November 18 -29, 2010: Delhi

On the 18th I left Ramnagar shortly before 10 on a train bound for Delhi.  I took a last glance at the foothills of the Himalayas as we left the station and from then on it was flat all the way to Delhi, 150 miles away.  Actually, we were descending from about 1500 feet elevation at Ramnagar to about 700 in Delhi (according to the elevation signs in the New Delhi Railway Station).  Almost every acre on the way was planted or ready for planting.  Besides unidentified vegetables, I noticed sugar cane and wheat stubble.  There were also ponds with birds.  And I saw plowing with cattle and by hand.  The six hour train ride cost me only 70 rupees (about $1.50) in second class, and it was fairly comfortable with padded seats and sufficient leg room.  It was great to be on a train after three and a half months of buses:  none of that incessant horn blowing; only the soothing rumble of the train.  The train initially was only maybe a third full, but filled up at the first stop, Kashipur, and by the time we left Moradabad the aisles were jammed with people.  It took us about two hours to reach Moradabad, where we spent an hour at the station.  The 110 kilometers between Moradabad and Hapur took only about an hour and a half, so we were really racing, at over 40 miles an hour!  We crossed the wide Ganges on the way.  We slowed down on the way into Delhi, passing packed slum housing of sheet metal and plastic tarps right next to the tracks.  We crossed the wide, dirty, sluggish Yamuna River and went right by the 60 foot walls of the 17th century Red Fort and reached the British-built red sandstone Old Delhi Railway Station about 4.  I had hoped we would arrive at the New Delhi Station because the Paharganj backpacker hotel area is nearby.  I walked to the metro, but the lines were enormous, so I took a cyclo-rickshaw through the narrow, crowded and interesting streets of old Delhi to Paharganj and got a good hotel for only 400 rupees (about $9) a night about 5:30.  (The train trip had cost me 70 rupees but I paid more for the cyclo-rickshaw from the station (50 rupees) plus an autorickshaw to the station in Ramnagar (30 rupees)!)  I was glad to discover that the main street of Paharganj, all torn up when I was there three and a half months earlier, was now repaved, though filled with the day's debris.

The next day was a beautiful sunny and warm day.  I walked through the post-war New Delhi Railway Station, always a hive of activity (a sign in front says 400,000 people and 250 trains use it each day), and on a crowded walkway over the 16 platforms, with much activity to be seen below, to the metro station.  On a loudspeaker in the railway station a women would announce the delay of a train and then say, "Any inconvenience is deeply regreted."  I took a metro train two stops north and got off near Chandni Chowk, the main street of old Delhi leading to the Red Fort.  I had planned to walk along it to the Red Fort, but there was a huge Sikh parade celebrating the birthday of Guru Nanak, the first guru, heading in the opposite direction.  There were high school groups, men with swords, and hordes of people.  It was all very colorful and interesting and I ended up spending maybe three hours watching it and walking along with it.  There were martial arts demonstrations, lots of food being dispensed both from trucks in the parade and from stands along the route, and many colorful costumes.  Many men and boys had swords or spears.  There were all sorts of different types and colors of turbans.  Bearded, fairly fierce looking men might have bright pink or yellow or lavender turbans, besides the more common red, blue, black and white ones.  I took a photo of one big guy with a lime green turban and he came up to me and asked me where I was from.  He was from Milwaukee.

I walked with the parade as far as the Fatehpur Mosque, at the opposite end of Chandni Chowk from the Red Fort.  I went into the spice bazaar near there and then into the mosque, which was built in the mid-17th century and has a wide courtyard.  Streams of white clothed, white skull-capped men had left it earlier after Friday midday prayers.  I looked around for a while inside and then sat down under the arcade for a while.  It was quiet after all the commotion outside.  Men were sleeping here and there and a boy was flying a kite in the courtyard.  A 12th grader sat next to me to practice his English and told me he was a "Mohammedan."   I've also noticed that Moslems here are sometimes called "Musalmans."

Just before dusk I walked down Chandni Chowk to the Red Fort, reaching it just before dark.  I didn't go in, but walked south in the dark past the giant Jama Masjid, the mosque built just after the Red Fort, and ate at a somewhat famous restaurant called Karim's nearby, sitting with a Syrian and an Eqyptian, both engineers working in the UAE.  After dinner I walked back to the Chandni Chowk metro station only to find it was closed because of "technical difficulties," so I took a cyclo-rickshaw back to Paharganj.

It was sunny but cooler the next day.  It was a Saturday and I figured the Red Fort would be especially crowded, so I headed south to Connaught Place.  It, too, was no longer a torn up mess, as in August, and was even fairly quiet on that Saturday morning.  There is a great grassy circular park in the middle, where I remember reading mail in 1979 after not having had any mail since Istanbul two months earlier.  It certainly is different now with the internet.  I walked to the Jantar Mantar, a monumental astronomy complex built by the Maharajah of Jaipur in the early 18th century.  He built his instruments to observe the sun and stars out of brick and it is all quite interesting with huge sundials.  From there I took the metro south and then walked to the Nehru Museum in the house where he lived when Prime Minister from independence in 1947 to his death in 1964.  It is a huge mansion, with great lawns, apparently built for the commander-in-chief of the army during the British era.  It was filled with interesting photos, newspapers and other displays, plus his two offices, sitting rooms, his bedroom and that of this daughter Indira.  I ended up spending 3-4 hours there.  It was fairly crowded, with a lot of friendly but noisy school children.  I walked from there to a statue of "Indian Martyrs," including Gandhi and others, and then across the Rajpath, New Delhi's central thoroughfare, in the dark to a metro station.

It was sunny and cool the next day, and in the morning I took the metro to near the Rajpath and then walked to it past the well-guarded circular Parliament building, which was attacked by Islamic terrorists a few years ago.  There was even a soldier with a rifle behind sandbags in the nearby metro station.  New Delhi, south of old Delhi, was built by the British from 1911 to 1931 to serve as India's capital and they built on a monumental scale.  The two Secretariat buildings are enormous and are a fusion of European (lots of Grreco-Roman columns) and Indian elements.  They, too, were well-guarded.   I walked past them to the huge residence of the President, formerly that of the Viceroy.  I think it has something like 340 rooms.  You can only see it through the enormous gates, so I turned around and walked back past the Secretariats again and then south along the wide, orderly, tree-lined streets of New Delhi to the Indira Gandhi Museum, passing the well-guarded residences of the commanders of the Army, Navy and Air Force in British-built white columned mansions behind red brick walls now topped with green metal extensions and barbed wire above that.  The museum was closed for Guru Nanak's birthday, so I walked further south to Safdarjung's tomb, a late (mid-18th century) Moghul tomb for a man who must have been a particularly favored and wealthy minister.  It is a large, domed building in a large garden, and it was quite nice in there.  There were not many visitors.  From there I walked east to the Lodi Gardens, named after the dynasty overthrown by the Moghuls in 1526.  It contains some large tombs of the Lodi Sultans and on that Sunday afternoon also contained lots of picnicking and cricket-playing Indians.

From the Lodi Gardens I walked further east to a series of narrow lanes leading to a winding bazaar that finally led to the Hazrat Nizam-ud-din, a Sufi shrine filled with worshippers.  It contained several graves besides the Sufi saint, including that of Shah Jahan's daughter.  I went into one of the shrines containing a grave and it was filled with sweet-smelling flowers.  The main shrine had a sign saying, "No ladies allowed inside."  The people were very friendly, with some asking to have their photos taken, including an old man and his wife who posed most solemnly.  I spent about two hours there, until past 6, watching all the activity.  There were singers in front of the main tomb, accompanied by a dhol (two sided drum) and a harmonium.  I took a long autorickshaw ride back to my hotel from there and the driver surprisingly agreed to use his meter, so the 4-5 mile trip cost me only about $1.25, about half of what they usually charge.  It was chilly that night and I put on my fleece to go to dinner.

It was cloudy and cool the next morning and I would have spent the day in a museum, but on Mondays the museums are closed, so I took a 45 minute metro ride south to near the Qutb Minar.  The metro trains were packed at the New Delhi Railway Station stop and I had to wait for several trains to pass before I could wedge myself into one.  The subway opened in 2002, so it's quite modern, but the people push and shove to get in and out at the busy stations like rats leaving a sinking ship.  I wonder if people ever stumble and get trampled.  One guy lost his watch in the tumult. 

From the Qutb Minar metro station I took an autorickshaw to the Qutb Minar itself.  It is a 240 foot high minaret next to the ruins of India's oldest mosque, built by the first Muslim sultans of Delhi around 1200.  The minaret is about 50 feet wide at the base, tapering to maybe 8 feet at the top and is quite impressive, with some beautiful intricate carving on it.  The nearby mosque also has some fine carving and is particularly interesting because some of the columns have representations of figures, including dancing women.  An inscription over the mosque's main entrance reportedly says that the stone from 27 "idolotrous temples" was used to build the mosque.  The faces of the figures are defaced.  The Qutb Minar area was quite crowded with people, including hundreds of what appeared to be young Indian police or military cadets.  The mosque also includes a famous iron pillar, 25 feet high, that has never rusted, from the 5th century AD or so.

I spent a couple of  hours there and then took an autorickshaw and while traveling on it discovered I had mistakenly told the driver to take me to a place miles away from where I really wanted to go, so I changed plans and had him take me to the Purana Qila, a giant fortress near the Yamuna built by Sher Shah, who defeated the second Mughal ruler, Humayun, and ruled Delhi for a few years in the mid 16th century.  He was quite a builder and there is a big mosque and a tower inside the walls.  When Humayun regained power in 1555 after Sher Shah's death, he used the tower as a library and was killed the next year after a fall coming down its steps.

I walked from the Purana Qila to the India Gate, the 140 foot high stone memorial arch commemorating the 90,000 Indians who died in World War I and in the Northwest and Afghanistan campaigns of 1919.  Under it is the grave of an unknown soldier from the 1971 India-Pakistan War guarded by soldiers and an eternal flame.  There were big crowds around the arch, even on this cool and cloudy late afternoon.  From the India Gate the wide Rajpath leads to the President's House more than a mile and a half away.  From the India Gate I walked back to Paharganj, which took me more than an hour, longer than I expected.

The next morning there was another mele at the metro station trying to get into the train.  I took it again to the Central Secretariat stop near the Rajpath and then walked to the National Museum.  This was another cool, gray day and I spent it at the museum, from about 10 to 4:30.  It contains great Hindu and Buddhist statuary and Moghul miniature paintings among its many treasures.  There was also a section on arms and armor and on the Indian Navy.  The only problem was the seemingly endless lines of noisy school children who are marched through the museum without stopping to see anything, as if they could imbibe some of their history and culture by proximity.  About 1 pm I was hungry and found the canteen in the basement were I got a great lunch of five fluffy, crunchy, little (maybe 4-5 inch diameter) puri and some vegetable dish for only 10 rupees (less than 25 cents), plus tea for 5 rupees.  (Later I found the cafeteria on the top floor and it was considerably more expensive.)  From the museum I walked back to Paharganj in the late afternoon/early evening (it gets dark soon after 5:30), stopping at the very fine Imperial Hotel on the way.  It is filled with Raj-era paintings, photos and engravings, hundreds of them, and they were very interesting.  There were paintings of British king emperors and viceroys, and of maharajas, too.  It is beautiful big hotel, with the smell of jasmine in the air.  It is somewhat nicer than the hotel where I am staying. 

Back in Paharganj there was a wedding party along the main street that night, with the groom in a turban and riding a white horse.  Boys and young men held elaborate lanterns powered by a portable generator and men danced in front of the groom to the very loud music of a sound truck and a live uniformed band, mostly, or maybe entirely, of horns and drums.  He was on his way to claim his bride.  I had seen a similar procession in Ramnagar the night before I left for Delhi, though there the groom, in a plumed turban, rode a high wooden chariot drawn by two whitish horses and pulling the generator that powered the lights.  He was accompanied by light bearers that held white fluorescent lights about 4-5 feet long.  There were about 10-20 of them and at first I thought they were light sabers held in procession by jedi knights.

It was cloudy and cool again the next day and I made my way to the Indira Gandhi Museum.  This time I walked to the Rajiv Chowk metro station in Connaught Place rather than do battle in the New Delhi Railway Station metro station.  This museum is in the house where she lived from her father's death in 1964 to her own assassination in 1984.  It is quite interesting with many of the rooms, including her bedroom, office, dining room and living room, left as they were at her death, with interesting furnishings.  There are also rooms full of photos and other displays, including the blood-stained sari she was wearing when assassinated.  There are also rooms dedicated to her son Rajiv, prime minister after her death until 1989, which include photos of his Italian-born wife Sonia, now head of the ruling Congress Party, and the tattered remains of the clothes and the high top sneakers he was wearing when he was blown up by a Tamil suicide bomber in 1991.  The museum was jam-packed with Indians, many of them in groups pushing and shoving, and no westerners other than me.  On the grounds of the white, colonnaded British-built building is a memorial on the spot where her Sikh bodyguards shot her.

From there I walked to the nearby Gandhi Memorial in the Birla House, where he spent his last 144 days from September 1947 to his assassination in January 1948.  It is another British-built huge mansion, though the two rooms that Gandhi stayed in are very simply furnished and left as they were when he died.  The mansion is filled with interesting photos, dioramas and other displays, and from his rooms concrete footsteps lead across the lawn to the spot where he was assassinated on his way to evening prayers.  It began to rain while I was there, at about 2:30 and lasted for more than an hour.  My thermometer registered 68 degrees during the rain.  (During my stay here in Delhi highs have generally been in the 70's and lows in the 50's.)  Late in the afternoon as I walked to the metro it was quite foggy and drippy.  Back in Paharganj there was another Sikh parade that evening, with more food being dispensed.  The main street was even more crowded and dirty than usual.  I got pickpocketed in the crowd, losing only 50 rupees but also a little notebook.

It was cloudy and cool the next morning and I took the metro across the Yamuna to the new Akshardam Temple, built in 2000-2005 by thousands of volunteers.  It is the world's largest Hindu temple, with a display proudly displaying this fact with a certificate from the Guinness Book of World Records.  It is a fantastic place, called by some a Hindu Disneyland, and I quite liked it, but then I am very fond of Disneyland.  The temple itself and the other buildings are beautifully decorated, with thousands of carved figures of Hindu gods and heroes, plus many animals.  The best are a series of more than a hundred elephants carved on the main temple's base, each from stones of 20 tons.  The stories about the elephant carvings, with inscriptions in Hindi and English, are lovely, focusing on non-violence, cooperation and vegetarianism. 

The temple was built by the followers of Swaminarayan, who lived from 1781 to 1830 and has been succeeded by five swamis, the current one almost 90.  As an eleven year old he left his family and traveled as a mendicant all over India (and to Mount Kailash in Tibet, allegedly in nothing but a loincloth) before stopping in Gujarat at an ashram.  There is a large gold statue of him in the center of the temple, with smaller gold statues of his successor swamis.  Near the temple are three huge halls, the first with animatronic exhibits about Swaminarayan's life, the second with a beautifully done IMAX movie about his life, and the third with a boat ride through Indian history, revealing that in the Vedic Age (before Christ) Indians invented the airplane and discovered atomic theory, among other things.  It was all quite enjoyable and well done.  There is also a sculpture garden of great Indian men and women, including a guy who, the plaque claims, invented wireless communication in 1899 (that is, before Marconi) but is better known, it says, for his remarkable finding that "plants have feelings."  The temple was very crowded by the time I left about 3:30.  I took the metro to the Hauz Kaus area and tried to find it and the tomb of Firoz Shah, but it was getting late and dark at 5, so I gave up and took the metro back towards Paharganj.

After a misty morning, the sun finally appeared the next morning a little before 10.  I took the metro and then walked to the Red Fort.  I had been waiting for a sunny day.  The fort is a huge enclosure, built by Shah Jahan, the builder of the Taj Mahal, when he moved his capital from Agra to Delhi in the 1640's.  I spent the day there, exploring the remaining palace buildings and the extensive grounds.  There were lots of people there.  The palaces were pillaged by the Persian Nadir Shah in 1739, with the rich palace decorations, including jewels encrusted in the walls and the Peacock Throne, taken to Persia.  Nonetheless, the magnificent buildings, though denuded and in bad repair, are still interesting, and it was pleasant to walk around and sit here and there.  There is a marble artificial stream bed flowing through the palaces.  I had a lunch of raisins and cashews that I had brought with me and shared part of it with some friendly squirrels.  There were lots of birds in the air and trees, and I saw several woodpeckers around a step well on the grass and in a tree.  Also, there are three museums inside, including one on the struggle for independence in one of the large British-built buildings inside the fort built when the British occupied the fort from the time of the Indian Revolt in 1857 to independence 90 years later.  The Indian Army occupied the fort from independence to 2002 and it is now much nicer than I remembered it from 1979.  I had dinner at Karim's near the Jama Masjid and then returned to the Red Fort for the hour long sound and light show at 7:30, which cost only 60 rupees (and was worth about that).  It was chilly there at night.

The next morning was sunny again and I took a cyclo rickshaw from the east side of the train station through old Delhi to the Jama Masjid and spent maybe two hours there.  It is India's largest mosque, built by Shah Jahan.  The two minarets rise to 130 feet, and I climbed the southern one.  The views of the mosque itself from above and of the nearby walls of the Red Fort were great, though hazy, but most of the rest of the city was hidden by the dense haze.  The white domed, red sandstone mosque is simply decorated, but quite beautiful.  There were lots of tourists, almost as many as the number of faithful there that Saturday morning.  It was pleasant to wander around the wide, sunny courtyard and through the shady arcades and prayer halls.

I had lunch at Karim's and then walked through the crowded bazaar in front of the mosque, and then south to the National Gandhi Museum, opened in 1981.  It has very interesting photos and displays, including the walking stick Gandhi used in his Salt March in 1931 to Dandi, his sandals, his dentures, two teeth (his last two, I think) extracted in the 1930's, the blood stained dhoti and shawl he was wearing when assassinated, and one of the bullets that hit him.  Nearby in a beautiful park, for the most part surprisingly clean of litter, is the Raj Ghat, where he was cremated.  The area is quite different now than it was in 1948, judging from the photos of his cremation.  Nearby are the cremation spots, now memorials, to Rajiv Gandhi, Indira Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.  There is a smaller one for Sanjay Gandhi, the son of Indira who died in a plane crash in 1980.  They are all different but all quite simple.  Only Rajiv's has a representation of him. 

From there I walked to the walled city built by Feroz Shah, one of the pre-Moghul Delhi sultans.  I was there at dusk, from about 5 to 5:45.  The few remaining structures inside are in ruins, as the material was used by Shah Jahan to build his city, but there are the remains of a mosque and a structure with a sandstone pillar originally erected by the 3rd century BC Emperor Ashoka and transported to this spot by Feroz Shah.  From there I took a cyclo rickshaw to the railway station and walked through it to Paharganj.

The next morning I finally booked my train tickets out of Delhi, first to Alwar and then to Jaipur, both in Rajasthan.  Booking them was very easy at a special office in the train station for foreigners.  As usual, I've stayed here in Delhi longer than expected.  I took the metro to near the Crafts Museum and spent a couple of hours there.  The stuff inside is almost all 19th and 20th century and there are some very interesting wooden sculpture, beautiful textiles, and architectual pieces.  I took an auto rickshaw from there south to Humayun's tomb, the first example of Moghul architecture, built by his widow who was the mother of his son and successor Akbar.  This building, reached through two gates, is a beautiful domed building of red sandstone and white marble surrounded by a Persian style park.  (His widow was Persian.)  It was very crowded on that Sunday afternoon, but the grounds are so extensive that it was easy to get away from them.  His marble tomb in the center of the huge building is very simple.  In other rooms and on the terrace and in the gardens are other graves, about a hundred of them.  And there are several other large tomb buildings (though dwarfed by Humayun's), including one said to be that of his barber, though that seems unlikely to me.  I stayed until after the sun's rays left the building.  The sky and the trees were filled with birds, including parrots, magpies, some sort of crow and quite a few hawks.  At nightfall I took an autorickshaw back to Paharganj.

The next day (today) I spent the morning and early afternoon in Paharganj, having a long breakfast, talking with an Italian journalist, updating this blog and then having lunch.  I took the metro in the afternoon from the train station to Chandni Chowk and walked to the 17th century Jain Temple across from the Red Fort, but it was closed.  I walked back on the crowded Chandni Chowk, which originally, in Moghul times, had a canal down the middle to reflect the moonlight, and took what is probably my last metro ride, at least for a while (no more minding the gap), to Rajiv Chowk and spent some time in a Connaught Circus bookstore before walking back to Paharganj, arriving before dark for a change.

I've enjoyed Delhi but am looking forward to leaving.  There are a lot of hassles in this city.  My backpack will be lighter.  I left my long underwear and wool cap behind before I reached Delhi and a few days ago I mailed my down jacket home, for about $22.  I purchased it in Manali when I first arrived in August for about $60 and used it for exactly three days, but I was glad I had it those three days.

November 11 -17, 2010: Ranikhet, Nainital and Corbett National Park

After a quick early morning walk through Almora's mostly empty bazaar (with lots of trash being swept up), I left Almora about 9 on the 11th in a share jeep bound for Ranikhet.  We arrived a little less than two hours later after traveling through pine-covered mountains.  Ranikhet is a "cantonment," a military base and home of the Kumaon and Naga Regiments, or so the signs said.  It is also a resort and hill station.  At about 6000 feet elevation, it is about 500 feet higher than Almora and so a little cooler.  It is on a ridge with great views of the Himalayas to the north, the same snow-covered mountains I had seen from Kausani and from Kasar Devi just north of Almora, although they area little farther away from Ranikhet.  Despite the greater distance, the view of 7800 meter (25,600 foot) Nanga Devi is better because you  can see more of it above the snow-covered ridge in front of it.  In the early afternoon I walked on a path through the forest for about two hours and that was about it.  The military museum was closed and there didn't seem to be much else to do but enjoy the mountain air and gaze at the mountains.  (There are some interesting old colonial military buildings.)  Nanda Devi is a little less than 60 miles from Ranikhet and Trishul (7100 meters, 23,000+ feet) is a little less than 50.  (From Kausani Nanda Devi was a bit more than 40 miles away, and mostly hidden by the intervening ridge.  Trishul was a little more than 30 miles away.)  Just before sunset some of the haze and clouds had dissipated and the views were better than at midday when I arrived.

The next morning the views were splendid, with the air very clear and cloudless.  I watched the mountains light up in the early morning and after breakfast spent more than an hour watching them from the restaurant terrace.  At about 11:30 I left on a bus for Nainital, another trip, this one of about three hours, through the pine-covered mountains, descending to about 3500 feet before rising to Nainital at about 6500 feet.  Nainital is a town on a lake, also called Nainital.  "Naini" means "eye" and "tal" means "lake" and this is where Sati's eye is believed to have landed when her body parts fell all over creation, or at least all over India.  The crescent shaped lake is wedged between steep forest-covered mountains and we approached it from its outlet end, with the haze-covered hills and plains further to the south.  A big resort town and hill station has grown up along the lake and the town was full of Indian tourists on that Saturday.  I walked along the lake and got a room for 700 rupees ($16), the most I've paid in India.  After a late lunch I walked around a bit, past the "Flats" at the north end of the lake, site of a landslide in 1880 that killed 150.  The area was subsequently leveled.  A mosque, a Sikh gurudwara and a Hindu temple are in this area.  The Hindu temple is supposed to be on the exact spot where Sati's eye landed.  One side of the lake is lined with the town's buildings while the other has just a path and a few temples against the steep mountainside.  I walked along the latter side (about a mile), reaching the southern end about dark, and then took a cyclo rickshaw along the town side of the lake.

The next morning I walked up north of the lake to find a bus stand for the next day's bus, and then visited the nearby Church of St. John's in the Wilderness, built in the 1840's.  The overgrown and garbage-strewn graveyard had at least one gravestone from the 1840's and some from the 1860's.  Most were hidden by scraggly vegetation.  About 9:30 I took a gondola that traveled up to Snowview, a spot on the ridge on the town side of the lake, facing north.  It is about 1000 feet above the lake with good views not only of the lake below but of the peaks to the north.  Again I could see Trishul, Nanda Devi, Nanda Kot and other snow-covered peaks.  The air was clear and cloudless.  Nainital is south of Ranikhet so the view is even further away from the peaks, more than 70 miles from Nanda Devi and more than 60 from Trishul.  I spent about an hour an a half up there.  There were a lot of noisy Indian tourists crowded onto the best spot for viewing.  I came down, had lunch and then rested for a while before taking a walk around the lake in the later afternoon and then visiting the Hindu temple, one altar of which was invaded by a monkey that stole some of the offerings.  No one shooed him away or seemed to care.

The next morning I trudged up to the bus stand for Ramnagar to catch the 11 am bus, but there was no bus.  I waited around until 12:30 and then gave up.  I walked down to the lake, having a quick lunch on the way, and then took a cyclo rickshaw along the lake and caught a bus at its southern end bound for Haldwani on the plains below.  We left about 1:30 heading down the twisting road that wrapped around the mountains below Nainital, with views back towards the cleft in the mountains, where Nainital is located, from 2000 feet below.  We left the hills and pines and reached the flatlands where Haldwani is located, at about 1800 feet, about 3 o'clock.  I caught a 4 pm bus that headed west to Ramnagar with the front range of the Himalayas to the north.  It got hilly again as we approached Ramnagar, arriving about 5:30, just before dark.  Ramnagar is at about 1600 feet and it felt good to be able to walk around in the dark without a  jacket.  The air was cool, though.

The next morning I arranged for a trip to Corbett National Park, India's first national park, established in 1936.  It is named after a famous tiger hunter turned conservationist, who lived from 1875 to 1955 and is the author of several books about his exploits killing man-eating tigers and jaguars.  The entry fees are about four and half times as expensive for foreigners as for Indians and cost me about $60, plus about the same for the jeep and driver hire for two days.  I would have like to have gone for three days, but they could only accommodate me for one night in the dormitory.  The main part of the park, the Dhikala area, had just opened the day before.  It is open from November 15 to June 15 each year. 

We left Ramnagar about 10 and reached the park entrance, about 10 miles north, about 10:30.  From there it was a rough 20 mile road west to Dhikala through beautiful sal (a type of jungle tree) forest, with much of the way along the Ramganga River.  It took us about three hours, with many stops.  We saw deer and monkeys along the way.  Once there, we had lunch and then drove to a rickety watch tower maybe 40 feet high.  We didn't see much wildlife but the views were nice, including the blue reservoir of the dammed Ramganga.  About 3 we drove to the area beyond Dhikala looking for tigers and other wildlife.  There are reputed to be something like 160 tigers in the park and one had been spotted that morning nearby.  We didn't see a tiger, but we did see wild elephants, cheetal (spotted) deer, the larger sambar deer, langur monkeys and beautiful forest.  The jeep, called a "gypsy," had an open back, so I could stand up in the back and then sit down when I wanted.  It was ideal for viewing.  There were quite a few of these vehicles with other tourists, so it was not a solitary wildlife experience.  But it was quite enjoyable.

We got back to Dhikala about 5:30, just before dark.  There must have been 20 or more gypsies and other vehicles and well over a hundred, maybe 200, tourists, more than 90% of them Indian.  The area is surrounded with an electrified fence to keep out the tigers and other dangerous wildlife.  I had a very good dinner there and went to bed in the somewhat comfortable dormitory of 12 beds.  The problem was there was one incredibly loud, and relentless, snorer, so it was not a good night's sleep.  I got up at 2 am and fog had descended.  Macaques were sleeping in the trees next to the dormitory and a big quill-filled porcupine walked by in the moonlight.  Dhikala is at about 1600 feet, so it wasn't too cold despite the fog.

I got up the next morning at 6 (the macaques were dropping out of their trees and several invaded our dormitory when someone left the door open) for a 6:30 safari, but the driver was late and we didn't leave until 7.  We spent a little more than two hours driving around, first in the morning fog and later in the sunshine.  We had good views of elephants and deer, not only cheetal and sambar, but also barking deer, small, brown and solitary.  No tigers, though.  Someone saw a leopard.  We did see some wild peacocks and a wild boar.  The driver was very good at spotting wildlife and interpreting the jungle sounds.  At first, it was a little chilly in the fog, but it soon warmed up.  Back at Dhikala I had an excellent breakfast and tried to see if I could stay another night.  I couldn't, so about noon we headed back to Ramnagar, arriving about 3 after a lovely trip through the hilly jungle.  Again we saw lots of deer and monkeys, and two very large and fluffy fish owls asleep, or trying to sleep, high up in a tree.  Back in Ramagar, I went to the train station to buy a ticket for Delhi, my time in the Himalalyas over for the time being.

October 29 - November 11, 2010: Uttarakhand Himalayas

The 29th was my last day in Rishikesh and I spent most of it in and around the hotel.  There were some quite interesting people there.  About 3 I walked down to the Ganges and along it to the Swarg Ashram area and again watched the ganga aarti ceremony on the riverside at sunset.  The maharishi was absent and the ceremony considerably shorter.  It clouded up a bit that afternoon -- the first clouds I had seen in Rishikesh.

The next morning at 7 I left with a hired car and driver for the Char Dham Yatra.  "Char" means 'Four," "Dham," I've read, means something like "Holy Abode," and "Yatra" means "Pilgramage."  The four holy abodes (Yamunotri, Gangroti, Kedernath and Badrinath) are near the sources of the holy Yamuna and Ganges Rivers.  You can get to them by public transportation, but it is a bit difficult and the pilgramage season was about to end with the coming of winter, so I opted for a faster and more comfortable means of transport.  It was quite expensive:  15,500 rupees (about $340) for 9 days.  I had hoped to find someone else wanting to do the trip to reduce the cost, but decided to go ahead on my own when I couldn't.  My travel expenses in India have been quite low -- averaging about $25/day -- and that is in part due to jeep rentals in Ladakh.  Quite often I spend only $15 or $20 a day.  The biggest expense is usually hotels, though they are usually less than $10 a night, and often only $6 or so.  Food is very cheap, with good, filling meals for $2-3, or even less.  Bus fares are also cheap, averaging about 1 rupee a kilometer, which works out to a dollar for every 25-30 miles (and many days, especially in the Himalayas, it is hard to go more than 100 miles in a day).

We had a small sedan made by Tata and from Rishikesh drove through Dehra Dun again and up to Mussoorie again, and then down to the Yamuna River, reaching it at about 2400 feet elevation.  We followed the canyon of the Yamuna, with lots of tourist buses along the narrow road, which was often rough because of landslides during the just-ended rainy season.  We reached Barkot at about 4200 feet at 2 pm and the road was terrible for a few miles after that, but got much better further up.  Deodar (cedar) trees began to appear all over the rocky canyon and the scenery was magnificent.  We reached the little town of Rana Chatti at 3:30 and I got a hotel room and looked around.  I walked out of town a bit and then back and up to the town temple.  The kids there were very friendly.  Women were threshing wheat with thin poles.  Just before nightfall the clouds cleared from Banderpunch (sometimes also spelled Banderpoonch -- sounds like it was named by Lewis Carroll), the 6300 meter (so almost 21,000 feet) peak up the canyon.  It turned orange, then red, then purple as the sun set.  Rana Chatti was cold at night, at about 6500 feet.

I had potato paranthas the next morning for breakfast (the night before I had seen sacks of potatoes being off loaded from donkeys and onto trucks, and a whole room full of loose potatoes) and about 8 my driver drove me up to Hanuman Chatti, 5 miles up the road.  From there you have to take taxis or walk, and I decided to walk the 8 kilometers (5 miles) to Janki Chatti, the end of the road, in part because of the exorbitant taxi fares and in part to prepare for a longer hike I wanted to do at the second Char Dham site.  The walk along the road, rising about 1500 feet, took about 2 hours and was quite pleasant in the early morning cool.  I walked through the village of Janki Chatti and about 10:30 began the steep hike up to Yamunotri, 5 kilometers (3 miles) up a rocky gorge, with the Yamuna below.  It is a beautiful area, but the way up is along a cement path with many stairs and with a red and white rail all the way.  There were lots of pilgrims, several hundred I would say, but no other foreigners.  Many were on ponies and a few were being carried by four men in sedan chairs!  The ponies, and especially the pony boys constantly importuning me to hire a pony, were a nuisance.  It's about a 2000 foot climb, and I arrived a little before 1 pm.  The temple is fairly simple and not very old.  The river's source is much further up the mountain, at a glacier, but it takes mountaineering experience to reach it.  A hot water spring is near the temple, and men were bathing in pools of the hot water.  Also nearby, pilgrims were cooking little packets of rice, later used as offerrings, in the bubbling hot springs. Some pilgrims were down at the rocky stream bed pouring the very cold water over themselves.  There were at least a couple of hundred people there, many from Gujurat, and some orange-clad priests.  A small band of langur monkeys watched from just up the stream.  Yamuna is the twin sister of Yama, the god of death, and in recompense for a favor she did him, he granted that anyone who bathes in her river will not suffer a painful or untimely death, or so I've read.  I did put my hands in the water, so at least they will be spared.

While I was there it began to snow (Yamunotri is at about 10,300 feet), little soft balls of almost floating snow.  And since the canyon heads down to the southwest and the sun was setting, the sun's rays were still streaming in from the southwest.  It was quite a sight, though I didn't see a snowbow, if there is such a thing.  I had a quick lunch of dhal and chapattis and headed down sometime after 2.  It continued to snow lightly, but it wasn't a bother.  Further down it turned to rain and then mostly stopped.  I got down to Janki Chatti in about an hour an a half and from there some Gujuratis gave me a ride down to Hanuman Chatti, where my driver was waiting.  We left about 4 and drove down to Barkot through the beautiful deodar forest through off and on rain, sometimes very heavy, and even a little snow, arriving after dark, a little past 6.

There were good views of Banderpunch the next morning from Barkot.  We left about 8, rising 3000 feet to about 7500 feet through the deodar-clad hills between the Yamuna and Ganges basins.  The morning light streaming rhrough the trees was particularly beautiful.  After a good breakfast stop, we reached the Ganges at about 10:30 and headed up the narrow valley.  This road, too, had some bad patches because of landfalls caused by the heavy monsoon this year.  I've read that this state (Uttarakhand) had over 200 monsoon fatalities in September.  We reached the town of Uttarkashi about noon and then proceeded up the narrowing canyon of the Ganges.  Actually, this stretch of the Ganges is called the Bhagarithi.  When the Bhagarithi meets the Alaknandi downstream it becomes the Ganges.  (Actually, it's called the Ganga, and the Indus is called the Sindh.)  The narrow canyon up from Uttarkashi was another spectacular deodar-covered stretch of scenery.  We reached Gangotri, at about 10,000 feet, a little after 4 and I got a hotel right next to the roaring river.  It surprised me how wide and strong it still was so close to its source.  The Gangotri temple is just up from the river.  I watched a 5:30 ganga aarti ceremony on the riverbank, with only a priest and about 5 attendees.  At 6, just after dark, there was a ceremony at the temple itself with a priest, plates of fire and bells ringing, cymbals clashing and drums beating.  Quite a lot of noise, but ony about 20 spectators, which surprised me, compared to the hundreds at Yamunotri.  It was quite cold in the courtyard of the temple (and in my hotel room where it was 45 degrees when I went to bed at 9). Before it got dark I could see up the canyon pyramidal, snow-covered Shivling, at 6500 meters (so about 21,500 feet), changing colors before the sun's rays left it.

It was 41 degrees in my room the next morning at 6.  I didn't get up and out until 7:30 and it was still very cold.  I looked around a bit but not much was going on.  It warmed up considerably once the sun's rays hit, about 8:30 or 9, I think.  There are steep mountains all around Gangotri.  I had breakfast and got my permit to hike to Gaumukh, the glacier that is the source of the Ganges, and set off a little before 10 up the narrow canyon of the Ganges.  It was a beautiful and relatively easy hike to Bhojbasa, 14 kilometers (a little less than 9 miles) away and about 2500 feet higher than Gangotri.  There were rugged mountains all around and groves of deodars and other evergreens.  The snow covered mountains of Shivling and Bhagarithi (6300 meters or about 22,500 feet) loomed ahead.  The path was quite narrow in places, cut into the cliffside.  It was absolutely cloudless and warm in the sun, though the sun was just above the rugged peaks on the south side of the gorge all day.  About 3:15 the sun disappeared behind the mountains for good and it became conderably colder.  Fortunately, I arrived at Bhojbasa, behind a rocky morrain and thus protected from the wind, 15 minutes later.  There were only about 10 other people, almost all foreigners, staying there, most in a derelict little hostel.  I walked down to the river and looked around a bit.  It was cold and a little windy.  We all had a communal dinner of dhal, rice, chapattis and vegetables on the cement floor of an open-sided structure at about 6:30 and then went to bed about 7.  I slept in a cold ittle room on the floor, but on a thick coverlet with two other thick coverlets on top of me, so I was comfortable and warm enough.

I got up the next morning a little after 6.  It was 30-something in my room.  After a meager breakfast of weak tea and miniscule portion of porridge (maybe five teaspoons), we set off for the glacier.  I left soon after 7 and it took me about an hour an a half to cover the 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) to the glacier in the cold and in the face of the biting wind.  The thermometer hanging from my neck registered 30 degrees.  The sun hit about 8, which warmed things up, but it was right in my eyes. The glacier was fantastic, with big chunks of ice that had broken off laying along the river.  The edges of the river, too were thickly frozen.  We walked right up to the face of the glacier, or rather right up to the stream rushing out of and running just before it.  I was surprised at how much water was coming out of it.  Quite a bit must flow below the glacier.  The glacier itself is quite long and thick and we could see only a small part of it.  "Gamukh" means "cow's mouth" and the water here is considered to be particularly holy.  Brij, a 74 year old man in our group who was born in India but has lived in the UK for the past 52 years, collected a bottle of it for his family and friends. 

I spent an hour or so at the glacier and then began the 18 kilometer (11 mile) hike down.  I took it easy and enjoyed the beautiful scenery, but I was hungry, after that miserable breakfast.  I did have 6 or so  candy bars to sustain me.  I came across a herd (or flock?) of about 50 mountain goats of some sort, perhaps ibex.  They were a bit wary, but not too concerned about me.  Later, I came across another group of three of them.  I didn't get back to Gangotri until about 4:30 as I met Brij on the way down and walked with him the last few miles.  Once back in Gangotri, though, I did have two spaghetti dinners, about an hour apart, plus several candy bars.  I again watched the 6 pm temple ceremony in the cold and spent another cold night in that hotel next to the rushing river.

I got up the next morning about 6:30 and was ready to leave at 7, but the driver delayed until almost 9, which was frustrating.  I had invited Brij along as he wanted to make it to the next stop before it closed for the winter.  (Yamunotri, Gangotri and Kedernath were scheduled to close in sequence the 5th, 6th and 7th of November, while Badrinath was scheduled to close the 17th.)  We traveled down the Ganges canyon to Uttarkashi, and there left the Ganges and took backroads through beautiful mountainous country, reaching the town of Ghansyali about 6.  This was the night before Diwali, described to me as a sort of Hindu Christmas, with lights, sweets and gift giving.  It commemorates the return of Rama to be crowned King of Ayodhya at the end of the Ramayama.  Electric lights were strung up all over town, sweets were on sale everywhere and firecrackers and even some fireworks were being set off.  Ghansyali was relatively low and warm, about 3000-4000 feet I think, so I was able to take a bucket bath and wash away the dust and sweat of the Gamukh hike.

I'd been having troubles with the driver and the next morning he refused to take Brij unless Brij paid him.  I said I had hired the car and could take whom I wanted.  He and Brij argued and he actually hit Brij, who hit him back.  The hotel manager and I stepped in and separated them and I decided to dismiss the driver.  I had paid him 9000 rupees (a little under $200) and refused to pay him more.  I was glad to get rid of him.  Brij and I took an uncomfortable share jeep over the mountains to Tiwali, a trip of 3 1/2 hours.  There we waited three hours for a bus to Gaurikund, the trail head for Kedernath.  The problem was that it was Diwali and lots of people were traveling to spend it with family.  Finally, one came along and it was packed.  We decided not to take it but to go down the river (the Mandakini, another Ganges tributary) about 5 miles toRudraprayag, where the Mandakini joins the Alaknandi coming down from Badrinath, for the night and catch a bus from there to Gaurikund the next morning.  Rudraprayang was full of lights and sweets and firecrackers for Diwali and it was fun to be there.  There were also candles lit in the shops, the old-fashioned way of celebrating Diwali, before electric lights.  People were very friendly and there were some pretty good fireworks at night.  The trouble was there were firecrackers going off until midnight, so no chance of a good sleep until then.

I decided to skip Kedernath, as it entailed a four hour bus trip and then a 14 kilometer hike, rising 1600 meters (over 5000 feet) on the same day, necessary because it was closing the next day.  Brij wanted to do it and took an 8 am bus.  I left about 9:30, heading for Badrinath, which I reached a little before 5.  I took a bus up the Alaknanda River, another Ganges tributary, to Karanprayag, another to Chamoli, and then share jeeps to Joshimath and then Badrinath.  Unfortunately, I had poor seats on the share jeeps, so I missed a lot of the spectacular scenery.  At Badrinath I got a dirty hotel overlooking the river and the temple and then looked around.  It is a spectacular setting, with steep, jagged mountains all around, including Neelkanth, another pyrimidal, snow-covered one at 6500 meters (21,500 feet).  Badrinath is at about 10,300 feet and was cold.  I took my shoes off and went into the courtyard of the temple.  There were lots of pilgrims.  Some recognized me from Yamunotri and I remembered them, from Surat in Gujurat.  A ceremony began at 6 inside the temple and I watched part of it.  There were bells ringing, cymbals clanging and drums and chanting.  Plates of fire were brought out among the worshippers.  I was cold in my stockinged feet on the stone floors and I was happy to leave and put on my shoes.  There were also quite a few beggars and sadhus lined up on the bridge across the river leading to the temple and on the approach to the bridge.  They are quite strange-looking, to say the least.  One of the sadhus had told me that President Obama had arrived in India with three airplanes and 1500 soldiers.  I slept warmly under heavy covers.  It was slightly warmer in Badrinath than in Gangotri, despite it being a little higher.

There was lots of noise from the temple at 5 am -- bell ringing and then the playing of recorded music for maybe half an hour.  I got up and out about 7 and walked around in the cold.  I finally used the down jacket I bought in Manali for Ladakh (but never used there) in Gangotri, Gamukh and Badrinath, and was glad I had it.  I walked along the river on each side.  Men (and women, but in a closed area) were bathing in the hot springs below the temple.  I had breakfast just before the sun hit at 8:30, which considerably warmed things up. I walked around town some more.  A few people were on the ghats along the fast-moving river, scooping up the cold water and pouring it over themselves, then running to jump in the cement pools below the temple filled with water from the hot springs. 

About 11 I started walking up the river toward the village of Mana, 3 kilometers away.  I passed stone houses with slate roofs and reached the riverbank opposite Mana after a leisurely walk.  There is a road on the other side of the river.  I had expected there to be a bridge across the river, but there was only a metal basket on a cable to get across.  As I was approaching I saw three men get into it and pull themselves over the fast-moving river.  They saw me and motioned to me how to haul the basket back over to my side of the river and secure the rope with some stones so I could climb into the basket without it slipping away from me.  I had to use enough stones to secure the basket as I climbed into it but not so many that I couldn't release the rope once I wanted to cross.  I got in safely and they were kind enough to pull me across so I didn't have to do it myself.  It was quite an exciting ride above the raging river. 

I looked around Mana a bit.  The slate roofs there are now mostly repaired with tin or galvanized steel.  The people there are a little Tibetan-looking, and indeed Tibet is only a few miles away.  The road beyond Mana is closed and there is a military base on the road between Badrinath and Mana.  Above Mana is a cave where Ved Vyas is supposed to have composed the Mahabharata, one of the two epic poems of Hinduism (along with the Ramayama).  The wall in front of the little cave where he is supposed to have done this has written on it that the temple has been there for 5111 years (and in smaller letters "in 2003").  I believe he is supposed to have dictated it to Ganesh, the elephant-headed son of Shiva, who has his own cave.  I continued walking up the spectacular canyon of the Alaknanda a few kilometers beyond Mana, but turned back once the sun was blocked by the steep mountains.  On the way back to Badrinath I was able to walk in sunlight most of the way, arriving about 4.  I could see that Badrinath was in shadow from about 3:30.

That night I watched the ceremony in the inner sanctum of the temple that started about 6 until a little past 7.  I found a seat in the corner on a donation box and nobody seemed to mind that I sat there and watched.  The chief priest, a Brahman who always comes from a certain village in Kerala, in southern India, came in preceded by a guy with a golden scepter.  The priest wore a blue smock and a blue cap, more or less the style of the old leather football helmets but made of cloth.  He was in his thirties, I would guess.  I couldn't see what he was doing from my vantage point as he was inside the silver and gold enclosure inside the inner sanctum where the black stone idol of Vishnu is kept, but I did see and hear lots of bell ringing, cymbal clashing and drum beating as he performed his rites.  Later, plates of fire were brought out and the worshippers would bless themselves over the fire.  The inner sanctum is small and groups were brought in and then directed out.  There was almost as much shoving and pushing as there is on Indian buses.  The priest left right at 7, but the temple remained open until about 7:30.  Lots of worshippers brought in metal plates, about a foot in diameter, with sweets, nuts and flowers on them, which were on sale in shops outside the temple.  One of the temple personnel would scoop some of the offerrings off the plates and then return the plate to the worshipper.  Around the inner sanctum is the courtyard with a gallery beyond that, where some people were sitting and chanting.  A log fire in a fire pit was in one corner.  My feet got very cold during the hour or more I was there and I was happy to leave for dinner.  During dinner I watched a television at the restaurant with clips of President Obama descending from his plane, delivering a speech, and dancing with his wife and a bunch of children.  The commentary was all in Hindi.

I was awakened by the temple noise at 5 again.  I got up and about before 7 and again walked around in the cold.  I had breakfast about 8:30 and afterward met Brij again.  He had made it to Kedernath and had just arrived in Badrinath but was preparing to leave.  I left with him and several others in a share jeep about 10.  I had a much better seat than on the way up, so could enjoy the spectacular scenery.  We got another share jeep in Joshimath and again I had a good seat for the great scenery.  In Chamoli we boarded a bus heading downriver.  I got off in Karanprayag about 4, but Brij was heading to Haridwar and then Delhi and Goa where he has family.  Karanprayag is at the confluence of the Alaknanda and Pindar Rivers, both very fast-moving, with rapids, at their confluence.  It is a scenic spot but for the garbage, which is a major blight here in India.  I walked down to the rocky and sandy shore of the Alaknanda and saw a ganga aarti at he ghats at the confluence, led by one yellow-clad fellow with a flame on a plate and attended by only 4 men.  There was no electricity in town that night except for a hotel with a generator and in the lobby I saw, but did not hear, part of Obama's speech to the Lok Sabha, the lower house of India's legislature.

At 8 the next morning I left on a bus bound for Kausani, less than 70 miles away but a seven hour trip on a slow and often very crowded bus.  It was, however, a very beautiful trip.  Karanprayag ia at about 3000 feet and we came up the narrow Pindar River valley and then above it, with views of the snow-covered mountains to the north.  About noon we had a half hour lunch stop at Gwaldum at about 6500 feet, then desended and then rose again to Kausani at about 6000 feet.  Kausani is on a ridge facing the snow-covered Himalayas to the north and I got a hotel with a spectacular view of them.  There is a whole line of snow covered peaks over 6000 meters (20,000 feet) and the view in the clear air was magniificent, especially of Trishul, a three stepped peak rising over 7100 meters (over 23,000 feet).  Higher but less impressive as it it further away and partially hidden by intervening peaks is Nanda Devi at over 7800 meters (25,600 feet or so).  From the town I walked up to the Anasakti Ashram, where Gandhi spent 12 days in 1929 writing his treatise on the Bhagavid Gita, the most important part of the Mahabharata.  There is a museum with some great photos of him, plus excerpts from his autobiography.  The view from there is spectacular, too, and at sunset I watched the colors change on the peaks to the north.  After dinner I found a couple of newspapers (The Times of India and the Hindustan Times) with coverage of Obama in India, most of it highly favorable.

I got up the next morning soon after 6 to watch the sun light up the peaks to the north.  There were several of us at the hotel doing so, all Indians but me.  It was chilly, in the low 50's, but a beautiful way to begin the day.  The sun first hit the peaks at about 6:30, but didn't reach us until an hour later.  I was given a Gujurati breakfast of a delicious dried fruit and ghee mixture and some sort of crispy pieces of bread, all very good, and then took about an hour walk along the ridge line with great views of the peaks to the north through the trees.  A troop of maybe 100 macaques (with red faces and red butts) came along the road, several with babies tucked under them.  I left Kausani about 11:30 on a share jeep, and after a change arrived in Almora about two hours later.  Almora is on a horseshoe shaped ridge at about 5500 feet.  At the top of the ridge is a pedestrian bazaar that really is for pedestrians only, no motorcycles or bicycles.  It runs for quite a ways and was full of people, shops and activity.  Some of the store fronts and buildings have elaborately carved wooden facades.  At one of the ridge's high points is a stone temple said to be from the 7th century with some good carvings on it, including some erotic ones.  I spent the afternoon walking up and down the bazaar and enjoyed it

The next day (today) I got up about 6 after the local mosque went off at 5:30.  Quite an unpleasant surprise as this area is heavily Hindu.  In fact this state, Uttarakhand, has been a state only since 2000.  It was formerly part of Uttar Pradesh, India's biggest state with well over 100 million people.  In 2000 the mountainous portion of Uttar Pradesh, with less than 10 million people, became the state of Uttaranchal, which name was changed to Uttarakhand in 2007.  After breakfast I took a share jeep to Kasar Devi on a ridge about 5 miles to the north with great views of the snow-covered peaks to the north.  There is a much better view of Nanda Devi from Kasar Devi than from Kausani, but the sky was hazier and cloudier than at Kausani.  D. H. Lawrence, Timothy Leary and Cat Stevens are said to have spent time here, on a ridge called Cranks' Ridge, and there are hotels and restaurants along the ridge.  I had lunch and then came back to Almora.