Part 2: Ranikhet — Kausani Travelogue: September 2021
For Friday, the plan was that we finish school at 12:30 pm (I was forced to skip Sapa, which I liked). We were going to Bhalu dam, a water body in Chowbatia gardens. We saw an Umang shop on the way, and mamma bought plum and apricot jam. We also went to the military museum, in Ranikhet. Prachet found it very boring and was repeatedly saying “khana, khana”.
When we finished, papa was planning to take us to a restaurant called ‘The cafe’. But the restaurant was very far and it would take us at least 30 minutes to reach. So, we ate lunch in a place called Ranikhet club (nicknamed as wrong spelling menu club). When we read the menu, we ended up laughing hysterically because the menu was filled with wrong spellings like sale for sell, mashroom for mushroom, fride for fried, soupes for soups and chapti for chapati (Ha-ha). We ordered one red sauce pasta (which was chewy), one French fries, one green salad and some roti.
Then we headed to the Jhula Devi mandir, where we found a priest, who was the first person since we left Bangalore who spoke fluent English. He explained why there were so many bells. The reason is that when people come to this temple and make a wish and their wish gets fulfilled, they tie a bell in gratitude.
Next, we went to Bhalu dam, in Chowbatia gardens. We had two guides who told us a lot of useful things. Over there, we spent some time taking photos and the guides told us that the water was very deep. It was 1 hour 15 minutes down and 1 hour 45 minutes up. On the way back, Prachet and I were going so fast that we just walked for ages. When we reached, I realised that mamma and papa were far back.
We then went to a restaurant called ‘The café ‘. We ordered a veg burger, 4 veg sandwiches, a veg platter, a soup and two hot chocolates. We loved the sandwiches and found the burger a bit heavy. The hot chocolate was a bit too sweet and the platter was spicy. When we reached, we were tired so we lied down. I read a book for some time and we slept.
The next day, we had plans to go to Pandavkholi, and it is believed that during their exile, the Pandavas spent some time there. We had a 2-hour drive to the base and we started. A dog was following us and we started thinking of it as a guide. Papa had bought some biscuits but we gave some to the dog.
When we reached the top, we only had a few biscuits and 2 Kurkure packets. We were getting hungry so we asked someone if they could give us food. They agreed, thankfully. We were surprised because two people living alone at the top of a hill who give food to anyone who comes up and takes care of the temple is just astonishing. We had chapati and dal for lunch. We were fascinated by their stove.
The food was really nice and we saw the fierce clouds from a viewpoint. We also saw two other people who were going to go down via a cave. We decided to stick to the normal route. We started climbing down.
When we were about half-way down the worst thing happened, it started drizzling.
As for me, I didn’t mind the rain. I was concerned about my hurt leg, which now pained like mad because of stepping on sharp and pointy stones. My shoe-lace also kept coming off. Finally, by the time we reached the bottom, papa went a bit up to search for mamma. I removed my shoes and socks and waited. We saw the other couple and realised that the dog followed them and not us. When papa and mamma came down, papa bought us Maggi. It wasn’t great, but it was fine. Then we drove back. We had to skip the Dunagiri temple (300 or 360 steps).
Next day, we woke up late and had a nice breakfast. We then got into the car (a different one) and set off. We were going to Katarmal Surya Mandir and then to Jageshwar and Dandeshwar. While going, Prachet and I were playing the lean game. It was very hot and took a long time to reach the temple. When we did, we took some photos and walked around.
Later, we went to Jageshwar. On the way, I slept well in the car. We had to walk from one point to the old ancient temple. Over there, we saw a lot of miniature temples that had Shiva lingams in them. We also saw a river called Jata Ganga and we went in it. Prachet, papa and I went into the main temple too. After sometime, we went to the Dandeshwar temple too. There too, there were tiny temples.
We stopped for lunch at a place called the Green Eco resort. We had pasta. On the way home, we saw pretty bad traffic in Almora. It was terrible and luckily, I was asleep. After we reached home, we relaxed and as the next day was Monday, we had school the next day. As a result, we ate dinner and slept early.
On the next day, we finished school early (or at least I did, because we had to ‘study for exams’). I started studying social studies. Papa had ordered pizza and we ate it. We had pakodas and tea in the evening.
Then, in the night, Prachet vomited on papa and the bed and we shifted to mammas room. Papa slept in our room itself. Prachet vomited the whole night and lucky that I was asleep, or I would have to bear the whole thing.
In the morning, I attended school and Prachet skipped. He was watching Peppa pig the whole time. After school, I was a bit lazy to study, so I played instead; so mamma was a bit angry. Papa had asked Chandu to get some medicines for Prachjet but as papa was on a call (as usual), mamma went instead.
We slept and the next day, we were leaving for Kausani. We finished school and at 11:30, we were leaving. Prachet, mamma and I walked towards Kathpuria to eat chips. By the time we reached, it had started raining. I ate red lays chips while Prachet ate blue lays chips. But in the end, Prachet requested me to finish his lays chips as it was too spicy. I ate it and then part of my stomach ache started.
Then the whole thing got worse because our driver came late. When he finally came, he said that the luggage should come up. Then after a lot of nonsense talking, he finally came down. Then he picked us up and we drove to Kausani. I slept in the car and by the time we reached, it was 3:00 pm.
We had lunch and Prachet and I played a bit. The house was amazing. The upstairs room was huge, but sadly we got the downstairs one. Luckily, we could creep into the hall and watch TV with no password as our own house TV had a password. We started watching right away. For dinner, we had Maggi. Sadly, after we went to sleep, I vomited the whole night.
The next day, I almost overslept because of loss of sleep. I did school lazily and mamma and papa bought medicines. Papa, Prachet and I went to the book store for foolscap paper and we also bought Prachet some crayons. We bought mamma pens. You could say it was a boring day, apart from the fact that we watched TV for a long time. It was a long day and I played some indoor cricket with Prachet.
On Friday, we woke up and attended school, as usual. We had a long weekend ahead of us. We had lunch and Prachet and I played cricket.
Then we went for a walk to the space observatory and over there, we saw cool 3-D goggles with which, you could see some things 3-D. There was a weighing machine and you could see your weight on Earth, Mars, The Moon, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus. I was really impressed by the space observatory in a remote town. Then we went to the top floor to see what was there. We saw a huge gigantic robot-powered telescope. You could see the planets, deep sky objects and many other things. There were other telescopes too.
We came back home on a really dark road and we were getting scared. Finally, we came back and started watching IPL RCB VS CSK. CSK won easily (Thank God).
The next day, we were scheduled to go to Baijnath Temple, Bageshwar, Bagnath Temple and Gwaldam (in Garhwal). It was a one-hour drive and there we entered the temple. Next, we started the 45-minute drive to Bageshwar.
When we reached, we looked around and prayed. Then, we set off in an hour and a half drive to Gwaldam which is on the border of Garhwal and Kumaon. Over there, we couldn’t see much, so we turned our backs and went back.
We found an OYO restaurant on the way and decided to eat there. We ate chapati, curd and dal. We drove back and started watching the IPL. After some time, we went to the Stargate observatory by taxi. We showed mamma the weighing scale, the 3D goggles and the pictures.
We had the most amazing experience ever. We then went up and saw through the telescope. We first saw Jupiter, and realised that what we thought was Venus in the sky, was actually Jupiter. It was huge and we saw a few of Jupiter’s moons. Jupiter was really nice and the show picked up. We saw Saturn, in all of its splendour and Saturn’s rings were mind boggling. We then saw the Vega constellation and the Andromeda galaxy. This was a great experience.
Next day, we went to Pinnath or Rudradhari waterfalls (one of the two). One of our caretakers, Shambu uncle, was coming. Prachet suggested Rudradhari, pappa and mamma suggested Pinnath and I said that we can do both. There were two Pinnaths, Badha Pinnath and Chota Pinnath. Papa said that we should do Pinnath (the smaller one that is 5km up 5km down, not the bigger one that is 12km up 12km) and if we felt tired, we should go back and do Rudradhari instead (what if we were one step away and we get tired, we go all the way down).
We started the trek and in the first ten seconds, I got tired. Papa told us to go on and we were feeling very uncomfortable. After some time, we just sat down and took a break. Few minutes later, we got used to it and moved a bit faster. Shambu uncle and Prachet were going at double our speed. We were going up forever. It was really tiring and hot. We were sweating like mad. Finally, we got into the dense forest, so it became cooler. Prachet was picking up every pine cone he saw and asked mamma, “Mamma, see. A full pine cone” (even though it was not). Finally, it was a ridge and sidewalk, so it was relatively easier. We took a break at a nice shed. We went on and finally, I was sort of at the front, which meant that I got more energy. Thankfully, it had not rained yet. We reached a point where there was a rock and whoever wanted children rubbed butter on it.
From one point, there were exactly 365 steps to reach Pinnath mandir. I’m not sure about this, but if what Prachet said was true, he and uncle saw a deer over there. We were counting our steps and it was easily crossing 365. In fact, mamma said that hers even crossed seven hundred! We reached the top and ran towards the temple. There were huge bells at the entrances. I rang the first one easily, the second one took a little effort and the third one was very hard. At least I rang each and every one of them first try. Prachet dared me to ring the third bell again, and after millions of miserable fails, I gave up. We removed our shoes and prayed to the god. We then had lunch, which was packed. It was aloo sabzi with paratha. We were full by the time we had our fill, so papa and mamma finished it off.
We wore our shoes and then began our descent. The plan was to reach the shed and take a turn towards Rudradhari waterfalls. It was an easy path down and uncle, Prachet and I went to the shed in no time. Then we were bored as we had to wait for mamma and papa. Uncle called the shed as his house. Anyone can come here and spend the night for free. Logs of wood were the sleeping bags, a plank of wood the stove. A rock at the door. Perfect. A few insects and thin wood pieces (papads, as I call) as the food and the papads that were a bit bigger and thicker were the pressure cookers. It was an amazing place as long as you stayed for a night at least and not more than a night.
When papa and mamma caught up, papa asked uncle if it was one path or not. Uncle said it was one path, though it was not in the end.
Prachet, uncle and I then took a head start on the way to the waterfalls. If we had continued on the same path we came in, it would be an hour more and if we went via the waterfalls, it was another 45 minutes to the falls, and from there it would be another half an hour. Roughly equal amount of time. Then we discovered that the path was the slipperiest path on earth. Prachet slipped as soon as he set foot. In the first ten minutes, I slipped twice, Prachet thrice and uncle once. We had to cross a few streams and we drank some water too.
We went to one point where we met the jungley rakhsas. It was a plant that sticks to you and sucks your energy. We went on and reached a big boulder in the shape of mount Everest. I told Shambu uncle to wait and went to check on papa and mamma. I told them the way and they came. I told papa to go ahead and I would come with mamma. Here’s a secret, so do not tell anyone. I purposely dipped my feet in the water. We reached the waterfalls and dipped our feet. We should have brought our swimwear as we packed it but left it in the house. We prayed to the god and went back to our car. Overall this was a tiring but a really good trek. We played a bit of badminton and watched IPL at home. We slept early due to school the next day.
Suddenly, the internet was quite bad and was lagging a lot. Still, we somehow managed to finish school. I had to ‘study’ for exams. I read computer science and Kannada and then Prachet and I played cricket on a large scale. We lost the ball about a million times that day and half the time, we were going down to get it. We then had dinner and slept.
One point is that on all days we had baths at night. Today was the last day of school in the term. Then I had exams. I finished school, which was partly fun and partly boring as we revised (boring) and played games (fun). I revised science, which was my first exam and then Prachet and I played cricket like mad. Unfortunately, I hit a hard shot and the ball went down. Even after twenty whole minutes of trying to get it, we were not able to in the end. So, we played with our other balls and even those got lost. We then got
The next day, I had my first exam, and I was so used to waking up early that I woke up on my own at seven. For the first time during our travels, I took a bath in the morning. I did nothing till the exam started and then it started. We had a two hotspots in addition to the wifi, mamma also changed her phone password so I could upload. The first ten minutes after the question paper got released was for reading and then we wrote. I wrote quickly, and we went out of the way to get foolscap paper for exams. I finished it with 5 minutes to spare, so I quickly finished colouring.
After the exam, the internet went and we had to upload fast. The mail was not going and we had sent 5 mails. Finally, our school received it. We had lunch, and as usual, I had to read for the next day’s exam. After that was done and dusted, Prachet and I finally had our time to play. Then we went to the observatory to see everything again. But we did not see anything new, but it was really nice. We were really hungry so we came back to eat.
The next day, I woke up and papa surprised us by getting Maggi for breakfast. When my exam started, the internet went down. Thankfully, we had a backup hotspot. Midway in the exam, my camera turned off but for me it was on. I had to switch to the network that said that there was no internet. I have no idea how MS Teams runs without a net. It somehow worked finally. We were making rockets today. Dileep uncle came with some paper and tape and scissors. We were making it and after we were done uncle brought us the launcher. Our first shot was in the air and it actually flew. Then we got engrossed in it and started aiming at papa. I read for 30 minutes and then we had to attend chess class. Sadly, we lost one rocket.
The next day, we were all feeling sad. It was already the end of our trip. I attended my exam, which was easy and we had lunch. As usual, we had problems uploading. We then took photos and left with our luggage. Kausani is one of the most beautiful places I have gone to. See these pics to believe.
We were going to Holiday Regency, near Moradabad. We went to Nainital at around 5 or 6. We saw the lake and the mall road. It was quite crowded. We hit the plains at 7:30 or 8:00. We were at the edge of Corbett national park. We reached the hotel at 9 and checked in. The lobby was huge. It had a sparkling chandelier.
Next day, we had to make it to Delhi by 11 or 11:30. We set off and I slept for quite some time. We reached Delhi and dropped papa as he had an interview in Gurugram. We first saw the Red Fort, and sadly it was closed because today was Gandhi Jayanti. It was built by Shah Jahan. We saw the India flag and that there was some kind of a party. We then saw the Parliament house, Rashtrapati Bhawan and the embassies of some countries. We then went to see India gate, a memorial for soldiers who died in world war I. It was really hot. We then went to Qutub Minar. It was really crowded. Thankfully, there was a QR code to book. We did and went in. It was really hot in Delhi. Unfortunately, they were not allowing people up. We did not stay for long as Prachet found it too hot. We had to show our ticket to exit, and the phone was on 1% battery. However, we did it and went to the airport. Stupidly, papa forgot the laptop at the office and went back to get it. Finally, he came. We entered the airport. Our baggage was a bit heavy, so we paid a little extra. We did security and went to board the flight. We bought some doughnuts and packed it for home. We boarded the flight and I slept for some time. We had sandwiches in the flight. We reached Bangalore and picked up our luggage. We loaded it into the car and went home. I said hi to my friends. We then reached home and hugged ajji. We told her about our trip and we ate the doughnuts.
We will remember this trip forever and all the places and people that and who made it better. Had an amazing time and look forward to coming back again. There was also this quote from Rudyard Kipling — “And the last puff of the day-wind brought from the unseen villages the scent of damp wood-smoke, hot cakes, dripping undergrowth, and rotting pine-cones. That is the true smell of the Himalayas, and if once it creeps into the blood of a man, that man will at the last, forgetting all else, return to the hills to die”. We thought this was awesomely true.
