[JASMEET MATTOO]

Date : 18th May 2014
Day : Sunday
Time : 0445 hours

Travellers : Family of five (Mom - Dad, Wife, Daughter and Me)

The Machine : Tata Safari Storme ( The Real SUV )

The Resort was booked 20 days back, the leaves were applied 15 days back, the luggage was packed a week back and stuffed inside the car a night back.

We planned to get started early in the morning so that we may avoid any traffic in NCR and to my utter surprise every one in the family was ready on time except for my two year old daughter - we anyway planned to just pick her up sleeping so that she could take rest and be fresh when we reach there.

Reached Gajraula around 06:30 - 07:00 and took a halt for breakfast. Was surprised to see a Bikanerwala, a Mac donalds, a few punjabi dhabas, even south indian restaurants - all in one place. Had a light breakfast at Bikanerwala and then resumed the journey.

Road till Moradabad are in extremely good condition. Loved the drive till there. But as all good things come to an end, even this one did. The route from Moradabad to Kashipur is horrible to say the least. Broken roads, or in some patches no roads. Average speed of the car came down to 25- 30 km/hr. Took about 1.5 hours to cover the 40-50 kms patch. Condition of the roads improved after Kashipur and were smooth till Jim Corbett.

Reached the resort at 1100 hours, checked in, and decided to relax a bit before we move out to explore the place.

The resort was nice, had a beautiful view of the jungle and the hills. The best part I liked was the spacious balconies. We later on used these for the morning teas and the evening snacks, beer etc. This is one thing that I really miss in our Delhi House - a big, wide, spacious balcony.

Had lunch and it was timeto leave for the Safari. The Resort Safari Cordinator was facing problems with the online booking for Safari for the past one week. I was in touch with him from Delhi itself. As per him the site was down. I told him to keep on trying for the next two days as well. In the mean time we decided to leave for the landscaping area - a part of the jungle whch has been opened for the tourists, where we can take our own cars by paying a nominal fee. You do get to see animals also there but obviously the number would be less as there are a lot of vehicles there which scare the animals away.

I understood that the roads would be bad, i understood that lanes would be narrow, i understood that it would not be very easy to drive down the terrain -but what the hell, it was time to test the safari in the jungle for the very first time. I was ready for the adventure!!!!

To be continued :

[JASMEET MATTOO]

Mr. Negi got me connected with a gypsy driver (Mr. Neeraj) who was taking a family of four. I promised him chai paani (the power of green) when we come back provided he took care of us w.r.t the route and the sightings. The advantages of taking our own car were - the baby got protected from the sun and the dust. We all got the benefit of AC as it was really hot that day - beyond our expectations. But yes I definitely missed sitting in the open gypsy for sure.

We entered the jungle after paying nominal charges of Rs.250 for the car and Rs.100 per head for adults. The roads were indeed tough and broken in many places. Sometimes we got stuck when an equally big car like a fortuner or an xuv came from the other direction. Some trees were broken and lying half on the road. Some rocs were lying in the middle of the road. But I kept saying to myself - "Ab SUV li kis liye hai, ye nahi chalegi to koi nahi chalegi yahan" (why have you bought an suv, if this will not work here then nothing else will)"

We had an awesome feel of the jungle specially the part of the river and the narrow bridge. Saw a few cars skipping crossing it and taking a U-turn from that point itself. I mustered courage and thought to myself - lets do it!!! Plus Mr. Neeraj had already crossed long back. Not going through would mean we would have to wait in the middle of nowhere for him to return back. Crossed the bridge and got down to have the lovely view of the river and the fishes there. Sorry guys I am not a very good photographer, plus having to drive , I missed out on clicking on a lot of pretty sightings but will share whatever I could capture. Please bear with me.

[Praveer]

Nicely written and an interesting read. Could you tell me the mileage which you got with Safari Storme in the highway?

Also if you have some pictures of the resort then please do share.

BTW I am too a proud safari owner

[JASMEET MATTOO]

The day came to an end with an amazing feeling of satisfaction. Not a very wild life enthusiast family, we were happy to see a few herds of Deers, some spotted, some plane, a brown bear, some nice beautiful birds, langoors and monkeys sittng on the roads. But yes, if you are a wildlife enthusiast, this part of the jungle is not for you.

Got back to the resort and spent a quite evening sipping my beer and eating snacks in the balcony, witnessing some musical activity going on by the pool side. Had dinner and now it was time for rest.

Day 2 : Monday - 19th May 2014

I was amazed that after driving about 350kms the previous day (270 Delhi to Corbett and about 80 kms in the jungle) and sleeping around 12 in the night, I was surprisingly fresh at 6 in the morning. Sound of the peacock was coming out from the balcony. Ordered for the morning tea and sat in the balcony sipping it enjoying the view of the mountains. It was amazingly serene and relaxing. I wondered how come just looking at it makes you feel like you are in a trans (just like you reach after meditating).

The plan for the day was to see the Jimcorbett Museum, go to Garjiya mandir, enjoy the river side, and then go visit the corbett falls.

Spoke to the person at the reception and a gentleman intervened - seemed to be the overall boss of all these staff. He suggested that we might visit nainital also if we really want as it is very close from the corbett falls.

We finalised the plan - First we go to museum, then we go to nainital and on the way back we go to Corbett falls. Seemed to be pretty ambitious. But we thought if we get tired or the baby gets cranky, we will skip whatever we are not able to see - no hard feelings.

To be continued :

[JASMEET MATTOO]

So we visit the Jim Corbett museum. Am not a very museum kind of a guy, but ever since I have seen my baby enjoying these places, I make it a point that we go visit. The highlight of this museum is that they have preserved dead animals in their orginal form and skin and that includes tigers, baby elephants, cubs, panthers, deers etc. It was pretty much seeing a real life size tiger from an arms distance. Photography was prohibited there.

We moved towards Nainital now. This part of the journey was the most pleasant one. First of all - it did not figure in our original schedule. Secondly, the weather in Corbett was hot, so going to Nainital during the day made complete sense.

I checked on the route with a few people before moving. I understood that there are two routes - One from Haldwani and one from Kaladungi. Haldwani route is said to be bit popular so the traffic is more there. Kaladungi people say is mostly unexplored as of now. The only word of caution we received was that the hills are steeper. We took this route - Kaladungi one and we have no complaints. The roads were smooth, there was natural beauty all around, it was less crowded.

I will let pictures do the talking now :

[JASMEET MATTOO]

Originally Posted by Praveer

Nicely written and an interesting read. Could you tell me the mileage which you got with Safari Storme in the highway?

Also if you have some pictures of the resort then please do share.

BTW I am too a proud safari owner

Thanks Praveer. I think Safari produced an overall average of about 10. Reason I think could be that out of 900 kms that I drove on this journey, about 80 kms was in the jungle where I used the 2 second gear most of the time. Apart from this about 200 kms was the drive to the hills in Nainital where again the roads were very steep and I had to use 2-3 gears most of the time. On top of it , the weather was hot, so the AC was on all the time.

Being a safari owner you will understand the kind of pride this vehicle brings to you

Name of the Resort is Le Roi Resort. Sharing some snaps of the resort for you :

[Praveer]

Thanks a lot Jasmeet for posting the photographs. The resort looks really nice. Will definitely give this resort a try as I might go to Jim Corbett national park by the end of this month.

Also the mileage is quite nice keeping in mind the points you mentioned. And yes I certainly know what pride the vehicle gives

[JASMEET MATTOO]

Took a boat ride in the Nainital Lake. The sun shining bright on the head, surrounded by cool breeze, with sprinkles of water coming out on your face and the Natures beauty all around - it was heavenly.

We spent the noon around the lake and then pushed off as Corbett falls were also on the list. Stopped at a Dhaba for lunch which actually killed an hours time. Baby dozed off, it was noon time she had to take her nap. Wife proposed that we drop going to the corbett falls and go to the resort. I had to agree. Dropped my parents at the resort and left the baby with them (yes she was still sleeping). Me and wife now took off for a little bit of shopping spree in the local souvenir shops. Did some shopping, had a glass of sugarcane juice and we were back.

The evening was again quite, with me and my beer quitely sitting in the balcony relishing the music going on near the pool. Till my mom and wife offered me some massage. The ladies did appreciate that I was driving quite a bit, plus managing other things like carrying the baby wherever required plus arranging for a lot of other things. Maybe this was their way of acknowledging my effort. The fun was when my mom was massaging my right arm, wife the other and my baby joined in to massage my head. O she is so cute - all kids are.

Had dinner and then off to bed. One thing I must mention here that this resort had the most delicious food ever. It was just too good.

Day 3 : Tuesday - 20th May 2014

It was the last day in Corbett. Though we did want to extend one day and I spoke to the manager also the previous night, but the resort was completely sold out. We thought that we will check out and then go to the Garjiya Mandir and the river side and then start our journey back to Delhi from there only.

Within 5 minutes, we were at the temple. Mom and dad preferred to sit in the temple premises, wife me and the little one went for some nice time in the river side.

It was a nice feeling to sit in the cold flowing water looking at the fishes from a few inches. The fishes were a plenty swimming around your feet.

We just sat inside the river, enjoyed the beauty of nature, splashed water on each other and just had fun. An hour later we felt that the thirst for enjoying the beauty of nature has been satiated and we could start off our journey back to home.

On the way back we felt that our bodies were moving towards Delhi but probably we had left our souls behind somewhere. Maybe thats the reason we did not mind the bad roads of Kashipur to Moradabad on the way back.

Stopped at Udupiwala some 15 kms before Gajraula and this guy serves you one of the best south indian food. We had just randomly stopped but later realised that the halt couldn't have been better.

We started from Jim Corbett around 1215 hours and reached Indirapuram around 1730 hours. The office traffic had started to built up. All the Noida and Ghaziabad Offices must have just closed so the number of cars/ two wheelers constantly seemed to proliferate.Took us another 2.5 hours to reach our home in Dwarka, Delhi. It was a wonderful journey with a wonderful family full of wonderful experiences.

Few more pictures and I complete my first travelouge. Thanks for reading