Bharatpur

The only reason for stopping at Bharatpur on the way to Agra was to check out a famous bird santuary there. The guidebooks spoke of renting bicycles to explore the park at your leisure, so obviously I jumped at the chance of that.

The train left Jaisalmer about half-an-hour late, although it was waiting on the platform on time, so we settled down on our upper berths immediately. This was after I'd checked out the Rajasthani Palace on Wheels train, which is a super-expensive train that tours the Rajasthan highlights in a week. It didn't look all that impressive to me really, and the cabin looked even smaller than the tiny cabin we had on our boat in the Galapagos. I got the impression it was all show with little substance really, particularly the 'costumes' the staff had to wear.

Anyway, we arrived at night in Bharatpur, after being held up for an hour just one stop from our destination. We got a rickshaw to the hotel and after checking a couple of places we settled in and had a nice quick Thali (the posh English dude next to us saying it was the best thali he'd had in months, but I thought it was distinctly average).


So up early the next morning to get a quick breakfast and try to rent bicycles when the owner of our hotel tells us there is a big problem at the moment with bike rentals. It turns out that the Government, or park officials, have stopped people bringing private bicycles into the park. Instead they have to use Government bicycles (I could understand if it was cars or motorbikes, and that pollution standards had to be enforced or something, but why would officials need to regulate bicycles?!?). The Government has tendered for companies to provide these bicycles, but nobody has taken up the tender because they all say the Government is not offering enough money. The upshot of all this nonsense is that there are no bicycles for rent at all, which leaves the only options as hiring a cycle-rickshaw or walking.


Hiring a rickshaw was not an option for me really, as the rickshaws can only travel along the one tarred road in the park, whereas most of the park is accessible from little side tracks off that road (plus of course, you'd have to put up with the driver, and try to haggle a fair price, etc., etc.). I was seriously considering the walking option, but the park seems to be quite large and spread out, and walking all day just didn't have the appeal of having the freedom to cycle around.


So reluctantly, and rather frustrated, we headed back to our hotel, checked out and caught a local bus 18km to the town of Fatehpur Sikri. This is another site on the road to Agra, famous for it's huge mosque and fort.