Keoladeo NP & Fatehpur Sikri

Time for a double WHS today. Had our breakfast and then got picked up by our driver for the day, a fairly mute Indian man - fairly old so we presume he didn't speak much English.

First stop for the day was about two hours west of Agra, a place called Keoladeo National Park. This is well known as a bird sanctuary, both for migrating and nesting birds. It's especially interesting because the landscape is man-made. This area is quite dry and hot, and over the years a system of gradually constructed dykes, dams, canals and other waterways have slowly turned it into a wetland that attracts birds.

The typical recommendation here is to hire bikes from the park entrance and ride around, so that's what we did! Very foggy again so we couldn't really see much, but as the morning went on the fog got thinner and we ended up seeing quite a lot of birds. Wading birds, hunting birds, songbirds and waterbirds too - probably the best of the multiple bird sanctuaries we've been to now! Quite a few groups of locals with serious-looking lenses taking photos, so we knew we'd made a good choice.

Left the bird park around midday by which time the fog had completely lifted, and headed back towards Agra and our next destination: Fatehpur Sikri. This was a city founded by a Mughal emperor in the 16th century. It was intended to be the capital, and served as such for a brief period, but eventually the emperor was deposed and his successors lost interest. So it basically just sits out in the desert, unused and well preserved. Though of course there's a "modern" town around it now, like everywhere else in India.

We'd heard quite a few horror stories here of people getting ripped off by "guides" - demanding outrageous sums for ridiculously short tours, claiming that the tuk-tuk from the parking to the entrance is free (then disappearing when the driver wants his payment), etc. But it wasn't too bad, we just ignored the swarm around the car, got the bus up to the entrance and headed in. Also helps that we'd bought tickets online so we didn't need anyone's help at all.

The ruined city was great in the end - lots of palace buildings to check out with intricate carvings and fascinating styles. Mostly done in red sandstone, though with a couple of white marble pavilions dotted around too. All very impressive.

Once we'd finished looking around we headed next door to the royal mosque - not part of the ticketed area - and this was absolutely rammed. Loads of people around, including beggars and "helpful" people that show you a couple of things and then try to drag you to their shop. The mosques were very impressive (and with similar Mughal architecture to the mosques adjacent to the Taj), but everything else around them made it quite difficult. Alas.

Back down the hill in the shuttle bus, then an hour car ride back to Agra where we chilled in our room for the evening.Read more