Stalking Divine Skyscrapers

After setting out on the road at 7:30 am, we headed southeast from Rishikesh to personally introduce ourselves to the Indian Himalayas. Our efforts were considerable as we made the excruciating, 10-hour journey in the Indian equivalent of a Honda Accord (a Tata Indigo hatchback).

Our route began by skirting the Himalayan foothills through the Rajaji National Park on the so-called National Highway 74 (in actuality, a dusty, congested two-lane road constipated by bullock carts, firewood-toting pedestrians and lackadaisical water buffalo). After what seemed like an eternity (but was actually the entire morning and part of the afternoon), we began to make our way east from the small town of Ramnagar, which sits just east of the Jim Corbett Wildlife Sanctuary. Within thirty minutes, we began our interminable climb to the heavens and terra firma became a distant memory.

As Kaberi slept on his shoulder, Vik grasped his seat with a vise-like grip in a futile attempt to ease his mounting apprehension. The 90-minute drive from Ramnagar to Nainital, the largest city in Uttaranchal’s Kumaon region, was fraught with hairpin curves curled on top of hairpin curves. Our driver coaxed a reluctant car up the accelerating inclines, marked by ever taller and taller pine trees. As we painstakingly tiptoed the pebble-strewn driving path bordered on one side by seemingly-bottomless dropoffs, the kilometer signs marking our progress crawled by. This drive made Maui’s Mt. Haleakala look like child’s play. The only saving grace of the stomach-churning journey (not stopping for lunch turned out to be a blessing in disguise) was the view of majestic brown peaks that stood at attention above us in the blue ether. They were to be a mere preview of the grandeur of the Himalayas.

After reaching Nainital, we barely had time to take inventory of the town’s attractive setting along a magnificent peanut-shaped lake (reminiscent of Lake Como) before bounding our way down into the valley leading to Almora. At the expense of our equilibria, our driver, now freed of gravity’s hindrance, invoked his Grand Prix aspirations and raced through the turns. Two hours and one more nerve-wracking climb later, we neared Almora.

By far, the best part of the journey was the approach into Almora. Working our way up to the town allowed us a new vantage point, and one that unsheathed the divine snowy peaks of the Inner Himalayas. Words do not do the view justice. Suffice it to say that the white mountaintops are so tall that they appear surreal, as if clouds have been pasted permanently above the horizon. It took us a few minutes to grasp the scale of these mountains – we were already more than a mile above sea level and the peaks still towered in the background.

In the next hour, we limped through Almora’s cramped cobblestone streets and stopped at a few hotels located along the town’s main thoroughfare. Unimpressed by the quality of the rooms we were shown, we decided to venture further up in altitude toward Binsar. After another 10 kilometers of inclines and sheer dropoffs, we found a jungle resort promoting mountainview rooms. As a reward for navigating a long, arduous dirt driveway, we were offered a smart, new cottage with spectacular vistas from its balcony. Vik put his negotiating cap on, and managed to get us a 35% discount (it was off-season after all) on the published rate. With our journey temporarily concluded after 12 hours in a car, we had finally earned some well-deserved R&R before exploring Binsar the next day.