Nainital travelogue

 Delhi - Mussoorie - Nainital - Jim Corbett park travelogue

After a two year long house confinement, I was dying to break free. I wanted to see the greens, smell the roses, touch the clouds and hear the birds chirping.
I generally spend time researching a new vacation location but this time I was so desperate to get out of the house that any destination was welcome and off we were to the hills. We booked a readymade Kesari package. We might stick to the package tour format for another year or so because it is very convenient when kids are young. I have given my recommendations on the places I visited in this blog and a final aye or nay on this trip at the end.
Our first destination was Delhi. Our tour package was from Delhi to Delhi. We decided to go a day earlier and spend an evening roaming around in Delhi and eat some North Indian food. We landed at 1:15 in the afternoon. The minute we came out of the aircraft, the heat instantly turned us into a bharta. If you would have seasoned us, we would have been tasty. I will never ever complain of heat in Pune. The air entering our cab was a hot blast as is someone was directing heat at us. We requested our ola guy to turn the ac on ASAP. We booked ourselves in the Beaufort Inn Hotel. I loved the place for its cleanliness. Spick n span. The room service too delivered fresh, hot and tasty meals. Highly recommended.
Going anywhere in the afternoon was struck down looking at the heat. We did have some plans in mind but we decided to cancel it. After the sun showed some mercy, we set out to the nearest location India Gate and the war memorial. We are a patriotic family and such places make us bow down with humbleness and respect to those who made their ultimate sacrifice for the nation. My son has read about almost all the people whose statues were put up at the param yodha sthal. It's a huge place and you can easily spend more than an hour if you want to read about these people and their bravery. This too is part of the war memorial however the amar jawan jyoti is on the opposite side of the road. We reached the opposite side of the road just in time for the change of guard ceremony. This place is not a picnic spot and although beautifully maintained, you cannot just sit on the grass or any place you feel like. You are expected to pay  respect to the rules and regulations laid out by the army. The souvenir shop is good too. We have read about almost all soldiers who have received the param veer chakra, so books on these bravehearts were not on our list, only Siachen was a new read. My boy is the happiest when he gets his hands on some new books. The evening was very hot too. The heat 🔥is scorching and at the same time we were perspiring similar to Mumbai, a horrible combination. It is draining.
My impression of Delhi in this trip (I have been here few times before too). Food- Excellent. Lunch we had at our hotel. It was a very late lunch and I was hungry. I had heard a lot about a restaurant named Gulati, famous for its butter chicken and I am a big fan of this dish so I had to go there. However unfortunately because of a heavy and late lunch I hardly had any appetite. Do I recommend this place? Yes and no. Butter chicken was good so I will go this hotel if I am in that area but I will not go out of the way to come here. It was an early dinner for us because the safety issues in Delhi are well known and we cannot take chances of being on the road at night. If you are a Delhiite, you may disagree with my assessment but ask any person outside the state who has travelled with tour operators, we always get clear instructions for safety in Delhi.I am wowed by the Delhi road infrastructure. Now you know which area I was in. Huge wide roads and awesome flyover network. Road quality excellent. The next day we were off to Mussoorie. The Delhi Meerut expressway is way too impressive. Wow. Check my fb for the photo. Another thing I observed was that many houses in Delhi have the front outer wall of the building fitted with tiles. Also most buildings which shared a common wall or if the walls of two adjacent buildings touch each other with zero gap then that wall is left un-plastered from the outside (this could be old Delhi area - don't know for sure). Later I realised that this was true even outside Delhi. 

Day 2 - It was a day meant for travel to Mussoorie in a bus. We took two halts, one for lunch at Bikanervala and second was a tea coffee break at Cheetal garden, a decent joint. We left Nizamuddin at around 12 by bus. It seems Delhi has speed limits which meant the bus just wasn't allowed to catch speed. Secondly it was making a horrible noise and I suspect the speed jammers were responsible for it. The bus seemed to crawl on that splendid road. Delhi Mussoorie is 290km can you imagine how long it took for us to travel? Yes 12noon to 10pm (reduce 2 hours for the breaks I mentioned above). At one point I felt that if I had a geared bicycle, we would have been better off.

 
Special mention of Dehradun. As we near this place we suddenly are greeted by a forest. I think it is Rajaji tiger reserve. When we enter Dehradun, we realise this ordinary looking quaint city must be housing some of the richie rich because the minute we entered, we were greeted by car showrooms one after the other. All big brands including Mercedes and also Harley Davidson. The city mainly has bungalows - single storied or plus one. A minority were +2. The apartment culture though is entering in a big way. The city is home to all kinds of business, small shops but all categories. So it seems to be a business destination for that part of the state. Roads are full of potholes. 
As we left Dehradun, we started our steep climb uphill to Mussoorie. It was almost 8pm and deep below you could see the entire well lit Dehradun. Here is the fun part. If you turned your neck to the opposite side, you could see the top of the hills were also brightly lit and no guesses, it was Mussoorie. The roads were very tiny and had sharp hair pin bends. Hats off to the driver who maneuvered the bus skilfully. The entire route is so busy. At some points, I had my heart in my throat. After that really long slow drive, I feel it is better to go to Dehradun by flight and then go ahead. 
Finally we reached our destination Hotel Surbee resorts. The resort is big in terms of number of rooms. It has a valley View and the view is good. However I will not recommend it because it scored less on cleanliness. Not happy with the bed linen and overall upkeep of the premises. We quickly had dinner and dropped to sleep the minute we hit the bed.

 
Day 3 - Today was sight seeing day and the pace would be leisurely. So the plan was to get up at 7 but it was not meant to be. In the early hours of morning, the birds started chirping quite loudly as if they were just sitting next to me. Our rooms had a balcony each which were covered with tin sheets. All of a sudden all sheets started rattling one after the other. I thought there is going to be a storm and the breeze is making the sheets move. I went near the balcony door and saw a huge battalion of monkeys having a morning race. "The whole waavar is ours", said the monkeys. Only a true Marathi knows this sentence 😆. 

Today we visited Kempty falls. Water gets collected at the base of the falls and forms a natural swimming pool. The British used to like this place and they made it a picnic spot. They used to camp there, have tea parties. Hence the name Kempty (camp+tea) falls. 😂😂😂
You can swim in the natural pool and there are many shops which offer swimming suit on rent along with a changing room facility. You can get into the water if you want but the water was not so clean. I didn't go and I wouldn't recommend it to my blog readers either. Other activities at Kempty are a zip line, traditional attire photography etc. You have to take a cable car to reach this place. Nothing great about the place.

 
Next we went to a place called Gunhill point. It seems that a canon was fired in the middle of the day, everyday, by the British and everyone would adjust their watches accordingly. Hence the name. There is absolutely nothing up there. A telescope guy makes money by showing 10 points in all 4 directions of Mussoorie. They include Sachin Tendulkar's bungalow, a wall built by the British which marked the boundary between the area ruled by them and Gadhwal (written in English as Garhwal). Nishad enjoyed bursting balloons using a gun. He almost got 5 targets out of six. So if you ask him, he enjoyed Mussoorie but if you ask me, I would say don't waste your time, effort and money on this city. First of all it is not enroute another destination. You have to specifically go to Mussoorie as a destination. Weather in Mussoorie was awesome. Full marks in this regard. I loved that chill in the air. 

In the evening we spent our time shopping at mall road. I purchased a nice European style warm jacket. You get in wool, tweed, fleece and more. Nice designs. You also get a lot of wooden articles like pots, trays, spatulas and canes for the elderly.

 
Day 4 - This was yet another tiring journey day from Mussoorie to Nainital. We started at 8am. There were two buses carrying our group and people in the other bus had some issue with respect to their bus and it had escalated which delayed our start a bit. Btw, did I mention that a chaar dham yatra was going on, so there were chances of the bus encountering traffic at various points. We were supposed to have lunch at Haridwar without stopping anywhere in between. However, plans changed and we were given an opportunity to wash off our sins by a surprise visit to a Ganga ghat in Haridwar. Of course we were happy for the break but I was indeed surprised because it was unplanned and it was a long journey so spending extra time was not affordable. After this stop, we had a lunch break. We were told that two rooms were booked, one for guys and other for girls for relaxing. Another surprise. Well it turned out that the second bus issue had escalated far more and some settlement had been reached whereby they were getting another bus for travel which was smaller and two people had to be adjusted in our bus. So we were delayed by 4 hours just so that the warring second bus members could reach Haridwar and the transfer could take place. Huh!!! Our route was Haridwar, Najibabad, Kashipur and so on. We were supposed to reach Nainital at 8ish but went there at 12 midnight. Imagine crossing the ghat in the darkness but this ghat is better than Mussoorie ghat. Secondly, the road was almost empty. Once the bus reaches Nainital, you get transferred to smaller vehicles to reach the hotel, in our case it was Hotel Welcome Park.

Wow!!! We had a splendid lake view. When we woke up in the morning, the view was to die for. I could easily get used to sitting near the window and have coffee every morning and in the evening too watching the sun set. (Feels like a statement from the tv show "Mountain life").

 
Day 5 - Today we went boating on the lake. Nishad tried his hand at rowing the boat. I am glad he is collecting experiences. It's not so easy as it looks and this is what he learnt. For some, earning a living is a lot of physical hard work. Education is really important. Clean water, fish living in it and the fresh air. Perfect day, perfect weather. We then visited the Naina devi mandir and a Gurudwara next door. 

We took a cable car ride to snow view point. There is nothing up there. You don't get to see snow and frankly you don't get to see any thing. It seems you can see Himalayas far in the distance via telescope October onwards and that too if the weather is clear. There is a cheap dinosaur world up there and an even cheaper go karting track without basics like helmet. You don't feel like entering both the places. This is a big no no. 

This was followed by my favorite SHOPPING!! Do I have any recommendations? You mostly get the standard stuff - clothes. There is a Tibetan market which "doesn't" sell Tibetan stuff. I bought some not so important things here, nothing Tibetan but I found an authentic Tibetan shop (opposite China town momo - the momo's here are to die for... yummm - highly recommended) . You can get shawls and woollen wear in this shop at reasonable rates. All the stuff there is exactly what you basically get in Mcleodganj. Purchased some shawls. 

Nainital is famous for candles and you get a huge variety especially in scented candles which are made locally. Bada bazaar has two famous shops - Malhotra and Gupta. I didn't purchase candles but a friend recommends Gupta because the prices were very competitive. We returned to the hotel before the mall road shuts for traffic at 6. We had dinner at our hotel (in a very cramped restaurant area). Although this hotel has the best view and food is decent in taste (variety is less), I won't recommend it because of this cramped up restaurant and secondly because they don't provide hot water. Forget 24 hour hot water, they don't even provide it in the morning timings which is promised by them. When all guests turn on their tap, second floor has no water at all. When you are with someone like Kesari, you know how we run on a clock hence that morning hour is really important.

 
Day 6 - Today we went to Ranikhet. We visited Kainchi temple. This temple was built by Baba Neem Karoli , not for himself but for multiple Gods. His bhakts extended the temple and made a temple of Baba after his demise. He is similar to Sai Baba in status here. Trivia - Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg have also visited this temple. Unko pata tha is temple ke baare mein. Mujhe nahi pata tha. Shame on me. (Relax I am not so bad... I had heard of him but didn't know that he is so much revered). 

Then we visited the Kumaon regiment museum which has information about the regiment and the honours won. It showcases weapons and equipment captured during various wars. The guide at the museum was so funny that he made this visit memorable. In the absence of this specific guide, you might not enjoy the museum as much as I did. We ate Kumaoni food here, a raita and chicken along with regular North indian stuff.

Next we visited a pine forest where you can take photos. It's a picturesque place and the song pucho jara pucho from the movie Raja Hindustani was shot nearby. I loved this area. I wanted to go with Nishad for collecting pine cones but we found nil. The locals sell pine cones for Rs 50/- each and hence the place was clear or else who would buy from them. I believe collecting pine cones is an extremely enjoyable activity to be done with kids. Buying is a big no no. We also saw the Kumaon regiment memorial (Shaheed smarak) and golf course from the bus.

 
Kesari had planned a surprise for us in the evening. The highlight for the day (and the entire trip) was definitely a Qawwali program organised by Kesari. The singer Shaheed and his group made it a memorable evening. He actually involved his audience in his shayari and the entire crowd was in splits and rolling in laughter. Highly recommended program. This was kept as a surprise and was not mentioned in Kesari itinerary. Do not miss. 

 
Day 7 - Today we visited Ghodakhal temple, a temple full of bells. People offer a bell for their navas (mannat). A scene from the movie Vivah was shot here. You get beautiful bells here in the shops outside the temple. A pure peetal (brass) plain bell's cost here was Rs 1000 per kg. They  had bells easily weighing upto 5kgs. The other variety had beautiful designs of Ganesh or other Gods carved on it. These bells were made from ashta dhaatu (8 metal alloy). These costed Rs 1500 per kg. I am sure you can bargain. Remember the year is 2022 for the pricing. Today night, it rained heavily in Nainital. 

We saw Bhimtal lake only from the bus. This area is more scenic and it seems that the further you go up from here, it gets better eg. Kausani, Almoda. Next we went to Naukuchiyatal lake for a boat ride.  This lake has 9 corners and is the biggest and deepest lake. Taal basically means a lake. Very scenic. 

There is a tea garden nearby and a UTDC shop for tea and one for selling Gadwal silks, shawls, razai etc. I loved the way these government employees ensured a sale (Unlike many government employees). They made us sit comfortably and displayed every category of saree they had with speciality and cost. They have banana fibre, bamboo fibre, bichhugutti (bichhukaati as called in Himachal) and silk. It seems the bichhukaati fibre heals back pain and cervical pain. Razai's were made of pashmina wool and other wool (normal bhed/sheep wool). You don't get cotton filled razai's here. The outer fabric is again of the above mentioned bichhukaati or cotton. I don't wear sarees much and I didn't have space to carry a razai which I actually wanted. They do courier it to you but we didn't take that chance.

 
From here, post lunch, we proceeded to Jim Corbett park. We stayed at Cloyster resort and spa. Good place. I will recommend it. It is situated in the outer zone of the park. Enroute we visited the Jim Corbett museum. This is basically his house converted to a museum.
Some things I concluded from information given here are as follows. This is completely my take. Jim's father was born in India and died in India. Jim was born in India. His claim to fame was his book "man eaters of Kumaon" (and some more followed) . He had hunted down 10 man eating tigers. He was a "great hunter" as mentioned in the museum info. Photos of him with his kill are displayed there. He was one of the founders of this national park but do you know how many big cats he killed? 250!!!! So this is a case of 'sau chuhe khaake billi haj ko chali'. This guy used to kill for fun and was famous for his hunting so got invited (or took it upon himself) to kill the man eaters. He was an entitled Britisher who never married. He had purchased a lot of land nearby which was let out to villagers. The museum proudly mentions that he donated the place to the villagers when he left for Kenya. Do you know when he left..... in 1947. So basically when the rule changed, this guy left India. He didn't feel fit to continue in the country of his birth where he lived an entitled life. I will say personal choice. He could have sold off the property he owned but he chose to donate. This is good but why did he do that? Museum says that's because he was good at heart (I read in between the lines that maybe he was in a hurry to get out - now I understand, this is how our media must be making villains out of heroes or vice versa). The sanctuary was originally named after the then governor Hailey and called the Hailey national park. Post independence it was named Ramganga national park. The naming had nothing to do with Corbett. When Jim Corbett died in Kenya in 1952, our government named it after him. When in India, Corbett worked for the railways and served in British Army during the world War. His books were actually published during his stay in Kenya, not here so I was surprised that our government remembered this kind soul (sarcasm intended). I just cannot understand why we have to run behind these goras and try to portray them as superiors. 

On reaching the hotel, a karaoke night was arranged by Kesari and it was fun.

 
Day 8 - Safari timings are allotted by the park authorities and so are the vehicle numbers. You don't get to choose. A family may get split into two jeeps if you are in a group. The safari takes place twice a day and we got the morning slot. We got up at 5 and were ready to be picked up by the jeeps at 6. Unfortunately there were fewer vehicles sent by the department and we lost time making adjustments. We entered the sanctuary with much hope via the Garzia gate. We were welcomed to the sanctuary by a peacock who danced for us with a full feather spread. He looked regal. We saw many spotted deer and sambar deer. That's all the park has to offer. In comparison to Kaziranga, this place is absolutely zero. Forget tiger sighting, there aren't enough birds to see. A very big disappointment. If you want to see a tiger, the only chance is dhikala gate and here you have to compulsorily stay overnight in that zone. Don't be fooled into believing that you might see a tiger elsewhere. The only chance is if it decides one day to roam around on the street that day. 

We ended our trip with some games which were a lot of fun followed by karaoke.

 
Day 9 - was bye bye and return journey. It was raining heavily since morning. Our flight from Delhi was late by 2 hours due to rains. 
All in all, it was a good outing after two years of lockdown and being indoors but as a destination and a package as a whole, I would not recommend this trip. There are better destinations in India than this. Don't get me wrong.  I don't mean to say the places are bad. I am comparing one tour package with another. Mussoorie is out of the way and after all the effort to reach there (12 hours to go and similar to get out from there to next destination and stay in Mussoorie for just one day) , there is nothing to see although the weather is beautiful. If you want to enjoy the climate, roam around in the hills, you need to spend time over there to absorb the beauty of that calm, quiet nature. One night doesn't do justice. Jim Corbett is a scam, unless you choose to stay at dhikala zone. Nainital and it's surroundings are beautiful - scenic with beautiful weather. After comparing our trip to Kaziranga and Shillong, this fell short in the areas mentioned above.