We wake up early and explore the gardens one more time looking for birds and just warming ourselves up after another cold night spent in the tent. There is no one else outside as we walk through the fog towards the compounds entrance to explore the surrounding paths.
As soon as we exit the resort area we get an escort, a friendly dog likely the same one as the day prior hoping to get back in with us. But when we return to the hotel he is not let in, it seems he is for a reason canis non grata on resort grounds.
We eat breakfast as soon as it is available, the usual paratha and some naan are enough to keep us going for the day.
We continue exploring the gardens and while we do not find any new birds there are plenty beautiful plum-headed parakeets, shrikes, starling and of course mynas. And we find even the koel we saw the day before sleeping in a tree and it doesn’t seem happy that we found its perching spot and looks at us suspicious with red eyes.
And then it is time to leave going back north towards Bharatpur our next target and the site of a major birding site in India. But first our driver wants to take us to the Tribal Woman Crafts Center an extensive shopping center supposedly built and manned by the women relocated from Ranthambore National Park when it was created. It is a bit ironic then that the sales person that takes us throughout the shops is a man and women are only in desk positions and don’t speak with us at all.
The prices here are quite high for India but we still find a few things that are reasonably priced and there aren’t many souvenirs shops that we have the chance to visit during our trip so we splurge a bit walking from store to store and choosing items.
We even buy some fabrics that they add some hangers on so we can exhibit them at home. There are lots of things to choose from and it takes almost one hour for us to explore the shops before moving on north towards Chand Baori Step Well our next goal for today.
