Tigers, elephants and hill stations
Safaris in India
06.05.2009
39 °C
We travelled to Nainital, north of Delhi to escape the heat imagining a nice little quiet lakeside town only to find the equivalent of gold coast high rises built into steep cliff faces surrounding a fairly polluted lake that every tout in town wanted you to go for a boat ride on. ( the government actually has about 20 aeration points at the bottom of the lake to keep it alive!!!!)
Very cool at night and we stayed here for 3 nights at a renovators delight ( might have actually been past renovation stage more like knockdown stage) for 400 rupees a night. Cheapest we could find in town but no hot water which we had to buy by the bucket for 6 rupees. Most Delhi residents escape the heat by coming to Nainital. We had a great view of the busy mall area but unfortunately we learnt how they build restuarants in 3 days at this place as the construction took place under our room for 24 hours non stop whilst there. At least they don't use power tools here but very useful with their hands and hand tools.
We managed to do some walking here and climbed a few peaks at over 2200 metres high. Cheenas peak (2600m) was bare of people but Tiffin Top at 2230 metres had the usual cafes and drink stalls found elsewhere in India in amazing places. It is like finding a full cafe on the top of Bartle Frere in Australia and they walk to work each morning as well.
The uphill wasn't too bad even in altitude but the downhills from these points are absolute killers with no flat spots and our calf muscles and buttocks feeling the pain for several days afterwards.
We then moved onto Ramnagar where we stayed in town for 1 night and had some great potato cakes off the streets and an interesting chicken curry?? No prices and no menu and hardly an English spoken as well. Not sure about the hygiene as well but we didn't get sick so our stomachs must be toughening up!!!
Stayed in Corbett National park the next night and did a total of 5 safari's with no tiger sightings. Some we missed by a mere minute or 2. We did however get charged by a very unhappy elephant and lucky our jeep driver was very fast at reversing uphill to escape her. We were in a soft top jeep and had an English guide. The accommodation was dorm with 12 people in a room and luckily it cooled down at night as it was extremely hot during the day.
We have seen many animals including the small 10 of India's national parks. Storks, Crocodiles, Kingfishers, 3 types of deer, mongoose, wild pigs, jackals and Languar monkeys. The only big one has been elephants but plenty of them.
The trip back to town was interesting as we experienced the first storm of the northern monsoon season and what a doozy it was. A full hour of hail, rain and wind all expereinced in a soft topp jeep with no wipers, demister and lights????
We were glad we couldn't see very far to the left or right as we may have been a little scared by how close we were to the edge of the road drop offs if we had. They did get us back safe and sound to Ramnagar and probably deserved a beer for that but they don't drink!!!!
Posted by mlind30 05:30 Archived in India Tagged backpacking