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Published: December 26th 2011
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24-12-2011
Today we had the plan set in motion to go and visit Almora. It was a sunny bright Saturday, we had gotten up early and had prepared a daysack for the gruelling 3 hour journey with the bus through the mountains. Half way walking down the hill we realised it might be handy to take a wee map with us (Lonely Planet) so we can at least orientate slightly upon arrival. We marched back up the incline to the hotel. As I waited outside I had a brief chat with the reception dude who told me, much to my dismay, that there had been a landslide on the road to Almora. Bye bye plans for the day. Dunc was completely bummed out once he heard the news but with no other choice we decided to make new plans.
Munching on breakfast both of us come to the conclusion that we really can't be any where near bothered to travel anywhere around as it's most likely to be pretty much the same if not grottier than Nainital. We perked up and thought it might be an idea to take a pedaloo out onto the lake. We still had a shed load of stuff with u,s and way to many layers for the warmth of the sun, so we downed breakfast and popped into the hotel once again. ANDDD once again we changed plans and went to investigate the Nainital High Altitude Zoo. We braced ourselves at the ticket office for what lay ahead, was it to be a nice zoo where the animals were treated ok? You can't help but think about it when you're in India. Paying a WHOLE euro and a bit for entrance... we weren't sure what to expect. It turned out to be quite a nice little place. We saw a few leopards and tigers and, I suspect, the most amount and sort of pheasants we have ever seen in one place EVER. Nainital pheasant avery with the added attraction of big cats was a more fitting description than zoo.
Wandering back down to the hotel we got the small chess board out and proceded to play a couple of games in the afternoon sun on the balcony. After getting pretty mift of making mistakes and losing I proposed to play the game Set. After Dunc getting pretty mift of making mistakes and losing we went to get dinner and rum for later. On the way back to the hotel we decided to stop at the Catholic church where there was some beautifully false Hindi hymn (maybe carol?) singing. We sat down for about a minute making a quick exit after getting quite freaked out by the odd little (evil looking) santa which danced infront of the choir. We saw an enormous fuse blow on one of the transformers right next to the church and finally understood where all the recent blackouts have been coming from. Honestly I thought the catholics were partying with fireworks... guess again Rebecca, this is India after all. The evening was most uneventful as we lay down to watch the most Christmassy thing on the telly, Harry Potter.
We are still struggling to get internet here as it is extremely temperamental... the electricity has gone off again just now and the (most noisy) back-up generator (EVER) has just been jump started, 3...2...1... YEY lights.
x Becca
Christmas Day!!
Today apparantly the landslide has been cleared so after brekky we head off to negotiate a taco price. After we agree to an offer we head off to Almora on a very windy road. Bex is suffering after 10 minutes even after taking a travel pill. The thing is it wasn't just the bends that were the problem, the driver was an absolute flipping nutcase. I swear to God on this holy day that his speed reached heights of 85 km/hr. The road was exactly like one of those roads you see on discovery's "most dangerous roads", there were rarely any barriers to stop you flying off verticle drops that could have been as high as 100 m. Plus the road surface, like any in India, was very shoddy. Potholes and bumps sent us flying through the air, me and Bex were literally taking off on the back seats. There were seatbelts but they were stuck behind the seat plus there was nowhere to put them anyway. He would overtake on blind corners just holding his horn down to warn any unfortunate oncoming drivers, of which, there were at least 6. 6 possible head on collisions. Added to this all, he seemed to have serious build ups of saliva, so every 10 minutes he would lean his whole body out the window and gob. Once he even opened the door at 40 km/hr to do this. The 63km journey there took all of two hours and back took 1 hr 50. Luckily I took my hip flask so I could calm the nerves on the way back, if I hadn't, I wouldn't have been surprised if I'd defecated in my own pants. Almora, (my Granny's name and place of birth) I think must have lost it's charm in the 75 odd years she's been away. It's a sprawling urban area of overcrowded, delapidated buildings. Litter and general household waste is everywhere. The registry office was unfortunatly closed so I couldn't do the 'who d'you think you are?' thing and try to find her name, which was a bit disappointing but at least we made it there. It was kind of a major reason for me to come to India in the first place so that's all good. And if you could see past the crumbling side of things the bazaar was actually quite pretty, the different colour flaking paint on the wooden exteriors made the whole of the little street look antique. The guys sitting outside the closed shops on sunday playing card games and something which resembled pool with draughts, for money no doubt, created a chilled out atomosphere. We came across a Gurkha Regiment base where I sneaked a photo of the outside, then asked if I could take a photo and got the reply 'not allowed'. So there's proof for all you Americans out there (Alasdair) that shoot first, ask questions later is not always a bad way to go... Anyway hope you all had a good Christmas. Ours was terrifying. Duncan.
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