Bharatpur — It’s for the Birds

Kathy Hornbach
August 1, 2013

birds

The last bus ride (hurrah!) took us to the tiny town of Bharatpur, where there is a big park for water birds. This may seem unlikely, sited as it is in the middle of the great Thar desert. But one of the maharajas found a water source and built a couple of lakes (lake-building was a standard maharaja activity). They were built to provide duck-hunting for the royals. But, as the land was turned over to the government, it turned into a National Park. Birds from as far away as Siberia spend time here – over 500 species in this small park. As one might expect, the only people to make it to this remote park, besides bus-riding Intrepid travelers, were rabid birders from Britain, with camera lenses the size of small cannons.

We spent a lovely late afternoon touring the bird park by cycle-rickshaw. It was indeed full of birds; water birds and “regular” birds. It was a delightful way to spend an afternoon, away from the noise and dirt and pollution of the cities.

We wished only for a proper beverage: gin and tonic; rum ‘n Coke — as we enjoy in our favorite “Bird Island” forays down in the Florida Keys.

The hotel we stayed at was one of the nicest of the entire trip. Since there were no restaurants in the nonexistent town, we all had dinner at the hotel. And being a package-tour hotel (for Birders), dinner was served as a buffet. As a rule, one should never eat at a buffet in a country where sanitation is questionable – there are just too many opportunities for the bugs to multiply while the food sits out. But this seemed like a very nice hotel, and most of the dishes on the buffer were kept hot, except of course the dessert – a tasty cake with a thick custard frosting. Besides, we had proven ourselves hardy – almost everyone else on the trip had gotten sick at least once, but we’d been hale and hearty throughout. Mistake.

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