From the outside, the yellow sandstone and white marble mogul style temple is not much different from other temples in India. What is different are the temple's inhabitants. The town of Deshnoke, 30 kilometers south of Bikaner, is home to world's only temple where rats are the main creature of devotion. About 20,000 rats are fed, protected and worshiped. The Karni Mata temple is one of the more curious places in all of Rajasthan. The site has been a place of worship for the last 500 years and the current Karni Mata temple was founded by the Maharaja Ganga Singh of Bikaner at the turn of the century.

Before visiting the temple, many people envision scenes resembling those of the "Raiders of the Lost Arc." The reality is a little more tame, in the daytime at least. "They seemed sickly and apathetic... I was prepared to see big aggressive rats , instead I saw rats that are no bigger than mice," said an Australian tourist about his experience of the Karni Mata temple. The temple rats are brown, size of a western laboratory mouse and quite used to interacting with people. As most tourist come to the temple during middle of the day, they find only part of the rat metropolis. This is a time of rest for most rats, who hide in the closed rooms and underground tunnels. The rats that do stay outside are most often the sick, wounded or dying. Many of them have scars testifying their coming demise: bitten off, broken tails, bleeding bite marks, falling out hair. To see the temple rats in their full splendor one has to come late at night or before sunrise. Then the temple floor is covered with rats running at full speed in all directions. The hungry creatures are trying to get feed for the rest of the day.