Rats, Forts and Cow Shit

The rat temple

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Did we mention that Rajasthan has been coined "the dirtiest place on earth"?  Well, we agree.  Most of the state is in the Thar desert.  The locals call it Jungle.  Only sand dunes are considered desert despite that to us, it all looks like varying levels of hot, sandy, desert.  Its really beautiful.  That's India...contradiction.   Its filthy, everything and every interaction is a hassle and a fight yet, its beautiful, magical and for some reason that we can't understand, we love it. 

Back to it, we set off with our new driver.  He is a very safe driver and he has seatbelts which is a miracle.  Our first stop was the "rat temple" the pictures should explain why we stayed for about 30 seconds.  They wanted us to take our shoes off...no can do!  The whole temple was full of sacred rats who are suppose to be the reincarnated souls of those who have escaped yama (the god of death).  Its good luck if they scamper across your feet.  Its suppose to be healing to eat their unfinished food.  So, after a quick bite...just kidding.  We ran the hell out of there much to the shagrin of our driver.

The fort

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We checked into our hotel another good one and then headed to the fort for a tour.  We searched high and low for the English speaking tour guide but could only find Italian and Hindi so we took a much more amusing self guided tour which I narrated.  The fort was very pretty with lots of fancy rooms dripping in gold and red velvet. 

We then had our first "disagreement" with our driver who, it turns out, doesn't like to drive.  We wanted to go to the bazaar.  He told us to take a tuk tuk.  We laughed and asked why we would take a tuk tuk when we had a hired car?  In the end, he took us to the main street which he said was the bazaar (it wasn't) and did some browsing.  My favorite part was when Carrie slid in a huge pile of cow shit while dodging a camel!  Don't worry she didn't fall that time. 

Shannon

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We had our fill of India that day and went back to the hotel.