I bought the Fiat car in 1989 and the first tourist trip the car has given me was in 1990. That trip was to a number of places in the present day Uttarakhand and it took us 10 days.
On this trip my batch mate in SBI S. Krishnamurthy, his wife Anju ( She is a Shrivastav and theirs is a love marriage) and one Bharadwaj who is a junior to us in the bank and was a good friend of both of them, accompanied us.
Now the luggage for 5 people would be too much for the boot of the car so I mounted a luggage carrier on top of the car to carry our suitcases.
We started off in October 1990 during the Dussehra vacation.
Haridwar is about 550 Km from Gwalior. First day after travelling 400 Km to Meerut we broke for the night. Even the October sun was fierce and the car had no air conditioning in the car which was then a rare comfort, so even that 400 Km was an exhausting drive.
All the hotels at Meerut that time were chockfull and we could not get single rooms, so we stayed in a dormitory and started off next day early morning and reached Haridwar by afternoon.
At Haridwar, all except me took a dip in the crystal clear Ganga waters flowing down from the Himalayas. The water was very cold but it was crystal clear, and despite the chilled water people were bathing in the Ganga.
We then visited the Mansadevi temple on top of a hill overlooking the town by a ropeway, and enjoyed the panoramic view of Haridwar from there.
All except me have seen the Ganga Aarti in the evening and stayed back at Haridwar for the night.
Next day morning we visited Rishikesh which is just 25 Km away. Both Haridwar and Rishikesh had bustling crowds of tourists those being Durga Pooja holidays and Bengali was the most frequent language heard by us there.
We started from Rishikesh in the afternoon after lunch and headed to Dehradun just 40 Km away, where we visited the waterfall Sahasradhara which had sulfur springs. Vineela was a small toddler then and she was enjoying the warm sulphur water with her feet immersed sitting on a rock and refused to come away from there.
Thereafter we proceeded from there to Mussorie which is just about 35 Km away...I really enjoyed that short drive on the meandering road through the mountain which was quite good and broad. We then visited the Kamtpee falls the next day at Mussorie and left for Corbett National Park after lunch.
That was just about 200 Km drive but the road after Haridwar turned bad after sometime, and on top of that my car silencer too gave some trouble. So we halted in between at a place called Nazibabad for some repair.
When we started it was about 5 PM. It was a bit cloudy and after I drove for some time it started getting dark. The road was pretty isolated and very few vehicles passed by.
Suddenly in the darkness we saw a barrier on the road and a police person with a sten gun standing there. We were shocked because we did not expect that.
I got down and asked the policeman as to what was the problem. He first asked me “Where do you think you are going?” I was surprised and said we are going to Corbett National Park.
He asked me “Do you know that this is a terrorist area?” That shocked me further. But we had already come a long distance from Mussorie/Haridwar and cannot go back, because going back as it would be equally risky. So I told him that we wanted to proceed. He said okay but asked me to be careful because Sikh militants were there in the area.
He came to the car along with his colleague, shone the torchlight and after seeing the 2 ladies cautioned us once again to be careful, and let us pass through.
After the barrier, we had not met a single 4 wheeled vehicle on the road. We did see a few lone motorcycles and also a few bicycles all driven by Sardarjis. We were apprehensive but there was nothing we could do about it and continued.
Finally we got on to a good double road and just about 20 Km from Corbett were stopped at another Police check post near Ramnagar and again the policemen shone torches inside the car to check who is sitting inside. The moment they saw ladies, they waved us on. Finally by that night we reached Corbett by about 8.30 PM.
Next day morning we went into the park along with a guide to show us animals. My fiat had bucket seats in the front with floor gear and I sat in the drivers seat. The guide sat in the front seat while Aravinda, Krishnamurthy, Anju and Bharadwaj had to squeeze in the back seat along with baby Vineela.
Another vehicle went into the forest just before of us. After we proceeded for some distance in the forest the guide asked us to stop at one place, got down and examined the tracks of the jeep that went in front of us for pugmarks.
He immediately found some marks of a tiger and showed them to us saying a Tiger has passed this way after the Jeep has gone past and got back into the vehicle and asked me to go ahead.
Corbett National park was filled with sudden depressions in the roads on account of flowing water that cut through the road on occasions. The depressions were filled with rounded stones shaped by the water flowing through.
As I was going through one such depression my silencer hit a stone on account of the sag of chassis because of 6 people. The sound of the silencer increased. So after crossing the depression (which is called Rapta in Hindi) I brought the car to a side and stopped.
Actually one cannot get down from the vehicle in a National park but we did not have a choice.
All of us got down and I went below the car to adjust the exhaust.
When I set it and came out I found that Anju was leaning on to a tree a little distance in front of the car, while Krishnamurthy was taking a picture of her with Bharadwaj looking on.
Suddenly the calm of the forest was shattered by a growl from the nearby bushes hardly 20 feet away from us. The guide immediately barked “tiger” and ran for the car with lightning speed before we could even react. He sat in the car and immediately slammed the door shut.
Krishnamurthy and Anju came running and everyone bundled into the car and shut the doors hurriedly.
We could hear the rustle of the bushes as the Tiger went past. If the Tiger came out of the bushes by the side of us, we do not know what we would have done, because it was so near to us.
While we had a tete a tete with the tiger without actually seeing it, however much we tried in desperation on Elephant back we could never see a tiger in the Park despite roaming around later. We just saw deer and Sambhar that is all.
No Tiger sighting at Corbett, but certainly at least an experience to take away in our memories alright.
From Corbett National Park we travelled to Almora which is just at a distance of 140 Km. We stayed the night at Almora and the sunset there was beautiful. We also just joined a bhajan that was going on there for some time.
Next morning we moved on to Binsar at a distance of just 25 Km from Almora. This is a wildlife sanctuary and is located right in the middle of a pine forest. While Almora had an altitude of 1800 meters, Binsar is an altitude of 2400 meters.
The road was single lane and very narrow indeed. I could not go to the 3rd gear at all on the trip and had to keep changing into 1st and 2nd gears, it was so steep with turns to boot.
As I was driving I was shit scared because if another vehicle came to cross you things can turn very difficult. Unless one reverse’s for at least half a Km on that mountain road one cannot pass each other. My luck however held and no one appeared despite that being the only road to Binsar and no one was regulating it.
Binsar is such a lovely place. All alone without any trappings of civilization except for the facility of GMVN (Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam) located right in the middle of a pine forest. There was no electricity there either and the facility was lit by a generator.
Binsar presented a beautiful view of the serried ranks of the Himalayan foothills with a final touch of snow peaks in the distance.
We would have loved to trek there but for Vineela was a small kid then and so it could not be done.
From Binsar we moved on to Ranikhet which is only about 70 Km from there. Ranikhet too had the same beauty and nothing extra except for a rose garden.
From Ranikhet we moved on to Kausani which is at a distance of 60 Km. Kausani too was beautiful with its pine trees and lovely salubrious climate with a view of Himalayan peaks. Gandhi stayed here for some time.
From Kausani we moved to our final destination of Nainital which was about 120 Km away.
Nainital of course had that beautiful lake and we took the ropeway to the top to get a scenic and beautiful view of the town.
Finally we returned back to Gwalior carrying lovely memories of the trip and the breath-taking Himalayan scenery within our hearts.
The finishing touch was that after about 1 week after the trip when I was reading the newspaper, I was shocked to see that the very check post where we were stopped before Ramnagar was attacked by Sikh militants and 8 cops were killed in the attack.
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