We continued our exploration of the desert kingdoms of Rajasthan by moving from Jaisalmer to Bikaner. Our driver, Dev, can never go more than 70 kph. The poor road conditions, other vehicles, cattle, camels, goats and people all get in the way of picking of any kind of speed.

After a long drive, the first thing we wanted to do was go to the bathroom. Bathrooms have been an interesting part of our trip. You never really know what to expect when you enter a bathroom. The facilities may have a western toilet (sometimes with a seat, other times not) or an eastern porcelain squatting toilet. We have heaped many blessings upon our trainer, Karen, for keeping our quad muscle strength up! Not all the bathrooms have been indoors. Some have walls but no doors between stalls. One place had no doors or ceilings! We have all carried lots of toilet paper and hand sanitizer (thanks Val). Usually there is a bathroom attendant. This person is there to clean the bathrooms and ensure that get a serviette. You need to tip the person as you enter the bathroom. Often this is 10 rupees (20 cents). However, if you do not have the proper change, you give what you have. A common discussion between us is a survey of who has what in terms of small bills or coins. We are lucky in Canada that we can stop at almost any gas station and have a bit of a “comfort break”. Not so much here. We survived and developed a good sense of humour about taking care of our basic bodily functions.

We arrived late for our visit to the Bikaner Castle. Our guide met us at the van and hustled us into the castle (without letting us pee first!) and we explored a huge castle at breakneck speed before it closed for the night.

This palace was spectacular because the royals of the area inhabited it until 1964 and then a trust has maintained it fairly well. This allowed us to get a good look at how these folks lived.

For example, it gets dark here at 6 pm throughout the year. To overcome the darkness, they put mirrors (and in some castles, diamonds, really, diamonds!) on the walls and ceilings and then put lamps in front so that the light can be reflected all over the room. The walls were brightly coloured the floors and doorways were covered in colourful fabrics or carpets depending upon the seasons.

The next stage of our city tour was to get into a Tonga (horse drawn buggy) and do a tour of the “old city and market”. This sounds romantic doesn’t it? Well, the reality was that we got up on our buggy – Dale in back, me beside the driver and then we were plunged into the honking madness of a midsize city at rush hour.

At times our horse simply stopped and refused to go, the driver had to dismount and go pull him along. The traffic was insane. Cars, scooters, camels, etc. all passed us with inches to spare. The only thing that made it possible to relax was that there were incredibly interesting sites to catch our eye. The old mansions in this part of town were beautiful. The markets were brilliantly colourful and the people were engaging. People would wave at us and when we waved back, we would get an amazing smile from them. Karen was particularly good at the wave!

We finished our tour back at the castle and finally got to take that “comfort break”. At that point, we did not care that the bathroom was a) outside), b) had chest high walls and no doors, c) had eastern squat toilets and no toilet paper. We adeptly figured out the system and felt right with the world again J. Then we continued to our hotel.

The palace that we encountered next was our place for the night! OMG it was magnificent. We had rooftop rooms. The elevator was 100 years old and had a seat to make sure you were comfortable to go up one floor! The attendant worked the doors! We then had to walk up three flights to the roof. We felt bad for the baggage wallas (Walla = person who does something) who had to carry up our stuff! The luxury of this palace was stunning. We ate supper outside in the courtyard and slept like royalty.