Bikaner to Jodhpur, India - Havali Hotel
We visited the Junagarh Fort constructed 1588-1593. It has 986-meter long walls, 37 bastions, a moat and two entrances. Inside are rooms and courtyards of sandstone and carved marble. Many of the rooms had stained glass windows, furniture, clothing or weaponary from the earlier periods. Examples of furnishings are the king and queens beds, an exquisite baby swing inlaid with gold, large guns mounted and fired from a camel, another from an elephant and a German Fokker 1st World War aircraft.
Karni Mata Temple (Temple of Rats at Beshmok)
According to a 14th century legend, Karni Mata, a Hindu God, had all storytellers reincarnated as rats after the Hindu God of death refused to grant a request to bring a storytellers son back to life. This was believed to have deprived the God of Death the souls of these people. The rats are now cared for and worshipped by some followers of the Hindu religion.
We had to remove our shoes to enter. The rats are everywhere and they are fed milk and corn meal. If one walks over your foot it's considered very auspicious. If you see the white rat you are considered very lucky. I guess we weren't either of these as all I noticed was the gritty feel of scattered corn meal and who knows what else as we traversed temple.
We reached Jodhpur and after being shown several hotels, chose one in the old city that was in a great location and had an incredible rooftop view of the city and a nearby huge fort built on a hill (Mehrangarh). It was the evening of the Diwali Festival when we arrived. One of the aspects of the celibration is fireworks, which could be seen and heard throughout the city for 5-6 hours. Our hotel had it's own fireworks, which we were invited to participate in igniting. As I suspected, safety was not a serious consideration, and one round fell over and went off towards all of us who were watching. Fortunately no one was seriously injured.
We visited the Junagarh Fort constructed 1588-1593. It has 986-meter long walls, 37 bastions, a moat and two entrances. Inside are rooms and courtyards of sandstone and carved marble. Many of the rooms had stained glass windows, furniture, clothing or weaponary from the earlier periods. Examples of furnishings are the king and queens beds, an exquisite baby swing inlaid with gold, large guns mounted and fired from a camel, another from an elephant and a German Fokker 1st World War aircraft.
Karni Mata Temple (Temple of Rats at Beshmok)
According to a 14th century legend, Karni Mata, a Hindu God, had all storytellers reincarnated as rats after the Hindu God of death refused to grant a request to bring a storytellers son back to life. This was believed to have deprived the God of Death the souls of these people. The rats are now cared for and worshipped by some followers of the Hindu religion.
We had to remove our shoes to enter. The rats are everywhere and they are fed milk and corn meal. If one walks over your foot it's considered very auspicious. If you see the white rat you are considered very lucky. I guess we weren't either of these as all I noticed was the gritty feel of scattered corn meal and who knows what else as we traversed temple.
We reached Jodhpur and after being shown several hotels, chose one in the old city that was in a great location and had an incredible rooftop view of the city and a nearby huge fort built on a hill (Mehrangarh). It was the evening of the Diwali Festival when we arrived. One of the aspects of the celibration is fireworks, which could be seen and heard throughout the city for 5-6 hours. Our hotel had it's own fireworks, which we were invited to participate in igniting. As I suspected, safety was not a serious consideration, and one round fell over and went off towards all of us who were watching. Fortunately no one was seriously injured.
posted by Chris at 10:00 PM
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