February 8th 2019
Long day of travelling today. Left Sat Tal at 7am to get to
the train station on time. Things were a bit nervy with Narendra running late
and only just making it to the train on time but everything worked out in the
end.
The train journey was painless. The carriage was
comfortable, clean and the seats had loads of legroom. It wasn’t easy to check
for birds but I did manage to add common
starling perching on the wires by a lineside rubbish tip. A feeding vulture
sp sadly remained unidentified. The landscape was ever-changing but mainly
farmland with the odd town and village.
Arrived back at Delhi mid-afternoon and straight into a taxi
for the 4hr drive south to Agra arriving, via a puncture and a visit from the
motorway police at 8pm!
February 9th 2019
Early start to beat the crowds into the Taj Mahal and met by
our guide to the morning at 6:30am for the short walk to the entrance. Security
was fairly quick and before long we were into the complex. The first view of
the Taj through the entrance building was pretty awe-inspiring and really did
take your breath away. I am not really one for old buildings but I was
seriously impressed with the first views and despite it being busy with people,
due to the size of the place it never felt overcrowded. The real highlight of the
visit was being able to touch the marble that has been there pretty much since
the 1600’s and have changed very little in all that time. All the people over
that time that had done the same as me, touching that marble, amazing!
It had recently been cleaned and then white marble really
shone out in the morning sunlight. The sheer size of the building is hard to
comprehend without being there in person, pictures really don’t do justice to
the beauty of the place.
After a couple of hours we headed back to the hotel
for breakfast and then onto the Agra Fort, an equally impressive building in
its own way.
We managed to get some birding in briefly on our way back to
the airport. A pretend breakdown allowed us to walk across a motorway bridge
and check the river below. This was successful in adding brown and black headed gulls
and whiskered tern taking our final
total to 325 species.
A nice dinner in one of the central Delhi markets rounded of
the trip perfectly.
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