Fort of Junagarth 
Another Maharajah palace
Getting ready to enter the Temple of the ratsWe started the day in Bikaner with an individual visit (meaning few people without the group) to a temple full of rats that are worshiped because they are supposed to be the reincarnation of children. We were lucky to be there during one of the two annual festivals. It was very crowded and very colorful. However being obliged to walk barefoot in the middle of herds of rats is a pleasure I could have done without.
Then we visited the fort of Junagarth and the palace of its Maharajah housing many collections of arms, material for tiger hunting etc.. including a De Havilland biplane offered by the British for the Maharajah behavior during WWI aside the allied forces.
From there we kept crossing the desert of Thar, sand with scattered thorny bushes, to reach another city-fortress, Jaisalmer. All the Rajasthan cities owe their fame and fortune to the trade and the caravans during the Silk Road era.
Today they rely on tourist and Indian Army that guard the Indo-Pakistani frontier.
On evening we went for diner on a nice quaint restaurant on the fortress overlooking the city (courtesy of the “Guide du Routard”) and we also discovered an antique shop in the very home of a collector of collections.
