The Taj Mahal and Keoladeo National Park. I think that's what we call a busy day.

Allen and I crashed early last night, woke up around 6:30 AM and got ready for sunrise at the Taj Mahal. We walked over easily enough – that early in the morning, far fewer people were on the streets, so less rickshaws, motorcycles and bikes to dodge, less beggars to feel guilty for avoiding, less hawkers to have to ignore. The line for entrance was split into men and women, Brenna and Matt got our tickets, we waited a bit, and in we went. There's an initial area inside the gates before the Taj itself, go through another gate (oh, by the way, we all got frisked too. Two people had to give up their cigarettes, and Kanako had to temporarily give up her translator), and there it was. Gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous. English lawns again, but with some variety, some trees, some other plants. Beautiful basins of water with reflections to catch – and that's where I got caught, too. A man pointed out the reflection to me, I nearly missed it. I thanked him, and immediately realized I was hosed. Another guy came over and offered to take a picture of me with it. I asked how much before I gave in, he said “whatever you like, you pay,” I gave in, got 7 or so pictures taken. A couple are pretty good, most are just okay, but that's more because of the subject than the photographer. (Me, not the Taj. The Taj is gorgeous.) I paid 100, not having many small bills and not wanting to get into an argument over price, and hey, just over $2 American anyway. Anh apparently paid one 10 to take lots more pictures and told me I shouldn't have done that, “you can't do that Tim,” I said I wasn't going to figure out the sense of scale, I was just going to get better at avoiding it altogether. But hey, I only paid 110 (10 for shoe storage) to see the Taj freakin' Mahal? Well worth it. There are two buildings flanking it, which make some fantastic views for photographs, I also took a picture of the area we stood at last night to see the backside and some of the river, a lot of the Taj itself, some of the surrounding grounds. The stone inlaid in stone is gorgeous, the detail, of course, outstanding, I don't think me blathering on makes much difference to any of you. Photography is, sadly, not allowed inside the mausoleum (though John snuck a few), though the work there is again fantastic. A man pointed out the different gemstones used before I got away from him, not wanting to have to potentially pay, and they are beautiful. Went out of the mausoleum and did take some pictures from the inside out there. Walked the grounds some more, took some more pictures (the basin in front of the building to the left of the Taj was full, allowing more reflection shots), and we headed back to the hotel. Waited an absurdly long time for breakfast (poor Mike and Allen waited over an hour), had a fresh lemon soda (actually lemon juice in a glass, and giving me seltzer water, unexpected but alright) and pretty good french toast, packed, waited a bit for the vans, headed out. Aslam coordinated, but sadly did not drive. And then we're waiting in the back and all of a sudden... Denny! He was back, just minutes before we were going to leave. Great timing. Brenna, Allen and I sat in the back, Allen and I disturbed Brenna a bit, we all slept, Falcon Guest House, Bharatpur.

We got in, got rooms set up, I'm with Zypy for tonight, Nate and I worked a bit on the blog (Brenna wrote a lot last night), lunch. Lots of unidentifiable but mostly tasty things. And a lime soda. Not lemon-lime – lime. Good. Get ready, walk to Keoladeo National Park, a massive bird sanctuary, and bicycling time. There were only 14 bikes, so 7 rode in a horse-cart and Denny walked. I got bike #1. No gears (not that I expected any), tall and hard for me to get on, and the left brake was less than helpful, but not bad once you got going. We saw lots of birds: some waterbirds like ducks, herons and sand pipers, some birds of prey like kites and eagles, some songbirds including a shrike, the only predatory songbird, spotted owlets, mynas of course (Clay called them the European Starling of Asia), and others. A few jackals (mostly hard to see in the grass, but great nonetheless), millions of cows, millions of rhesus macaques (which would get extremely close, walk across the road, it was great), a few antelope and deer. Lots of starting and stopping, which led to me walking my bike when I didn't think it was worth getting on, but very cool stuff. Michelle banged up her toe at one point, I had to go ahead and get the guide, who came back and got her (Anh and Caitlin stayed with her), and she ended up riding on his bike while he walked until she felt better. She was biking by the end though, so not bad, it was mostly rough because she had bruised that same toe on Haleakala. We met back up with the rest of the group, now on bikes (first time biking for Sigrid since her knee surgery, too) went up to this watchtower where you had a great view of the surrounding area, it was just flooded with birds. Then it was the bike ride back to the entrance, which was a more solo pace. I sang rugger songs with John for a bit, which will not be printed here for decency's sake, until his tire blew out. At one point I saw a peacock run across the road, tried to stop and get a picture of him, but no luck. Later, Clay saw a BUNCH up in trees, and I got some silhouette pictures, but it was too dark for color sadly. Also heard a lot there – not only birds and monkeys, but hyenas too, though we never saw one. Got all the way out and walked back here to the Falcon Guest House, where I immediately typed this up. Good day. It was good to be on a bike again, I missed it, even if it wasn't really a proper bike ride. I really do need to do it more this summer.

Thursday, February 4th, roughly 6:40-6:55 PM local time