Mariekjeks!

I found Indian Marie bisquits in a basket in our room. The Norwegians will get the significance of this discovery.

After a simple (and for Susanne, rather limited) breakfast we were ready for action at 9 sharp. So was our guide, Vipin. He brought us around the part of town where our hotel was and showed and explained the history of the havelis. A haveli is a large building with many rooms and usually two internal gardens/courtyards. Our hotel was one of the largest ones, but the others were also very impressive. The first thing we were shown were all the paintings along the outside of the havelis, telling all kinds of different stories from when they were buildt (200 to 400 years ago) up to the time of flight and grammophones. We got the stories of the Maharajas, the Rajput, the british and the chineese, as well as all the gods.

We were also allowed into two of the havelis. They are so impressive inside, many rooms and lots of space. Tiny little stairs leading, around corners, to strange places. As the women were not allowed outside "back then", they spent most of their lives inside the gates of the haveli. They still had countless little windows to study the world from though, and they had access to the large roof terraces. The buildings were smartly engineered, and remained cool on warm days and considerably above outside temperature on cold days like today.

And it sure was cold this morning! When the alarm went off at 6:45, all I could do was cuddle up under as many blankets as I could find - fully clothed - and hope I could gain a little more warmth. Before eating at ca. 8, we visited the computer room to upload our latest blogs. That was a nice computer room. Not only was it very warm (yay!), but it was behind a couple of window-sized double wooden doors halfway up a staircase.

Anyway, back to the havelis. The first one we looked inside was rather run down and no longer in use. The second one was still inhabited by a family and in very good order. Here we walked up to the roof and had a nice view over the local surroundings. We also visited a well, our guide saying it was 4000 meters deep! We asked if 400 meters was not more likely, but he insisted it was no less than 4 kilometers deep, and unique in the area. It looked VERY deep anyway.

In the basement of one haveli - down one of those strange tiny little stairs - there was a little shop. Here a guy was selling all kinds of old things he had found laying around. Anything from eating utensils from eras gone by to watch-faces and parts of dolls. Up a different set of stairs and suddenly we were out in the sunlight again, and it was a lot less cold. The thick fog we had found to have encapsulated the area was also gone. We then followed the guide to his grandparents textile shop. We were served nice tea (and everyone knows that I dont like tea at all, but that one WAS nice!), had an interesting conversation with the brother? of our guide. The children of the brother also came by. Then we were showed the products. Now, browsing cloth in India is something entierly else than in Europe. You are treated to a seat on a nice padded bench, offered more tea (omnomnom), and the various pieces of cloth are laid out on the floor in front of you. Once you have seen the entire collection - 15, 20 pieces or more - items are then studied in more details in reverse order and any items you might be interested in are put aside. Once you have narrowed your selection down to a few items, you are being shown these again and get more information regarding them. As I was rather cold this morning, I took inspiration from the head-scarf/shawl the shopkeeper was wearing when we entered, and ended up picking a wooled shawl. It is black and orange and carries the symbols of the elephant and the camel, both very important in Hindi culture. I paid Rs1000 for mine, or €15. It was handmade by gypsi women doing work for the family. Susanne ended up with a large beautiful wall-carpet. It was initially 7500 but we ended up at 6500. Not sure if Susanne's credit card would have the funds, and not having more than just enough for the piece of cloth, I asked the shop keeper if it would be a possibility to have it sent to New Delhi at the end of the month and he would get the money then? "Of course, no problem" was the answer. Amazing! He would spend a day each was on the bus, another day through Delhi on tuk-tuk, and eat, for only 600 rupies extra. Now that is customer service! Still, Susanne's  barclay-card pulled through at the hotel and the transaction was sorted then. The carpet has been rolled up and packed in plastic and newspapers and put in an in itself beautiful handmade/-embroided bag which we got for free.

Our baggage had already vanished into our little Tata. We set out around 12:30, and according to our cloth-selling guide and brother had explained that the roads towards Bikaner were far better than they had been so far, and that turned out to be mostly correct. We were able to keep good speed, our little people-mover topping out at ~100km/t. That is still fast enough in a country where the traffic is only limited (or guided) by the law of physics. Overtakings are done at whatever side has more space (jeeps generally going over the ditch on the left side, motorbikes everywhere), and one only turns back to ones own lane once you can clearly read the letters on the sign on the oncoming truck. Thats also when you doublecheck if there are anyone passing said oncoming truck and taking up your own lane. If there is, you check the other side of the truck to see if there is a jeep or a bike. If there isnt, thats where you go. I am not sure where you go if there is a jeep at the same time, but I am sure that will work itself out too. So far, we have been a jeep, a bus, a moped, an us, a moped, a tuk-tuk, a truck and another jeep in the width - in that order, the four last coming towards us - on a two-lane road. There was a bit of honking and some flashing lights and then it was a jeep, an us, a bike and a bus driving along after eachother. As our driver explains, any car in India must have 3 things; Good horn, good brakes and good luck. I would add good lights to that list though, they come in handy when its dark and there are hundreds of people walking, camels trotting, failing cars or parked trucks waiting to be hit along the side of the road without any sort of reflex.

I must say I am starting to get very used to the road cultur here. You use the space you can find and think 4-dimensionally. Not only length and width, but also height (our bonnet fits under most trucks) and time (where will they be then if we overtake them now with that truck coming there with that jeep behind it...). Yes, the jeeps are everwhere, especially in the oncoming lane. I would absolutely reccomend spending a little more money and having a jeep as your car here if possible though, Rajasthan is jeep country. Even with the good roads today, there are many rough or flooded areas our car struggles with (and that noone would consider taking a new Golf or similar through, it would just come apart).

Our first stop was a very nice roadside foodstop. All touristness gone, we were lucky to have our guide translating for us. He found us some very yummy food though and we were sat down in a nice green garden, a great contrast to the desert environment we had been crossing for hours. It was somewhere around 3, maybe 4 then - time takes on a less important role here except when it comes to tourist attraction closing times. After a very nice and very cheap meal (Rs235, less than €4) we were back on the road again. It was still over a 100km to Bikaner, and it took ca. 2 hours before we reached Karni Mata Temple (http://www.karnimata.com/), the rat temple. It was interesting walking barefoot (I was wearing socks, Sue was not) among an endless stream of furry little balls. The were very inquisitive and loved biting on the ropes coming out of the bottom of Sue's pants. And her toes, which she was somewhat less enthusiastic about. Apparently, my socks were less interesting. After a round in the temple we went outside again, retrieved our shoes (still amazed by how they remember us and found our shoes before we were halfway over to the shoe-parking-garage). Our driver was lurking around (where DOES he go all the time?) and we were shortly on our way again. We then stopped at a Jain temple. Again it was off with the shoes, and I was now also sockless as I didnt want to stuff the ratfeecesinfested socks in my boots, and I got the cold marble floor experience. I found the temple quite interesting, a hyperdetailed sort of simplistic style. Once again we found our driver waiting around just outside. This time we were also ambushed by kids wanting ball-point pens. Susanne tells me that they are not actually in need of pens, but will rather sell them. Interesting. We did not have any pens to offer though, even when the school of kids went into a frenzy at the sigth of Sue's OrbIT company pen. Like she would ever give THAT away. We passed the Junagarh Fort as we drove through Bikaner, another impressive structute which we will get a closer look at tomorrow. We then found our way to this hotel, Hotel Sagar. It is at least as impressive as the one last night, but buildt in a completely different style. We have moved into a more arabian-inspired/islamic region, and so the building is carrying a completely different style. It is a three-story box with an open courtyard in the middle going all the way down to the ground, where the restaurant is located. We are lodged on the third floor. The courtyard balcony has full overview of the restaurant and our room has a small window with potential overview over the city. Right now it is full of pidgeon however. Loud pidgeon. Our room is large and the furniture is mostly consisting of intricately carved hardwood. The building itself carries far less decorative details, but the paint scheme makes up for the lack of structural detail.

Pictures are uploaded to http://flickr.com/aronn but I do not have the bandwidth to add them here in a practical way.