Camels, Cows and Cat Crossings

Goodness!  Where to begin?  The logical place would be with Delhi and busy, smoggy, noisy and crowded city with a few lovely little areas.  We visited Birla Temple a Hindu temple and Humayun's Tomb which is an over-the-top burial site in supposed typical Mughal style architecture for Humayun and his wife.  The gardens are restful and magnificent and a respite from the noise and pollution of the city.  We were happy to leave the next day for Mandawa - six+ hour drive but we were glad to get out of the city.
In Mandawa we spent the night in a beautiful Haveli.  These are homes built by and for very wealthy people and many have been converted to small hotels.  Our rooms were wonderful and we were each presented with an Indian puppet when we checked out.  There we visited several Havelis with beautiful paintings as well as the Mandawa fort.  I would definitely say though that the highlight of Mandawa was stumbling upon a wedding party the night before the even.  This involved the groom decked out on horseback following a DJ truck which played loud Indian music.  We could hear it clearly from our rooms and figured, "If you can't beat 'em, join them!"  And that is what we did.  We danced with 20-40 people down the road, following the DJ truck with the groom behind us.  We heard that having foreigners join this activity is good luck.  It sure was fun for us!  Below is a photo from a video I took of Chuck and Paulette dancing the night away.  What fun!
Next day, off to Bikaner and the rat temple.  Anyone who knows me knows how excited I was about visiting the rat temple but I sucked it up, put cotton booties provided by the temple over my socks and in we went.  Chuck had one run across his foot which is supposed to bring good luck.  (Doesn't sound so good to me and I was happy to miss out on that.)
The next morning we headed off to see the Demoiselle cranes which stop to mate and spend their winters in India, crossing the Himalayas from China and Mongolia - not an easy feat.  They are magnificent and there is said to be about 25,000 that visit this lake.
Last night we spent the night in the Thar Desert, slept in tents and rode a camel to watch the sunset at the top of some dunes.  It was really wonderful and my camel, Claudia, did a great job despite his guffawing, belching, grunting and, according to my friend riding in back of me, releasing gas by other means.
Today we are in Jaisalmer as we will be tomorrow.  Nice to have two days in one spot and slow down a bit.  India is a lot to take in and it seems we are often shaking our heads, rolling our eyes, laughing and asking, "Did that really happen?"
Examples:
*Cows in the middle of major highways that stop traffic until they decide to move.
*Stopping because our driver wants to smoke a hookah at a . . . hookah stop?
*Our driver groaning and pulling over to the side of the road because a cat crossed in front of us - a bad luck omen - and waiting until someone else passed so that the bad luck would be transferred to them.
*Avoiding walking down a street today because someone had recently died on that street and going two blocks out of our way to avoid it.
I'm not kidding.  These things REALLY happened.  And there is so much more . . . the music and dancing around the campfire at night in the desert, the strange vehicles and animals (and people) along the way.  And we're only on day five????  Here are too many photos.

Birla Temple

Paulette at the temple 

Humayun's Tomb and the Gardens

Part of Our Haveli and some sights around Mandawa

Our Haveli 

The groom

Paulette and Chuck Dancing with the locals

ALONG THE WAY 

Carrying Mustard Greens

A Hookah Stop

 The Rat Temple

The Demoiselle Cranes 

The Water line with 100's of cranes flying overhead

More Cranes

My Camel, Claudia (a male), and his handler and me in the Thar Desert

SOME WILDLIFE

Ummm, Don't know!

This is painted outside your door when you are married.  It shows the date 

of the marriage and brings blessings to the couple.