Nainital

After 2+ years of being home, got a wonderful opportunity to fly with colleagues. A retreat to Nainital came as a much needed break as our academic year came to an end. 40 of us flew to Bareilly from Bangalore on a Sunday morning. After a 3 hour flight we reached Bareilly around 12.30pm. We had lunch near the airport and left the place around 2.30pm in 3 tempo travellers. It took longer than 4 hours to reach Nainital due to a traffic jam on the regular road.  We stopped at Mohan's kitchen for tea, before continuing our road journey. We passed Haldwani town, enjoying the scenic views outside while singing along and reached Nainital around 8.30 pm. 

Sunset from the TT

We had a warm welcome at the Balrampur house resort, where we stayed for six days. After keeping the luggage at our respective rooms, we had tea and soon after we were served dinner. The rooms were huge and spacious and each one of us shared the room with two others from our group. I was assigned a room on the first floor and so the room had a balcony view where we could see the sunrise.

The weather changed drastically from being super hot during the day to very cold as night progressed. All of us had been up since 4am the first day and hence retired to bed early after dinner.

Few of us woke up around 5.30am the next day and went for a walk up the hill. It was bright by 5.30 am. The roads were very steep everywhere and it was a fun climb to go anywhere. We walked a lot the first day,  climbed a steep hill with steps to go up to Satya Narayana temple. The view from the top was lovely. We drank pahadi water from the tap and started our descent. On our way back we drank fresh rhododendron flower juice made at home by local people. We got back to the resort at 8.30am just in time for breakfast and had poori, bhaji,  poha,  omelette and masala tea. 

Up we go!

First rays of sun!

A window peek :)

Satya Narayana temple

After breakfast, we got ready and left the resort at 9.30am and walked down passing the high court area to Nainital town area near the Nainital lake. We walked around the lake for sometime, visited Nainadevi temple, shopped for bracelets/woolen, pahadi topis and ate yummy mulberries and strawberries. We headed back to the resort with a quick stop for chai/lassi and reached around 1pm. We had lunch and sat out in the sun. 

Nainital lake

Naina Devi temple

Soon it was evening, we had tea at 4.30pm followed by a dialogue session at 5pm. We had interesting theatre activities at 7pm and dinner at 9pm.

At the Balrampur House

The next morning woke up at 5.30 am, freshned up and had black tea in the room. After having a heavy breakfast of aloo paratha, upma and toast, we were ready for our planned trek to Tiffin Top and Dorothy Seat. We left the resort at 8.30am and returned around 1pm, covering a total of 14km to Tiffin top/Dorothy seat which were roughly at an altitude of 7500 feet. We spent some leisure time at the top and headed back. The views from the top were gorgeous and the whole stretch was covered with beautiful red rhododendron flower trees.  We sang old hindi songs on our way back :)

Rhododendron flowers

Once back, we had lemon juice and Kumaon cuisine lunch alongwith rasgullas for desert. We sat in the sun outside for a while after lunch. We freshned up and had masala tea with french fries at 4.30pm followed by dialogue session at 5pm and an amazing antakshari with a twist planned by one of our team mates after that. It was a lot of fun to sing and laugh. Yummy tomato soup and dinner were perfect for the cold night. Made up ghost stories while sipping herbal tea, and laughing our lungs out were the highlights of that night :) 

One of my favorite trees at the Balrampur House

Woke up at 5.30am on Wednesday and had coffee in the room while watching the sun rise. We had breakfast -  chole bhature,  sandwiches and tea at 7.30am. We left the resort around 8.15am in a couple of tempo travellers and few cars to visit Kilbari and Pangot. We did bird watching, saw few birds - tree magpie, wood pecker at Kilbari. 

Early morning view from room

From Kilbari we drove to Pangkot. We  sat  around watching the mountains, listening to the loud sound of cicadas, watching birds, having tea and relaxing. Soon we had hot yummy lunch at Pangkot.  We left the place around 2.30pm and reached the resort by 3.30pm.  After freshening up, we had tea and cutlet at 4.30pm and dialogue till 6.30pm. It was very cold that night, but managed to walk for 30minutes inside the resort before having soup and dinner.

I woke up at 5 am the next day (Thursday) and watched the early morning sky colours while having coffee. We started the day by doing yoga in the open with sun's first rays falling on us for 30minutes.

We had breakfast at 7am and left the resort at 7.30am for our last trek of the trip. We hiked up the steep mountain and reached the top at 10.30am. The climb was beautiful throughout with gorgeous views and it seemed like there were spots of snow in one of the mountains :)) (not sure if it was our imagination, but would like to believe they were really snow :))

On our way up

We sat at the top for about one hour and started the descnet via a different path. We reached the Satya Narayana temple on our way back, and from here the path got steeper. We got back to the resort by 1.30pm. We had lunch and relaxed in the sun with our feet in the water. We had tea at 4 and dialogue session.  After dinner we danced around the campfire for sometime. 

Going down

We got up at 5 am on Friday, freshened up, packed and went down to have breakfast and left the resort around 7.30am in 3 tempo travelers to Bareilly. We reached Bareilly around noon. The hotel staff  at Nainital had packed lunch for all of us and we had the packed lunch near the airport at a dhaba. 

We reached the airport on time and boarded the flight around 1.30pm. We landed at Bangalore airport by 5pm and few of us had a quick coffee at Hattikaapi before saying goodbye and boarding the bus.

It was an amazing trip, an unique one with 40 of us and it was evident that each one of us enjoyed to the fullest in our own way! Thanks to each and everyone who planned/organized/joined and made this trip possible!