The next morning, we noted an incredible, soupy haze outside of the hotel and that the air did not smell like air that ought to be breathed. We had some additional tourism in Bikaner planned for the morning and had a generic Indian breakfast at the hotel made more lively by the fact that they played house dance music in the dining room. Of course, more pictures are on Flickr.
View from the hotel balcony. What you can't see well is the tent city just to the right of the drive, which puts staying in a former palace in some perspective.
Observed a number of goats wearing coats made of various fabrics this morning and thought they were hilarious. We also passes preparations for a parade (honoring Muhammad's birthday) which will be mentioned later when it stops traffic.
The first destination was a notable Jain temple, allegedly built on a foundation of butter. The butter was supposed to be more expensive than stone and therefore a better test of the faith and finances of the sponsor of the temple. The guide said that in hot weather butter bubbles up through the floor in a specific place, but we were pretty skeptical of butter surviving hundreds of years and also not smelling terrible.
Butter allegedly comes up here in summer. We were here in December, so no taste test for us.
There were also elaborate miniature paintings on most surfaces showing local history and stories.
Bigger view of pillars and painting on the roof.
The priest was actually pretty chill, chatted with our friend quite a bit, explained some of the stories in the paintings, and suggested a particular method of taking photos on the floor. He also didn't, for once, pester us for donations, aside from asking if we had any foreign coins, which apparently his daughter collects.
Results of the photography
After the temple, we had a walking tour past some notable "havelis" nearby. Unlike those previously observed, these were mostly stone carvings, not paintings.
Seriously elaborate stone carving
Also walked by street life. We were told that this, whatever it is, can only be produced for a portion of the year because of temperature. Kind of wanted to try it, kind of didn't.
The parade previously mentioned was backing up traffic as we were getting ready to move on.
The parade had people walking and various motorcycles and cars going too. The green flags seem to support that this parade was about Muhammad's birthday.
The Bikaner guide had been pestering us since yesterday to go to the miniature painting place, and we'd been pushing back to do other things, tired of being sold on stuff. However, at this point we had the time, because the clutch on our tour vehicle had turned iffy and the driver was out getting it replaced, so we agreed to go to the miniature painting place while waiting, and were glad we did.
I think this may have been the only place advertising support from international travel guides we went to the whole time.
The proprietor is apparently a big cheese in miniature painting, a specialty of the area. He showed us how he makes pigments from minerals and his various brushes (made from squirrel tails), then did a miniature painting on the fingernail of a friend of ours. He considers using magnification cheating, and he holds the Guinness World Record for most detailed smallest painting, and we were shown both the record and the painting. His shop hosts a number of painters and works from family members and students as well as his own.
Along with items on the walls, stacks of smaller/less expensive works were on tables for review
This looks like pencil, but all strokes were with a paintbrush. This was only a few inches across.
Multicolor work - all shading done with individual brush strokes.
We didn't find anything we had to have - one problem with miniature art being that you have to have your face right up in it to appreciate the craft of it. We did really enjoy looking, and appreciated the work and the craft that went into these items. We saw miniature art for sale in several other places and in our uneducated opinion, it was of quality inferior to that available at this venue.
After that, we went for lunch at a rooftop restaurant. It smelled pretty good but I was feeling nauseous (probably due to the anti-malarial pills, or due to one of the colds that went through our group) and I didn't eat much. I drank a lot more Coke on this trip than my normal (none) and liked it more than in the US - may be a different recipe for India. After lunch, we headed out to the next city on our tour, Jaisalmer.
More desert en route.
We stopped at this exceptionally lit up space for a bathroom break, which included the sketchiest bathroom of the entire trip.
Stopping along the highway in seemingly the middle of nowhere, in the desert, in the twilight, with the moon up, was actually pretty neat.
Finally making it to our hotel outside of Jaisalmer, we had dinner at the hotel (no other restaurants in walking distance) and noted some pretty...sparse...Christmas decorations.
The hotel was pretty spectacular to look at, and each 'room' was a little castle in a larger garden, but these castles had no heat, marble floors, stone walls, and very thin blankets - great for summer, not winter, in the desert.
The room's AC unit was not what we needed either. Fortunately, we'd brought our hiking thermals against such situations (being extremely portable and extremely effective for keeping warm) and with those on we camped inside in the desert of Rajasthan for the night. More pictures can be found on Flickr.
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