Came for the birds, stayed for Braj and a balcony

---

On February 1st we arrived in Bharatpur, a smaller town 3 hours south of Delhi by train. Bharatpur is known for its nature preserve, which is especially renowned for its birds, but unfortunately it’s been a very dry year and the bird populations is more or less non-existent. Had we known this, we might not have stopped in Bharatpur at all, in which case we would have missed out on a great few days. We haven’t actually entered the bird park, since we have heard so many reports that there is literally nothing there and it’s pretty expensive to enter, but we’ve had a great experience in Bharatpur anyway.

Unfortunately, getting here didn’t go very smoothly. We took a rickshaw to the New Delhi train station to catch an 11:30 a.m. train. Harmeet had gotten us electronic tickets ahead of time. We got there at 11 and headed toward the gates to the train platforms, but we were stopped by a man standing at the gate, looking official. He looked at our tickets and told us they were no good, we had to exchange them for paper tickets, and this could only be done about a kilometer away. He ushered us into another rickshaw and directed the driver in rapid Hindi, and we were suddenly at least 3 km from the train station at a tiny tourism office in the middle of nowhere, and it was nearing 11:30. We finally realized we’d been fooled, and hurried back in another rickshaw, furious and frustrated. The guy that had “helped” us had disappeared, and we had already missed our train. We were then “helped” by another man, who told us we had to go “upstairs” to get new tickets. This sounded more believable, until “upstairs” turned out to be a small tourism office across the street. We vowed to listen to no one else, and probably turned away 10 more people trying to “help” us. Everyone told us we couldn’t possibly get tickets at the main station counter, which would of course be the logical thing to do. Turns out they were all lying, and after waiting in line for half an hour we finally got tickets for the 1:30 train to Agra (which is an hour from Bharatpur, and is the home of the Taj Mahal).

The train ride was actually really pleasant, aside from the vomit on the floor next to our seats. A few other passengers actually paid a beggar to clean it up before the train left. We paid the extra 30 cents for sleeper class tickets, which was nice because we got padded seats and I was able to lie down and nap for part of the 3-hour ride. It was nice to watch the countryside go by, since so far all I’d seen of India was Delhi. We passed areas of open fields, with women bent over working them by hand, dressed in colorful scarves, and then clusters of colorfully painted cement houses flying flags of drying laundry. Vendors walked down the train aisles endlessly, selling peanuts, chai, socks, playing cards, and even toy guns. The trains were equipped with bathrooms, which meant a hole in the floor that went straight out onto the tracks. All in all, though, it was a really comfortable and relatively fast way to travel. We’ll take trains whenever possible.

The train took us to Agra, where we picked up a taxi to take us the remaining hour’s drive to Bharatpur. There was a bus also, but after the frustrations at the Delhi station we decided to spend the extra couple of dollars for a car. We went to the official-seeming pre-paid taxi stand, where the price to Bharatpur was posted as 950 rupees. We asked for a taxi, and were told it would be 950 plus 250 each for the border tax. Certain we were being lied to again, we bargained fiercely and got them down to 1100. (We actually found out later that the border tax was legitimate, and even locals couldn’t usually get the price that low!) We climbed into the taxi and were taken into the center of town, where we suddenly pulled over at a place the driver said was his office. We were both wary, but waited for him to return. Jeff got out to keep an eye on our bags in the trunk, and I gazed out the window of the taxi… and suddenly saw a man walking quickly away with my bag in his arms. I leapt out of the car and tore after him, ripped the bag out of his arms and furiously asked where he was going with my bag. Turns out we were switching to another, newer, car for the ride to Bharatpur… I apologized sheepishly. Better safe than sorry though, and we’d been lied to and messed with so many times that day we were both on edge and quick to mistrust everyone. Anyway, we finally got into the right car, our bags safely stowed, and drove to Bharatpur. I had hoped that the driving might be more reasonable out of Delhi, but it was just as ridiculous—no regard for lane lines and endless honking. It got dark during the drive, and I could see campfires dotting the countryside all around us—except the people weren’t camping, they were living.

We arrived in Bharatpur at the Falcon Lodge, which is very near the park entrance but a ways from the center of town. They had plenty of space for us and let us pick the room we preferred. We’re in a simple but secure and comfortable second-story room with a great private balcony looking out over the front yard. The guest house is owned by a really nice Indian family (who happen to have a great 7-month-old dog), who also run the restaurant out back. The dad seems like the perfect Indian father—stern and somewhat serious but always looking like he’s about to laugh and occasionally making hilarious jokes. The mother, Arjini, is smiley and chatty and fun to talk with. Their son, Diggi, speaks nearly perfect English and has become good buddies with Jeff. Their daughter, Tina, is a couple years older than him and is silly and fun and always cheerful. Most days we saw wild peacocks and monkeys on the roofs around the guest house. It’s a great place to stay, and we had a hard time leaving. They cooked for us whenever we were hungry and just kept a tab of what we’d eaten. I think we would have left Bharatpur fairly quickly if we didn’t have such a nice place to stay. As it was, we ended up staying a week.

The first couple of days we spent wandering around the town market (which is about a 20 minute walk from where we’re staying) and relaxing at our guest house. I bought a skirt and a couple of shirts at the market, after some difficulty in explaining what I wanted. The market is not as crazy as the Old Delhi market, but we still got plenty of (mostly friendly) attention. On our second day of exploring we found the remains of the old fort of Bharatpur, which were beautiful and mostly empty of people. There were wandering donkeys, crumbling archways and a small shrine up on a hill, painted bright blue and marked by a blue flag. We walked along the top of the main wall and ended up in a residential area, where we were surrounded by a pack of excited kids who were thrilled to be the subjects of Jeff’s camera. It was great being out of the main market area, with fewer people staring. Instead we got to do most of the staring, since people were busy with everyday activities: an old woman pounded grain with a stone pestle, creating a rhythmic thump that echoed down the streets; a man bathed, squatting on the ground, a little boy working the water pump; women hauled bundles of thorny sticks on their heads; men built garden walls brick by brick. We captured it the best we could with cameras, but we’ll never be able to fully capture the overall serenity and casual order of the place and the people.

Our third day in Bharatpur happened to be the first day of Braj Festival, which is an annual celebration of the Hindu god Krishna’s birthday. It’s a three day festival of dancing, contests and celebration. On the first day there is an opening ceremony, followed by dancing, live music and various races and competitions. We showed up a few minutes before it began, and were immediately ushered into the main tent by a man in a military uniform and directed to front-row seats. The tent was set aside for “important people,” I suppose, because everyone in the tent got chairs in the shade and were served glasses of cold water periodically. The other hundreds of people at the festival stood on either side of the tent, continually pushing forward only to be ushered back again by army guards. I’m not sure I’ll ever stop feeling guilt for being treated as someone “important” for having white skin, but I suppose I wouldn’t want to get used to it, since it would indicate an acceptance of it as right. Anyway, the celebrations began with some announcements and then dancing by costumed women and a man dressed as Krishna, decked out in makeup and peacock feathers. Men in multicolored turbans played instruments during the dancing, seated on a rug in the center of the clearing. Afterwards was a horse dancing competition, where colorfully decorated horses “danced” by prancing quickly in place and balancing on their back legs. Then came the races: horses, horse-drawn carriages (tongas), and then ox-carts. Two of the ox-carts ran straight at the crowd, narrowly avoiding chaos before being diverted back towards the “track.” Next came more dancing, in particular a woman with a sword balanced on her head. The final event was a tug-of-war competition between locals and “foreign tourists,” as they called us. Jeff joined in, along with five other tourists, against six local Indians. I stayed out to get pictures. The tourists beat the locals within fifteen seconds. Apparently this happens every year. Jeff and the other members of the winning team were awarded plastic trophies, as were the winners of the races and horse dancing competition. (Jeff re-gifted his trophy to our guest house—we certainly don’t need something extra to carry.) Unfortunately, Jeff’s involvement in the tug-of-war (as well as my conspicuous photo-taking of it) meant we were noticed by everyone there, and when the events ended we were immediately completely surrounded by people, asking for photos, shaking our hands, and asking “what is name?” and “where are from?” They stared and pointed at Jeff’s leg tattoos, and when he pulled up his shorts to show the portrait of his cat Toots the entire crowd cheered. We were completely unable to move, and a couple army guards eventually came over and shooed some people out of the way so we could leave. About 30 people continued to follow us as we walked, the youngest kids occasionally poking or prodding us, seeing what they could get away with. On the way back we stopped to watch parasailing, also for the festival, in which a scared-looking young man was strapped to a parachute, connected to a jeep by a rope, and then dragged across the dusty field, getting air for about 10 seconds before smacking the ground hard. We walked the rest of the way back to our hotel, not losing our crowd of followers until we closed the gate of our guest house. The festival was enjoyable, but the attention was overwhelming, and we hid inside the gates of the guest house for the rest of the day.

I should insert here, although we didn’t actually find out until the next morning, that a close-up photo of Jeff taking pictures at the festival appeared on the front page of the local newspaper the next day, in full color, and above the fold! The caption read, in Hindi, “Foreign tourist takes snaps.” Our hosts at the guest house found it hilarious, and gave us a couple of copies of the paper to bring home.

We decided to go to Agra to see the Taj Mahal the next morning, for sunrise. Arjini arranged for a taxi to pick us up at 4:30 a.m. so we would arrive at the Taj by 6:00 when it opened and see the sunrise at 6:30. For a fixed price, the driver would take us to the Taj, the Red Fort (also in Agra) and Fatepuhr Sikri (a ghost city built and abandoned by the king Ashoka—between Agra and Bharatpur). We went to bed early and woke up at 4:15, threw clothes on, grabbed our cameras and went to wait outside the gate for our car. We stood in the still darkness of morning from 4:30 until 5:00 with no taxi, and just as we were about to give up and go back to bed (since it would be too late to see the Taj at sunrise if we left much later anyway) the car showed up. We put our bags in the trunk, and as we climbed into the cab the driver said “Delhi?”. Us: “What?! No, Agra.” Him: “Delhi?” Us: “Agra! Taj Mahal! Red Fort! Agra!” Him: “Delhi?” At that point, exasperated (he spoke no English), we climbed out of the car, grabbed our bags and told him “No, thank you, no” in Hindi and motioned for him to leave. He called after us in confusion for a few minutes, then finally got in his car and left. Frustrated, we resigned to go the next morning instead, and we headed back to the room to go back to bed. We had just climbed into bed again when we heard shouting from outside. The driver was back, yelling “manager” over and over again through the gate. Jeff ran down to shut him up, since it was just after 5:00 in the morning. He told him the manager was sleeping (using hand signals so he’d get it, hopefully) and told him to leave. The man finally drove away again, only to return again 10 minutes later (when we were once again getting in bed). This time he rang the bell and woke Arjini, who met him at the gate. He told her he had in fact been there at 4:30 and had said Agra, not Delhi. Jeff set him straight, the driver finally left for good, and we all finally got to go back to bed.

Instead of touring the Taj Mahal as planned, we spent the next day lounging around the guest house, chatting with other guests. There was a German couple who stayed there the whole time we did. They (and their dog Anja) had driven overland all the way from Germany in a 4WD Toyota Land Cruiser, which was completely reinforced and decked out with solar panels, a kitchen, and a tent which popped out of the hinged roof so they could sleep at the top of the truck. They had been in southern India prior to Bharatpur, and gave us great recommendations for places to stay, visit and eat when we head south. We also met a couple from England—Jenny and Sam—and Grant, a dentist from Australia. We still haven’t met a single other traveler from the U.S. Grant, Sam, Jenny, Jeff and I decided to check out a “cultural event” (as it was described on the Braj Festival flyer), which was occurring at 7 p.m. that night somewhere in town. After dinner we left the guest house and walked towards town. We saw and heard lights and music coming from a side street, and decided to detour and check it out. It turned out to be a wedding procession, much like what Jeff and I had seen in Delhi, with men and women dancing in front, a live band playing chaotic and lively tunes, boys carrying the bare tubes of fluorescent lights, which were powered by a generator pulled by a mule behind the procession, and the groom covered in garlands and mounted on a white horse. We stood on the side of the road to watch them pass, and as the dancers reached us a few of the men broke apart and took my hands, saying “Dance! Dance!” and before I knew it I was in the center of the parade, surrounded by laughing men in suits and women in beautiful jeweled saris, everyone dancing, feeling frumpy and conspicuous in my jeans and hooded sweatshirt, attempting to dance and blushing hard at the attention. Jeff jumped in with his camera and got some shots of me in the midst of it before I escaped, out of breath and embarrassed and laughing. I’ve always loved Indian weddings, and it was exhilarating, if a little disorienting, to be suddenly and unexpectedly immersed in one.

We left the wedding party and resumed our search for the “cultural events,” following a map and asking directions repeatedly. We finally made it to what turned out to be a fair grounds in the center of town, complete with a ferris wheel and game booths. There was a stage set up and women were dancing with flaming pots balanced on their heads, and we all filled in behind the rest of the crowd to watch. I didn’t realize immediately that Jenny and I were the only women there, and aside from us the crowd was entirely made up of young (and mostly drunk) Indian men. We were very quickly surrounded by people, who were more aggressive than usual in their attention, and shouted things to us in Hindi, interspersed with the seemingly universal word “sexy.” Jenny quickly became really agitated by the attention and began shouting at people to leave us alone, which of course riled them up further, and pretty soon people were chanting something and it was definitely time to leave. We were followed all the way out of the fairgrounds until we climbed into a rickshaw and took off, back to the guest house. It would have been nice to see the “cultural events,” but Diggi told us later that even he avoids going out at night in Bharatpur, because things often get rowdy. The evening certainly wasn’t a total loss, though, since I got my three minutes of wedding immersion.

We went to bed right away since we were getting up at 4:00 again to attempt the trip to Agra once more. This time the car was there on time, although it turned out to be the same driver as the day before. This time, though, he said “Agra” instead of “Delhi,” and we all laughed a little. We made it to Agra and parked in the closest lot, then walked in the pre-dawn darkness down the surprisingly empty street to the entrance to the Taj Mahal. There was no line, but security guards checked our bags pretty thoroughly at the entrance and unfortunately wouldn’t let Jeff bring in his tripod (although they at least provided free lockers to store it in). We were two of maybe six or seven people there so early, and we waited in the darkness at the beginning of the gardens and watched as the Taj Mahal slowly emerged out of the haze as the sun began to rise. Although there was no spectacular sunrise, it was worth being there that early for the serenity of seeing the grounds empty. By the time the sun was visible there were at least a hundred people behind us, and by the time we left a few hours later there were probably a couple of thousand tourists. Once the sun was up we walked along the paths to the main building then briefly went inside, although it was surprisingly small and almost unremarkable inside. We left by 9 a.m. and returned to our waiting taxi, passing tourists riding in camel-drawn carts. We climbed in the car and our driver said “Bharatpur?” and we had to track down someone who spoke English and Hindi and have him explain that we wanted to go to the Red Fort, not back to the hotel. He did manage to get us there, after asking directions multiple times (he apparently couldn’t read either, because he paid no attention to the numerous signs, written in English and Hindi, which showed the direction of the fort).

The Red Fort was actually wonderful, with endless gardens and courtyards and passageways leading to balconies from which we could see the outline of the Taj Mahal. There were carvings and paintings and latticework everywhere, and everything was made out of smooth marble. Even better, there were very few other people there, and for a while I read a book in the sun while Jeff took photos of the pillars and the sunlight filtering through carved windows. We saw a family of monkeys at one point, and got a number of photos of them from just a few feet away. At one point I was taking shots of a monkey perched on a fence, and when I stepped a couple of inches closer to him he lunged at me, at which point a man with a stick chased the entire crew of monkeys away. We spent a couple of hours at the fort but could have spent much longer, if it weren’t for being hungry and knowing we still had one more place to see before we got to eat anything. We were determined not to eat in Agra, because there have been numerous cases of restaurants intentionally poisoning tourists, then having the rickshaw driver bring them to a clinic where they were “treated” by an IV, which was in fact continuing to make them sick. I guess the police figured this out and cracked down a few years ago, and there haven’t been known cases since then, but even so we decided we’d rather go hungry for a few hours than risk it.

After the Red Fort we managed to convey to our driver that we wanted to go to Fatepuhr Sikri before going back to Bharatpur. When we got there we were assailed by beggars and pushy vendors, which occurs everywhere but seemed to be worse there for some reason. The entrance fee was fairly expensive but we were told we could enter the mosque area free, so we decided to skip the rest of it and just check out the mosque before heading home. When we entered the mosque we were joined by a pretty ragged-looking man, his teeth stained red with pan (a type of chewing tobacco common here), who began pointing out various features of the mosque. We told him we appreciated his comments but didn’t have any money for him, and he assured us he was not a guide, but a teacher there at the mosque, practicing his English. Skeptical but unable to lose him, we let him guide us around, although we would have preferred to be on our own. In the center of the mosque was an elaborate tomb, apparently of some ancient holy man, and surrounding it were stone tombs of his descendants. Vendors literally sat on the tombs selling their wares. Our uninvited guide brought us to a vendor selling silk blankets. He told us if we bought one, draped it over a tomb and made a wish, we were “99% guaranteed” it would come true. Although we were told the blankets were used only once, there were multiple fold lines in each cloth—clearly, they were removed soon after our “99% guaranteed” wish was cast. The mosque was devoid of Muslim worshippers and completely overrun by tourists and beggars, and we were pretty quickly ready to leave. The “teacher” ushered us over to a corner where a man was selling marble carvings, and he begged us to sit down and inspect “his art.” The “teacher”’s true purpose revealed, we insisted we had no money until he finally let us go. We left the mosque quickly and got back in the taxi to head back to Bharatpur.

The next day we decided it was about time we leave Bharatpur, so we went into town to buy train tickets. After talking with various other travelers we had decided to skip Jaipur and Pushkar and instead head for the Ellora Caves, which are outside of Aurangabad and are known for their ancient carvings and paintings. We bought train tickets, with less difficulty than in Delhi but still not without some confusion, then went back to the guest house to enjoy our last evening in Bharatpur. We actually watched the Indian version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” with the family before heading to bed. In the morning we packed up, ate a final breakfast of banana pancakes, said goodbye (with real regret) to the family, and crammed ourselves and our bags onto an already-packed bus to Agra, where we would catch our 18-hour train to Aurangabad.

---

Photos

my couple minutes of wedding immersion
Photo by Jeff

out of place and underdressed but having a blast
Photo by Jeff

jeff getting a shave
the barber actually came to the guesthouse and set up in the back yard to shave jeff's head... despite his pained expression, he did a very good job and avoided any seriuos bloodspills

Comments

[anna]

wow
jeff is on his way to tabloid-news stardom!