Day 13 - 13th Feb - Bikaner - Jodhpur

Lena's purse was found. Despite so much searching, pacing and obsessive checking, it was under her rucksack.

After soggy, synthetic and sandy toast, all 8 of us crammed on to one cart with our  bags and about 15 huge blankets.  We headed back to civilisation and I had another short ride on the camel: this time, along the road with big trucks and buses passing by. People think you're crazy if you ride a camel and so it drew even more stares than usual.

We were dropped off near Karni Mata Mandir and said our goodbyes to Hussain and the camel men. We all managed to offend by giving Hussain a larger tip than the camel men, which was quite unfair but wasn't our intention  - there were just more of the them. I find it really frustrating that things turn sour like this and you never feel like you get it right.

We said goodbye to Philip, Joanna and Lena and headed towards the rat temple: unsurprisingly famous for the  fact it's full of rats. It is believed that the rats are reincarnated saints and they are fed with sweets and milk. As in all temples, you have to take your shoes off, so wading barefoot through rat droppings with scabby rats scurrying all around was a new experience. And they were very scabby. Maybe their high sugar diet makes them more twitchy and aggressive or maybe it's just bad for their skin, but they were covered in bald patches and red-looking sores. Or maybe rats just look like that - I can't say I've ever been that close to say many of them. I certainly never expected to stand (almost calmly) by as they ran across my path, perched and paddled in and around huge bowls of milk, jumped off ledges and skulked in corners and on door handles.

After leaving the temple we were hungry but didn't want to get any food in a town with so many rats at it's centre and so just headed towards where we'd been told we could flag down a bus to Jodhpur. There aren't really any numbers on buses and so you jusy have to hope you get the right one and that the bus-driver isn't too grumpy to tell you the truth.

After being mobbed by children and having to be saved by a local passer-by, we were lucky enough to find a bus with a nice conductor, who let us put the bags on the seat in front and tried to tell us the price in English. His brown corduroy jacket with the misspelt 'ddidas'  logo on also made us chuckle. We made a stop quite early that was in a market place and so were able to jump off the bus and buy some freshly made pakoras and oranges from a stall so at least did not have to sit for 5 hours listening to our bellies rumble.
On our arrival at Jodpur, we found a rickshaw driver and headed to Shivam Paying Guest House where we had booked a room for the night. Matt went in to check that it was the right place but there was no-one at reception so he had to pick up the phone and dial to speak to someone. They did not answer so he put the phone down. He was bemused and started to walk out when they rang back. They did not speak very good English and did not recognise we had a booking. After he told them how much the room we wanted was, they kept telling him that the room was 'in your backside'. He eventually worked out that they were watching him on camera and meant that it was behind him. He called me to come and check because it was so awful. It was like they'd stuck a bed inside the broom cupboard. By now we're used to dubious rooms but this place was just hideous. You had to duck to get in the door and there was no bathroom either.

We asked Waseem, the tuk tuk driver if he could take us somewhere else. We wanted wifi as we needed to catch up with the blog after our camel ride but there was nowhere available - even without internet access. Eventually, we came to a place called Baba guest house, which said we could sleep on the beds in their reception for a night for free and then move to a room in the morning. I took a look around and liked the family that ran it, the standard of cleanliness and the rooftop terrace with a view over the city so we accepted.

Not very long after, Imran, the young man who'd shown us round, Imran, invited us to the wedding of a friend that the whole family were going to. In typical Indian style we said, 'why not?'.   In the meantime we sat chatting to a French guy called Leo, who let us keep our bags in his room for a bit more security.

After using the family bathroom for a bucket shower and seeing the effort that the whole family were making to dress up, I started to get a bit self-conscious about what I could wear. I only had outdoor clothes and yet all the other women were sparkly and beautiful. I asked one of the family, Yasmine, if what I had to wear was ok and she spruced me up a bit with some sparkly earrings and a gorgeous shawl - which of course, her husband had a business in selling.

At the last minute, they also said Leo could come to the wedding and we set off in a tuk tuk with Imran's brother. At the wedding, we were shown around by his eldest brother. He guided us around the tasty food, steering us away from anything too hot and the weird drunken uncle who kept wanting to feed us sweets. We were taken around and introduced us to the whole wedding family, one by one. It was like being a celebrity. Everyone wanted to meet us and have their picture taken with us.

After talking for a while to a cute little girl, I agreed to go for a dance with her. There was a mini-stage next to the main stage which had loads of kids on and a few around and so just thought we could melt into that. How stupid of me. We were followed to the stage and all the dancing kids were made to sit down as the whole wedding party gathered around. The music was stopped and 'Barbie Girl' came on, much louder than the music before. The young girl (who had told me she could not dance, which is why I agreed to it in the first place!) then started pulling out all sorts of moves that I was expected to follow and join in with. It was excrutiating. I had no idea what to do and could not really get over the nature of the lyrics as I danced with a child no older than 11.

The song finally started coming to the end, to my great relief. Suddenly, they started it again from near the beginning. There was no way I could have backed out so had to keep on dancing. They'd tried to pull Matt to the stage too but my darling boyfriend just let me flounder. Eventually Leo was dragged up too and the last few minutes passed a little more easily.

When the song finally ended I was expecting something different to what I got. Maybe applause or even just acknowledgment that I had spent what felt like a month, up there dancing for these complete strangers. But no, everyone stood and looked at me for a minute (maybe waiting for my next trick) and then just wandered off. I'm still not sure what that means but maybe they were just in shock - I know that I was.

The happy couple

We then had more introductions and even official photgraphs on the big stage with the bride. She looked absolutely beautiful and was dressed in the most stunning clothes. She was really shy and timid - as I probably would be with someone who turned up at my wedding uninvited and dumbfounded all of my guests - but seemed to be quite happy with the arrangement.

After yet more introductions, we had chai and went back to the hostel to sleep in the recption.