Kumaon Trip - Days 2 and 3 - Binsar

Days 2 and 3: Sunday, 6 June, 2010 and Monday, June 07, 2010

Location: Binsar

Naukuchiatal to Binsar is a 3 hour (approx 105 km) drive. The majority of the road, although narrow, is in an excellent condition. No toll on the roads, so it means that at least some part of my taxes is being put to good use!

We had booked the ‘Club Mahindra Manipur Villa in Binsar’. There are a couple of misleading claims in the name. Firstly, it’s not a villa. There about 30 cottages/ studio apartments. Secondly, it’s not in Binsar, but 10 kms beyond where the Binsar Wild life Sanctuary begins, on the road to Chaukori. There are 2 parts to the Club Mahindra resort. The one at a lower altitude is true to its name- it is called the Club Mahindra Valley resort, and is right in the valley, very close to the highway. I don’t see much point of coming all the way here only for some very good quality accommodation, but minus a view or serene surroundings. The Manipur villa is approx 500 feet higher than the valley resort. Plus, it’s some way away from the highway. Our room was not on solid ground, but rather supported by bamboos and overlooked the valley. We though the view was quite good, but changed our mind once we went to the Binsar Sanctuary the next day.

We went for the “village and lake” trek in the evening on the first day. There was no lake that we could find; possibly they were referring to a depression in the ground that had evidence of holding water at some point of time in the past. The village was nothing special either. Still it was a fun trek and helped in keeping us amused for a short while.

Post lunch the next day, we headed for the Binsar Wildlife Sanctuary. The road towards Sunset point and ‘Zero Point’ is about 8 to 10 kms from the entry point to the Santuary (Charges- Rs. 250 for a small car plus Rs. 150 per head). The Kumaon Madal Vikas Ngam (KMVN) resort is located very close to the top, with a break-taking view of the Himalayas. It was cloudy the day we went there, so we couldn’t see much. Whatever we could, though, was still awesome. There wasn’t much of a point going to sunset point, but we went there anyway. ‘Zero Point’ involves a 2 km walk from the KMVN resort; and it is quite worth it for the view it offers. There is a one- storey bamboo structure at the top, which forms a very good observation point.

Although KMVN offers the best view, it’s not exactly the first choice place to stay in. Like all things to do with the government, there is a gross under-utilisation of the available resources and the quality of service is distinctly average. I was told that the allocation of funds for upgrade had happened. Hopefully, things will be better by next summer and KMVN will truly be a place worth staying in!

There are a few other resorts with the Sanctuary as well (Binsar Retreat, which involves staying in Tents; and the Oak ridge (or something to do with Oak) that is a huge bungalow). Although I have not personally seen the service quality there, I’d advice choosing one of these as an ideal blend of facilities+ location. An important thing to keep in mind- there is no electricity inside the sanctuary, for fear of scaring the animals. Everything works only on solar panels, and hence there’s a limited amount of electricity available. If you can’t do without CableTV and heated water from a shower, this place is not for you.

Verdict: Great place; must go. Stay at one of the resorts within the Sanctuary (do read the disclaimer in the above paragraph). KMVN, like at most other places, has the best view. But like at most other places, the quality of service is ordinary. Club Mahindra has great facilities, but it’s quite some way off from actual Binsar.

Kumaon Trip - Day 1 - Naukuchiatal

Day 1: Saturday, 5 June, 2010

Location: Kathgodam, Bheemtal, Naukuchiatal

We reached Kathgodam railway station at 8 am, as against the scheduled arrival time of 5.15 am. Not that it bothered me, I was quite happy to get the extra sleep in the train after managing about 9 hours the previous 2 nights combined.

Deepak was there to receive us at the station in a Santro. I didn’t have a very high opinion of the Santro as the mountain car, but this trip is rapidly proving me wrong. Or maybe its Deepak’s driving that is making negotiating the slopes and curves seem effortless.

We took a halt at Bheemtal, which is about 20 kms from Kathgodam. Like many places in uttranachal, the origin of Bheemtal’s name also lies in the Mahabharata. Enraged that he could not find water anywhere, Bheem pounded his fist (or maybe a rock) on the land, immediately causing water to sprout from the location; and formed into a lake (tal). The lake offers a beautiful walk around it’s circumference. Many lakes do not have a road running around their edges, which takes away quite a bit of the fun from walking around the lake. The point of a walk around the lake is that you should be in sight of the lake during your walk. No fun if you only know that there’s a lake beyond the trees, the house, and the small hillock, but can’t actually see it. Well, in Bheemtal, we could and we did.

We reached Naukuchiatal before noon, and checked in at the Club Mahindra “Dancing Waters” resort. Although we insisted on a lake-facing room, our ground floor room didn’t quite offer a great view of the lake. Nor, I assume, is the view any better from the rooms which are in a direction OPPOSITE to the lake. Imagine, coming all the way here and finding that all you get to see from your room is a small garden and a road. There are many resorts around the area that offer a much more secenic view.

However, I can’t say for sure that they offer better amenities than Club Mahindra. Or rather, I am positive that the amenities offered at Club Mahindra are better than those offered by most of the others. The cleanliness, the décor, the activity centre, etc. are all immaculately maintained. And definitely a +1 for people who are planning a trip with kids.

My work, unfortunately, wasn’t done yet. I had an internal conference call for the afternoon, followed by one with the party on the other side. This second call was quite strange. The call was being led by my Partner from our side. The other party, for a change, seemed to be in a very agreeable mood; and had either “you are right”; “I agree with you” or “I noticed that myself” as a response to everything that my partner said. All this was very soothing to my ears. This, coupled with the cool climate, a view of the lake and the surrounding greenery made me doze off on the call for a while. I woke up to hear the party on the other side say “I think we are in agreement on all the points, and I will speak to my lawyers accordingly”. Evidently, I hadn’t missed much.

Like most other lakes, Naukuchiatal too doesn’t lend itself to a walk around its edge. We instead chose to rent out a paddle boat so that we could paddle inside it’s edges. As you must have guessed by now, Nau (Nine) Kuchia (corners) tal (lake) refers to a lake with nine corners. We tried counting them, but could only count till 5. Later, our dirver Deepak told us that it’s considered very inauspicious if you can count all the nine corners.

I never quite know what to do in these kind of situations. Not being superstitious or particularly god-fearing myself, the immediate impulse is to give a hollow laugh or an extremely sarcastic smile. However, the brain soon starts weighing it against the fact that Deepak is going to drive me through the Himalayas for the next 10 days. I decided not to commit a Himalayan blunder, asked a few polite questions on the topic that conveyed my seriousness on the topic, and promptly moved on to another one.

Naukuchiatal is an ideal place for doing nothing. It is not very high up the hills and also close to Nainital, and hence city comforts are not very far away from you reach. However, if you have come all the way to Kumaon, it does make sense to spend as much time as possible higher up in altitude and closer to the Himalayas. The places higher up are as good as any for doing nothing.

Verdict: Avoid, unless you don’t want to travel very high up the Himalayas.

Kumaon Trip - Day 0 - Delhi

Day 0: Friday, 4 June, 2010

Location: Delhi

Ranikhet express leaves from the Old Delhi Railway station at 10.40 pm. Do remember the words “Old Delhi” and “10.40 pm”. We will be revisiting them very soon.

It so happened that I had some work in Delhi on Thursday and Friday. My wife joined me on Friday evening, and we stayed at a friend’s place.

We headed off from Gurgaon at around 9 pm, leaving a sufficient (or so we thought) buffer. The first sign of trouble was when the cab driver asked us which railway station we wanted to go to. I saw my railway ticket, which innocently said Delhi. I googled the info, got “Old Delhi” as the answer, and instructed my driver accordingly. We reached a railway station that my driver claimed was the right one. However, inquiries around the station told us that this was not the correct station. I immediately called the driver and asked him to hold on (we had let him go by then) and let us get back in. The driver now took us to another railway station, which had “New Delhi” written in bold letters at the entry. Convinced that there cannot be more than 2 stations, we got down again. A ‘helpful’ coolie told us that Ranikhet express arrives on Platform No. 9. We reached the Platform, and there were no signs of Ranikhet express there.

We were now told that this is just another extension of the same station we were at before, and Ranikhet Express actually does arrive at Old Delhi itself. We rushed back, and asked a driver there to take us to Old Delhi. He said “Rs. 250”. I said “are you crazy, it can’t be more than 2 kms away”. He patiently told me that I am misinformed, and that the station is a good 8 kms. away. The clock was now showing 10.35 pm. I explained the situation to the driver, and asked him to do his best. The driver, obviously having seen the Monaco Grand Prix the previous weekend, sought to put his learning into practice. Horns were honked, pavements were tread upon, signals were broken, speed limits were exceeded and abuses were ignored. 10.50 pm, and we were at the Old Delhi railway station. Yes, the Ranikhet Express was at Platform No. 9 of this station, which the previous coolie had conveniently missed telling us. At the Old Delhi station, another of his brethren (the coolie, not the cab drivers) sought to blackmail us by asking for Rs. 100 to carry a bag 25 metres. Not one to get blackmailed so easily (it will help if you have forgotten by now that I paid the cabbie @ Rs. 31 per km), I ignored him and tried to lift 2 25 kg. bags in each hand, and promptly fell over myself. Thankfully, a couple of guys helped me carry the bags, and I didn’t have to succumb to the blackmail. More thanks as our compartment was right next to the foot overbridge we got down from. I put our bags below the seats, thinking finally things are fine.

No such luck. I reached for my blackberry to see what time it was. It wasn’t there. Not the time, but the phone. I did what the Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy asks it’s reader not to do- DON’T PANIC! I did. I panicked. What about my contact numbers for the hotels? How will I access my email, which is going to be so crucial over the next week? I remembered that I had my phone in my shirt pocket, and promptly checked below the seat, after taking out my bag. There it was behind the bag. Phew! My co-passengers could no longer hold back their amusement. I duly warned them to be careful, since we haven’t been particularly lucky in our ‘vacation’ so far.

The train left the station at 10.55 pm. I was told the train normally leaves on time, but today was an exception. Well, ol’ boy, can’t think of a better day for the delay to happen! The next 3 hours of my vacation involved me downloading , reviewing and mailing back two 100-page legal documents on my laptop.

The objective of my trip was to get away from the stress and speed of city life, and just slow things down a bit. So far, Delhi was beating by routine Mumbai life hands down on the stress and speed scales.

Kumaon - The Plan

I am going to write about my trip to Kumaon, a place which has one of the lowest “No. of tourists/ Quality of the location” ratios in the country. Of course, what’s a good place from a tourist angle is very subjective. I prefer staying in very small towns that have a lot of greenery and/or breath-taking views of the surroundings. Presence of shopping malls, digital cable, etc. isn’t really important.

We planned our trip for mid-June, so that we are able to avoid the peak holiday crowd. We settled on Kumaon after a lengthy deliberation on many other possible destinations. After our summer vacation last year which was outside India, we wanted to go some place in India; both due to budgetary reasons and that that there are numerous places in the country that are as good (or possibly better) places to visit than any across the world.

Laddakh was ruled out due to lack of a large enough group to go with. Himachal was of interest, but lack of enough places to travel for 2 weeks ruled out that option. The North East was ruled out since it starts raining there in early June. Kashmir is probably at its safest in the last 2 decades, but we still did not want take the risk.

Having settled on the location, the next step was to work out which places we will be visiting in Kumaon. We certainly did not want our trip to resemble a Himalayan Car Rally. The aim was to limit the average daily travel time to 2.5 to 3 hours, resulting in a 30 to 35 hour total travel time across 2 weeks. At the same time, we did not want to miss out on the really good places, since it is unlikely that we will be visiting Kumaon again anytime soon.

The route that we finally settled on was Mumbai-Delhi- Kathgodam- Naukuchital- Binsar- Chaukori- Munsiyari- Kausani- Mukteshwar- Sonapani- Kathgodam- Delhi Mumbai. The plan was to spend a couple of days at each place in Kumaon, except Naukuchiatal where one day was deemed sufficient. We avoided the bigger towns (Nainital, Almora, Ranikhet).

We first tried to do our entire hotel and resort bookings via a travel agent, but soon realized that his utility was negative. Thereafter, we relied on travel sites and blogs to guide us in our bookings. Only time will tell how reliable they are, but for the moment our cab driver seems to have largely positive things to say about all the places that we intend to stay in. (I am penning down this entry offline on my way from Naukuchiatal to Binsar).

Of Nationalsim and Independence - Words on India from beyond

For me, except for the weather and the fact that I don't have my family and friends around, there's absolutely no difference being in Kuwait than it is being in India. It would be comparable to me being in Rajasthan in May...albeit with a completely different economic position. The majority of people I work with in office are Indians, I eat an Indian thali for lunch daily, I speak in Hindi most of the time, and I stay in "Taj" apartments.

As I had written earlier, I really do not like the idea of being, as Sunil rightly put it, stereotyped. I am an Indian, and there are definitely a lot of things about India that I really like. At the same time, there are several things about India....things that really make me cringe when I think about them. The level of filth in public places, the state of infrastructure, the political system, and most of all, the amazingly amazing levels of hypocrisy that abound within a majority of the Indians (there I go stereotyping Indians as hypocrites after having protested against it....see what I mean when I say hypocrites !!!)

I believe that we need to look things with a much wider perspective. Nationalism and patriotism is necessary as long as it helps prevent ourselves from exploitation. My idea of a nation is a group of people that decides to come together and ensure collectively that they aren't exploited. A perfect world would be with nations which try their best to not get exploited, but which at the same time do not want to take any unjustified advantage of other Nations (colonialism and bombing the hell out of oil-rich countries come to mind immediately as examples of unjustified advantage).

I love Mumbai for a variety of reasons, chief among them being the presence of my family and friends. There's also the spirit of the people, the fact that I am not differentiated against and the opportunity that it gives me for having a successful career, and thereby, a happy life.

So the question arises whether I am patriotic ? The answer to that is a No. I love my country and would want to protect it with a vested interest of saving my skin and that of the people around me. However, the extent to which I can go to protect India can only be determined when the time comes for it.

Independence day- I think we should call it the day India gained political freedom. I am borrowing these thoughts from somewhere (cant remember where exactly, but in all probability from Amit Varma's blog), but I do think India is still not an economically free country. We are getting there, but are still a long long way off from where we should be. Take the example of taxes. I read somewhere (again forget the source) a calculation of taxes in terms of no. of months you work for the government. By effective rate of tax in FY 2008 will be something like 24%. So for April to June I work for the government via direct taxes. Then i pay a host of indirect taxes (chief among them being tax on Petrol, Municipal taxes, entertainment tax, etc.). I guess only from September onwards do I start working for myself. And what do I get for the first 5 months that I work for the government ? Safety from foreign and local attack(which surely cant cost so much !), shitty infrastructure, an even shittier judiciary, and a right to vote for rascals of the highest order.

All in all, I am not too kicked at being independent since 60 years. We should maybe celebrate 1991 as the year of independence...which, ironically, was forced upon us by the bad bad West. You see, they refused to lend us money to be put down the drain by providing salaries to government officials who produced crap. 1947 was when we got a right to vote. 1991 was when we got a small percentage of the right to choose the way we want to lead our lives. The percentage is growing every year, and hopefully it will move in the right direction.

So the question arises whether I am patriotic ? The answer to that is a No. I love my country and would want to protect it with a vested interest of saving my skin and that of the people around me. However, the extent to which I can go to protect India can only be determined when the time comes for it.

Independence day- I think we should call it the day India gained political freedom. I am borrowing these thoughts from somewhere (cant remember where exactly, but in all probability from Amit Varma's blog), but I do think India is still not an economically free country. We are getting there, but are still a long long way off from where we should be. Take the example of taxes. I read somewhere (again forget the source) a calculation of taxes in terms of no. of months you work for the government. By effective rate of tax in FY 2008 will be something like 24%. So for April to June I work for the government via direct taxes. Then i pay a host of indirect taxes (chief among them being tax on Petrol, Municipal taxes, entertainment tax, etc.). I guess only from September onwards do I start working for myself. And what do I get for the first 5 months that I work for the government ? Safety from foreign and local attack(which surely cant cost so much !), shitty infrastructure, an even shittier judiciary, and a right to vote for rascals of the highest order.

All in all, I am not too kicked at being independent since 60 years. We should maybe celebrate 1991 as the year of independence...which, ironically, was forced upon us by the bad bad West. You see, they refused to lend us money to be put down the drain by providing salaries to government officials who produced crap. 1947 was when we got a right to vote. 1991 was when we got a small percentage of the right to choose the way we want to lead our lives. The percentage is growing every year, and hopefully it will move in the right direction.