Jaisalmer Via Bikaner: Part 1- Karni Mata Temple

Wow! Simply Wow! It was the tour which I was planning for very long time but not getting the enough time to fulfill this due to some boundations. Once I get little freedom from my boundations I along with one of my friend planned this tour of Jaisalmer and Bikaner. At the start, Bikaner was not included in the plan. But when I heard one special thing about Bikaner from my friend we included this also in our tour itinerary. When we planned it we was not aware that it was so fun-filled, exciting and informative.

We plan to start our tour from Bikaner. We choose train as our transport medium to reach there. It was seven years since I travelled last time in Indian Railways. We looked for the availability of the Third AC class seats and to our surprise it was quite tough to get a Third AC class (even Second and First AC) as compared to Sleeper class. Seven years back, getting a sleeper class seat is very tough compare to any AC class. This only indicates that an average Indian is now able to afford AC class in trains. But by spending some time we got success in booking a Third AC Class seat.

We boarded the train to Bikaner at 8:40 AM from Delhi. We have a friendly Marwadi family as our fellow passengers. They were going to attend some religious function in Bikaner. The aunt sitting next to me was knitting a sweater. It was such a nice feeling to see this because now a days knitting sweaters by hand is a rare view. In the journey, I was trying to capture each and every moment of this journey. During the conversation with the co-passenger, a fellow passenger mentioned that due to lack of business opportunities in past many Marwadi people from Bikaner spread around various places in India like Assam, Chennai, Kolkata or Delhi for business purpose. I easily relate with this information because one of my best friend is also from Bikaner but they are settled in Assam for their business. We also had conversation regarding sports, politics and places to visit in Bikaner till we reached at our destination i.e. Bikaner.

After deboarding the train, we contacted our hotel owner which we booked. The hotel Marudhar Heritage Hotel, it is not a big hotel with luxury facility but it contains the most important thing which we were looking for and that is peace. The hotel gave us the feel of simple, peaceful and sober place. After check into the hotel we explored the market of Bikaner, taste the varieties of foods and specialities. It was a simple and quiet city very far from the crowd. People are very relaxed and helpful. Some of the foods worth mentioning was the daal bhati churma, finni, bikaneri namkeen and bhel puri.

Next morning we were ready to visit the special place for which we made last minute changes. We went to visiting Karni Mata Temple in Deshnoke which is 30 KM from Bikaner. Regarding the Karni Mata or Karnijee, she was a hindu sage. Her followers believe that she is incarnation of Goddess Durga. She is the official deity of royal families of Jodhpur and Bikaner. The temple is famous because of the presence of numerous black rats and one white rat. The rats are treated as sacred and given protection in the temple.

It is believed that even having such a large number of rats in the temple the place never suffered from the plague. There is another belief that if you are able to see the white rat in the temple then it brings positive change in your life. We were so lucky that we saw the white rat as soon as we entered in the temple. I beleive that if you are afraid of rats you must visit that temple because it will change your perception about those little beautiful creation of the God.

After spending more than a hour in temple, we returned to our hotel for continuing our journey to our next destination which was Jaisalmer. In the afternoon, we boarded the bus going to Jaisalmer to expolre the other surprises and stories. We were leaving Bikaner, but as a person this short trip taught me much about the life and respecting each and every living and non-living thing.

That’s it for this blog, I will come back in my next blogs with rest my experiences, surprises and stories.