Naintal to Almora

Travelled, in a cab, yesterday from Nainital to Almora. I'd read in another blog someone saying they found Almora a bit busy, hectic and unfriendly after their travels in the mountains. Whilst it can be a little hectic around the Mall area, it's quite easy to 'get away from it all', and so far, most of the people I've met have been friendly enough.

Once I'd checked in yesterday, I went for a walk about Lallal Bazaar, which is a pedestrianised market area, behind/ above the Mall. Here you can buy anything, from woven shawls to television sets, plastic toys to headache tablets. I had half an eye open for some ball mithai, to take back for my mum, as whenever I go away, I try, like a good, conscientious daughter, to bring her back something original. So far, boiled sweets from Laos and some toffee lollipops from Kalimpong, in West Bengal, are gathering dust on her shelves, and I thought it might be nice to take back something from Almora. Ball Mithai are sugar covered fudge balls- they sound disgusting, I know, but you've only got one mum.

There are lots of exotically dressed women in the bazaar, that look like they might have travelled down from the hills. I saw several dressed in tibetan style striped over aprons, their hair in buns behind their heads,and others, dressed in bright coloured saris with heavy gold jewellery habnging from their noses. I was dying to take photos, but am always a bit wary when it comes to people.

After I'd wandered around the baaar a bit, I walked up to Devi Nanda, a temple in the bazaar. It's supposed to be quite old, according to the book, and the folk carvings around the outside are now worn. It's obviously well taken care of, tho'- it was being painted when I was there. A couple of blokes with ladders were slapping cream and orange paint on the outside, while inside, about four or five girls were carefully painting intricate floor murals, using teeny tiny little brushes.

This morning I'd made a vague plan to go to the Kasar Devi temple, a few kms away from the centre of town. I've been lux-ing it out, hiring whole taxis for myself, for most of the holiday, so thought it was time to get a bit more 'rootsy', and travel in a shared jeep. I managed to locate the right one quite easily. The jeeps tend not to leave the taxi stand until they're full, so we were there for about forty minutes. Initially, it was just myself and a woman and her baby, sat on the back seat, but quite quickly this bloke appeared, sat on the front seat, and started talking to me in English about the weather. He quite quickly shoehorned into the conversation the fact that he owened a guesthouse, perhaps I'd like to go and see it. Once I'd made it clear that I wouldn't, he stayed where he was for five miniutes or so, then disappeared. I'd thought he was just another passenger, but he'd obviously followed me from the main road in an attempt to make a sale.

Once the jeep was full, we set off. I was immediately thrown into the usual panic- what if someone had put me on the wrong jeep by mistake/ for a joke; what if I couldn't get a jeep back at the other end? I nearly asked the driver to stop and let me out, but we were on an otherwise empty stretch of road, so I just sat back and kept my fingers crossed.

Luckily, one of my fellow passengers spoke a little english, and confirmed that we were going where I thought we were, and that I would knew we were there when we got there. Sod's law she got out before then, and I didn't know we were there when we got there, so missed my stop, and didn't realise till we were 3 or 4 kms away. By that point we'd reached the end of the line, and the driver was turning round and coming straight back to almora, so I just stayed where I was. Sod's law (again!!) whilst the journey down had only taken about twenty five minutes, he took the long route back, that took us about an hour and a half. He stopped in Kasar Devi, which is a small hamlet, on the way back, but didn't seemed to know what or where the temple was- there were a couple of other passengers in the jeep by this time that we'd picked up en route, and one thought I was talking about a restaurant. In the end, I just came back to Almora, had some lunch, then came out and wrote this. Might come back to Almora on my way down again, so may try and see the temple then.

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