Dev Bhoomi - Uttrakhand - July 2009

As the name describes Dev Bhoomi is a truly wondrous abode of gods nestled in the lap of the imposing Himalayas.
This blog is dedicated to the 6 days we spent in god's land. When I say we it includes me my wife Archana our friends Rajesh, Nupur Little Manasvi and Rahul.


The concept and the plan for the trip was initiated by Archana sometime in the month of May, so that all of us could manage our leaves accordingly. Another friend, Mannu was also supposed to be a part of this trip. However, she could not make it.
We did miss her but not for long when we realised that a six seater Toyota Innova was much more comfortable with five people seated in it ;).

Just kidding Mannu.. we would have loved you to be a part of it, though I cannot imagine how many more jumping photo's we could have amassed :).

The trip started on a hot and humid Sunday morning with the driver waking us up at around 5am. The plan was to leave by 6.30 Am so that we could pick up Rahul from Cannaught Place Metro station ( he had to come all the way from Dwarka) on the way and then move on to Ghaziabad to pick up Rajesh and Nupur. There was a minor change in plan when Rahul (after repeated wake up calls from my wifey dear) decided to come to our house instead. Finally, he reached around 7.15 looking really dapper with the new back pack strapped to his back. With the humidity at its peak we then made a move with the AC on full blast as I was sweating like a pig.

One of the reasons why we had decided to make an early start was to take advantage of the sun and cover as many Km's we could so that we could avoid driving in the night. The other reason was to avoid the kavadias as there had been reported instances of road blocks and spurts of violence by the kavadias.

We reached Ghaziabad around 7.45 and were welcomed by a furry little creature dashing around our legs and a bigger one barking crazy from the balcony. None other than the moody Laila (need to ask Rajesh why he chose the name Laila ;) ) I forgot the lil one's name. What I failed to notice initially was the fear on Rahul's face. The chap was truly nervous and afraid of the lil dog and that's when he told me he had this great fear of canines right from childhood. This was something new to me as I have always been very comfortable (had some pets as a kid) around animals specially dogs. If nothing else, I am positive that I was a canine in my past birth and have retained some of the dog smell in me, probably that's why dogs think Iam one of them :).

We had a light breakfast and a nice hot cuppa of tea before we moved on from Ghaziabad after picking up Rajesh, Nupur and lil Manasvi. We also clicked some start of journey photos and after saying good byes to Nupur's parents were finally on the way.

JAI BHOLENATH! and we were on the highway towards Meerut. However, the moment we reached the highway we came across police road blocks in lieu of the Kavadias exodus from Haridwar. We took a detour and managed to get back to the Meerut highway. We had planned not to take the regular Haridwar , Rishikesh route but the Kotdwar, Najibabad road on to Pauri the first day's halting point. The road from Meerut to Kotdwar was really good with very less traffic and nice scenery around.

Good friends, nice music (courtesy Rahul) decent eatables and a cool vehicle. Well, there was something missing .. a can of chilled beer.

We started to look out for a Theka so that we could buy some before we had our lunch stopover. I am not sure if you might have noticed that the thekas have a funny signboard which reads Beer ki thandi dukaan. The literal translation would mean "Cold shop of beer" hmm interesting way of marketing. I bet there would not be a lot many cold shops to buy beer from. Another interesting thing was the way Beer was spelled in most of these shops, anything from Bere, Bear, etc. I guess the guys who wrote these were too lazy to actually check the bottle or can label. It may be a minor detail but it does leave a lot to think and dwell on. In my case approximately 15 minutes, that's all it took me to finish off a can and a bottle.

By this time Rahul was acting funny and it dawned on me that I was actually looking at someone high on half a bottle of beer :). I hate to admit that even I was feeling quite tipsy (any self respecting Indian booze drinker would never) and was looking out for a theka to buy another bottle. Another, interesting thing observed was, that Rajesh was by now doing a very good impersonation of a drunk Keshto Mukherjee and I realised that I was in the esteemed company of a person who could actually absorb beer by simply holding it in his hands without even bringing the bottle to his lips ;).

We reached Pauri around 5Pm and took up rooms in the GMVN guest house located atop a small hillock overlooking Pauri town. Post the daily abolutions we decide to take a stroll to the market to buy some dinner and snacks for the pre-dinner booze. The reason we decided to buy food outside was because GMVN guest houses generally do not serve non vegetarian food and we definitely were in the mood for some meat. We bought Tandoori chicken, Roti (Indian Bread - for my international readers) and lentils cooked with a little turmeric and saute' ed with dash of cumin seeds and coriander (Dal for the less sophisticated people).

Rajesh also bought some onions and green chillies to garnish the snacks that we had bought. The restaurant owner kindly agreed to have the dinner delivered hot to the guest house, in time for dinner. In return, I promised him a free mention in the International Blog that I was planning to write which invariably would bring him a lot many customers. Alas, I have completely forgotten the name of the restaurant :).