Of spicy pakoras and sweet apps on the road to the Himalayas

It began as a simple wish to escape the searing hot plains of Delhi. Howling, dust-laden winds and the deadly dull whirring of ceiling fans and air-conditioners are enough to throw up tantalizing visions of cool, green, deodar-laced slopes in the Himalayas, the world’s youngest mountains.

Truth be told, these visions take hold of me every now and then from February to November. (Leave out the winter months when the hills freeze over and slip out of my imagination.) But with the temperature shooting upwards of 40 degrees Celsius, they become irresistible.

So it was time to sit in front of my computer – your smartphone will do just as well – and plot my escape.

Searching for the right resort

I love to travel by road because I have an old mountain hand for a driver. And while he always has a suggestion or two about where to pitch the tent, there is one website I have come to heavily rely on: TripAdvisor!

It hasn’t failed me once since I began using it seven years ago. The one time I didn’t take it seriously – in the sun and sand destination of Goa – I ended up with damp rooms, poor quality food, and disinterested hosts.

This time I was looking for something in Uttarakhand, which would be closer to Delhi compared to the two other hill states in northern India, namely Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh.

But in Uttarakhand, massive forest fires have been reported in the Garhwal region. So it would have to be the less-affected part of the state – the Kumaon region.

I googled, and the Mukteshwar area in Kumaon, which I could reach in 9 hours, looked inviting. The top rated resort here, according to TripAdvisor, was Himalayan Village Sonapani. At an altitude of 1,800 meters, surrounded by step-farmed wheat fields, rolling oak-pine-and-rhododendron forests, rich with foxes, leopards, and birds, it set me dreaming.

The name Sonapani is derived from a mountain spring, which was said to have medicinal properties. The resort itself has been built on land that was awarded to a highly decorated Indian soldier in the British colonial army upon his retirement.

The property beckoned, and I booked.

A cottage in the hills

Weather

Directions

Food

Hitting the mountain track