Flipping digits in Kumaon

In Chokori, with our cottage in background (leftmost)

Sitting in the hotel gallery outside my room, facing the beautiful lake Naini and hearing the rain come down heavily, I thought of writing down my travel experiences. What a great vacation it has been in the last few days. Truly fulfilling and liberating. Right from the start, the vacation was all set to be a great one.

Started off from Gurgaon on Thursday, June 21^st – my birthday – at 6pm. The rubber hit the road and we prepared ourselves for an uncertain and unscheduled travel in the days to come. Before leaving I had made sure that I knew how to take the right exit from Delhi so that I hit the right highway and do not get lost in the streets of Ghaziabad. Sure I hit the right highway, but not before some drama. Driving from Gurgaon, I missed the exit to Delhi ring road, and unable to take a u-turn due to traffic in the opposite direction drove straight to India Gate. Thanks to following the map this time hit the highway.

The first unscheduled stop was Gajraula at 10pm. The plan was to have dinner at the famous “Tadka” dhaba, but we were taken up by the marketing by “Moga Punjabi Tadka”, literally a few hundred meters before the original Tadka. Nevertheless, MPT served delicious and lot of food. We decided to call it a day after having sumptuous dinner, and stayed at the MPT hotel for the night. I must mention that the Hapur bypass is really wonderful. It cut all the city traffic and provided a pleasurable drive.

On the second day, I woke up and got ready early. While the plan was to have breakfast at McD’s nearby, we made do with room service breakfast to save some time. I bought a music cd which had collection of songs from all new movies from outside MPT. This provided the right mix of new songs with the mid and old era songs I was already carrying with me. In addition to a couple of cds I was carrying music in 3 USB drives and an iPod. We finally started driving at around 9am. The destination was Pithoragarh, but we were not sure if we would be able to reach there given that it was 360kms away. The first stop happened at Tanakpur at 2pm to get a petrol re-fill. This was the last petrol pump before the mountain climb started. The petrol service man asked me how much petrol I needed for the car. When I told him I needed it for Rs. 1700 he said he did not have any! Though he said he could give me petrol for smaller amount. A Rs. 500 refill got the tank meter to half from quarter. The guy said this much will be good to reach Champawat, which is mid-way to Pithoragarh. Thus began my maiden drive in the hills. And so it began with a rally drive! I followed a local tourist car, and found us covering distance faster than I thought. But soon the roads narrowed, and I lost the leader car. The route turned treacherous and I really concentrated on my driving, while Neha was getting scared of hilly rides for the first time. We made it to Champawat at 4:30, got a tank re-fill and subsequently reached Pithoragarh just before dark at 7:30pm. With a long day of drive I made a distress call to a friend to help search a hotel in Pithoragarh. We finally stayed at hotel Punetha Inn. The manager / owner was really a nice guy. He also helped arrange a driver for me for my rest of the trip till Nainital.

The next day we went for a walk in the morning through the local markets and got some good views of Pithoragarh. We started off at 10:30am and drove to Chokori through Thal. The road was broken at places and was a single common lane for traffic of both sides. We were really glad that we had a local guy driving for us. We reached Thal at 1pm and broke for lunch. We were at Chokori at 3pm and were all prepared to drive further and end the day at Almora. We were glad that we did not follow the plan. We went for a coffee to KMVN resort at Chokori, and loved it so much that we stayed there for the day. Only pictures can explain what we witnessed in Chokori, and largely due to the beauty of the resort. Pavaki loved the large playground it had, Neha loved the spacious cottage while I loved the views and the beautiful flowers which made great material for my camera. Chokori is famous for its Himalayan views. While we did not get any views, not could see the sunrise due to the clouds, the weather and the place just made worth visiting the resort again.

We started off day 4 at 9am and reached Almora at 1pm. We saw a few man-eater leopards caged in Almora on our way. Almora is a busy town and we bypassed it to head towards Nainital. The views of Binsar valley (if that is the name) were great. Before hitting Nainital we visited Bhimtal. We took a boat ride in Bhimtal and Pavaki was in complete awe of seeing so much Mumm-mumm together J. We then headed to Nainital and stayed at a lake facing hotel. Parking in Nainital is a huge pain, and I had to waste a full hour dropping off luggage in front of the hotel, and then driving off to a parking lot 1.5kms away and walking back. The pain was eased by the awesome views of lake Naini by the mall road and the beautiful weather.

Thus, came to end a beautiful trip.

Ps. The last day of the trip went quite a bit in driving back from Nainital, though it was quite a bit enjoyable. The relentless 9 hours of drive brought us back to Gurgaon at 9pm.

Pointers for driving vacations to Kumaon:

      1.       Pointers:

a.       Get your tanks full before hitting the mountains, gas stations are sparsely located in mountains

b.      The people in mountains are really nice and helpful, talk to them to know more about local areas

c.       People in Nainital are arrogant and badly spoken, stay away from them

d.      Pithorgarh and Almora are busy towns. Unless you are staying on the outskirts (which are beautiful) you might only get to see the local traffic and busy lanes

e.      Nainital is overly crowded but beautiful

f.        Chokori is very beautiful, do visit it

g.       Kausani is like Chokori, beautiful and offers view to Himalayas when weather is clear

h.      The month when rush is low and views are great is November. Rest of the year either it is cold or chances of getting clear skies are low

i.         Do not stay and Bhimtal or Nakuchiatal if it is summers. Nainital has much better weather

j.        The people in the hills would not say that any route is dangerous, you need to ask which route is better and go with it. For them all routes are good, for you they might not be so

k.       Know your limitations and appetite for risk, and don’t cross it

     2.       Route Details:

a.       It does not help to start driving between 5 and 8 pm if you are heading towards Hapur. Might as well consider starting post 8pm if you are fine halting at Gajraula for the night

b.      Hapur bypass and Moradabad bypass are awesome, don’t get into the bustling city

c.       Tanakpur to half way Champawat is a great drive with 2 lane roads, beyond that the roads aren’t as good

d.      There is a sikh pilgrimage point around Champawat which is going to cause some bus traffic

e.      Parts of drive from Pithoragarh to Chokori (via Thal) are really beautiful. But the route is quite dangerous in some stretches. If you are driving yourself, might want to consider the route through Ghat and Gongolihaat

f.        Chokori to Nainital via Sireghat is again beautiful, the drive is also mostly safe. This Sireghat route is 20-30kms (ie. an hour) shorter than the Bageshwar route. Bageshwar route might have better roads though (not checked)

g.       Nainital to Moradabad via Kaladhungi is 20-30 kms shorter than the Kathgodam route. The route from Nainital to Kaladhungi is really beautiful, and covers a lot of vista points on the way. Though Kaladhungi to Moradabad road is not in great shape. You might want to consider Kathgodam route, unless you want to go to Ramnagar from Kaladhungi (just 20-30kms)