Leo and Daffy started out from Delhi with me to explore the Roopkund trail. My only reason to make Leo hike was that he was becoming a lazy chap who wouldn’t walk more than a kilometer and dig his heels in and refuse to go any further. I suspect he harbored plans of going back home and looking for treats and needed nothing less than a hike to change his frame of mind and plan of things as per what nature ordained and what his dad ordered.
Our planned drive to Sattal and the love for that road from Delhi to Ghaziabad , Hapur, Garh Mukteshwar, Gajraula was not to proceed to the terrible Bilaspur road to Haldwani as I yearned for the serene Bazpur Kaldhungi road and I turned towards the Corbett National Park after Moradabad. After 20 kilometers on that narrow but fairly good road we had stopped around 12 noon and had burst into our stash of boiled eggs, bread and butter and both men and beasts were digging in we were informed by a man on a motorcycle that the road two kms ahead was snafu and in terrible shape. Now if you care to look at the map you will see a road just ahead of the Moradabad turn off towards Kashipur and a little ahead a turn right following a thin line to Tanda and Bazpur that goes to Kaldhungi. But here I was told that ahead of Tanda the roads is totally damaged. So now I had heard from Kaushal Kumar a young photographer from Haldwani that he had done the Kashipur road from Kaldhungi and had found it fine. So remembering that input I asked the gent who had by now taken a real interest in my dog Leo and asked which saloon did I get me dog sheared and I told him that I got a very good sheep shearing electric machine at home and used to shear him myself. I was by now desperate to find out how to reach Kashipur but he would have none of that. No Siree , he went back to his bike and flipped a cloth on a contraption sitting on the back seat and voila a truck battery came into view. He then told me that was how he generated power for the sheep shearer and earned a living from shearing the mane of horses at fairs in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand and he could do a job on Leo for fifty bucks. I firmly asked him where did I have to go to reach the road to Kashipur and he said it was just 5 metres back.
So Hail Mary and me sainted aunts ; I came upon the first real bad road as Delhi to Moradabad till Rampur is a real autobahn ( only with sections where the other road is closed and you got vehicles zipping and overtaking one another towards you and is a normal thing every day everywhere in the boondocks ) with very good macadam comparable to the Greater Noida Agra expressway. This road had never been repaired for months and I had to slow down and shift to second and even first gear. By three p.m. I touched the busy intersection of Kashipur from where the road became a dream run till Kaladhungi where the unfolding of Ram Nagar in this new route made me realize that we were deep in tiger crossings area as the river came into view.
Now started a winding climb up to Nainital which is a thing of true joy driving 35 kms into the clouds and the chirping of birds become more shriller like they owned the place. Occasional sightings of deer crossings I have witnessed before but here dusk was falling fast with it’s robe of darkness. Now started the drive into crowded Nainital which wasn’t so crowded as it was already 7 p.m. and the route to Bhimtal was a diversion from the usual crowded streets as the market was a no-go area for vehicular traffic. Now usually at night on this route I get diverted from the short and fast route and often had to take the longer journey via Bhowali but here I was with my eyes keened for spotting road signs and so reached the market of Bhimtal to shop for three half liter plastic sachets for my two wolves and feeling pretty hungry some samosas and a kg of milk sweetmeats for hogging later. The time was getting kind of late to check into The Christian Missionary Ashram at Sattal and so I drove straight to the convenient Humble hotel at Mehragaon just outside the crossing which lead to Sattal.
Then started the bargaining and the agreed price having come down to Rs 600 my co-traveler decided to order a vegetable and lentils dish along with chapatis. I bought chapatis to go with the three half liter plastic sachets I had scored earlier for Leo and Daffy and fed them at the earliest chance I got between checking if all the satchels and rucksacks for the expedition were safely brought into the hotel’s first floor room. After the nice dal which Indian chefs can never go wrong it was the greasy over spiced and terribly salty okra or bhindi fry which almost made me gag. Sleep came to my tired body which was in perpetual motion from the eleven hour ride from Delhi or was I just trembling from exhaustion. Dreamt of being in Bishop’s Cottage Sattal and being back in those familiar environs and woke up late.
Got up at 8 a.m. and knew it was past the time for clicking those heavenly morning shots of the peaks as it was a hit and miss chance knowing the vagaries of nature on the Ramgarh ranges. so after the usual ablutions starting from cleaning one’s teeth me and my friend Snigdha rushed out for our first meeting with the peaks with trepidation in our respective hearts not knowing what views awaited us. For that I had to drive to Bhowali and turn right from the Ghorakhal road to Gagar a viewpoint for the Himalayas 10 kms away from the crowded market place of Bhowali where perpetual order of the day with buses, trucks, jeeps and private cars vying for space in the narrow corridor ; can’t even call it a road with fruits stalls vying for space.
It was 10 a.m. already and the blinding light and hazy conditions made me realize that going on towards Mukteshwar would be futile as the haze kept on rising and obliterating the views.I had a date with Sattal Missionary Ashram where I had got plans to cook a proper meal instead of being fed the garbage that the Humble restaurant below the Humble hotel had ladled out the nighg before. So it was back to Sattal where Bishop’s Cottage was our’s for the taking with gas, utensils and all we had to do was unload our car as we had taken quite long in leaving from our hotel to Gagar as we had got our packs down after bidding goodbye.
Sattal Christian Ashram was established by a Christian missionary from the US Reverend Stanley Jones (1884-1973) who was an Evangelist and and a good friend of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Being a good friend of Mahatma Gandhi meant he looked towards him for guidance how best to convert the area to spread Christianity so Indians could feel at home and so was advised to build an Ashram.
Sattal, situated at an altitude of 1370 metres above sea level, gets its name from seven interconnected freshwater lakes. These are Garud Tal, Purna Tal, Sita Tal, Ram Tal, Laxman Tal, Nal-Damyanti Tal and Sukha Tal. It is situated in the lower Himalayan Range, near Bhimtal in the state of Uttarakhand.
Sattal is located in the Mehragaon Valley which is surrounded by lush green forests and oak trees. During the British rule in India, this place was a famous tea plantation in the Kumaon region.
Sattal is one of the few unpolluted sanctuaries where many migratory birds come. Around 500 species of birds, 525 types of butterflies and over 11,000 species of insects and moths can be seen in the area. A large variety of mammals are also found in this area, but some animals are endangered due to illegal poaching. The plants found in this region are quite rare and are of different types like creepers, ferns, orchids and medicinal herbs.
In 1930 the Sattal Mission Estate and Methodist Ashram was built by E. Stanley Jones. This Christian Ashram lies in the laps of Sattal and displays a mixed colonial construction. The main purpose for building this Ashram was to introduce Christianity in the Kumaon Region.
The road to Sattal lead to my favorite store where I scored on eggs. onions,garlic, ginger, tomatoes, green chillies and all the condiments needed to make a tasty egg curry in the evening plus some fragrant long grained rice to go with it. Having scored on the goods we hurried back to the cottage where we found our next door neighbor to be a young German man who played with my dogs for a while and I felt relieved that he was not a person who would leap out of his skin when Daffy would let out a war-cry at night to be taken back to her Delhi home as she is wont to do when reminded of her safe and secure refuge. Keeping our vegetables on the kitchen table of our cottage we rushed out to pick up more provisions for the trek as it was supposed to be an arduous one in snow conditions. That night proved to be a great feast for all of as we had a cook in at our cottage and after meals were polished off it was back to cleaning the utensils and keeping the cottage’s kitchen as spic and span as we could. Crashing out was easy as we were tired of the proceeds of the day which included getting the crank shaft repaired which secured the wheel to the the shock absorbing section.
Next morning we were off to Gwaldham having refueled at Bhowali’s petrol pump which conveniently was on our route to Gwaldham via Almora. Our stomachs were full having consumed an aloo ka paratha ( wheat bread stuffed with potatoes, mango powder, green coriander and diced green chillies ) lightly fried in oil which was bigger than the plate itself. Having polished that off at the small eatery of Garam Pani 6 to 7 kms out of Bhowali I drove off to Almora which was only 70 kms away as my primary objective was to reach Gwaldham our intermediate stop to go on to Wan the next day. All easier said than done !! Whatever I am offering you folks in terms of distances and directions don’t matter as sign posts are few and far in between and whatever remains with words obliterated do not work as means of finding one’s directions. So keep your eyes open and remember reaching Almora is not the tough part ; getting out is due humongous traffic jams caused by encroachments on the road itself. As you leave Almora the road curves downwards till you reach a point where a fork in the road appears with one road turning slightly right towards Jageshwar which new mistakenly took but with great photo opportunities at an ancient stone temple complex that houses a Jyotirlingam albeit very small but important nonetheless considering there are twelve Jyotirlingams scattered all over India in different temples.
Having made the mistake and having proceeded about fifteen kms we decided to ask a villager about directions and he told us that we were never going to reach Gwaldham from the route taken but asked us to return to Almora and just before our entry into the garbage and plastic strewn mess of human detritus we were to look for a turn to the right which would curve in a U-turn turning left to connect with the Gwaldham road. I had heard so much about Jyotirlingams and seen one at Kedarnath and despite not being religious or at least not into rituals I felt religion inspired man to create beautiful works of art and architecture in the days of yore. Comparing those stone and brass ( as in down South ) effigies to the lackadaisical work in recent times in the name of idols and yes the recent concrete structures with saffron and yellow hue that house them I feel we have lost out on aesthetics and art. Reaching Jageshwar I was rewarded with glimpses of a smaller temple complex called the .
Driving on a few more kms I reached the main temple complex but in a complex dedicated to Shiva the master of beasts and man I found my beasts prohibited from entry. So keeping the windows slightly open and my dogs in the car I hurried into the complex and clicked whatever I could to capture the beauty of the temple from the outside as photography inside the temple itself is prohibited. This temple complex was a beautiful relic to man’s love and devotion to the most human of the Gods Shiva himself but I has to hurry to release the two babies in the car who were wondering why weren’t they allowed to mingle with masses of people who they anyway adored. A cup of tea and we were off retracing our drive to Almora.
Sattal to Almora 63.9 kms
63.9 km – about 1 hour 49 mins
http://www.distancesfrom.com/distance-from-Almora-to-Jageshwar-Dham/DistanceHistory/193724.aspx
http://www.distancesfrom.in/uttarakhand/travel-from-almora-to-gwaldam/120.html
himalayandreamscape 
Great start to your travelogue with your trusted companion’s. Looking forward to more such fine reads.
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Every day a new story from now on
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Watch the new journey to the Zanskar driving a Thar
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