Nearest hillstation to Delhi

After several months of break from break, we finally headed for mountains once again(24-28 jun 2009). We booked Mussouri express from Delhi to Lansdowne. The train departed at scheduled time and we finally arrived Kotdwar at 6:00 in the morning. Took a cab for 600 bucks Retreat Anand which we had booked due to its location. We paid toll to enter the cantt area and made our halt at the market to have nice paneer and allu paranthas at Hotel Mayur. Another 20 minutes drive on the kuccha village road led us to the resort. The weather was nice and really pleasant.

Resort at first look seemed beautiful. It had a few swings, badminton court and so on. On a second look, realized the resort is not we expected. The much hyped swimming pool was dry and dirty. We checked in our super deluxe room with a kind request of not to use water in excess (later we realized they meant don’t use more than a bucket per day ). The monsoon was delayed and so the weather wasn’t on our side.

The room had a nice LCD TV which showed not more than 6 channels. Bathroom had a big geyser which was controlled more from outside the cottage (The resort used to cut the cable to save electricity and water) The bathtub was a classic example of Indian innovation at its best. The food was "just OK", the veg pulaoo only had cabbage and so called onion salad had only cut unwashed onion slices. The roties were the 'lotus of the pond'. At night we realized we have a few resident spiders with us as well. However, the Resort gave a very nice view of the valley.

After getting fresh, we headed back to the market, we started on foot and that was a mistake. The weather turned warm from cool and that started taking a toll on us. We reached market exhausted and headed straight for some more food. From there we went to Bulla lake. The lake was a landscape with ducks and boats. The price for boating was also minimal Rs.15 for 15 minutes. The water is deep, and so we were asked to wear life jackets. GMVN guest house is very near to this lake.

We got a lift from an elderly uncle back to the market, and also went to Tip-n-Top with them. It was nothing more than a view point but was quite high and so gave a nice vista. We came back to the market hired a cab in Rs 150 to the Resort.
We were too tired to do anything, so we had some tea and relaxed. Next day we spent in our room itself, in evening we enjoyed some swings and found a nice place to have panoramic view of the setting sun.

On the day of departure, we checked out at 12’O clock. And got a cab for the market by 1. we paid him Rs150 and headed once again to hotel Mayur for lunch. Enroute we stopped at Bhim Pakora. We kept our luggage with the manager and went out roaming, the weather was pleasant and air was cool, we reached museum around 2 and got to know that the museum will open at 4.

We decided to roam around and reached birds watching point. It was a nice long purposeless walk (After all that’s what we had in our mind when we decided to head for Lansdowne) Being afternoon we did not found much birds but a family of ducks. We strolled for sometime and went back to the museum. The museum is good, showing the history of Garhwal riffles, the valor and the vigor.

We came back to the market, had some more food and reached back to station in another 1.5hrs. It was 7 pm and it was still 3 hrs in the departure of the train. Those three hours were an ordeal. The station had a power cut and it was dark and hot. The lone shop at the station did not had a cool water bottle. However, his channa dal chat was awesome. The train arrived at 9 and we fell asleep soon after. When we woke up we were almost back to scorching heat of Delhi.