My recent trip to Kausani, a small village on a hilltop in the state of Uttarakhand, India was like the much needed tonic that one would need after being overworked at a long stretch. My little 08 year old girl, my only companion was the main idea, motivation and focus of the trip. It was she who insisted that we go to a hill-top, like the ones she had seen in pictures.
On an unbearable hot summer day we finally set off on our 3 day journey to this little hill top. My girl ‘Ammu’ insisted that she wanted to push the wheeled luggage and I obliged. I was duly rewarded with a beautiful big and content smile she flashed all the while she pushed the wheeled bag on Delhi roads. She had simple plans – buying chips on the way, touching the leaves of bent branches that came her way, stopping at a roadside juice shop for a glass of refreshing juice, amusingly looking at kids of her age who would pass by… We had just sighted our Volvo bus that was to take us on an overnight journey of 08 hours to a place called ‘Haldwani’ and she realized the bus was so similar to her school bus. I ended up with a good feedback on ‘Volvo’ functions.
On day one we reached Haldwani from where we hired a taxi to reach our destination ‘Kausani’ – the little village on hilltop. It took another 6 hours of journey and the hardship of continuous road journey was worth it for we got to see virgin hills all in its green glory. We bought some local fruits called ‘Kaafal’ on our way. The red little ball shaped fruit was sweet and sour in taste and provided us with our first installment of excitement and joy. On our way every now and then she would jump with excitement at the sight of deep valleys, rising hills, flowing river and the very ambiance of being surrounded in with pure greenery.
Tired and asking for rest we checked into our resort, my girl took a quick survey of the room and wanted to organize everything her way. I was a dead and tired picture completely in contrast with a bubbly energetic little girl; she with her non-stop chattering was filling me up with much needed energy. And just after our lunch we set out on foot to explore the surroundings and visited the ‘Mahatma Gandhi Ashram’. The Ashram had lot many visitors – jumping and scratching – a bunch of energetic monkeys and curiously watching them was a group of visitors who would go ‘click-click’ at every leap the monkeys made.
Evening was reserved to view ‘the Sunset’ from the terrace of our resort. I wonder if the resort was built keeping Sunrise and Sunset in view. Well, I did capture the beautiful hues that surrounded the Sun and was kind of falling over the hills. On our second day we visited an ancient temple of ‘Baijnath’ believed to have been built over a thousand years ago. It was mesmerizing! It took me back to an era were stones were laid in a pattern to make huge and impressive structures. My girl unaware of the trance I had got into was busy feeding the fish in the little lake next to the temple. She jumped into it, kind of lost, was won over by fish around her and then she made new friends who would hold her hand to safety. In the evening we visited local tea estates, we had to climb up the hill to reach the other end of the estate. Once at top, Ammu spread her little hands as if it were a birdies wing and yelled to get the echo-effect; looking down over the green spread of tea plantation was like green magic.
On our third day we decided to go on a trek and interacted with local inhabitants. We lost our way in the hill, though we felt much safe and got to pluck ‘kaafal’ in real. It was a treat for both of us! Ammu was guiding me as she felt she could pave through easily and kept enhancing my knowledge on trees, plantations and hills, occasionally asking me to check my steps! By evening we were back onto our ‘Volvo’ but we kept promising each other for one more trip!
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