

The toilets were clean and efficiently run in the airport by a team of women who go in after every person to clean - that's how you have to do it here.  Well done India!

When we took off we left the mist behind after 5 minutes and travelled eastwards for an hour with the Himalayan peaks on our left horizon for the whole way - we were trying to guess if one of those peaks was Everest - they truly were majestic even from that distance.  For a large part of the journey we followed the Ganga river or other smaller ones and then turned south to land in Varanasi in the warm sunshine and were met by a driver sent by Rahul Guesthouse.  

The airport is about 27km from town and the taxi was a Tata something - 'tatty' John called it that was a bit of a shock after Nipu's people carrier.  The bone shaker took us over rough roads full of potholes and we saw a much poorer standard of living in the surrounding villages with very few items for sale in the little roadside shops and stalls and dusty faded clothes in the clothes shops.

The cow pats were being made vertically here instead of horizontally - moulded into rounds and splatted onto nearby walls with a clear handprint on each one.

We went past a body wrapped in gold and yellow brocade on a cart pushed by men - the family I suppose and suddenly the shortness of life came to you as you thought of the body being burned and sprinkled on the river.

Then the traffic came to a standstill and soon we were aware that something was going on further towards the riverside.  After half an hour or so we saw a wedding pass us on the opposite carriageway with the family carrying a bedsheet for you to throw money in and loud music played from loudspeakers behind.  Then the police appeared and we were all diverted into a carpark to turn around and go back the way we had come.  By now we had been in the taxi for nearly 2 hours to go just a few km.  Tempers were getting frayed and we idly watched the variety of vehicles and products passing from rickshaws full of chairs and tables, tins of ghee or oil, as well as motorbikes with brightly dressed young things going out for the evening and the school children - all well turned out on their way home in all directions - there were no camels here but rather thin cows searched the roadside rubbish tips for titbits and stray dogs - puppies and packs of older adolescents searched out discarded naans - anything- we were glad you were not here Erica to witness the plight of some of these animals - too much to bear even for us hardened travellers.

After about 3 hours of dodging between streets it became clear that the taxi driver knew less about the roads than John who had inevitably synchronised his phone GPS and the last half hour he directed the taxi driver as to how to reach Rahul Guesthouse.  So we left Delhi hotel at 6.30 and reached the guesthouse at 5:30 pm - when the flight was a mere 1 hour chunk of the journey and it took us - 11 hours!

Our room is amazing - a family room with the best bathroom we have had- only downside is it isn't overlooking the the river - but the rooftop restaurant has an amazing view and the river is awesome and already the whole experience has been worth it.

We are sipping our cold Kingfisher beers again on the rooftop in the peace and calm of the evening as the light fades and in the distance we can see the lights of the first of many Ghats or steps where the faithful bathe and worship.  Tomorrow we go for a dawn ride on the Ganges from the hotel and in the evening we will see the famous Aarti ceremony at the central Ghats.  Then on our final morning we will go by taxi to Sarnath 12 km north of the city to see the varied Buddhist temples where Buddha came to give his first sermon after receiving enlightenment farther East at Bodghaya.  This is our spiritual time - Om Padme .... etc as the chant goes....

Watching the  sun set from the roof terrace

As the sun set, the birds were replaced by the many insect eating bats.

Had a lovely meal of veg pakora, kashmiri biryani and navratan veg - delicious!

The fireworks are just starting for the 7pm aarti ceremony

Delhi wide boys

Went to buy an Indian Sim card for my phone today. I had been advised a card would cost me about 50 rupees. (50p) and Air Tel was the best coverage.
So I go into a shop and tell them what I want.
So first I am offered a Vodaphone card (they get more commission) .
No, I would like an Airtel card.
OK, you can have one for 500 rupees with 400 credit minutes.
No, I want a cheap one like I said. 50 rupees.
You can have one for 210 rupees and 150 minutes credit.
Yes that'll do. Thought that wasn't a bad compromise as I would have to charge it up anyway with some credit.

It's their job to make money on each and every transaction and my job to stick (as far as possible!) to what I wanted in the first place.

Same as this hotel. A nice, mid to low range hotel. But at reception we were quizzed about our travel plans in detail and.. Have you booked your plane tickets? Do you want us to recommend a good hotel at your next destination etc etc. It's no stone unturned to squeeze a bit of extra money out of the client. You are not a person, you are a funding opportunity. Customer satisfaction is way way low on the list after ' How can I make more money from this person?'. And yet in England there is a war being waged around customer satisfaction as the best means of getting repeat sales.

This against a backdrop of walking down any street to be asked probably every six steps if you want a rickshaw or tuktuk or postcard etc.
But then this is Delhi, one of the most competitive cities on the world. When we stay in places where hardly any foreigners go, we aren't hassled at all.

On tips and tipping

When we started our various travels we were quite obsessed that we should tip the right amounts.
We got excellent advice from Marie at Mara House Hotel to help deal with the hassle of Luxor.  Her viewpoint is interesting because she runs a hotel in Luxor and so knows who gets paid what. For example, if you go on Felucca ride, don't tip the captain because you have paid his fee but do tip the lad who climbs up the mast because he will be doing all the work for very little money and the tip is a big part of his income.

As we move on we still tip but less often and in a different way. I think you just eventually work something out for yourself that you feel comfortable with.

For us, more and more we tip people who do us a service with a smile that seems cheerful and genuine. We don't tip people who haven't done much but then lurk pointedly for a handout.

We also watch the examples of locals. Here in Delhi for instance, our cafe owner gave our left overs to a guy outside who was obviously struggling.  He did ask us first.

Our driver keeps a stock of very small denomination rupee coins for people begging at traffic lights in Rajasthan. Egyptians and Hindus do see it as a duty to give to charity and do give something to street beggars.

An English couple we met who have been on the road for a long time said they carry their own bags so don't tip. If someone grabs their bags off them looking for a tip then that is their choice. They still don't get a tip.

In most of the tourist hotels, there are people who lurk because some foreign travelers tip well.  Only the very upmarket hotels train their staff not to ask. Also in one of the hotels we stayed at where normally only Indians are the customers I offered a tip and the guy refused to accept it. Most unusual but a pleasant surprise

Obviously if you are away from home a lot tips are going to stack up so you are different from a short stay visitor.

In a nutshell.. From us. .. Sleazy or greedy guys don't get tips. Genuinely helpful and pleasant guys may.

In fact if you ask a local for guidance on how much to tip you usually won't get past 'It's up to you'. That's because ultimately it is up to you and what you can afford.

AGRA AND BACK TO DELHI - END OF PHASE ONE

We had a pretty terrible night in the Prashant hotel in Agra last night.  The hotel was full of Indian families who left their children screaming down the corridors until after 2 in the morning and that just added to the already bad smell of drains and the leaking showers and toilets and damp rising halfway up all the walls and the stained bedsheets...(thank god we took your advice on the silk sleeping bag liners Caroline! ).

it culminated in Moira going down to shout at the management at 2 and then waking up the families with a 'wake-up' call at 6 when we had to get up- just out of spite!

We started the day with Moira having had no sleep with a splitting headache - not a good time to see the Taj.  Anyway our driver Nipu took us to the Taj and it was as beautiful as we had hoped in the early morning mist.  The location on the bend in the Yamuna river is really breathtaking and although the inside is an anti-climax over the visual impact of the exterior, overall it stands as a great world heritage building and for us romantics a timeless symbol of love.

We consoled ourselves by walking into the 5 star Oberoi hotel Amarvillas for coffee and cakes afterwards and you should have smelled the scent from the ladies loos in there!  Moira and I lingered wistfully trying to wash away the stench of drains from Prashant and replace with 5 star french parfum. The patisserie and huge doughnuts and exellent coffee served by 'the best looking Indian I've seen so far this trip' (Moira's words) all these luxuries helped to revive our flagging spirits and we floated from heaven slowly back to earth as we speeded along the amazing expressway from Agra to Delhi - feeling as if we had been transported onto an English motorway.  There are some amazing building works going on in Delhi from sports stadia to business buildings and apartment blocks... and slowly we were brought back to earth as we turned off into old Delhi from the Bath like buildings of Connaught square (much of New Delhi designed by English architect Lutyens) to the familiar shacks of old Delhi and Pahar Ganj area.

We approached our new hotel with trepidation after last night but have been pleasantly surprised at Heritage Home hotel which is not quite finished but shining and new in modern style in the old street- a haven of cleanliness and comfort amid the usual dirt and squalor.

We had a nice meal in a little cafe called Festa cafe just down the road from our driver's company office of Truly India Travel where we met Ajay who had organised the last 2 weeks for us.  

Our meal was veg jalfrezi - delicious, yellow dal, rice biryani and some funny name for green round beans in nutty creamy sauce - mango lassi and lovely coffee - night night now as it's 5 oclock wake-up for Varanasi tomorrow and from then on we are under our own steam - watch this space!

After visiting the Taj we went along the river and across to the Baby Taj built by a Persian vizier grandfather of Mumtaz Mahal for whom the big Taj was built.  This was worth seeing for the fineness of the work on the marble grilles and the pietra dura inside in the niches - we liked this one inside much more than the Taj inside as the latter was rather uncomfortable, hot and claustrophobic inside whereas the Baby Taj was exquisite in its details.  The gardens around were also very pleasant.  We saw the fort from a distance where the builder of the Taj, Shah Jahan was imprisoned by his son- and one can imagine how he could see a glimpse of his work of art from his tiny cell window where he lived until he died and was buried next to his dearly beloved wife under the Taj.

The baby Taj looks like one of those intricate Arabic inlaid jewellery boxes- really lovely and it did not disappoint inside

The ceiling of the Baby Taj was particularly intricate - we loved it.

KEOLADEO UNESCO BIRD SANCTUARY AND AGRA

We left Mandawa at 8 am in a light mist and were taken to the Heritage Hotel where we were booked in to originally but the film crew had taken our room - so they brought us to the right Haveli hotel for a nice breakfast

After breakfast they allowed us to use the loo in the bridal suite which was all like this:

We then set off on our 600km drive across through Jaipur again and to Agra.  On the way we visited the lovely UNESCO bird sanctuary of Keoladeo where John rode a bike with the guide and Moira and I had a rickshaw - never seen so many birds so close together and deer and jackals - finally I have seen a blue kingfisher!

The final 50 km was in the dark to Agra - really scary and they had had a small rain storm before we arrived - traffic was mayhem - hotel leaves a lot to be desired but What the hell - Taj Mahal tomorrow

MANDAWA

We set off from Bikaner after a leisurely breakfast and the journey was on quite a good road and the surroundings became very sandy and desert-like with very dusty wind.  The road to Mandawa was off the main road for a about an hour and quite rough.  The town of Mandawa was on the silk route and the home of some of the rich merchants which they built first and then as they got richer they made these houses their less opulent Winter palaces and built a big main palace in the big city such as Delhi.  The havelis here are less restored and more raw, which is interesting to see the poorer end of the wealthy after the opulence of the Maharajahs'.

We had a nice lunch in Monica's recommended by Lonely Planet.  We have been put off by the aggressive nature of the young lads trying to take us round the havelis or to their uncles' shops- this has spoiled our experience here and we are pleased not to be spending longer than a day here.  The hotel is clean and nice and restaurant is comfortable to sit in.

We learned a little more about Hinduism in the havelis and the temple - but we were almost conned in the temple by a man we thought was religious but turned out to ask us for money and try to take us to his shop- which rather spoiled that.  More flies here on the fruit and veg.

Apparently the main haveli we were supposed to stay in is full of bollywood film actors filming - they use Mandawa a lot and have been here for a month.  We have breakfast there tomorrow.

Off tomorrow on a massive trip across Rajahstan via Bharatpur to Agra and Taj Mahal.  The easy bit is coming to an end.

Interesting picture over our bed today!

This is the Main Street in Mandawa and we are next to the Hindu temple - chanting will start at 5.30 am.

BIKANER FORT AND PALACE

Walked into town which was an education dodging sleeping dogs, cows and zooming tuktuks.  The fort is a lovely shape with the usual romantic towers and a lovely garden they are doing up - the interior was one of the most sumptuous we have seen and we have seen a few...

We then walked into deep town and to the railway station to the recommended Bengali sweet shop and had a very authentic lassi prepared with cream topping drizzled with rosewater and we tried rasgulla which John managed but Moira and I just managed to taste - it was rather like eating a cotton ball soaked in sugary rosewater and talcum powder!  

We tried to catch a tuktuk home but couldn't make ourselves understood so had to brave the long walk back and arrived at the hotel shattered to partake of Kingfisher beers again.  

The evening ended with some traditional Rajahstani music played live and grandma singing her heart out.  Of course the young daughter spied Moira tapping her feet and she did us proud out the front and shamed the rest of the dining room crowd - then she tried to get me and John up - and John graced us with yet another rendition of the 'flaccid Egyptian' trying to keep time with Moira's 'Turkish wiggle'.  Actually they were very good musicians and it was excellent live entertainment - the first so far this trip - we are building up to Goa Trance in a couple of weeks!

Fairly early to bed tonight and on to Mandawa tomorrow about 3 hours away.

You'd have been proud of your muv, Caroline, leading the show!

BIKANER

Set off very early this morning from Jaisalmer - the faithful were very early to rise and chanting both at the mosque and the Hindu temples.  The road was fairly empty and straight and we saw the back end of some small deer in the savannah type landscape and then loads of wild peacocks sitting on walls and crossing the roads just like the pheasants in England.

Stopped at the halfway point at a dirty transport cafe with no tables and chairs - just metal beds threaded with old inner tube and a plank of painted wood on each bed (bed and board?)  with salt and pepper pot on each board.  The men were very amused as we sat down and ordered sweet tea in small metal cups - we were worried about drinking from the cup.  but we bit the bullet!  We then watched the chap in the corner creating the paratha rounds by patting and waving them in the air and putting them into the gas tandoor with a leather pad -(the naans) and the parathas he fried in oil on the top.  

We tried onion ones made with two pancakes patted hard together with lots of chopped onion between.  Then he hit it really hard with the palm of his hand and then rolled it with rolling pin and then put in wok like pan and oil.  This was served with dhal - in watery sauce and salt- very nice and we are still alive to tell the tale 2 hours later.

On the outskirts of Bikaner we met a level crossing and the train was a long time in arriving - meanwhile the tuktuks vans and camel pulling carts were jostling for position - the train passed carrying coal in 45 carriages - then the chap pulled up the barriers and one failed and fell on the ambulance waiting at the front breaking its blue flashing light.  Then there was a manoeuvre to get a small van off the middle of the track trapped between the 2 dropped barriers - at one stage it was along the railway line trying to reverse off - nobody would give way and they were all tooting - nobody took any notice of the poor railway man trying to direct traffic and fix the broken barrier.  Eventually with much squeezing we gradually started to move and passed a huge queue of big trucks - Bikaner is a big cement and brick area.  They have just brought in a law preventing the bricks from being made in the old way as a huge pyramid just smoldering and givingup fumes - now they have to burn underground with tall chimney stacks like the potteries in the old days.

 We are staying in the Harasar Haveli whose owner showed Paul Merton around Bikaner including the rat temple at Deshnok about 30k away - sadly beyond our reach on this trip.  We have just eaten tandoori chicken and garlic naans and John had chicken tikka masala with banana or pineapple lassis. After a rest we will head off into town and the fort and palace