Day 3: Delhi. Time to escape.

Forget the blending in, we decide to take a day trip out of Delhi and head for the palace at Pataudi and the bird sanctuary at Sultanpur.

The trip to Pataudi is through the development zone towards the south of the city and provides our first glimpse of the modern Delhi – huge shopping malls and office blocks uniquely juxtaposed totally insufficient infrastructure and the ‘shanty town’ world.

However, it doesn’t take too long to get to the real countryside and we arrive at the Pataudi Palace to take a look around both the old and new palace as recommended in our guidebook. The man on the door has no recollection of an old palace and the new palace is basically an old country house hotel. Having paid the entry fee (which includes lunch) we soon realise this is not quite what we expected. It’s completely deserted with the exception of the two of us wandering around with no idea what we should be doing. It is however, an oasis of calm 60km from the heart of Delhi – it feels for all the world like stepping into an English country house in the 1930s on a hot summers day. The walls are lined with pictures of Oxford cricket and hockey teams, there is a billiards room, and a rose garden. We have a tasty lunch of curry and off to Sultanpur hoping not to get bored too quickly.

We arrive at Sultanpur and for once actively seek the help of a guide. We are introduced to Sanjay and get taken on a wildlife-spotting journey of a lifetime. Seeing 65-70 species of birds, deer (blue bulls!!) and cows has us in the park for nearly 3 hours and Sanjay did not want us to go. We had found something to recommend to everyone – and when you get there ask for Sanjay, a dedicated, passionate and knowledgeable naturalist (and a very nice guy too).

Going ‘home’ to Delhi was something else entirely – two small traffic jams mean 30 minutes each – road chaos in the dark and the distinct impression that the collective sense of humour was evaporating in the drivers aiming to get home at the end of a hot and busy day. Delhi punished us for escaping with a 55km journey of 3.5hours!