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Jainism, Fort, Protest, A Quest for Transport

I decided to make one big day in Bikaner.  The real reason I was in town was so that I wouldn’t have to visit Jodpur twice on my way back from Jaislamer which was something of a dead end. It seemed like a good idea except that it added an extra 4 hours of bus transport and I found a great hotel later in Jodpur , that I wouldn’t have minded an extra day in.

It was a warm day, one of the warmest I could remember in India, but still it was only about 30C. I decided to go for a walking tour of the old town in Bikaner.  I was quite impressed and surprised by the old houses with immaculate stone carving on the balconies. Of course many of the houses were newer in design and construction, but you could certainly gain some picture of the wealth the city had in yester years. So between all the wonderful stone carving was a pulsing city, with cows and children playing, women washing laundry, the whole bit.  In that random walk I never saw another white devil, and the people were pretty friendly towards me. I was about to turn around and head back towards the city gate when I finally stumbled onto a complex of a few Jain temples.  Jainism is a small minority in India, they are similar to Hindus and the religion started as a reaction to the caste system, much like Sikhism started from the rejection of caste. At times there were many more Jains so they have a legacy of wonderfully carved white stone temples. 

I went inside the Jain temple. The priest inside told me it was important to have my shoes inside the large portal, perhaps he was concerned they would get stolen.  He had something of the air of a tour guide in him, well rehearsed, so I was a bit wary of him. I decided not to take photos of the temples interior.  The temple was interesting in that it was full of painted murals in the same similar style as in Buddhist and Hindu temples.  I went up to the balcony, the temple had a shrine on the upper floor which could have been cleaner for someone walking without shoes.  I got a good view the old city and noticed that next to the temple was a muddy patch of ground containing at least 50 cows. So it was a pasture in the middle of a city of 600,000 people, I was surprised.  Knowing that the priest would ask for a donation and because I enjoyed visiting that temple I put a small bit into the donation box, when the priest blatantly asked me for a donation, I told him I put one in the box, he seemed a bit disappointed, and made some comment. It reminded me a bit of Pushkar and the reported donation box mafia.  Yes priest money in your hand is much better for the temple, ok not really.

I went to another larger more active Jain temple. One guy insisted on following me around like a shadow, occasionally pretending like he was offering me advice. He was just annoying me.  From the outsiders perspective its not so easy to tell the difference between Jain and Hindu practice except that Jains seem to have more respect and reverence for their god in the altar and the god in every altar seems to be the same one.  It was more serious, in all the hindu temples I visited there were always 6 signs around telling you to show respect and a few teenagers doing the opposite with as always no one seeming to mind.  Indian people are truly wonderful in their ability to tolerate things that drive the visitors crazy.

I then walked back to the cities mammoth gate taking an entirely different route.  I walked past a hindu temple that was under construction or being reconstructed.  They had many stone cutter saws going crazy making stone carvings.  It was quite a racket but the carvings were wonderful. With all the narrow warren like alleys I had to ask for directions right towards the end.

 Right as I was leaving the old city I saw something that I may never forget.  In India they don’t really have any form of sewage treatment, so all the open storm drains running next to the street are also open sewers which lead to larger drains and then eventually into a water course.  There was a large flow of one of these leading out of the old part of town and there were a few woman who looked like they were panning for gold or panning for something.   Seeing women panning through sewage, well it snapped something inside me, in some small way. I am still not sure what, perhaps I still disbelieve what I saw.

I was walking along one of the main streets.  I wasn’t sure if I was going the in the right direction when I came upon a park with some sort of old palace looking structure. I took a peak around the corner when some young men working for a rural woman and children’s coop found me. I knew straight off they were full of shit, because I have visited at least a dozen of these places and none of them needed touts to find customers.  They then claimed they were volunteers, to which I replied that volunteers don’t work on commission and then I said we should stop this conversation and they should tell me what direction to walk to the Fortress.  They gave me directions and I told them that I was sorry that I couldn’t be their friend.  I later easily confirmed my suspicion that I was a few km’s from the real coop office.   This episode along with the other things I had already experienced starting really turning me off towards Rajasthan State. I am sure their store would have had ridiculous prices (its not cheap to help the children), and I wonder what kind of person would steal from a handicraft coop.  Yeah I was a bit ticked.

I had some fresh juice and then managed to ask a man who spoke no English which direction I could find the Fort’s entrance.  With the proper information I went and visited the fort.  The structure was impressive and the tour was actually pretty good.  The maharaja lived lavishly and you could see how European thought and architecture affected later additions of his palace.  The view from the top was great but I was certainly upset not to have a chance to walk around the impressive battlements. So it was really like visiting a palace instead of a fort, and for some reason I was more interested in seeing fortifications than seeing the maharaja’s 25 kg super elephant gun and his airplane. 

He did have one audience room that had enough stone and wood carving that it reminded me of a stone carved temple, with high European style cathedral ceiling.  I love high ceilings. 

When I left the Bikaner Fort I started walking in the direction of the bus stand. I found a government office and a protest demonstration.  They protesters were clearly ethnic minorities or traditional cultures.  They had all sorts of costumes with various amount of flare.  I stood on something and started taking lots of photos.  They were one hell of a collection of people.  And in India they don’t beat the shit out of protestors like they do in so many countries that I have visited.  The police stood guarding the government office with their big sticks.  All the police in India carry a big stick and occasionally a firearm. There was a bystander who told me he was a little embarrassed and I told him that I thought it was wonderful that people in India find that such expression works for them.  The whole thing made me realize that for whatever reason Indians really believe in their nation and their government in ways that so many people don’t.

The demonstration then went on a march that was something like a carnival street parade.  I had no idea what they were upset about.  I walked down the street past a garden like park and then at a small traffic circle I found a few street food vendors, but they pretended not to understand me when I asked them the price, and then after they started preparing something the price jumped to double the real price, where I  was pretty sure they were just playing with me.  In the midst of all this a street girl who was too damn young started tugging at my shirt.  I felt so bad that a girl that young had no one around to protect her.  She couldn’t have been more than 4 years old and it was so hot.  I would have given her some of my food, but I couldn’t even get food for myself, it was distressing.

 I went for a walk and then decided I had no idea where the bus stand was, so I did what I always do, I find the most wealthy man around, because I know he will speak good English.  When I ask someone else, they look for a wealthy man and ask him to help me.  May someday that the same education extends to Indians of all classes, but for now its not that way.  Anyways he asked me if I was going to walk, and when I said yes, he said I am going your way in a few minutes, you can ride on the back of my motorbike.  And so it was.  Instead of dropping me at the station he dropped me at the stop where all the buses going in my direction stopped.  I offered him a tea but he declined, so I gave him a hearty thank you and said goodbye.

And oh dear reader can you imagine where I was headed at 3 in the afternoon?  Well to stop the great suspense, I hopped on a bus to visit the famous Hindu Rat Temple.  But before that I had biscuits and chai.  Which translates to cookies and tea with milk for the unitiated. I was in the same square that I had landed at the night before.  It was a large traffic circle.   A few minutes after I arrived the protesters came flowing through the square stopping the myriad of traffic for a few minutes.  I hopped on a bus and 5 minutes and another traffic jam I found the protestors for a third time, at which point I was laughing.

It was about an hour ride to the temple.  If I was smart I could have visited on my way to Bikaner, but it didn’t occur to me that my bus went right past.  To be honest I went to the rat temple because it was something interesting to do.  The place had less fervor and activity than a pet store despite at least a thousand small Indian rats.  The rats fit into a story of Hindu mythology where a god turned a group of people into rats to spite another god.  So they were auspicious rats.   Part of the detraction from my visit was that I didn’t get to visit the inner sanctum and for a town and a temple that welcomes foreign tourists with open arms claiming the temple could be the 8^th wonder of the world, they could have at least put a sign up instead of having some get serious and tell me to “Stop Right There” It felt a little like being accused of shoplifting.

I had a soda in one of the restaurants; I went to great lakes to procure a glass one. The glass bottles are reusable.  I try to reduce the amount of litter I generate because India just isn’t capable with dealing with it, it often becomes strewn about or at best burnt.   To be fare some cities are getting much better at trash collection and cleanliness as time goes on, but there is clearly a lot of room for improvement.

I road back throughout the sunset and when I arrived back in town I took the bus all the way to the station just so I could see what the schedule was for government buses to my next destination.  My fears were confirmed when he told me that one bus was coming through town at 12:50 at night, not the best time for bus riding.  So I walked back to my hotel thinking it would be easy to find an agent for a private bus near the train station.   After walking the 4km back to my hotel I had to walk another hour trying to find a travel agent to sell me a ticket.   Eventually I found one agent who told me I needed the private bus stand, which they happily told me was next to the fort.  I had walked by it earlier and just not noticed that it was the bus stand.  So around 9:00 I finally made it there after taking another walking tour of the city.  To arrive in Jaisalmer at a good time I had to present myself to the bus station at 5:00 in the morning, uggh.

I also found that the real handicraft coop was near the bus station, and I walked by that too.  After the bus stand I walked back to my hotel.   It was quite a day for walking.  Now you might be thinking, why didn’t I take rickshaws for all of that, most rides are less than a dollar.  Well I will tell you that the pollution in Bikaner was in the early evening worse than Dehli.  People were coughing badly, I was coughing, I didn’t want to contribute to that, when a city of that size will hopefully some day have a bus system or at least cleaner Compressed Natural Gas rickshaws.  Besides I am a walking fool.  It was a busy day and I was tired.  I didn’t have to worry about the birds that night, I went past them straight to dreamland.

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