The Day I Realised That I Am Alive: BHARATPUR, RAJASTHAN- DAY 1 (LXXVII)

GOVERNMENT MUSEUM
PC:ASHISH

12th March, 2016-14th March, 2016

DAY 1

Life is a journey, and every journey brings with itself adventure and peace, tragedies and fun, problems and happiness. It's a mixture of emotions. That is how my two days journey to Bharatpur was.

After experiencing bike trip to Kasauli (http://nancyagarwal.blogspot.in/2016/03/my-first-trip-in-himalyas-on-bike.html), me and Ashish decided to go on another road trip, this time to Bharatpur- some 220 kms from Delhi.

FINDING THE TRAVELLING PARTNER

I met Ashish Sohal- a traveller, biker and photographer on Facebook (I owe something to Facebook now). We had one thing in common- our travelling. A 25 year old lad from Himachal, Ashish is innocent but mature. Chatting with him for a while, I felt that our travelling temperaments match and we planned a trip to Kasauli- my first trip in Himalayas on bike. There is a concept of blind date, I call our meeting as blind friendship. So as the weekend was approaching we planned another trip to Bharatpur.

ME AND ASHISH- BHARATPUR BIRD SANCTUARY

BIKE- ROYAL ENFIELD

My love, Duke (Ashish's bike) was in Himachal, so we hired another bike Royal Enfield.

YAMUNA EXPRESSWAY

It was raining and lightning in morning and the sky looked like a water colour painting I used to make in school. Sun and clouds were playing hide and seek. Well, I must say that the journey was fun on bike, but hiring bike was not such a good idea. We hired bike from StoneheadBikes, near Karkardooma Metro Station. Hiring the bike was itself the major task in Delhi. There were so many formalities to be completed- ID Proof, post dated cheque, recent photos alongwith Rs 5,000 deposit. We couldn't arrange the post dated cheque, so we had to deposit Rs 10,000 as security. And rented bike with 2 helmets and saddle bags costed us the same as hiring a taxi with driver.

TRAGEDY ON BIKE

Though we checked the bike properly before taking it, but still the bike created certain problems in the journey- difficulty in starting and we had to put lubricant in the chain to make it smooth.
The major tragedy was when I burnt my luggage bag. I had put my bag in one of the saddle bags at the silencer side. The heat of silencer burned the saddle bag alongwith my bag inside it. Luckily my things were saved except my rain coat which turned into ashes from one side. And we had to pay Rs 1000 extra from our security.

STILL HAPPY- ON YAMUNA EXPRESSWAY

BHARATPUR

We started at 5.30 am from Delhi and with heavy rain and thunder on the way we took enough breaks and reached Bharatpur by 12.00 pm. We already booked Raj Palace, a hotel just opposite to Bharatpur Bird Sanctuary. A nice, neat and clean hotel which costed us just Rs 560 as we had booked it through Goibibo by using its discount coupons and points. After resting for a while we started exploring Bharatpur.

Bharatpur is a small village like city with very less population. The roads were almost empty with hardly any vehicles. The roads were properly maintained and the architecture of Bharatpur is ancient which makes it really attractive.

BHARATPUR

Major attractions in Bharatpur apart from Bird Sanctuary are Lohargarh Fort- a fort wall, Kishori Mahal and Government Museum.

The view there was mesmerizing. There were peacocks roaming as if those forts were their house. There were parrots sitting all over in pairs. It seemed that they were celebrating some love festival. After visiting bird sanctuary the next day I realised that in India we don't find parrots, they are actually parakeets. And our guide told us that this is their breeding season.

PARAKEETS IN KISHORI MAHAL
PC: ASHISH

Bharatpur has simple life- people playing badminton in front of their houses, karate classes going on in a ground with majority of girls learning it, cows and handpumps in front of the houses, basically simple people with peaceful life.

While coming back we looked for a restaurant to have evening tea and snacks and it was very difficult to find a good restaurant in Bharatpur. Luckily we found Om Sai Restaurant near our hotel which became our hub for food for these two days.

While visiting these ancient places I realised that I have certain attraction for doors and windows and I kept clicking every new door which I came across.

Here sharing some more pictures: