Rats absolutely love humans, unfortunately the feeling isn’t mutual. Anywhere that humans hang out en masse, you’re sure to find some rats chilling in the shadows. It’s easy to blame the rat for following us around, but if we weren’t such disgusting, dirty little horrors that leave our crap everywhere then they would leave us alone. So we only have ourselves to blame.

Rats have managed to use our Laissez faire attitude to dropping food and assorted detritus to their advantage. They are tough, fast and intelligent. We should be in awe of them, but they still make our toes curl.

So if you’re a rat enthusiast, these are the best places to go; and if you’re a dyed-in-the-wool musophobic (word of the day), these are the places to avoid…

1) Deshnoke, India

India’s pretty big on resident rats but the Karni Mata Temple in Deshnoke is on another level. Its rat population per square foot is interstellar.

Within these ancient walls lives an estimated 20,000 rats. Twenty-sodding-thousand?! I bet you just shuddered when you read that didn’t you? Well, I did when I wrote it anyway.

The problem here is that the rat is revered and encouraged. They’re referred to as Kabbas and they get fed and loved on a constant basis. It’s a “high honour” to eat food that has been nibbled by a rat and if one is killed it must be replaced by one made of gold. There are a handful of albino rats, and if you spot one of those on your visit you are truly blessed. Yuck.