I know that everyone (Mr. Giles) is dying to here about our visit to the "rat temple", which is properly called "Karni Mata" temple in Deshnok, near Bikaner. The story goes that Karni Mata asked the god of death to bring back to life her son, who had drowned. When the request was rejected, she decided that all members of her family would come back as rats and return as members of her family.
So now people actually come to this temple which is over-run by the rodents (some 22,000 according to one source; the guy at the booth where you leave your shoes). Yes you do have to leave your shoes and go into the temple in bare feet, in my case, socks for Joy. The aim is to find a white rat which gives some form of good fortune or have a rat run over your foot, which is also good. We did not see a white rat, and I only came close to having the second happen. We only saw a few hundred rats, but that was plenty to get Joy to leave quickly and for me to try to remember what diseases rats carried. As I traipsed over the tiles covered by years of rat droppings, I kept trying to remember whether it was "Black Death" or Bubonic plague that rats spread. I must confess that I did not stay long and I have decided that unless anyone is interested in rat pictures, I am not going to post them here.
Jim
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