Tours to Bikaner

Bikaner’s centrepiece is its 16th-century Junagadh Fort, which looks unpromising from the outside, but on closer inspection reveals an astonishing wealth of finely sculpted palaces, pavilions and throne rooms. Across town, the old walled city holds several early-20th-century havelis fusing Rajput style with Art-Deco chic – a wonderfully exuberant combination. This area’s weirdest sight, however, has to be the Karni Mata ‘Rat Temple’ at nearby Deshnok, where holy rodents swarm free-range over a marble-lined desert shrine.