Uttar Mahayatra

Bird’s eye view : A travel of 280 kms from Bareilly to Lucknow, mostly along the butter smooth NH30 - driving could not get much better for a slightly jaded amateur driver like me. Restful is the word I am looking for. We left Bareilly at 8.00 am and reached our place on the Outer Ring Road of Lucknow at 1.30 pm. Yes, it was hot. We did not feel it that much when leaving Bareilly at 8.00 am, but when we reached Lucknow, it was 40 degC, beyond the range of clinical thermometers. There were stretches on highway which were indeed dry and dusty, and we could feel the flavour on our tongue even when sitting inside in an AC car. Leaving Bareilly (8.00 am): We had made the mistake of not intimating our resort one day in advance about our plans of leaving at 8.00 am, because, for us, 8.00 am was pretty late. Not so for the staff of Green Farm Resort who had been arranging a poolside dinner and had gone to sleep at 2.00 am. We literally had to sha...

Bird’s eye view: A travel of more than 300 kms after a long time. My car was so keen to overtake everyone that I had to take my foot off the gas from time to time. Google map showed a travel time estimate of 6.5 hrs, which, with stops for meals, would be around 8.00 hrs, and so it was. We left at 7.15 am and clocked in at 3.00 pm. I was a bit wary of the road conditions because Dehradun to Bareilly was not a single highway, unlike, say, Dehradun to Delhi. You got on to NH34 and that was it. Dehradun to Bareilly was a continuous connection of roads, and we got passed around like a baby with a soiled diaper gets passed around by his sisters. There was a series of roads running north-south, and another series running east-west, and we kept zigzagging between them, overall travelling south-east. That said, road conditions were superb. I have said it in the hills, and I will say it in the plains, Uttarakhand govt maintains roads well, be it NH or not. It got hot as soon as we pa...

Getting up in a garden (7.00 am): The Old British House offered us a garden as soon as we opened our doors, with the scent of flowers and the chirping of birds. A totally different look from the mountains and the rivers, but equally welcome. We had our tea sitting in the lawn while we planned our day. Our landlady had expressed her inability to prepare meals, since her cook had an illness in the family, which meant this place became more of a AirB (not even an AirBnB), but we did not mind. Who wanted her two slices of bread when we could walk into any of the twenty cafés scattered on Rajpur Road? Breakfast at Ama's Cafe (9.00 am): Rajpur Road is THE place for eating out, with no dearth of cafés and restaurants. Ama’s Cafe had been recommended by our landlady Seema, and we drove the required 4 mins to a swanky first floor cafe, who seemed to be specialising in freshly brewed coffees. The place was full of its delectable fragrance. We had both decided that Dehradun will b...