Bikaner

Bikaner, rising from the Thar Desert of north-western Rajasthan, is one of the great desert cities of India — a place of honey-coloured sandstone palaces, a magnificent fort that was never conquered, sacred camels and rats, and a food tradition so famous that its name is on snack packets across the country.

• The city's crowning glory is the Junagarh Fort, built around 1594 by Raja Rai Singh, a general in the Mughal army of Akbar — and remarkable among Rajasthan's great forts for standing not on a hill but on the open plain, defended so well that it was never taken by an enemy.
• Its interior is a labyrinth of exquisitely decorated palaces, courtyards, and temples — the Anup Mahal, the Phool Mahal, the Karan Mahal, and the lacquered Chandra Mahal — preserving the opulence of the Rathore rulers.
• About 30 km south at Deshnoke stands one of India's most extraordinary temples: the Karni Mata Temple, the famous "rat temple," where thousands of sacred rats (kaaba), believed to be reincarnated devotees of the goddess Karni Mata (an incarnation of Durga), scurry freely across the marble floors and are revered and fed by pilgrims.
• Bikaner is also camel country — the National Research Centre on Camel on the city's edge is a unique camel-breeding farm open to visitors — and the red-sandstone Lalgarh Palace and the old-city havelis add to its heritage.
• The walled old city, with its ornately carved havelis and the Jain temples of Bhandasar and Laxminath, rewards a slow walk, and the annual Camel Festival in January fills the dunes with decorated camels and folk performers.
• For vegetarian travellers, Bikaner is a feast: it is the birthplace of the famous Bikaneri bhujia (the crisp spiced gram-flour snack), of superb kachori and samosa, of the spongy Bikaneri rasgulla and ghewar, and of the rich Rajasthani-Marwari vegetarian thali.
• The best season is October to March.