19/6 Castle Mandawa may have once been a palace but the bed wasn’t fit for a king. You literally had to climb in as the top of the mattress was about level with my chest (OK, no short jokes). It was a poor night’s sleep. Anyway after breakfast we had that walk back to the bus while porters delivered the bags to the bus. It was a pretty uneventful morning bus trip however we did get to see some huge loads on the back of some ridiculously small vehicles. Aussie cops would have a fit if they saw what passed as ‘normal’ here. Mind you I’m told cops here are too busy counting their bribe money to enforce the laws and I have to admit we’ve barely seen a cop anywhere.
Eventually we landed at Bikaner which is home to the famous Junagarh Fort decorated in fine art of the period. The Fort was begun in 1589 by Raja Raisinghji, the 6th ruler of Rathore dynasty of Bikaner. Made of local sandstone (as most forts are here) the first thing you notice is the entry to the fort. The doors are monstrous because of the need to allow elephants to pass. Conversely to stop enemy elephants to knock down the doors they are impregnated with long steel spikes that would pierce the skulls of marauding jumbos. Another feature of Junagarh is the extremely ornate decorations throughout. Most of this work is made of gold including the artwork.
After the fort visit we travelled on Auto-rickshaw to the oldest market place of the area seeing everything from produce to art. Once again these streets were narrow and congested and dirty. Because the cows here have unrestricted access anywhere dung covers the streets, footpaths and doorways. It really is a case of “holy shit Batman. It’s everywhere”. At 42 degrees + it wasn’t the most comfortable day. Little did we know hotter weather was yet to come over the next week.
When we ended the day we arrived at another Maharajah’s Palace for the night. Gajner Palace was again exceptional and Shane & I had a fairly nice room. This palace is placed by a lovely lake (though at this time with the ‘wet’ yet to hit it was a bit low). Shane & I grabbed a Kingfisher beer, world renown as a top drop, and wandered around the grounds investigating the palace. We eventually plonked ourselves on chairs by the lake and watched the deer and boars come in for their evening drink as the green parrots screeched overhead in the trees.
