When it gets really hot here, Delhi-ites like to go north to
the hills of Uttarakhand and Nainital seems to be one of the most popular
destination towns. Situated around a
lake and at a high elevation, it is much much cooler than Delhi and the air is
much more breathable. High/low
temperatures were probably 31/24 last weekend and, predictably, the locals were
in sweaters, if you can believe it.
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| Nainital from Saddle Back peak |
Because of the popularity of the place and the fact that we
booked our bus tickets last minute, we only managed to make an iffy hotel
reservation. So after a long night-bus
ride, we disembarked in Nainital bleary-eyed and a little confused about why
they’d let us off outside of town rather than at the bus stand that we’d just
driven past in the centre of town, and were promptly accosted by a grizzly but
friendly looking guy who wanted to know whether we needed a place to stay or a
trekking guide. Now they warn you about
touts that prey on foreigners, but he looked pretty friendly, his English was
great and we didn’t have a lot of options, so we let him take us to check out
his guest house (i.e 400 sq.ft 3-room flat) and then the Aroma Hotel where we
had the iffy-reservation. As it turned
out, it looked like the only aroma there would have been from the mold on the
walls so we opted for Lalit’s house instead and were back there with cups of
chai and fried eggs for breakfast by about 9:30am. Being a trekking guide meant that we found
accommodation, food and a local guide all in one spot.
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| Lalit |
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| Lalit in front of his house |
After breakkie we headed out with Lalit to climb to Tiffin
Top, a popular (too popular) hike on the other side of the lake and stopped en
route to cook lunch in the forest. Or to
be more precise, for Lalit to cook lunch over a campfire in the forest:
turmeric rice with cauliflower, onion and tomato. That was when the cows wandered over.
Lalit and his wife were great hosts. She wouldn’t let us photograph her, but Deepa
was a fantastic cook but her food was really spicey – more spicey than
hot. And I thought I had a pretty good
taste for spicey but I couldn’t help coughing or stopping my eyes
watering. Eventually, I had to excuse
myself to wipe my eyes and nose on some tissue in another room. Kind of embarrassing. It made me realise, though, how bland the
ashram food is. I don’t know how the
Indian guests stand it.
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| Dining room table |
Sunday, we got an earlier start hiking, but not before
another breakfast of omelettes and chai.
Why do I keep mentioning the breakfast?
Because there were eggs and we hadn’t seen many of those since we got
here. Sunday’s hike was even better than
the day before: Cheena/China Peak and then Saddleback Peak. We were promised views of the Himalayas but,
as you can see, no luck.
Lunch was
turmeric potatoes with mango pickle and pooris.
Another high starch meal, but deelish.
Then back to Lalit and Deepa’s for another good dinner and
off to catch the Sunday night bus back to Delhi.
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| Just a guy on the street |
The bus system here is not as organized or
transparent as it could be. And for some
reason, the powers that be schedule things so that every single bus leaves town
at 10pm. Given the large volume of
visitors and the small space in front of the bus stand, it quickly becomes
obvious that it is not possible to load all those buses at once. Therefore, the police bring the buses in in
three-sies and four-sies and you just have to wait patiently for your’s to
approach. By 11:30 pm when the square in
front of the bus stand was clearing out and we’d been waiting two hours, we
started to get a little worried, even though we weren’t the only people still waiting. Just then one of the local tour operators put
the two of us on the last two seats on another bus and off we went. I don’t know if the rest of the people ever
got on a bus but we were just happy to be off our feet and on the road – even
though the bus was pretty inferior.
After a really uncomfortable night with not much sleep we were dropped
off on the outskirts of Delhi at 7am and just had time to get back to the
ashram for a shower and then to the office.
It goes without saying, we were pretty bagged that day. Nevertheless, it was worth it. Great weekend. Great to get out of the Delhi heat. Great to have met Lalit and Deepa and to have
been welcomed inside their home.
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| Our bedroom |
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| Combo kitchen washroom plumbing |
I don’t want to reinforce stereotypes, but I’ve heard it
said that Indians have a very indirect way of addressing things where
westerners would be much more direct and I think Lalit’s style would be an
example of this: part indirect, part passive-aggressive, part overly polite. For example, he repeatedly said things like
‘Maybe you didn’t like lunch’ or ‘I hope you are happy with the
room/dinner/walk/him/chai/etc.’ which, of course, would force you to immediately
compliment the room/food/hike/weather/chai/whatever. And it was good and we meant it. But it just got to be a bit like a broken
record. He also liked to repeat “I’m
just lucky to have you in my house/have you stay with me/be your friend” again
forcing you to return the compliment by saying “oh no, it is me who is lucky/we
appreciate everything you are doing/blah/blah/blah.” And so it went on and on. Also he had a very indirect and non-committal
way of talking about money: how much for staying the night, how much for
trekking, a little advance to buy food here, a little advance there, that sort
of thing. So that made us feel a little
awkward and wonder whether there were going to be any surprises at the end. Actually, as it happened, there was a little
surprise extra charge for the food for the second day, but given that they gave
us three square meals a day, including eggs and chicken on Saturday – on top of
accommodation and a hiking guide, it was a great package.
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