For our tour we contacted Wayfarer Adventures and informed them about our tour plan. Mr. Vivek from Wayfarer Adventures made arrangements for our pick up & drop facilities from Kathgodam and to Kathgodam respectively and also arranged for transportation for all days touring.

Our tour plan was from 24th Sep’09 to 2nd Oct’09. However due to unavoidable circumstances we decided to start on 25th Sep’09 and asked Mr. Vivek whether he could provide us the pickup facilities from Delhi Airport.

He did that and we reached Kathgodam on the night of 25th Sep’09. We stayed at ‘Relax Inn’ which was a nice place to spend the night. We had a good dinner and good night’s sleep over there.

Next day morning we had a light breakfast and soon after we left for Vijaypur (210 kms, 6 hrs). We were given a fantastic Toyota Innova, which was driven by Mr. Bablu (Later Bablu Bhai became our close friend).

On the way, we crossed our favourite place Bhimtal, our favourite “Van Vilas” resort and the calm and quiet Bhimtal Lake. Sankho really loves this place. His eyes were sparkling after seeing again the beautiful landscape, which we had experienced last time and it seemed to me that he was trying to soak the whole thing again in those 10 minutes of time. His face was all lit up seeing the Bhimtal lake yet another time.

To reach Vijaypur our route took us through Bhowali, Almorah, Binsar and Bageshwar. As we were proceeding we started having simple chitchat with Mr. Bablu and soon after he became Bablu Bhai. We felt flattered when we came to know that Mr. Vivek would also accompany us in our tour and that the Toyota, which was given to us for touring, is actually owned by him along with the Wayfarer Resort. We were supposed to pick him up from the Garam Pani Market area. Almost after one hour we reached Garam Pani and met Vivek.

WOW! He was such a handsome guy. He looked extremely smart in a blue denim, white tee and a stylish Ray Ban. After the cheerful and pleasant introduction we had tea and started our journey further. On the way we crossed Almorah. We had visited Almorah last time and so Sankho and I were pretty much aware of the roads. We enjoyed the fact that we had not forgotten even a single thing that we had experienced on the last visit. We continued our journey till Binsar and had a small break there for having lunch.

Binsar – A famous place for its BIRDS and its forest. Overwhelming green beauty of Mother Earth is incomparable here. I personally believe that each one of us should contribute some time to save and protect our green world.

Quoting from Wikipedia – “Binsar is a beautiful, quiet and wild Himalayan destination with rich natural surroundings among dense forest. Binsar is perched on top of the Jhandi Dhar hills. This place is situated 33 km north of the Almora town in the Uttarakhand state of India.

From Binsar one can see the 300 km panoramic view of the Himalayan peaks like Kedarnath Peak, Shivling, Trisul and majestic Nanda Devi from a place called ‘Zero Point’.”

At Binsar apart from the natural beauty, I was most enthralled by the stunning silence of the place. When we were crossing the place we hardly came across any other sounds besides the birds’ tweet, rustling of dry and fallen leaves and whistling of air passing through the Oaks and pines. Most amazingly, I was able to distinguish all the sounds at a time. Here we spotted the Whistling Thrush and the Himalayan Woodpecker. I would prefer to visit this place again and again just because of its wild jungle beauty.

After Binsar next was Bageshwar. Bageshwar is situated at the confluence of Sarayu and Gomti. The holy township of Bageshwar is also famous for many old temples. Bageshwar has an average elevation of 1,004 meters (3,294 feet). Nobody can ever argue with me regarding the beauty of this place. Bageshwar is situated between many peaks and has nice plain areas nestled amidst these peaks. This green valley reminded me about all those fairy tales which talked about the beauty of heaven. We spent a few hours at Bageshwar before heading for Vijaypur.

Vijaypur is not very well known among tourists and that was the best part of our tour. Every time, before our trip I search and collect information from the Internet on all places to be visited. Rarely did I come across any detailed information regarding Vijaypur. Even Wikipedia does not provide any information on the place. It was a stopover place for us. We needed to spend a night somewhere before we reached Munsyari. From Kathgodam to Munsyari is a long journey and it was strongly advised to take a break at some point.

Wayfarer made all arrangements for our break and stay-back at night. We reached Vijaypur around 3 pm and realized how lucky we were to get connected with the Wayfarer Guys.

Let me tell you that Vijaypur is an extremely beautiful place. Its virgin, untouched beauty is truly seductive for nature lovers. I can bet that you will fall in love with this place. Vijaypur is greener than the green, nicer then the nicest.

Visiting Vijaypur was all the more better because of the Wayfarer resort. Wayfarer has nice eco friendly huts at Vijaypur. The Huts are ‘hot’, sexy and very comfortable. The whole Wayfarer resort area is situated between green pine forests all alive with flowers, birds and smells of raw earth. Adding to it, Vijaypur also provides fantastic panoramic views of the Himalayas. Unfortunately 26th September’2009 was a cloudy day and we were unable to get a decent view of the Himalayas from the place. We spent a very leisurely time at Vijaypur. Night was sexy with a glowing moon and cold breeze.

Next day morning we woke up around 7 am and looked outside through the window and were left speechless with the beauty of the endless forest. This lush and peaceful corner in on earth is worth visiting. I enjoyed the morning session by exploring the forest, taking photographs of the sun’s rays penetrating through pines. I was lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the Himalayas from Vijaypur before we left for Munsyari.

Anyway today I would like to tell you all, about my last trip, a trip to Uttaranchal.

We reached there on 7^th of October’2008 at 1.30 a.m. It was a dark night and no one around. It seemed to me that we were at the end of the world. I was scared because serpentine roads were dangerous and the foggy darkness made the route more mysterious. We, me & my husband were accompanied by the two unknown kumaoni person, one was the driver and other one was the hotel boy. It was a 1 hr. journey to reach the resort. With absolute strangers we reached our resort around 2.30 a.m. There they offered us a cozy, comfy room. They told us this is the best room of the whole resort because the room facing the spectacular view of the outside. Interior of the room was undoubtedly nice and a side of the room had a nice open balcony but else we were unable to understand because of the darkness outside. Anyway they helped us to manage our luggage and we felt that we reached the resort safely. We were damn tired and we slept as soon as the guys left.

Next day morning we woke up when the doorbell rang and it was 10 a.m. We got up and looked at the balcony, and rushed towards the balcony to open the drapes. Wow!!! We cannot believe our eyes. Such a beautiful picturesque scenery just in front of us. Our room was facing a huge lake, later we came to know that is known as Bhimtal Lake. Just behind that, mountains were standing like hands in hand. Few boats were floating in the lake. It was heavenly!

Oops! We forget that doorbell is still buzzing. Sankho opened the door; a 16-17 years old kumaoni boy is standing. Bed tea being offered. We realized that we are spending our leisure time. Otherwise on normal time we can’t expect having bed tea. Anyway we ordered for our breakfast. We had bread omelet, chutney and hot coffee. Then we prepared ourselves for our journey. We hired a car that was waiting outside for us.

The first day trip was for Sattal, Garurtal, Naukuchiatal, Ghora Khal and for other roadside views. We started around 12 p.m. and first visited Bhowali. Bhowali is a junction area for getting bus, taxi, trekker to move anywhere in Uttaranchal. From Bhowali, we visited Sattal. It was a beautiful place indeed. “Sattal or Sat Tal is an interconnected group of seven freshwater lakes situated in the Lower Himalayan Range near Bhimtal, a town of the Nainital Lake District in the Uttarakhand state of India. These lakes sit at an altitude of 1370 meters below lush orchards in the Mehragaon valley.” At Sattal we enjoyed the scenic beauty, had tea made by the local people and of course I did modeling there. Sankho took my snaps wearing the local ghagra & choli. Yea obviously I was looking good.

From Sattal next we visited Naukuchiatal. Naukuchiatal is famous for having nine corners in the lake. It’s also famous for its scenic beauty. You can also walk along the hilly roads, and get the pleasure of nature’s freshness. Green valleys and innocent local villagers are worth mentioning. Don’t forget to have tea, and zira rice there. Because the essence you will not get anywhere else.

We spent a very good time during the first day trip. We visited few other popular areas like Hanuman Garhi, Golu Devta temple and Garurtal. We came back at our resort around 5.30 p.m. We placed order for snacks. It was chicken pakora and vodka for Sankho and for me it was delicious chicken sweet corn soup. After that we had our dinner and planned for our next day trip with the resort manager Mr. Akash. Our second day trip was for Nainital and the surrounding areas.