Bikaner is a dusty city of about half a million people and we are staying slightly out of the city centre opposite the velodrome and the Dr Karni Singh Stadium both of which are just across the road. We decide to extend our stay here for another night and, because it is so uncomfortably hot we are moving to an air conditioned room for a mere 200 rupees a night more.
The fabulous Junagarh fort is the only one in Rajasthan not to be built on raised ground. The foundation stone was laid in 1589 by Raja Raisingh Ji, the sixth ruler of the Rathore dynasty of Bikaner and has never been breached. It’s imposing crenulated walls lean inwards and are defended by 37 bastions. But it is the interiors more than the exterior that give this fortress the wow factor. They are among the most lavish and elaborate we have seen. We take an audio guide rather than one of the many Indian guides available that way we can wander around at our own pace. It turns out to be a good move for another reason as well; the stewards are happy to open up several of the areas of the palace buildings normally closed to the public and we are surreptitiously led into some of the unrestored rooms for a few extra rupees.
After having a tasty lunch in a simple cafe open to the street and with the kitchen in full view we pick up a rickshaw driver to take us round the Old City. He won’t give us a price but simply says ‘as you like’; a disconcerting phrase we have heard several times before and which infers you have the choice to pay what you like and implies that whatever you pay will be more than they could have earned ferrying a local around. There are some beautiful old havelis in maze of narrow streets that make the Old City most of them shuttered and looking rather run down but probably still inhabited, although it is difficult to tell. One turns out to be the ‘backside’ (a common, and to us rather comical, Indian way of describing the rear) of a very upmarket hotel. We weave through the throng of animals, camel carts, tut-tuts and people that crowd the bazaar with its shops opening directly over the open drains and onto the street passing along the way handcarts selling all manner of dried food stuffs, including, incredible one piled high with loose crisps! Eventually we arrive at the Bhadasar Jain Temple dating from 15th century; a particularly beautiful with a huge dome decorated with delicate and vibrantly painted murals and an internal rectangular tower rising up through the building carved with voluptuous painted figures. We attempt to enter the nearby Laxminath Temple to be halted by shouts calling us back; it is closed to tourists at this time of day and we have to content ourselves with a circuit of the exterior and a picture of what must be at least a hundred pigeons feasting on the offerings of grain left outside.
Our rickshaw driver drops us outside our hotel and we profer 100 rupees; a generous amount given that the manager of our hotel , we’ve discovered, only earns 25 rupees an hour. But the rickshaw driver isn’t having any of it; he want 150. It’s so small an amount of money it’s not worth the effort to argue, but so much for paying ‘as you like’!
The hotel has a very good restaurant on the roof top with probably the best views of this surprisingly green desert city. It is very unlike Jaisalmer in that respect with trees seeming to provide an extensive canopy across its low-rise topography. Bikaner is also very different architecturally, gone are the golden tones of Jaisalmer’s carved sandstone, here boxy rendered houses painted in a variety of muted colours are predominant outside the old walled city.