December 2005 India trip

-- Note: For the photographs from this trip, look under the Links section on the right --


During the last week of my stay in India, we went to Nainital (It is a beautiful hill-station in the state of Uttar Pradesh -- about a 14 hour drive from Lucknow where we were living then). Now, this was only a 3 day trip (thanks to the wonderful new vacation policy in my father's office), which means we spent half the time getting to and from our final destination :).


The first day was spent at the in Ranikhet, about 120 kms from Nainital, but definitely a place worth visiting. On the way we visited the "Jhula Devi Temple". It is said that if you tie a bell at this temple (irrespective of the size) and pray to the goddess, your prayers will be answered (Condition of course is that you shouldn't tell anyone what you asked for). And no, I did not tie a bell there :D. By the way, look at the number of bells all over in the temple premises. The caretakers of the temple had a few lemon trees in their yard and they allowed us to pluck off a few (You can see that in the photographs).


Somewhere along the way, we got lost and instead of reaching the golf course in Ranikhet (from what we had heard, the view of the Himalayas from the golf course is beautiful), we reached the top of one of the hills via a rugged terrain to a visitors center. The view of the Himalayas from there was pretty good. In this process, we of course missed the golf course, but that didn't ,atter anymore. Many of these photos here you'll see were taken at the visitors center. Neha also got to play with one of the pet puppies (If I am not mistaken, his name was Sonu). I don't think Neha cared for anything more after that :), not the scenery, not the Himalayas, nothing :). The interesting fact about these puppies was that they could not live in flat terrain areas. These were mountain dogs and they would not be able to survive on flat lands :(. Anyways, so this was our first day.


On the second day we were on our way to have a day trip to the mountain in Nainital. I forogt the name of the one that we were driving on (mom, help me here please), but the one thing I can say is ..... IT WAS AWESOME. There were multiple ways to explore the mountain -- hike, take a horse ride or drive it up. Most cars were going up only to a particular point, but thanks to my mom and sister and of course the driver we had with our rented car, who was a good sport, we ended up going much much further than most of these cars. At one point, I must admit, I was reallllly scared. But the minor fear due to sharp curves, the scary height and the deep valley were more than compensated for by the breathtaking view.


Looking at that view, the excitement felt by mountain climbers was understandable, I guess (and of course I am speaking of the Himalayas here). Just looking at the Himalayas, even from so so far away, it felt, I don't know, heavenly ummmm ... peaceful, serene .... I really don't know how to describe it, but it was exquisite.


I don't think words really do any justice to what we were seeing or experiencing .... You just have to see it for yourself.


After returning from Nainital, we spent the next 3 days in a resort about 90 km outside Lucknow. (Which we needed considering that we reached home from Nainital at 5:00 in the morning and were back on the road in 2 hours so my dad could be in time for his meeting ;) ).

The three days at the Shivgarh resort were very relaxing. Other than sleeping and lazing around (and yes, I am speaking only for myself now ;) ) and a lot of sports, we had a round of boating in the lake. It was nice to be so relaxed, and sad in a way because in less than a week I was going to be back on my way to US. Oh well, all good things come to an end!