We caught the 7:50am bus from Jaipur to Baratpur. As we pulled into a service station ice cream adverts shone out to us like beacons…they actually had no ice cream at all, just a load of adverts! I got back on the bus to dream about soleros, magnums, twisters and rockets. The bus arrived in Baratpur at midday and we made it to the hotel 30 minutes later. Birders Inn was the name of the hotel and it was beautiful. It's a heritage hotel, cream walls, dark brown furniture, separate showers with screens and no buckets, a  swimming pool AND a bar. Baratpur is a destination for bird lovers. There is an enormous bird sanctuary nearby and the hotel is used for package holidays for people who visit the sanctuary. The walls are all adorned with paintings and drawings of various birds and the other guests at the hotel carried professional cameras with the longest lenses I have ever seen. The option was available to go to the sanctuary but pool, sunbathing and a beer with Beth appealed to me far more. After the sun had set I chilled with Dom in deck chairs in the hotel gardens until dinner time and had one of those two hour intense conversations which you look back on and think ‘why on earth did I divulge that with someone I barely know and why did they tell me that?’ One downside with the hotel was the restaurant service. Food came out Wagamama style and half of us had finished before some had started, and the bills took forever to come. Other than that, the hotel was lovely.