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Thursday, May 09, 2013

Final leg at Binsar - Holiday Part IV

After our 3 days at Corbett, it was time to head higher up the mountain ranges to the hill station of Binsar. We realized how many resorts Club M has all over the place, when we actually passed another of them at Naukuchiatal on the way to Binsar :).

D used to be the badly car sick one in the family, but on this trip I started off the trend! The roads took some getting used to, but the view all along was lovely. It took us about 6 hours for a distance of about 240 kms.

And then we reached our room in the resort that had these beautiful climbing roses growing near the door! The whole resort had a profusion of the prettiest flowers I have ever seen, lots of close ups in my FB albums, but here are a couple of them.




The rest of Day 1 was at the resort as usual, and after a restful night we made a late start to go see Zero Point. This was the highest point of the mountain, from where we might (and that was a big might) be able to see the snow clad peaks of the Himalayas in the distance. This was situated inside the Binsar Wildlife Sanctuary where there is also a rest house right at the peak that you can stay in. Without too much trouble, we reached close to the top where we had to park the cars and trek about 2 kms to reach Zero Point. Thankfully we knew about this and we were all in our shoes, else that would have been quite a terrain to walk on in anything else. The kids were pretty good with the walk, and we reached the top, only to find that the view was completely covered up with clouds!! I had been half expecting it, so we just sat in the peace of it all (we were the only ones there at that point), chatted along for some time, and then made our way back.

I had checked earlier about the sightseeing options and there were quite a few, but only on reaching there I realized that going somewhere 60 kms away from the resort was not quite the same as on roads that are on the plains. And also the locations such as the Paataal Bhubaneshwar temple which sounded interesting to me might not be as exciting for the kids, so it seemed unfair to subject them to the mountain roads. So we decided to make a quiet couple of days of it, only venturing upto Almora on Day 3 to check out their bazaar. The only interesting thing I saw was wool, which I picked up some of for my mom :). Anyway I was all shopped out from Delhi already ;).

One more day of uneventfulness and we were ready for the return journey. Just as I looked out for the tiger or lion in any safari I've been to, even when I know in my heart that it's an improbability, this time I looked out for the snow clad peaks. And imagine my excitement when I actually caught sight of them!!! The majesty couldn't be captured in a photo, which usually happens with natural scenes like this one, so though I clicked a few pics, the best picture will have to be in my memory (how corny!).

Back to Delhi for a day just to break the journey, when we actually managed to catch Iron Man 3 that had just released ;). And back to home sweet home by the Rajdhani once more.

6 comments:

  1. Yay iron man!! Ads has been asking to see it....realised that it released in India before the US release :)

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    1. Yeah it released that weekend, and there was a theatre very close to where we were staying. If we had been in Bangalore I'm sure we would have taken another couple of weeks at least to see it ;). Good fun, though I am a bit tired that EVERY movie we go to has to be 3D.

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  2. Lovely...the travelogue and the pics..was smiling at the part about the hotel not charging for the food for S :-) The kids look super cute..we need to meet!
    We stayed at Club Mahindra at Binsar during our Honeymoon. We are not members and find them on the expensive side, so take the help of tripadvisors for hotel bookings.
    Did you shop a lot at Lajpat nagar. I remember our trip years years ago and vividly recollect the shopkeeper categorically stating that he would show us any pieces only if we are interested in buying!
    Btw, which camera do you own?

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    1. hey Uma, Yes I missed you around here ;).
      Tripadvisor worked out very well for me where Bloomrooms was concerned, so I'm definitely inclined to use them more now.
      Lajpat Nagar was actually quite nice, though I visited only a few places as my friend was there to tell me where to go. Most of them were polite, but if you go that side again you should visit this place called Vishaals - they actually made Rajasthani chai for us :).
      My camera is a Nikon S9100 - it has an 18x optical zoom and I realized on this one that sometimes even past that the digital zoom does a decent job like in the gharial photo.

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    2. Tripadvisors are quite reliable, something I realised too..my Munnar trip also was booked based on the reviews there. The Zoom really makes the difference. We got a Nikon DSLR but with only a 3x zoom. We thought we'll upgrade the lens once we get our hands well on the camera nuances. But the zoom quotient was really frustrating, esp with all the bird sightings we did.

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  3. Hi

    Thanks for sharing your experience. A very informative blog. I too went to Binsar a few time back and fell in love with the place. Here's a link to my blog with some photos of the place along with recommended places to stay..

    http://karantraveller.blogspot.in/2013/07/binsar-green-paradise.html

    Cheers
    Karan

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