With about a week left in India, we decided to take advantage of our ample time here and visit some lessor known cities. We arrived in Bharatpur, a small city of about 400,000 (these are a dime a dozen in India). Our main reason for visiting was to spend a day at Kaledeo National Park, world renowned for it’s huge variety of birds, but we had an afternoon to spare and spent it wandering around the city. We weren’t expecting much, but it was a pleasant change for a couple of reasons. First, it actually had a park in the center of the town, which is pretty unheard of in India – we sat there and enjoyed delicious fresh pomegranate juices (this is one of my favourite things about India – there are fresh juice stands everywhere, with familiar and more exotic fruits that are to die for). The second thing was, despite a nice palace, there are virtually no tourists in the town, and as a result, the tout machine was not in motion – other than a few kids asking for rupees, you were generally left in peace, and people actually spoke to you without hope of monetary gain. Here are some pictures of the palace, which contained some really nice Turkish baths, and some local kids (we’re thinking of starting a child portrait business when we get home):

A scene from the Palace

The Hamman (Turkish Baths)

Along the Highway, close to the hotel

The next day was spent at Keoladeo Ghana National Park. Interestingly, it appeared that they had recently jacked up the entrance fees (since they hadn’t actually changed the prices on the printed brochures, we assumed that it was a rush job for the Commonwealth Games, but I think that they might be disappointed by the number of tourists that make their way from Delhi to Bharatpur). We rented bikes for the day and explored the park, which actually contained a very impressive number of birds, including peacocks, painted storks (below – these were incredible) and cormorants. Not to be excluded from any rural or urban location in India, there were also a respectable number of cows.

There isn’t that much to do in Baratpur, so the following day we took a day trip to Deeg to visit the Suraj Mahl palace, considered one of India’s most beautiful palaces. Deeg was built in the mid 1800′s as a summer palace for the rulers of Bharatpur, and As we were reminded throughout our time there, the palace contains over 200 fountains (sadly, said fountains were not working while we were there). Nonetheless, the palace was quite impressive, with some of the original 19th century furniture still preserved in the palace and some of the most entertaining monkeys I’ve ever seen – they could even do somersaults!

The main palace building

Women washing along the palace steps – there are generally no washing machines here; instead the women go to the rivers and lakes to do the washing, beating the clothes against the cement steps to dry them.

An example of some of the inlaid marble

A maze, designed to capture rainwater (water is very scarce in this part of India)

The following day, we headed to Fatepur Sikri, a Unesco World Heritage town (yep, that’s right – another one!). Fatehpur Sikri is usually a day trip for tourists in Agra (about 40 km away), but we decided to stay the night, and were therefore treated to some of the most doting hospitality I have ever seen as a result (one of the waiters forgot to bring us a bottle of water, and apologized so many times that eventually we had to firmly tell him to please stop). It is also home to some of the most aggressive touts in India (which is not an easy feat). We took a tuk tuk from Bharatpur to Fatehpur Sikri, and some touts on the side of the road convinced our driver to drop us off at a tourist complex that was about a kilometer too soon. Unfortunately we didn’t notice (it was the Goverdhand vs. Gulistan Tourist complex), and when we left the tuk tuk, we were promptly swarmed by about ten boys offering postcards, guides, food, etc.., and would not leave us alone. Touts aside, we were blown away by the Jama Masid mosque, whose Victory Gate was built to commemorate one of Akbar’s military victories and was a dazzling 54 meters tall:

The inside was almost as resplendent, with intricate carvings, and a stunning white marble tomb inside the courtyard. We also visited the nearby palace; Fatehpur Sikri was previously the capital before it was moved to Agra due to lack of water, and Akbar built a palace for each of his three wives, a Hindu, a Christian and a Muslim wife. The palaces reflect the styles of each of the three religions, and the effect is dazzling.

The Rumi Sultana

The royal stables

Admiring the view

The following day we proceeded on to Agra – its an hour long bus ride there, and Lindsay got to enjoy a new friend sitting beside him, his arm behind LIndsay, knees towards him reading along with him on his iPhone. Unsurprisingly for a country of 1.2 billion, there is no concept of personal space here, but even after five weeks, neither of us ever really got used to it. Another highlight of the bus ride was that about 5 km before the bus depot, a rickshaw rider boarded the bus and motioned for us (the only two non-Indians on the bus) to get off, telling us it was our stop. It was nowhere near our stop, and our guidebook had warned us of this scam – I continue to find it amazing (and offensive), that the bus driver and ticket collector were in on this and that moreover, no one in the entire bus told us that it was a ruse. As I’ve mentioned before, and as we’ve discussed with many other travelers, India can be a difficult country to travel through – you need to be on your toes all the time. After a 15 minute pause for a ‘VIP moment’ (an army truck driving down the street closed down traffic near the Taj for 1/2 an hour), we arrived at our hotel, which was about a kilometer away from the Taj Mahal.

The next day, we arose at about 5:30 to see the Taj. We were always going to get up early, since its a nice, relatively peaceful time to enjoy the Taj, but it turns out that we would have been up any way, since we woke up to public speakers blaring Hindu pop music. This isn’t uncommon in India, and in keeping with the personal space theme, no one really seems bothered by this Hindu interpretation of the Muslim call to prayer.

Our alarm clock

The Taj Mahal is really incredible – it is truly everything that it’s cracked up to be and then some.

My favourite vantage points were from about 200 meters away (the first two photos), and then up close, where you can see some of the intricate carving in the marble. The light at dawn was perfect.

That evening, both of us were slammed with a rather horrible bout of food poisoning, care of the hotel’s Vegetable Thali (set vegetarian meal). Despite India’s notoriety on the health front, we’d been faring quite well, so this was an unfortunate surprise. The next day, through our groggy haze, the drive to Delhi was a fascinating one. During our time here, we’ve spent time in a number of medium and large sized cities across India, and have been quite surprised at the rudimentary level of infrastructure and commerce. Cities of 3 million have few malls and skyscrapers, and outside of the best neighbourhoods, dwellings are basic. India’s economy is growing at roughly 8% a year, millions of young people are graduating from technical and managerial schools – so we have consistently wondered – where does this dynamic growth and sophisticated commerce take place? It appears that the answer to that is Delhi, a (relatively) sparkling metropolis filled with modern buildings, shops, hotels and transportation. It literally feels like a completely different country from what we’d seen, and it’s a shame that we were completely incapacitated and couldn’t explore it more fully (it also would have been fun to cheer on Canada at the Commonwealth Games, which were taking place close to where we were staying). Instead of exploring, we checked into our hotel, ate dinner at the hotel restaurant (a franchise of Eggspectation in Montreal – so strange!) and went to bed. In the morning we headed to the airport to catch our flight to Uzbekistan.

We’ve spent more time in India than any other country on our trip – it’s a fascinating country, and while it’s very difficult to travel around, the sites can certainly be worth the hassle. At the beginning of our guidebook, they allude to the fact that you will either ‘love it or loathe it, and most people seesaw between the two’. This was certainly the case for me. Prior to this, Japan was the most foreign place that I’ve had the opportunity to visit, but despite having so many Indian friends and acquaintances back home, I found India much more foreign. This was exhilarating at times, but also left me feeling impatient and frustrated. I’m not sure yet if I’ll look back on this five weeks fondly, but it was certainly one of the most memorable experiences I’ve had.