Uttar Mahayatra

KMVN: I somehow have a weakness for KMVN properties in Uttarakhand (or GMVN in the Garhwal part). It has a level of assured inefficiency, that can be depended upon. Which means, while booking blind, we can safely say: “It cannot be lower than this.” Location and Spaciousness will be excellent , Room quality moderate , Food good and Service unpredictable . On the other hand, for a random hotel booked online, everything will be unpredictable .  The Almora property is one of the better ones, though quite old, which is not surprising given that the city is as old as Henry the Eighth. Big rooms, running empty right now, standing next to the radio station and the stadium. Having woken up early anyways, and having checked that the early sunlight was not shining on any peeking peaks, we lazed in bed (excellent bed, linen and quilt), had bed-tea, and bed-breakfast of egg sandwich (I) and alu paratha (Panna), before completing our ablutions and considering what to do with this beautiful day...

Bird’s eye view: We have now started a period of short drives in the Kumaon region, where we are hanging around and enjoying nature in different places (viz Mukteswar, Almora, Ranikhet, Kausani etc), rather than rushing from point to point. After having chilled at Mukteswar at our friend’s beautiful house for two full days, today we travelled to Almora, less than 50 kms away, where we will spend two nights. Almora is at 5,500 ft, slightly lower than Mukteswar. We left in a relaxed mode at 9.30 am and clocked in at 12.30 pm. The route was half village roads and half highways, the weather clear, though hazy. Last two days at Mukteswar: I had not blogged separately, since we were not travelling the last two days. As mentioned earlier, this school friend of mine has a beautiful house in a village in Mukteswar. Although his wife was away at an unexpected conference, he played super-host and super-chef all on his own, and we spent hours talking about everything on earth. Having s...

Bird’s eye view : Around 110 km travel today to Mukteswar, dropping to 7,500 ft, slightly lower than Binsar. We travelled to Almora, which we bypassed and took a slightly longer route via Lamgara, since we will be going to Almora anyway later on. We left at 7.30 am and reached at 12.30 pm, just before lunch. Apart from the initial 6 km return road inside the forest, the highways, both national and state, were excellent. Leaving Binsar (7.30 am): Simba Jungle Lodge had been a nice stay, except, as we said, for the exorbitant price of food. We were planning to have breakfast somewhere on the way, after we hit the highway again. The descent of 6 km to the gate of the wildlife sanctuary was as perilous as ever. While ascending, we had run the risk of getting stuck in the ruts if we slowed down. While descending, the car tended to skid on the loose soil if I braked too hard on a slope. So we made it down slowly, driving on tiptoes as it were. We saw one family looking at the tra...

Even professional cricketers get a break, be it a rest-day, a drinks-break, or at least a time-out. But we are even luckier, because our rest-day  happens in beautiful places like the Binsar forest reserve. We wanted to sleep in late, but our body clock pushed us out of bed before 6.00 am. Since our room faces west, there was no chance of seeing a sunrise over the valley, but we sat inside next to the big windows and enjoyed our morning cuppa.  The Simba Lodge, and maybe other places inside this remote wildlife sanctuary as well, seemed to have two constraints. One was that there was no running hot water in the bathrooms. For a hot bath you would have to holler and get delivered a bucket of hot water from the solar heater setup. Secondly, the prices of food were exorbitant. A plate of toast-butter-jam was Rs 100/-, and two boiled eggs Rs 130/-. I mean, it would be a proud chicken who would live to see her children do so well in life. We shared a poha ...