Nainital

Day 2 began with a quick breakfast. We then went to the Naini lake for a boat ride.
This lake is a huge one, much bigger than what we get in Ooty or Kodai, down south. According to the boatman, it is about 4.5 sqkm in area. I have not verified it though.

The boat ride was very pleasant. Little Smriti enjoyed it quite a lot. We got to know from the boatman the possible places we can visit during the course of the day.

The crux of the town is one road called Mall road. This road seems to be pretty famous there, much like our MG road down south. Every other town seems to have a road with that name. Mall road is about 1.5 km in length, and it extends across the length of the lake. Our hotel was to one end of the road, and to the other end, there is a temple called Naini temple. Nainital apparently got its name from this temple. This is the main commercial area of Nainital. They have many shops selling woolen items. They have many hotels and restaurants along the entire stretch. An interesting thing is that the entrance to this road from our hotel side has a check post, and the cars are charged Rs. 50 as an entrance ticket per trip on this road. This is pretty steep. But the best part of this road is the "rikshaw"s. Rikshaw can be thought of as a 3 wheeled cycle, which will be pedaled by a person. It has an enclosure which can seat 2 people. Seating 3 is quite an intimate affair. To pedal the length of the road, they charge Rs.10.

We wanted to go to the rope way which will take us to a place on the hills where we get a panoramic view of the town. Interestingly, this hill top houses another of KMVN's guest house called Snow View, which was full when we tried to book. We took a rikshaw and reached the place where the rope way starts. Then we fell for a pestering travel agent who suggested that we take a 2 hour horse ride, which will take us to many view points that can provide better views than the rope way. Well, the mention of "horse" excited my daughter, so, we had two people to contend with. Finally, we gave in.

This 2 hour ride was an interesting one. We 3 were on separate horses, and there were 2 people manning the 3 of us. One of them was controlling the horse that I was riding, and the one that my daughter was riding. There was another person manning the horse that my wife was riding. This ride took us to view points like "suicide point" and "lovers' point". I wonder why these two points are always tied to each other. I remember seeing something like this at Kodaikkanal too. Maybe, this is one way to make love immortal :-).

After some time, the person manning my horse asked me to take the reins of my horse. This was pretty tricky and scary. This horse always had the propensity go to the edge of the road, and the deep valley was quite scary to see from there. Apparently, I was supposed to "steer" the horse in the opposite direction. But, it is not like my car's direct steering I am so used to. This horse seemed to have a mind of its own. However well I tried to apply the "opposite lock", the horse, with all its power, used to resist. Talk about "horse power"! It took me about 3-4 minutes to realise that the horse walks that way. Then, I aligned myself to its "living-on-the-edge" behaviour. Another scary part is the steep downward climb, after visiting one of those view points. I could not rein in my horse at that point, and there was one person manning my horse and my daughter's. I think he did a good job of controlling both the horses.

With horses out of our way, we had lunch at a restaurant called Shiva restaurant. The lunch was great. We then took the local transport and went to the zoo. This is an interesting zoo, in the sense that apart from seeing the animals, we also get to see the panoramic view of the town. The zoo is at the top of a hill. And, you need to climb those steep paths to see each captive animal or bird. We do get to see some rare animals like barking deer, etc, which are specific to the region. There was a white peacock too.

We finally took the rope way and reached the top of the hill. This rope way connects the Mall road, which is just above the lake to the top of the hill. They have some small rides there on the top. My daughter was content with jumping on a trampoline like ride. The place was too noisy for me. We returned to Mall road, had our dinner, and retired to the hotel.

We should have stayed another day here, and we could have visited some other lakes in and around Nainital.

Uttaranchal trip - Day 1

15th of May 2010 was when it all started. Meru cab reached our home at 3:30 am, dot on time. We were pretty much ready by then. Little Smriti (will turn 5 by July end) was very exited too, as it would be her longest flight.

By the time we stacked ourselves at the end of the long Kingfisher Airlines check-in queue, it was about 4:30 am. Luckily, around that time, Smriti felt a little sleepy and she asked us to lift her up. A Kingfisher staff noticed this, and he short-circuited our wait. We were asked to cut the queue, and we landed up right in front of the check-in counter immediately, much to the dismay of all the waiting passengers.

With all the formalities done, we had enough time, thanks to our waiting time being cut short. We had some coffee, and waited for the boarding announcement. We finally were seated, with the little one taking the window.

The flight took off on time (5:55 am), and soon, Smriti started enjoying "Tom and Jerry" on that little LCD. About 2 and a half hours later, we were at New Delhi.

We met our cab guy, albeit with a little drama. There was a guy holding a placard bearing my first name. We identified him, and soon, he started walking off with our luggage. We followed him for about 50 m, when we realized that there was another placard which bore my full name. We were wondering why they were holding two of them just for me. Just out of curiosity, we asked the second guy whether he knew the first one. He mentioned that he had come all alone. We had to run behind the first one and get our luggage back.

Once we got out of the airport, we were put into the actual cab, which would be our chief mode of transport for the next week. That turned out to be a Tata Indica, a bruised and a battered one. This had about a lakh and a 20 thousand km (120,000) on its odo, and it did not need a horn. Every part in the car would scream at the top of its voice. Luckily, the rear suspension was good as ever, and so was the leg room. And the AC was working. Otherwise, Delhi heat could have given us some scare.

At about 11:30 am, we started our journey from New Delhi to Nainital. We took the following route - New Delhi Indira Gandhi International airport - New Delhi city - NOIDA extension - Gaziabad - Moradabad - Haldwani - Nainital.

The road conditions were pretty nice, except the traffic. There is some construction going on between Gaziabad and Moradabad, and it is quite a drain on our time and patience; approximately 30 km of such bad road. The rest seemed to be pretty motorable. Special mention should be made of roads in Uttaranchal. The roads in the hills were pretty good.

By the time we reached our Kumaon Mandal Vikas Nigam (KMVN) Sarovar guest house, we saw the clock show 6 pm.

Our balcony overlooked Naini lake, and is in an area called Tallital. Naini lake and Naini temple are the reasons why Nainital is so called.

All this beautiful view can be had right from your room balcony, provided you climb those umpteen steps. From the lake, you climb a steep inclination, and reach the place where the steps begin. I bet there could have been around 100 steps before we found our room. Did I mention that the restaurant is way below, and there were no elevators?

Well, by the time we settled down in our room, it was about 7 pm. So, nothing much to do that day, except idle down on the balcony, enjoying the beautiful view. Good thing about North India is that the sun sets pretty late in the night, between 7 to 7:30 pm during summer. And, it rises at about 5:15 am. So, you have a long day.

Someone is actually canoing in the lake, at about 7 pm.

BTW, throughout our journey, we stayed at KMVN rest houses, except at Kausani and Jim Corbett. Thanks to Shweta for review on the guest houses, and also for the books on Uttaranchal. All these helped us a lot.

KMVN accommodation can be booked from kmvn.gov.in. There is a PRO at Gandhinagar, Bangalore. But fortunately for us, GMVN (Gadhwal) has an office pretty close to our office, and GMVN PRO Mr. Anurag helped me by co-ordinating with KMVN for all the bookings.

Also, prior to making this trip, both I and my wife read the famous book, "Man eaters of Kumaon" by Jim Corbett, just to get an idea of the geography and culture of the area we would visit.

Just to give you an idea, Uttaranchal or Uttarakhand is a newly carved state out of Uttar Pradesh. Uttaranchal is divided into two regions, Ga[rd]hwal, and Kumaon. Jim Corbett national park separates the two regions. The one north-west of the park is Gadhwal, and the one south-east is Kumaon. We toured Kumaon region and the national park.

For more information, visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uttarakhand

We did nothing much on day 1. Went down to the restaurant, had our dinner, and climbed up those stairs again, and signed the day off.