Dec 2007
It was on one of our trips with friends to Kausani that we'd heard about Munsiyari for the first time - stopping on the side of the road for a break, we'd asked our cab driver what that place was, far far away from where we stood, right in the lap of the snow-clad Himalayas? That's Munsiyari he'd said, the starting point of the trek to the Milam glacier. Ever since then, it was our heart's desire to go there. And we were finally able to fulfil that desire when we got married and went off on our honeymoon on a roadtrip to discover Munsiyari, and Kumaon.
We started off early morning at 6 from Delhi, stopped for a quick breakfast at Rosette Inn at Khatauli (where we've stopped on every trip since then to have sumptuous panner pakoras and grilled cheese sandwiches) and reached Rishikesh just in time for lunch. The day was quite a drag, the roads dusty, but a drive to the banks of the river just before Rudraprayag and watching the sun go down over the hills made our day! We broke the night at GMVN Rudraprayag, with our room overlooking the confluence (prayag) of the Alaknanda and Mankakni rivers.
Our halt for day 2 was Chaukori. We left the hotel at 8am and stopped enroute for a breakfast of maggi and soup, cooked on our 'little master', the name we have given to our tiny camping stove. The drive till Chaukori was serene, cold, damp and it rained throughout. The colors were vibrant late in the evening at sunset, when the clouds cleared. We eventually checked into our cottage at the beautiful KMVN at Chaukori late in the evening.
The next day we went on an excursion to Patal Bhuvaneshwar, an underground limestone cave temple, around 40kms from Chaukori. We are not the religious type, and the descent into the cave was a bit scary, but still it was fun to hear our guide (we'd hired one at the temple) rattle on and on about how the temple enshrines Lord Shiva and 33 crore gods. Anyhow, we didn't drive around much that day and after a nice evening by the fire, hit the sack early.
Day 4 was the day we'd been waiting for. This was the day that we would reach Munsiyari, the place we'd dreamed to go to since a long time. We set off from Chaukori early morning but when we reached Birthi, which is around 30kms before Munsiyari, we got to know that the road at Kalamuni Top, the pass 15km before Munsiyari, might not be fully cleared of snow. We then decided to stay the night at Birthi, checked into the cute little new KMVN there, and then thought of just driving uptill Kalamuni to see how much snow there was. On reaching Kalamuni, we realized that we could cross it, albeit not easily but it could be done. The idea of Munsiyari being so close and yet so far away was just too much for us. We went back to Birthi, got our stuff which we'd left at KMVN, hired two locals to come with us in our car with shovels so as to clear the snow from our Esteem tyres if they got stuck, and off we went! By the time we hit the freshly cleared road after Kalamuni, it was dark. The next 15kms took us two hours to cover, our car skidded at least thrice on the frozen ice on the road, and our hearts skipped many a beat! While it may have been a rash decision to drive on an icy road in pitch darkness, the thrill that such an adventure gave us was exhilirating! Finally, we reached Munsiyari somewhere around 8pm, and checked into the Zara Resort, which would be our home for the next 3 nights.
I must say the next morning was one of the most beautiful mornings of my life! The view of the Panchachuli peaks from our room and from the roof of the resort was AWESOME! We couldn't have felt more satisfied, having chai and garam garam paranthas on the roof-top and looking straight at the Panchachuli peaks, this was heaven! We spent the day driving to Madkot, 22kms from Munsiyari, where there is a hot water spring. On our way back, we had a small picnic on the banks of the Goriganga river.
On Day 6, we planned a short hike to Masser Kund. While the hike was beautiful, the kund itself was not that great, with the meadow around it covered in melting snow. In the evening, we went to the Nanda Devi temple which is situated in the middle of the Munsiyari meadow to watch the sun go down. No words can describe that experience... when you go to the edge of the meadow, there is no other mountain between you and the Panchachuli and the golden rays of the sun going down on them is a sight to behold! We soaked in the beuaty of that place for a long long time, and then made our way back to our hotel.
We went off the next morning to Dharchula, a town on the Nepal border, and also the place from where the Mansarovar yatra begins. The drive was beautiful, most of it passing through the Askot wildlife sanctuary, with the road never leaving the river. We reached Jauljibi somewhere around lunch, the place where the Gori and the Kali Ganga meet. Thereafter, we took the road to Dharchula, which is right on the Indo-Nepal border, and stopped at a shack on the roadside to have some delicious local fish curry and rice. It was very hard to believe that the mountain on the other side of the river flowing below us was actually another country! Dharchula is a busy little dirty town which didn't please us too much, and we decided to go back the way we'd come. Our next hault was Askot, but there too we didn't find any decent accomodation. It was getting late and we urgently needed to find a place to spend the night, which we finally did at the dingy KMVN at Didihat, 54km from Pithoragarh.
Day 8 was relaxed... we just drove to Pithoragarh, checked into a pretty and clean room at KMVN Pithoragarh, and went out to explore the market and the valley. Although its a proper town and is pretty crowded (it even has a Delhi Public School!), its a beautiful valley, very wide and not on the tourist map at all! We went in the evening to Chandak hill, 7kms from Pithoragarh, to watch the sunset and made some nice doggie friends on the way!
The next day was spent relaxing in our room, with an evening excursion to a nearby temple, which we never managed to reach since the hike was too long!
Day 10 was my wife, Aarti's birthday, so the morning was again spent in our room receiving phone calls! Finally, around 11am, when the phone stopped ringing, we set out to Abbott Mount, 56kms from Pithoragarh, where we'd booked our only luxurious accomodation of the trip - a British cottage. The drive from Lohaghat to Abbott Mount (11kms) is by far one of the steepest I've done, but the cottages (13 in all spread over the hill) are beautiful. Abbott Mount was founded by and named after Mr. John Harold Abbott, an English businessman who wanted to start a hill station for the European community at the turn of the 20th century. Our cottage, called the Abbott Mount Cottage, had four rooms, but we were the only people there then. The cottage was very tastefully decorated and the food was finger-licking good! From Indian to Continental to Oriental, they fed us all!
We spent the seond last day of our honeymoon lazing around the cottage, and went to the top of the hill to see the picturesque church set amidst the forest and an old cricket pitch with an unsurpassed view of the mountains. One can even see Nepal's Annapurna range from here!
Finally, after a delicious breakfast, we left early the next morning for home. After a strenuous drive of 11 hours, we were back in our Vasant Kunj home. We were tired, rather exhausted, but if given the chance, we would have driven right back there and then! While the satisfaction of having seen the mesmerizing place that Munsiyari is and discovering the unknown and tucked away places of Kumaon was amazing, we knew that the wanderlust bug had bitten us and our thirst to get back on the road and continue our exploration of such places would now never be quenched. It was our first roadtrip together, and we knew that there would be many more to come!
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