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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MacNara" data-source="post: 1755717" data-attributes="member: 23290">September was the only time my wife could get a break, and she only had nine days including flights (I stayed an extra two weeks). Also, the weather was quite pleasant, which it often isn't at other seasons in India. It was our first visit to India. A friend is a diplomat posted to Delhi, so we visited her, and did the typical tourist stuff centered within reach of Delhi during my wife's week, and Bharatpur was a one-night stop on the way between Agra and Jaipur. We booked the whole thing through an agent in Delhi used by my friend's embassy. They did a pretty good job overall.I would have thought that if there was the quantity of traffic you describe, given the one narrow main road, that there would have been very few birds for these people to see (scared off by the noise - Indians are not quiet - and the sheer numbers of people).You are probably right (I hope you are). My diplomat friend didn't think it entirely impossible, however. The driver of our car dealt with the actual money transactions. I didn't see how much he paid here. However, when I, my friend and her daughter spent a couple of days in Himachal Pradesh, I did see how much was paid. For leading the three of us on an 18km all-day hike, the guide (well, he didn't really speak English, but without him we wouldn't have tried this trek) got paid 400 Rupees.We certainly did give them a tip. When we were young, my diplomat friend and I hitched and camped around Europe for five weeks on $US120. And I admire the way you did your trip on a budget. You surely learned more about India than we did. But now I'm over 50, with a nice life, and I'm not the type who feels cheated to discover I've paid a few hundred rupees more than the 'real' price. My diplomat friend, however, is like this, since she has to put up with it day after day, and she would be bankrupt if she coughed up all the baksheesh demanded (when tipping she frequently asked for change, and gave sums like ten rupees). My wife found this whole thing stressful, since in Japan, there is no tipping of any kind.Our guide said they only got paid when they guided, and didn't receive a basic salary. Whether this was true or not, there didn't seem to be any organisation at all. We didn't see any guides other than him while we were there. I think you might be surprised at how very, very little some people get paid for their labour in India, and moreso as you get near the bottom of the pyramid. It's a very brutal society, and those on the upper levels treat those significantly below them more or less like animals. It's not surprising that they are not dedicated and look for other money-making chances wherever they may be.Well, we simply didn't have the time to do this. Bharatpur was a 'bonus' as it were, a short break from 'sights'. And we enjoyed it mostly. We chose Bharatpur from a guidebook, which made it sound pretty good. We thought we could do a road visit one of the times, and a boat visit the other time, but it turns out that the boat trips are off, due to lack of water and birds. (Note to potential visitors anywhere: the Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness Guides are very pretty, but essentially advertising for the country they cover, rather than guides. A lot of their comments on places in India were very misleading. Their guide to Japan is overoptimistic, also.)I would have skipped a guide after the first day, if I had had several days. There is very little information at the entrance, though isn't there, to tell you that you can get around by yourself, or to help you to do so? But if you've come a long way, have only a very short time, and you don't know the place at all, having a guide makes sense.My diplomat friend's Indian birdwatcher friend said that Bharatpur was not what it had been, and counselled against it (when we were planning the trip). But alternative suggestions took no account of our needs and intentions and involved huge detours at best, and devoting most of the week to getting to and seeing some other park at worst. So, Bharatpur was the best we could do. Other places I went in India to find some nature (the main purpose of the trip was to see some of India, not just nature or birds) were also disappointing. (Information for others reading this thread: you might think this Unesco wild bird site would be in the middle of nowhere, but it's a five minute drive or a short walk from the centre of a significant town - so it's not just a handful of peasants taking the wood or water.)I think this might be an idea, though you have to wonder whether the politicians wouldn't see this as a chance to sell it off and pocket the proceeds. As you know, India is getting pretty good press these days for 'development', but to me it seemed more like accelerated destruction; they'll wake up one day and find there's nothing left to appropriate or sell off, and they will still have 1 billion people living on less than $2 per day. I left India far less optimistic about its chances as a country (and therefore our chances as a planet) than I was before I went. More importantly, my (senior) diplomat friend, who also lived in India for a year as a child and could compare, seemed to feel the same.THE MAIN POINT: Your trip description is really interesting, and I hope you find the time to finish it, and I'm sure that people going to India will find it very useful. It would be neat if BF found a place to put stuff like this thread separate from the ordinary short threads, so that people could find it more easily. Thanks for your contribution.</blockquote>

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