Sun, Nov 29 - to Jaipur, The Pink City

We awoke to dense ground fog, packed up and left the lovely Bagh and Bharatpur.  Our bus driver took onto a good highway west towards Jaipur.  Even with nearly zero visibility he was able to drive us along 40 miles until the elevation rose 300' and we emerged into sunshine.

There was still quite a bit of haze in the air and difficult to see if we were on a flat plain or if there were hills in the distance.

After four hours and about 130 miles we arrived in the outskirts of Jaipur.  Already we could see that it is a cleaner, spiffier city, and about ten times the size, at 3.2 million, of Bharatpur.  We passed the

   The Water Palace

Water Palace situated in the middle of a lake.  About seven miles NE of downtown we parked and transferred to jeeps.  Our two jeeps drove us up narrow winding streets to the foot of Amber Castle/Fort, made of pink and yellow sandstone and white marble about 800 years ago.  It also has a "great wall of China" type of protective barricade which runs about ten miles along the crests of the steep hills which is very impressive.

   The Amber Palace 

   The Great Wall

In the huge courtyard we could see  elaborately decorated elephants bringing up the last passengers of the day - they are only allowed to transport tourists five times a day and finish at 11 AM - we could have taken elephants instead of jeeps if we had arrived earlier, but it was great to, at least, see them.  

We explored various parts of the palace - it was pretty crowded with Indian tourists as it was a Sunday.  We finished up in the Hall of Mirrors in which the walls and ceiling are covered with pieces of mirror set in place to create various complex patterns and is very beautiful.  The rulers used to illuminate the hall  with oil lamps at night which must have made an impressive sight.

The Hall of Mirrors (detail)

We drove back into the city on a six-lane highway across which cows meandered and camel-drawn carts competed with trucks and cars!  We reached the "Pink City" itself - the old city surrounded by a wall in which every building has to be painted salmon pink with white trim ever since 1876 when it was painted that way to welcome the Prince of Wales.

We stopped at a lovely open air restaurant for lunch and then explored the City Palace where the wife of the last Maharaja still lives.  She rents out her palace for $60,000 for weddings, and we saw a swarm of workers setting up flowering trees, bowers of flowers, a band, tables of food for 2000 guests for this evening.  We were wondering how to crash it and decided we might stand out among the gorgeous saris and jewels that will be on display there!

We visited the observatory, Jantar Mantar, designed by Jai Singh, the Maharaja who designed the city 300 years ago.  It is full of various types of sundials and other instruments all built in large very beautiful marble shapes.

   A Sundial

                                                     

   Another Sundial 

We needed some retail therapy, Bryan said, so most of us went to a cooperative weaving and block printing fabric workshop.  There we were shown block printing on a long piece of cotton using 4 or 5 blocks and getting the colors right on the mark!  

    Block Printing

Next we saw three weavers making fine rugs.  Most of the rugs are made by village women who can't work outside their homes and this gives them income. We saw one man whose job is cutting off the tied pieces of wool to a lower height and yet another who blow-torches the back of completed rugs to  remove bits of trash and to verify that no manufactured fiber has been woven in.  It was very interesting!

We finally pulled into the Narain Niwas Palace Hotel, a large, yellow grand hotel, that was used in part of "The Exotic Marigold Hotel" movies!

We got Room 34, very ornate and nice, but later saw Stephen and Pete's which was an enormous room with a fireplace!  There is to be entertainment tonight , but I have caught Bob's cold and feel pretty miserable, so I called Room Service and had a Kingfisher beer and a grilled chicken sandwich delivered which I could enjoy in peace.

Sat, Nov 28 - The Deeg Palace

After breakfast we met at 6:50 and set off on the bus.  It was cool and misty all day and there was quite a smokey odor to the air from all the buffalo patties burning.  We set off north, stopping for a bit of birding before entering the very messy little town of Deeg, in the center of which is the magnificent buff sandstone palace of the Maharaja of Bharatpur which was built in the 1700s and occupied until the 1950s.  The main pavilion still contains all of its furniture and so gives you an unique sense of what life was like then.  

   Entry Hall of the Deeg

We entered through 70' high walls into beautiful gardens watered from two lake-like tanks one of which the main pavilion overlooks.  Unfortunately the water is heavily polluted today, but the views are still pretty stunning.

We entered the Maharaja's living quarters: the huge living room full of large sofas, intricately carved small tables over which long, 200 year old punkas, cloth panels, were strung from the ceiling to be manipulated back and forth by slaves/servants  to keep the royal family cool in the summer heat.

   Living room with Punkas hanging on the right

    Living Room Furniture

The Maharaja had a bedroom on the top floor with a 10' x 15' platform bed on silver legs with a chess room next door with pillows on the floor from which, I suppose, the players directed the movement of the chess pieces.  All the rooms were cleverly positioned to take advantage of any breeze coming off the water with carved screens separating rooms to provide plenty of ventilation. 

   The Chess Room

We wound around to the outside, past a large cage hanging off one of the buildings in which a tiger was kept on display.  We passed by a marble arch from which a swing used to be attached to amuse oneself on hot afternoons.  A large family was visiting from a wedding and they got me to take their picture, and then wanted me to join them in a photo.  Much hilarity!

We walked a ways to a building which houses a wrestling rink - a large stage of sand surrounded by painted columns with an attached swimming pool outside.

    The Wrestling Room

                                            

                                             Painted Column in the Wrestling Room

           

We finally tore ourselves away from all this fantasy lifestyle and returned to the bus and drove back to Bharatpur.  We stopped the bus and got off and walked along a pretty foul canel and got great views of the Greater Painted Snipe before before returning to the national park.  We had lunch at our usual restaurant, and then birded the road from our rickshaws, trying for a few species that we had missed.  We were then transported back to the park gate, visited the bookstore, and returned to The Bagh to pack, have dinner and prepare to leave tomorrow.

This is the wedding season and we can hear music and fireworks every night.  We passed a brass band walking along the road one evening.  The groom, looking very scared,  was being carried along in a sedan chair, followed by a crowd of pretty girls in multicolored saris.  The girls in the family group that I met at the Palace today all had henna-decorated hands.

Fri, Nov 27 - More Birding in the Park and a Rest!

I got up at 5 AM and just felt exhausted and unenthusiastic.  At breakfast I asked Bryan if it were possible to bird with the group in the morning and then have our bus take me back to The Bagh for a restful afternoon.  He said it was no problem and probably others would join me!  That was very encouraging; he's a very accommodating leader!

After bowls of porridge and French toast for me and fried eggs for Bob, we joined the others on the bus and drove back to Keoladeo Ghana National Park where we found our rickshaw driver, Mr. Singh, and off we went further into the park.

    Indian Spotted Ducks

                           

                                         

                                   

                                                                                     Yellow-footed Green Pigeon

We saw Indian Spot-billed Ducks, a very pretty duck with red on its face and a yellow-tipped black bill, while walking along the road and were also lucky enough to talley four species of owls within an hour!  We climbed a watch tower and sat for an hour overlooking a vast wetland meadow.  We watched an Imperial Eagle face off with a Greater Spotted Eagle, and  herds of the large Nilgai antelope.  Just as we were climbing down, a flock of Bar-headed Geese flew overhead - the first flock of the season for these birds that migrate right over the Himalayas from Siberia flying at about 30,000'!

    Riding in our Rickshaws

Our rickshaw drivers took us back to our lunch hotel and afterwards Bob, Hilary, and I, plus two others elected to return to The Bagh for the afternoon.  We got back about 2 PM and walked all around our beautiful 10 acre hotel grounds.  It is surrounded by a high wall and is an oasis in the middle of this bustling, and rather chaotic, town. There are several pavilions of rooms constructed of marble with inlaid colored marble, an enormous pool, restaurant and bar.

    Pavillion at The Bagh

    Elephant steps at The Bagh

We napped, wrote up our notes, and generally relaxed until the others returned.  Bob was relieved to find that he had missed only one life bird that the birders who stayed at the park saw.

    Marble veranda near our room

We had a good dinner with dishes of mutton, chicken, and okra which they managed to de-slime.  For dessert I had Gujjar ka Halua, shredded carrots in thickened milk, sautéed in milk fat, which was very sweet, as usual, but quite tasty!  And more Ras Malai, thickened milk shaped into balls and served in saffron sauce.

   Dessert

The hotel had arranged to show us a video made back in the 80s of bird life in the park around the year - very interesting to see the wildlife in and out of monsoon season.

Thu, Nov 26 - Vultures and Parakeets

Off on the bus at 6:50 after a good breakfast.  We are going to leave the park today and drive south to try for some rarities.  We took off on a very bad, potholed road which went through many tiny villages and gave us a chance to see some rural life in India.   We saw more artistic displays of buffalo fuel patties and small decorated mud huts in which to store them.

We also saw men collecting shafts of dead mustard plants and wheat to grind up for chaff to feed the livestock which is stored in tiny conical roofed straw huts.  The main crop in this area is mustard for use as a spice and also as a skin-smoothing oil.

   Roof-top Buffalo Patties

Our bus driver took us into towns with horrendous traffic: mopeds, trucks, camel- and oxen- drawn carts, plus wandering cows and dogs moving chaotically.  We drew a lot of attention whenever we stopped and walked into a field to look for birds - sometimes we would take pictures of them and sometimes they would take photos of us!

After driving an average of 12 MPH for two hours we reached the town of Bayana, a very  ancient town set at the base of high, red sandstone cliffs from which large red slabs are mined for construction (mostly illegally).

    Stubborn camel!

We were there to try to see the endangered Indian Vulture.  There used to be thousands in the air, but after the cattle were injected with some kind of treatment back in the 90s, almost all the vultures suddenly disappeared - a crash of about 98% - as they live largely off the carcases of dead cows and buffaloes and the chemicals in the cattle ruined the vultures' livers.

However, fortunately for us,  there were about seven vultures circling above the cliffs when we walked there.  We passed by a boarding school for girls, and they all waved and "Hello!"ed us and then gathered on a balcony to watch us.  A huge flock of wild Rock Doves, all slaty blue in color, flew in and out of canyons when suddenly a Bonelli's Eagle crashed into the flock and came away with lunch!

    Red sandstone cliffs with milled sandstone slabs

We kept passing over train crossings and saw lots of trains cruising by.  We came to a crossing with the crossing gates down and sat for 30 minutes.  We used the time to eat our box lunches of boiled eggs, veggie patties, chicken, and bananas.

   Water Chestnut Gatherers

We continued on to a dam and parked by the lake the dam had made.  From there we walked to the hunting palace of the Maharaja of Bharatpur.  We walked along the water, birding, and saw some women floating in inner tubes, harvesting water chestnuts.  At one point Harish spotted the much-desired Plum-headed Parakeet!!  Really terrific!  A green parakeet with a long tail and a beautiful plum-colored head!

    Plum-headed Parakeet

We climbed up to the palace in the warm afternoon and reached the old palace which overlooks the lake.  it is very run down and some squatters were living inside.  The current maharaja still owns the property and has some vague plans of fixing it up as a resort which would take a lot of money, but could be really spectacular.

    The Maharaja's Palace

We returned to the bus at 4:30 and started back.  Our bus driver took us a long way around, but on better roads he said.  Even so the traffic was pretty dense with lots of large slow trucks and motorbikes.  Our driver was amazingly skilled at maneuvering our large bus out and around trucks and back in to our lane without any collisions.   We finally got home at 6:30, and Bryan gave us an hour to rest for dinner - most guide give you 30 minutes at most!

Delicious dinner, as usual, the bird list and bed. 

Wed, Nov 25 - Birding from boats

    Red-vented Bul-bul

                                                       

    Bluethroat

We had delicious omelets with tomatoes, onions, cilantro and chilis for breakfast before setting off in the bus at 7:15.  We reached the park and joined our same rickshaw drivers who dropped us off at a trail that circles one of the ponds.  We walked along the path in the early morning cool, passing several groups of women, colorfully dressed, as usual, and carrying large picks on top of their heads - for chopping out the invasive water hyacinths.

We logged in a lot of birds, plus several butterflies and dragonflies  that Harish Sharma, our local guide, knew the names of.  He is an excellent birder and general naturalist.

   Yellow Orange Spot

We walked about two miles which at birders' speed took us four hours!  Most of the time we walked along a brick road on an embankment between bodies of water, the last remaining road of the maharaja.   Parties of hunters could stand on the road and easily shoot huge numbers of ducks!

 We returned to to the park hotel for lunch, somewhat better than yesterday's lunch, plus I tried a dish of what I thought were lychees, but turned out to be a local specialty of 2" white balls made with milk having the consistency of a kitchen sponge and incredibly sweet. I've never eaten anything like it - the strangest texture I've ever experienced.

                                          Mr. Singh and I in the Rickshaw

After lunch we walked along the main road a bit until we came to a thicket where we sat, kneeled, and scrambled about trying to see the Siberian Rubythroat.  It kept appearing at odd moments but most of us finally got to see this tiny brown bird which has a black stripe through its eye with white above and below and a brilliant ruby red throat which, even in the dim light of the thicket, glowed!

   Our Boat Trip

Bryan led us to an opening where we found some boats moored and climbed into two and were poled through the shallow water to a large, and equally shallow, lake.  I guess the boats can only operate when the water lowers after the monsoon season as poling seems to be the only mode of propelling the boats.  We were conducted under a tree and shown a rare Grey Nightjar sleeping on a branch which camouflages itself very well as part of the wood.

     Grey Nightjar

We returned to the bus and got back to The Bagh at 5:45 giving me over an hour to post the blog and shower.  Quite luxurious!  We had a good dinner, starting with a  very chili-infused soup, pasta, rice, veggies, & fish all with tasty sauces.  For dessert there were Mal-Pua, cornmeal crepes infused with rose water, and Kheer, rice pudding.

Mal-Pua

Tue, Nov 24 - a Very Birdy Birthday!

Bob and I got up at 5 AM, got organized and walked over to the restaurant for omelets and porridge, before meeting up at the bus at 6:45.  We drove the short distance to Keoladeo National Park which originated as a hunting park for a maharaja in the 1850s.  As hunting has been illegal in India for ~50 years, the area has turned into a famous bird and wildlife sanctuary.

    Hilary in her rickshaw

We pulled into the main gate and were surrounded by a fleet of small bicycle rickshaws. We climbed in in pairs and set off down the park road.  This turned out to be ideal birding transportation as they are completely quiet and can stop whenever you want.  As hunting stopped so long ago, the birds and animals are fairly tame and can be observed very well.

   Spotted Deer

We slowly moved along the road stopping in dry brush areas, swamps, small lakes, accumulating quite a list of birds.  Hilary, who hadn't been on a professional bird tour before, fit right in and managed to handle the five straight hours of birding very well!

   Spotted Owlet

 

   Painted Storks on nest

We were rickshawed back to a hotel in the park and had a fairly uninspired lunch, but it re-energized us to return to the field  for more birding.  We saw quite a few new mammals, in addition to the birds.  The park has a population of wild pigs, Jackals, Spotted Deer, and Nilgai Antelope, which resemble large husky antelope, but with small horse-like heads.

           Purple Heron                                                          

   Clearing Water Hyacinths from the Park

We birded until 5 when the light began to fade and our faithful rickshaw drivers (all with last name of Singh!) pedaled us the three miles back to our bus.  We climbed aboard and, since the traffic wasn't too bad, got back to The Bagh with an hour of free time until dinner at seven fifteen!

    Eurasian Spoonbills

Hil and I dashed over to reception - a long walk in the dark - where wifi is available and I sent off yesterday's blog.  Back to the room for a shower, and off to dinner.   Bryan presented me with a handmade card covered with sketches of birds we had seen that day and with "Happy Birthday" in Hindi!   He is quite an accomplished artist, in addition to his many other talents.  And as dinner was concluding, in came a cake for me - presented on a piece of styrofoam which I was very careful not include when I cut the cake.  A very nice birthday celebration, indeed!!

   

    The Bagh Hotel Entry

    My Cake!

                                                    Bryan's card!!

We had to retire to a separate room to do the list, as the restaurant was quite crowded this evening...and came up with a list of 101 species!  And 19 new ones for Bob!