Bikaner was a blur, a rapid detour before Jaiselmer. We took the “deluxe” bus again – the 2 x 2 seater – and were told we would arrive in the city at six o’clock in the morning. We didn’t. It was 2:30 am. And it was dark and ugly with no hotel in sight by the bus stand. We hadn’t expected to get a room. We wanted to just sleep on the bus, arrive at dawn, see the few sights worth viewing, and leave. Well, really, we only went for one sight, the famous rat temple. Steve had seen it on TV, the masses of gray rats scurrying over the feet of the devotional to bring them good luck. The Karni Mata Temple, where the goddess Karni Mata was responsible for reincarnating people as rats, was

about thirty minutes south of the city in a very tiny otherwise boring village named Deshnok. In the 14th century this goddess had asked Yama, the God of Death, to restore life to the son of a grieving storyteller. Since he didn’t, she wanted to deprive him of human souls as a punishment, and made all dead storytellers into rats this lifetime to be human beings in the next. So the rats there are considered holy and the temple yet another Hindu pilgrimage site.

And so there we were in the middle of the night, dazed after being suddenly awoken from slumber by the bus driver, surprised to be put out so soon on a dark street surrounded by rickshaw drivers trying to get our business, hoping that all our bags were staying safe in the small mob of people swarming us. We hadn’t even looked at places in our new Lonely Planet. It’s best to have some ideas before just showing up like that, a plan so as not to be at the mercy of scammers, but somehow things had gotten all confused and our timing off. We picked a persistent young driver with decent English, or maybe he picked us, and let him show us a few hotels, surely the ones giving him the best commission. The first two were full the sleepy proprietors told us after we woke them up. The third had a cold atmosphere and no character but the rooms were clean and the bathroom had the minimal standards of comfort. We crashed for a few hours and then set off for the day after a breakfast there as flavorful as the hotel itself.
Before going to the temple we took a quick rickshaw guided tour through the old city and its spice market and marveled at the intricate carving and detail work of the sandstone havelis we went by that resembled such ornate houses composed of all wood carvings that it was hard to believe they were rock. To the Jain temple we went, Jainism another religion of a few people still in this part of India, maybe ten percent of the people in Bikaner at most. The temple was ancient and highly decorated, detailed stories painted in bright colors all over the inner walls and columns. The altar was said to be of solid gold and the foundation made with pounds of real butter all those centuries ago. The Jain priest who also inherited the job of caretaker of the temple, the thirty-first in an amazingly long line of family tradition, said that one year when it was forty-eight degrees Celsius in the summer, melted butter boiled up from the depths below. He showed us the oily stains on the beige stone block. The view of the city and surrounding desert from the top was wonderful.

But we were in a hurry. We wanted to quickly see the more disconcerting Karni Mata Temple and then take the same taxi all the way to Jaiselmer five to six hours away. So we loaded up into a SUV looking diesel taxi, white with blue “tourism” logo on the side doors, finding it a bit of a step up in comfort over the economy car taxi we had taken the morning Steve was sick. At least it had air conditioning, which is a plus not so much because it is hot out, but because then you can keep your windows closed to block out all the fumes from the highways and the dust and grit that coats your face and turns white cotton shirts off-white.

The Karni Mata Temple was not exactly what I had expected. I’m not the one that had seen the television preview. I pictured a dark and damp cave-like place with rats in the shadows, scurrying out to surprise people when they tickled the tops of their bare feet with tiny paws. The place was actually open and airy, bright warm sunlit courtyard inviting after passing through the massive main archway. And the rats were not scurrying out of dark shadows; hiding from people as normal rats do that consider us predators. These rats here were large and gray and placid, comfortably pampered, secure in the safety of their brightly lit home. They were all over the wide courtyard, some eating out of pans of grain and rice on the stone floor, some drinking water from similar house pet containers. Others were casually wandering around, looking, playing, sleeping, scampering right up to an inch from our toes, teasing us that they would walk right over our bare feet. And I found myself almost wishing that one would, as it is a harbinger of good luck. They didn't seem so scary, these relatively little dull gray creatures with long grisly tails and curious whiskers.

We approached the central altar, past a cot with a sleeping member of the caretaker’s family covered by a dark blanket with a rat perched on the mid-rift and several beneath and around the bed. The altar itself was restricted – only for Hindus - but we could easily see inside. It looked similar to so many others with offerings of flowers and burning incense except for the addition of those kabas, the holy rodents of Karni Mata eating from the grain and rice that was also offered. We chose to pass, but apparently it brings good luck to devotees who eat from the same pan as the salivating, scampering mass.