North india’s famous bird sanctuary is having a tough year. With lower than normal rain, most of the Bharatpur’s lakes etc have dried, which in turn has resulted in a steep fall in the visitor count.
Informed people at the park say that it has been one of the worst seasons they have seen….but we didnt know any of this when the sudden weekend trip was planned 🙂
All we knew was Bharatpur needs to be ticked off & its close by…so off we went on a Friday evening knowing that this place is close to Agra/Mathura.
Luckily for us- theres a mall on the highway just before Mathura & we asked the people there for route to Bharatpur.And read acrefully coz its tricky- you need to go past this mall & two flyovers, take a U turn & then find a road that goes towards Bharatpur once u r back on the 2nd flyover.
Bharatpur is just 35 Kms from this mall but what doesnt help is that there are no signs on the road – so ask & ask again !
Another word of caution-there are no signs in Bharatpur – so make sure u reach at a decent hour when you can find some people on the road.We reached there close to midnight & had real trouble finding a hotel.FInally the map in Lonely planet came to the rescue- i guess i should have added “As always” !
The best way to see the park is by renting bikes. The seats are completely uncushioned so you would need to take regular “bum breaks” 🙂