It’s over 300 miles from Delhi to Bikaner so we’d booked a 1st class rail ticket several weeks previously on the Duronto Express, departing New Delhi at 11.15 but actually starting from somewhere near Kolkata around 17.00 the previous day. For some reason, the day before travel, Debbie decided to check the on-time performance of the train and found that it had been between 2 and 6 hours late on every running in the previous month – brilliant, will we be sitting around in a station for bloody hours? She then found that there was an alternative train, STARTING from Delhi Sarai Rohilla station (about 3Km further on from New Delhi station) leaving at 0840 and which usually ran on time. So new tickets were purchased, but 2nd class was the best available, and a refund secured on the original ones. Steve really has got the hang of the IRCTC website!

An early start on a crisp Monday morning to get ahead of the traffic, Steve ordered an Uber at a cost of less than 2 quid for the 5Km journey across central Delhi. Traffic was fine but we did witness some of the edgier and more deprived areas, and poverty we’d not experienced on our tour the previous day. Debbie was wondering why the driver didn’t follow the signposted direction to the station, and it soon became clear that his end-point was 7 minutes earlier than the route that Steve was tracking to the station on Google Maps. And then he stopped the car, by the side of a road in a less than salubrious part of Delhi. We said “no, railway station” but he pointed at his phone map and said “this is destination, my job is done”. Mild panic, there was no way on Earth that we were getting out of the car here, saw Debbie just offering him money to get us to the station. As it turned out, a side road wasn’t far away and led to the opposite side of the station platforms, and we got away with a Rs 100 (less than a quid) tip. On quizzing Steve, it turned out that he’d put the station address in the app when selecting the destination, because it wasn’t possible to specify the station – that explained things but…..

After an uneventful journey of almost 8 hours, passing the time reading/blogging/snoozing/playing chess, with Steve on the upper bunk as our compartment-companion had the other bottom bunk, we arrived at Bikaner ahead of schedule at 1615. In the rush to get off we think Steve left his Kindle behind – but he sees that as an excuse for a tech-refresh, seeing as it had a crack in the case. Then a swarm of tuk-tuk drivers descended, crowding Debbie against a wall and making her feel incredibly uncomfortable. Not sure why she was worried, it was bright daylight in a crowded station with officials around – nothing bad was going to happen. In some ways we had bought it on ourselves – the early arrival meant we’d not prepared ourselves to put on confident game faces to run the gauntlet of tuk tuk drivers & have destination top of mind, and so we ended up paying well over the odds just to get away from the mob – Rs 200 (less than £2) but really should’ve been Rs 100 (maximum) for the 1 mile journey to our homestay – and then inevitably the driver allegedly had no change so Steve deftly whipped the Rs 500 note out of his hand and marched into a cafe to get some! Learnings for next time – know exactly where you are going and how much you are prepared to pay, tell the drivers that and play them off against each other if necessary, and hold back small denomination notes to pay the correct amount for tuk-tuk fares!

Udai Niwas îs a small boutique family-run homestay with 6 rooms, set behind the very popular (with young things) Cafe Indra, and an absolute bargain at £23/night including breakfast – with another £4/night cash back through Agoda – for a good sized ensuite room with aircon and complimentary decent coffee on arrival. We booked for 3 nights, even though we’d be taking a sleeper train and leaving around 23.00 on the 3rd night – extravagant but worth it to keep a base until our late night departure. Having not eaten anything all day except a bag of crisps and a packet of Bourbon biscuits, and having limited our drinks as Indian 2nd class train toilets aren’t the nicest, we were famished and dehydrated so went straight to the Cafe for a drink (no beer sadly) and a wood fired pizza. Debbie almost squealed with joy to see pineapple on the pizza menu, albeit with an apology to Italy, so a 12″ Hawaiian Chicken with Cheesy Burst (whatever that is) it was. God only knows how Debbie convinced Steve to share that concoction! Cheesy Burst turned out to be something like Bechamel sauce between 2 layers of pizza base and the chicken salami and jalapeños seem to have been forgotten somewhere along the line, so pineapple, sweetcorn and olives with custard-like goo wasn’t the most enjoyable pizza ever but it stopped us passing out with hunger. We later discovered that beer was available, but only in the courtyard or dining room of the homestay – definitely not allowed in the cafe, or in bedrooms for some reason. We may or may not fathom the rules around alcohol by the time we leave India.

Bikaner is on the edge of the Thar Desert, less than 100Km from the border with Pakistan, and is far less visited than some other Rajasthan cities, with tourists seeking the desert-city experience usually opting for Jaisalmer instead. We are doing both as we have the luxury of time and Bikaner was a convenient mid-way stop between Delhi and Jaisalmer. There are 2 must-see attractions here; the Fort and the Rat Temple. We decided to give the latter a miss as we didn’t fancy roaming barefoot amongst 20,000 sacred rodents believed to carry the souls of the deceased and ready to be reincarnated when the rats die.

We wandered from our homestay towards the city centre, along long straight roads with heavy traffic and many cattle – some lying peacefully alongside a former Russian tank, others navigating the traffic in a group, and one even contemplating a zebra crossing. On nearing the fort the noise of car/bike horns was overtaken by that of wannabe tour guides, and somehow Steve managed to engage with Ali, an older gentleman wearing a knitted tank top who promised to give us the best tour of the whole of Bikaner for a couple of quid – yeah right, plus a stop at his mate’s carpet/antique/jewellery shop where we’d be forced to buy something no doubt. He was still waiting for us when we left the fort, remembering Steve’s name, and we saw him again the following day in the middle of the old town when we were in the back of a tuk tuk and he was driving his in the opposite direction – again he called out to Steve. We don’t think they get many Westerners in these parts and Ali was desperate to be the one to part us from some of our Rupees!

Junagarh Fort was indeed the highlight of Bikaner – not on a hill like other Rajasthani forts but no less imposing. A late 16th Century masterpiece, ornately decorated and with possessions of the Maharajas exhibited, including randomly a WWI De Havilland bomber!

Lallgarh Palace was a beautiful building, still home to the royal family of Bikaner but mostly sold off to convert into a couple of luxury hotels. We confidently walked into one of them for a look around and were met with emptiness. All very grand but eerily quiet and the swimming pool was drained – we’d have been mightily pissed off if Debbie had managed to convince Steve to splash the cash to stay there! A small museum had a quite fascinating collection of photos of the Bikaner Royal Family and showed clearly the pomp and ceremony, privilege and the relationship with the British Royals.

We ventured into the Old Town, heeding the guide book warnings that we’d inevitably get lost and wondering where the hell our tuk tuk was taking us. Our target destination was the Bhandreshwar Jain Temple, and it was the most exquisitely decorated place (gaudy according to Rough Guide – how rude) looked after by a temple priest with bright orange dyed spiked hair.

Jains are an interesting minority religion followed by only 2% of the Indian population. They don’t believe in specific gods, rather a general cosmic force and karma. As they believe that all living things have a soul they are vegetarian but also avoid eating any plant based foods if it would mean killing the plant, so no bulbs, tubers or whole vegetables. Really that limits them to beans and seeds – if you think your vegan friends are awkward to cater for don’t invite any Jains to dinner! They are allowed to eat dairy products but go to great lengths to ensure the animals’ welfare.

Jains are also restricted in the occupations they can pursue and many are accountants and money lenders. Consequently some accumulated large fortunes which explains the ornateness of the temples and the splendour of the havellis (mansions) that they constructed.

A wander through the chaos of the old town showed us real life on the streets of Bikaner – a little less chaotic than Old Delhi but only a little. We passed by a series of grand havellis, built for 3 Jain brothers (1 each) and then out to the main gate to track down a tuk tuk for our next destination. A uniformed guy helped us, speaking to drivers, negotiating a rate, giving us his number in case of issues – Debbie asked whether he expected any issues, the answer was no but she did wonder whether it was all an elaborate scam and he was just someone dressed up in a uniform. India does make you suspicious and on your guard, sometimes/usually unfairly so – probably 95% of people are genuine and trying to help, and most of the rest just trying to make a quick Rupee from charging tourists significantly more than locals, and just a very small minority trying to execute a more elaborate/costly scam.

Our destination was the National Research Centre for Camels about 10Km out of town – Asia’s largest camel-breeding farm. It’d have been rude not to visit as we were on the edge of the Thar Desert after all, Bikaner is renowned for its famously sturdy beasts and the Camel Corps were apparently a much feared component of the imperial battle formation. This is breeding season so our guide explained the mating process, showed us the randy young boy camels gazing through holes in walls at the in-season girls, the pregnant ladies, the maternity ward with the newborns – all quite fascinating. And then they obviously tried to flog us all manner of camel-related items and tat, which we resisted (“no room in rucksack” or “we are travelling for 2 years” are now our standard answers) but we did give in on the camel-milk chocolate which tasted OK.

Our homestay owner very kindly drove us to the very garishly illuminated station to catch our overnight train and on the journey we learned that he was in the tourism industry having previously been Operations Director for the whole of Asia for G Adventures, but having moved back to his hometown of Bikaner from Delhi was now doing a smaller role for them while he and his wife built up their hospitality business there. We mentioned that we weren’t sure of our plans for July/August, before we go to Bali in late August, as it’s monsoon season in Thailand/Laos/Vietnam/Cambodia. He suggested Central Asia – the ‘Sthans’ – we may need to look into that as they haven’t previously been on our travel radar.

Did we like Bikaner? We’re not sure – there were some interesting places, and it was a convenient stop en-route, but we wouldn’t say it’s a ‘must do’.

Next stop Jaisalmer…..