Day 1 - Agra to Bharatpur

Day 1 riding.

First a Hindu blessing, then a ride through the traffic to the Taj Mahal from our hotel.

The traffic is intense but it’s organized chaos. While to the casual observer it seems chaotic it turns out that it’s not as difficult to navigate as it would seem. I have to admit my stomach was in knots before we started. One of the other riders (Margot) picked up on this and offered to be my ridding buddy through the traffic and this really calmed my nerves once we got moving. You just have to ride with conviction and go through it. It almost seems safer than riding in the US. People are focused and aware of what’s around them. There is a flow to the traffic.

We left from the Taj Mahal and rode through the traffic for about 10 miles to get out of town. Once on the “open” road the traffic was much lighter.

We rode by produce sellers, mustard fields, piles of dung, pottery producers waving children along the roads. Motorcycles passing with curiosity and waves and hellos as they passed.

Oh and I got a flat today! Thanks to my friend Richard for fixing it. We drew a large crowd of people to watch the whole process.

Today we rode 37.81 miles with 883 feet of climbing.

See my ride route on Strava

Our hotel called The Birders Inn is close to Keoladeo National Park, a world renowned Birding area. Right now there are thousands of migratory birds at the park. We hired a guide and spent about 3 hours traveling around the area.

Magnificent birders paradise here.

When we were leaving our hotel in the morning I noticed some photographers in the lobby and I asked them if they were heading to the bird park this morning.

I was lucky to meet a National Geographic photographer.

Vinod Kulkarni

https://www.vinodkulkarni.com/

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