Bikaner Moments

Hello everybody! myself Ilhan Mansiz from Turkey. Travelling is my favourite hobby, since my younger days I use to travel across popular countries of the world, but I never visited India. One of my close friend visited India last year and told about the wonders of the country, especially about the state of Rajasthan. After listening much about India, finally I planned a trip to Rajasthan. I stayed for 10 days in Rajasthan and covered several destinations. Amongst the major cities of Rajasthan, I found the city of Bikaner very impressive.

Like other cities of Rajasthan I found that Bikaner is surrounded by a huge battlemented wall and is home to impressive Junagarh fort. My tour guide informed me that the fort was constructed by Raja Rai Singh between 1587 and 1593. Built of yellow sandstone the Junagarh Fort has a long wall, around three dozens of entrances and two entrances. I entered the fort through the huge Sun Gate, inside the fort there are several palaces such as Moon Palace, Flower Palace, Glass Palace and etc. The golden ornamentations of the Lal Niwas, the shining glass, marble panels and interior decorations of Moon Palace and Flower Palace are truly incomparable. Besides, the interior walls of fort adorned with excellent paintings and murals totally fascinated me. In fact, the architecture of this fort proves the delicacy of war-art of the valiant Rajputs of the medieval period.

Following the sightseeing tour of the Junagarh Fort, I moved towards the Lalgarh Palace which is entirely made of orange coloured sand stones. I came to aware about the fact that the Palace was constructed by a European artist Sir Suinton Jacob under the supervision of the then ruler, Ganga Singh(1881 AD- 1942 AD) in the memory of his father, Lal Singh. Here I found a unique blend of western dexterity and eastern imagination. The chandeliers of Belgium, adornments of cutglass, spellbound carvings, delicacy of varied lovely patterns and and a huge collection of conspicuous paintings made me mesmerized.

From Bikaner I took an excursion to Gajner Palace, the premises of the palace is really breathtaking and it stands by the side of a picturesque lake. Next I proceeded to the nearby famous temple of Karani Mata which is actually an incarnation of Godess Durga. My tour guide told me an interesting fact that the Godess is famous because of foretelling the future. The marble carvings and the silver gate of this temple are really praiseworthy. One striking feature I found here was that the humble rats are venerated regularly.

One thing I would like to especially mention here is the Camel Breeding Farm of Bikaner. Here I saw hundreds of camels and enjoyed a pleasant ride on Camel’s back. I also tasted a cup of camel milk, even today my taste buds have the flavour of the special milk.