Today we revisit the Old City on foot to meander the local bazaar and a few of the side streets of this medieval walled town. Bikaner is hardly touched by tourism and there are none of the handicraft shops that characterise the bazaars in Jaisalmer and Jodhpur. This is a genuine local bazaar full off Indians to to do their daily shopping. Many of the streets in this part of the city may once have been paved but now have been worn away and reduced to a combination of dust and years of accumulated plastic rubbish. Anything edible has long since been eaten by dogs, pigs, goats, cows and rats. A dog lies sleeping in the narrow open drain cooling himself in its fetid waters. Every few steps someone greets us, people want to know where we are from, where we are going, how long we are staying. Children want to know our names and do we have pens. Others want us to take their picture so that they can look at themselves on the camera screen – so novel is the digital camera.
Old fashioned barbers shops, usually open to the street, with traditional chairs and giving wet shaves with cut-throat razors are a common sight in India and we step inside one just by the Old City gate so that Andy can get a hair cut. We are led into the back and Andy gets a number 2, not with an electric razer – that would be far too easy – but with scissors and a comb. The cut is followed by a vigorous Indian head massage which involves slapping and pummelling the head and scalp and extends to pulling out the arms and stretching and cracking the fingers much to Andy’s astonishment and pain! The massage is followed by a dusting down and the tidying of the neck hairline with a cut-throat razor. All for a mere 50 rupees (64p)!
The drains around the fort which we pass on our way to and from the centre of town are the most putrid and foul-smelling we have come across in India and that is saying something. It’s such a strong and over-powering stench that it is enough to make you gag. But it’s only in this one street and despite the open drains everywhere the smell of them all seems to be concentrated inexpicably in this one spot.