Photos from Bikaner and Mandawa...

We arrived from Jaisalmer with the weather reflecting our mood...a bit grey. And we awoke to pouring rain when we were supposed to be getting an early start for Amritsar. See how wet the bikes are???


Given the weather, we decided to spend the day in Bikaner, we would go and visit the fort and maybe try to see a palace or the rat temple. Our initial thoughts were that it was going to be like the other forts that we had seen - we were in fact pleasantly surprised.


The fort is still owned by the Maharaja and is maintained by a trust that has been set up (similar to Jodhpur). We got to explore it's many rooms, walking along the numerous corridors of the palace. The rooms were beautiful, again there was gold paint and much spleandor and decoration.



This ceiling had been painted with images of clouds and the bottoms of the walls showed rain. This represents the god Indra, who is the god of rain.


An example of the geometric floor designs in the courtyard (yes, it's very wet!).


There were also tiles that had been imported from Holland and China.


We spotted this scraggily plant which had some very amusing wording below it! Maybe we should not sniff it because it would bite our noses off :-)


There was also an amazing display of the Maharaja's arsenal...this is only one very small part. There were swords, knives, guns, swords with guns attached, sneaky daggers, flintlock rifles, shields, armour....rooms and rooms of the stuff!!!! There was even a WWI airplane in one section.


We are constantly amused here in India. When searching for the ladies toilets we found this sign. We just had to follow the pointing breast :-)


We never made it to the palace or the rat temple as the weather was intermittent rain and sun and we frequently had to take shelter. Oh well, we can always go back :-). The next day we were able to move on to Mandawa. We had been informed that it was a great place to stop on the way to Delhi and that we could spend the afternoon enjoying the havelis and get an overnight stop. It is in the Shekhawati region - an up and coming tourist region in Haryana, between Rajasthan and Delhi.

On the way we saw this...interesting sight. We are not sure if it was roadkill or poaching or what. Looks like a buffalo and not a sacred cow, though. I know the photo is small, but up close you can see the big smiles on their faces - they didn't mind posing with their "prize" :-)


Mandawa was a nice surprise - we had a great time here, the haveli's were amazing. The buildings were all decorated with frescos of scenes from desert life, modern life and the classics including the Hindu gods. The owners were trading elsewhere (e.g. on the coast, for the East India Company) and would build these beautiful houses for their families to live the good life back home.

Our young guide took us on a tour of the town. Our first stop was at a Ganesh temple, also elaboratley painted.


Then we were led through the narrow streets to visit many of the havelis. Very few are lived in, their owners now living in the big cities. Many of these abandoned havelis remained in the family, but just have a local caretaker watching over them (to whom we occasionally needed to pay 10 rupees to for the pleasure of viewing the haveli).

Beautiful Belgian glass details on the archway.


Elaborate painting on all the surfaces (if it's white then it's new!)





This was an amazing dining room, complete with chandaliers (well we think it is). The picture does not do it justice!!!


One of the architectural details of a Shekhawati haveli is a dog leg entryway - it provides some privacy for the main courtyard (the women's section) from the front courtyard (where the male members of the house meet with outsiders for social or business reasons). The model in this photo is our young guide :-)


Details from some of the painting....in amongst the images of gods, scenes from the Kama Sutra (involving people and animals, but not together!!!! :-), traditional Rajasthani elephants, horses and camels we found these interesting items:

Surprisingly, bicycles figured in many paintings (of course we had to take photos :-)





There were other modern images...planes, telephones, trains.


The classic Rajasthani elephant.


These are from our hotel - a modern interpretation of the old style.



These are some of the havelis that are currently occupied, the last one has been significantly restored by one of the hotel owners in town.




One of the caretakers was building this bed while watching over one of the havelis...


Here we are...packing up for the last time on this leg of the trip...



and then we were off to Delhi and today we put the bikes into storage for the next few months.

That's all the photos for now. Catch you later!