Mumbai

Trip: Bangalore > Pune > Lonavala > Mumbai > Gandhinagar > Udaipur > Ranakpur > Chittorgarh > Ajmer > Jaipur > Delhi

No city represents true India better than Mumbai. The disparity in every dimension of life is breathtaking here. Visit a night club and you may find the most expensive luxuries of life in abundance. Visit a slum and you will have a lifetime of pictures and images to remember. So what should a tourist do here?

Lion Point @ Lonavala

Shimla

Trip: Delhi > Chandigarh > Kasauli > Shimla > Delhi

My cousins from UK were in India - Naveen, Seema and Rishi. We decided to visit Shimla. Its close to Delhi and thanks to its capital status its accessible through a highway. We booked an Innova and decided to drive overnight to the hill station. It was a mistake.

View from the Lift Shaft @ Shimla

Pithoragarh

Trip: Delhi > Nainital > Pithoragarh > Delhi

I call it the mother of all trips. So many incidents happened during this three day trip that it is worth a novella only that nobody will buy it. We started on a breezy night of July. The moment we crossed Haldwani, it started raining while visibility deteriorated to few meters. We had to stop the car and decided to sleep for few hours before dawn.

The land of Bugyals, thats where we were going. Pithoragarh is a small town 90 kilometers from Almora. It should take at most 14 hours of drive to reach this place from Delhi. It took us 22 hours. As it happened, our driver fell asleep while driving and we hit the hill side. Fortunately it was only the two side tyres that got punctured. On the other side of the road was a river flowing deep. We reached Almora for breakfast after repairs and then moved forward for Pithoragarh  The driver was told not to hurry up and hence we were able to reach our destination by 5 in the evening.

Piyush had asked for arrangements at cantonment area and we were treated like royals. The subsequent drinks & dinner settled us for a good sleep. In the morning we left for Chandak. It is the highest point in Pithoragarh.  The view from top is unimaginably beautiful. Its surreal in real sense.

We left Pithoragarh after a brief breakfast for Patal Bhubaneshwar. I had heard a lot about it from my friends. Yet what we were going to see cannot be described. We were guided to a slit shaped opening at Patal Bhubaneshwar temple. The slit took us down for some 60 feets before it opened up into a large cave. Stalectite formations were visible on the ceiling. We moved from one part of the cave to another. At the last cave there was a huge head-shaped structure shimmering in the low lighting of the cave. Water was trickling from thread-like structures coming out. We kept looking at it for a while.

As we came out it started raining. We had to move quickly so as to reach Almora before dark. The next morning was planned for a short stay at Nainital before I would separate from Piyush and Prateek to attend the wedding of Yagesh Da. The best thing about the trip was that we survived seven tyre punctures and every time  the driver stopped for repairs, there always was a beautiful surrounding to engage us.

Jim Corbett

The seven of us started on a midsummer night for Ramnagar. Jim Corbett Tiger Reserve has several entrances, the most accessible among them is Ramnagar. With few hiccups we reached there by 5 AM. It was critical. The booking for rooms/dormitories within the jungle start at 6 and one has to be among first few in the queue to get them. Manas took care of that. As a temporary arrangement, a circuit house was booked for us to rest and relieve ourself in the morning. By lunch we finally entered the gates of reserve and were settled in a large dormitory in the middle of the jungle.

The evening was spent in a jungle safari which proved more adventurous that expected thanks to a female elephant which started running towards us. Those were few scary moments. We were not expecting to see tigers. It is a rare sight even in Jim Corbett.

Later in the night we were surprised to be served delicious homely dinner by the servants. The seven of us then fell asleep after some chit chat and bantering. I woke up at around 4 AM with some noise that was coming from outside. It was still dark. As I came out I realized that two of my friends were already standing outside. It was raining hard. The entire area was almost flooded.

That delayed our exit till 9 AM. Just before we were leaving, two jeep full of girls alighted and the look on our faces was worth a mention. We couldn't believe we were leaving with a worst possible timing. Later we went to Gharzia Temple and had a dip in the flowing river while it was still raining. We were back to Delhi before 9 and a compact weekend holiday was well spent.