Bharatpur, 4th March 2011
A few family call-outs, first:
Happy Birthday Granpa Antony! We hope you got our cards!
Good Luck Annabelle and Nick tomorrow in the Bath Fun Run – we’ll be cheering you on from here!
WM: On the first day of WD’s new regime of More Fun (and maybe one or two less monuments?), we got up early to go to Keoladeo-Ghana National Park, ‘one of the world’s most important ornithological breeding and migratory areas’ (according to the Rough Guide). When I say early, I mean at about 7 and then sat around waiting for porridge for about an hour. So as completely rubbish non-birders, with only a pair of toy binoculars between us and a collective inability to move anywhere quietly, and having arrived here just as the peak season finishes (and the wetlands dry up), we decided it might be a ‘lark’ (!) to go and see (or, more realistically, not see) birds somewhere other than the RSPB reserve in Otmoor. Transport around the park is by foot, cycling or cycle-rickshaw. We set off in a little convoy of the children in a cycle-rickshaw (which M drove some of the way), WM and WD on staggeringly uncomfortable Atlas bikes and our naturalist (is that right? A naturist is something else, WM) on his bike. It was great, cycling along in a straw hat, playing at being Jules et Jim. Oh, and spotting the odd bird. We peaked a bit early-on, finding sunbathing rock pythons sitting under some bushes, next to their hole. So much snake (more even than Alice Cooper) and so like Kaa in the Jungle Book, I was a little concerned they might think W or L a tasty snack. I’ve watched ‘Anaconda’, (a truly terrible film, about mutant giant snakes that predate humans) rather too recently on HBO cable, but the children were hypnotised. We saw wild boar, mongoose, chital, nilgai and sambar deer, as well as a jackal, but not L’s jungle cat. Bird-wise (in case, Laura or Tom are reading), we saw snake-necked darters, noisy adolescent painted storks, spoonbills, cormorants, egrets, white ibis, purple and pond herons, kingfishers, spotted and Scops owls, green bee-eaters, green yellow-footed pigeons, common grey hornbills... Apparently, a tiger had been present in the park a few days ago, having made it here ‘on holiday’ from Ranthambore National Park, only to be darted and taken home.
We’ve survived the start of our anti-malarials, in anticipation of going East. I was advised Nutella would help the children take theirs, but I didn’t have any Nutella and a spoonful of jam did the trick. No interesting Larium dreams to report from any of us yet. A side-effect listed is ‘increased crying’ and sleep problems – I’m not sure I’d be able to judge this objectively.
Back on the road, the intensity of physical ‘togetherness’ is rachetted up again to an even higher level of intimacy, not necessarily desirable... W has definitely the cheesiest feet of any four year old ever, but L tells me her bottom is stinkier. She’s got a cold at the moment and wraps up snot parcels for me and follows us into the bathroom saying, “I know what you’re doing! You’re making babies!” (No, WD and I are just brushing our teeth.) M needs her ‘space’ (physically and emotionally) so tends to end up with a bed or mattress to herself, whilst L and W wriggle and kick and roll over each other all night (pre-, during and post-sleep) if they share in Dr Seuss-style (‘We play, we play, we play all day. We fight, we fight, we fight all night’), so the usual outcome is for one of them to end up sleeping with us. But I’m writing this on a lazy Saturday afternoon, as the sun streams in, off a flowery veranda and the three children and I are happily occupying the same space (WD has gone off to Deeg), everyone busy with their own thing (M is playing Spider Solitaire, W is making plastacine Rock Pythons and L is constructing an educational work book for W) but comfortable and calm in each other’s company.
And at this three-quarters point, we start to think of Coming Home, while still wanting to extract the most out of our remaining time. There is lots to think about. What will we want to eat? When will we see family and friends? What will it be like going back to school and work? We all fantasise we’ll bring some of India home. WD wants to set up a petrol-drum tandoor in the back garden so he can make rotis and L wants to open a chai stall because Beckley hasn’t got one. M wants to bring back a bamboo flute so she can play one, like Krishna, as well as her more standard metal flute. I want to paint our house blue, like the houses in Jodphur, and the girls would like village-style murals in every room, and W proposes to bring Loley Worm home with him. Stool O, C & Ps all round on return, I think.
WD is home from Deeg and planning his trip to UP tomorrow. He finds his own prejudices about the folk of UP confirmed by our guest house host, who says he's happier and feels more at home travelling 800km to Jaisalmer than 10km over the state border to Uttar Pradesh. "See!"- he's triumphant. So how was Deeg?
WD: Fabulous! Another palace, yes, but set in a beautiful formal garden with rows of fountains (sadly not working), lakes on two sides and elegant pavilions neatly arranged symmetrically. There were a few locals enjoying the well-watered grass and fragrant flowerbeds in the low afternoon sunlight; I was the only foreigner there. A bit of a slog on a local bus to get there, when tired after python-spotting this morning, but well worth the effort. The bus was crowded on the way home and I struck up a conversation with two students who were keen to know what I thought about India and had lots of questions about Britain: how many states are there? what car did I drive? how much did I earn? Very friendly and such conversations can always make a dull, uncomfortable journey in India an unexpected delight.
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