Day 7 - Ranikhet - Nainital - Delhi (23/05/2008)

Today we were returning back to Delhi. We started off from Ranikhet at 7.30 AM. As there was no hot water, we had to take cold water bath. Even in the morning the weather was cloudy. Hence we lost the final chance of witnessing the icy Himalayas ranges. But we were all a bit satisfied as we saw the snow capped mountains at least once during the trip. On the way back, we stopped for breakfast after driving for 10km. everybody other than Seshagiri Rao uncle and Urmila aunty ordered alu parota. As it was Friday they both ordered Puri with sugar. As usual in the trip the food was good.

We droved further and reached Naintal at 10.30 AM. Our actual schedule was to stay tonight in Nainital along with the other group and go to Delhi tomorrow morning. In Nainital we wanted to go to all view points. But as the weather was not good, Subash said we cannot see any of these view points properly. So we decided to go to Delhi in the afternoon itself. We were given 2 hours in Nainital to go around and mean while the whole luggage was transferred into another vehicle in which we were supposed to go to Delhi.

In the mean time we all went to Mata Naina devi darshan. The temple is located adjacent to the Naini Lake surrounded by hills with lush green tall trees. In the temple Shiva, Krishna Pada, Santhoshi mata and Sri Anjaneyaswami temples were there. The rope way was visible from the temple premises. Meanwhile I was asked to go and check with the driver as where he is going to come and pick us up. I went for the driver and everybody else was busy in shopping. I couldn’t find the driver so I came back and on the way took some pics of the beautiful flowers in the garden.

We booked a Tata Sumo to go to Delhi. We booked only one vehicle, it was a bit uncomfortable but at the same time it was nice to have everybody at one place during the journey. While coming down the Naini Peak we stopped for a while for Maize corns and a view point there. We also had a shooting point there. We ate lot of Maize corns which were sold at the rate of Rs. 10/- each. They were very tasty and we cherished having the corn.

We traveled for more than 4 hours and we were almost 100KM away from Delhi. We stopped for some snacks at the petrol bunk. Had some coffee and snacks and got fresh. We further traveled in the heavy traffic coming ahead. The driver (Shekar) drove so fast and so well. He had to go back to Nainital that night. So he drove very fast but at the same time very safe. We the stopped for dinner at a dhaba just in the outskirts of Delhi. We ordered Jeera rice, Veg fried Rice etc., had stomach full dinner and again started for Delhi. We reached Delhi by 11.30 PM.

We were going to stay at bhabhi’s cousin brother Dattu in Dwarka. By the time we went to his place he was waiting for us downstairs in the cellar. He received us warmly. Even though we were a large group he did not mind giving a stay at his place. We all slept in the bedrooms in A/C while he and my brother slept in the veranda. That night we all missed Shekar the driver who was with us through out the journey. He was a wonderful guy with lot of life. He addressed everybody as didi, bhaiyya, uncle etc. Today he drove us for 400 km from Ranikhet to Niantal to Delhi and tonight he left back to Nainital. As the day was tiring with long journey, we all fell asleep very soon and tomorrow was a shopping day.