take a print of this foto if you plan to visit..this might just help…

Saturday 04-Feb-06 Afternoon… mom and dad come back from work around 1330 hours… i was still not ready… and it took me another 45 minutes to brush.. and take a bath…. 1430 hrs and 27 kms after i topped up my tank we left for Bharatpur…

till palwal the traffic was a pain.. and after that i could just cruise along… this is the time when i realise that my comfort zone lies in 90-100 kmph.. and i never push my car over that !!! crossed Mathura, and as i thought i’ll have to, i took a U-turn from after a flyover and turned left to start a journey 40 kms in distance to Bharatpur from Mathura… what pathetic road… atleast 10 kms on that 40 km road were totally SAD !!! however , i drove slow… and we managed to reach Bharatpur around 1830 hrs…

a small hunt for a decent hotel which involved the empty RTDC Saras and a few more, ended at the Pelican… so we checked in.. had a light dinner… nice tawa chapaties and dal with some salad… and went off to sleep… as usual i had warned everyone… bro, mom and dad that i am going to wake them up @ 0430hrs… so they better sleep early… i and bro kept talked and managed to doze off only around 2330 hrs.. but thanks to the alarm.. i was up @ 0430 and ready after taking a bath @ 0515 hrs.. this is when i woke up Ashu.. and mom and dad… it took me sometime to wake up the attendents @ the hotel and get everyone to be ready…

we finally managed to be out of the hotel by 0630 hrs.. Laxman Singh the Rickshaw guy and our guide for the day was outside, when i met him first… the hotel guys had asked him to come over for us… so mom and dad in the rick.. and me and Ashu were still to figure out what we wanted to do… i wanted to take a cycle.. and Ashu was of the same opinion… so we took two decent looking cycles for the day and joined mom and dad….

there is not much that I can write about the birds that i saw except that they were tooooo many in number.. and too much in variety too… and i loved myself for taking the nikon coolpix from boss and the tamron 28-200 lens from Ankur… and i am feeling bad that non of my friends has a lens which has more zoom… coz 200mm is for sure not good enough for Bharatpur… saw the foreigners who were there with lenses which were atleast a foot in length… God knows what specs they were…

Deepika had suggested that we should eat Bread Pakoras in the Canteen inside… and to my surprise, he had stopped making them !!! i think when she went the last week.. she must have said something to him which made him stop with the Break Pakodas.. hehehe… anyway… we looked around a li’il more and saw a lot of more birds… from all over the world, china, egypt, taiwan, japan, siberia.. and whatever else !!!

personally i think one day is not enough for Bharatpur Bird Santuary.. better known as the Keoladeo National Park… you need to spend at least 2 full days inside to enjoy that place.. which is something that I am going to do, after i manage to get a better cam and a better set of lenses !!!

the journey back home started around 1330 hrs… via Brindavan, and enroute i had some amazing lassi, ofcourse in Vrindavan and some mithai.. yummm… i love that place for the kinda food that i can get to eat there… most of you would not believe me when i will tell you that me and aro have been to mathura and Vrindavan just to eat the indian junk food that we can there 🙂

ok.. back to this trip… we had lunch @ the SagarRatna on our way back… the sad part is that the car had to be parked on the opposite side, on the highway itself which was not too good… because there is no cut for a few kilometres before and after the resort !! never mind…

here is the summary of the place/trip etc…

Place : Bharatpur… The Keoladeo National Park…
Best Time to Visit… November End to Feb… December last few weeks being the best…
Accomodation… anything between 300 bucks for a doubleroom to 3200 bucks per night…
Minimum Days needed to know the place and enjoy it… 2
Best way/Route to reach there.. if going from Delhi… and if the group is above 5 people hire a cab…. if you are 2-3 people can drive too… the MAthura Road is a very nice road, however the 40 odd kms from Mathura to Bharatpur is going to have a few kilometers of really bad road… You have to take a U-turn after the second flyover, once you cross a JaiGuruDev Temple on the Mathura Road…
Inside the Park…
Entry is 25 buks per person ( Indians) and Rs. 5 if you are a student ( so carry ur Id if you have one)
A Rickshaw is available for 50 bucks an hour.. the Rick-Guys are decent guides too.. or else you can hire a guide for 70 bucks an hour ( for a group of 1-5 people)
I got the cycles for Rs. 25 per cycle for the whole day.. ( Make sure you try cycling a few meters before you choose your bike for the day)
What to see inside… birds.. lots of them.. and more !!!

It was a lovely weekend trip… and you can check out someof the Photos that I took by clicking HERE !!!