Written by léonie sidwick | 05 July 2010

Located 30km outside Bikaner, the Karni Mata temple is famous worldwide as the rat shrine. And rats it has, hundreds of them. It's a very surreal experience to see so many devotees queuing to pray at the small shrine with rats everywhere, wrapped round the railings dozing, lounging against the walls and feeding on the milk and grain offerings. Be aware that you do have to take off your shoes to enter the temple, you can leave them free of charge at the shoe repository, and its meant to be extremely lucky to have a rat run over your feet so if you're squeamish, make sure you take a pair of socks!