Nainital in Pictures

 My first train ride in India.  What an experience!  The 7 hour train ride ended up being 12 hours.  Arriving in Kothgodam. 

 Man grilling me some corn.  He served mine with lime and salt.  Yum!

 TC's favorite.  Waterballs!  Usually served differently in each locale.  These are filled with onions and potatoes.  The cup in the upper left is holding the spicy water. 

 Breakfast.  I thought I only had one egg, but there was a surprise egg once I lifted up the egg holder.  Two boiled eggs for breakfast!

 The Lake.  I believe its Naini Lake.  As Tal means Lake.  Hence, Nainital.  As per usual, my Hindi is horrendous and any attempt to pronounce leads to much confusion.

 Bottles hung from trees to shoot with airguns for 20 Rps.  Honestly, when I saw these bottles all I could think was - How on earth did they get those tied out on the side of the mountain?!?

 Telescopes.  These were at Himalaya View Point where you could pay to view the majestic Himalayas.  As TC put it, "This is a fraud"

 An Indian tourist dressed up in traditional Nainital dress.  People actually pay to dress up in this clothing and take their picture.  And they have to give it back.  These stands are everywhere!

 An Indian tourist posing as he "climbs the Himalayas".  I'm pretty sure this is probably his facebook profile pic now.

 Wow.  A shocker to me.  Look at all that luggage!  I've traveled 30 days in India with one bag.  This seems excessive.

 Traffic jam!  Local man getting out of his car to direct traffic.  That's one thing I love about India.  People just take control of the situation and get things done.  No traffic police required!

 So many choices for snacks and the only one I could have was water.  Diet soda is just not a concept here!

 Someone's laundry just siting on the side of the road.  Aren't they afraid someone will steal it?

 One of my favorite tourist spots of the trip.  CAVES!

 I was so excited to explore these caves.  I was on my hands and knees at times and racing through the caves.  Good times!

 Post sightseeing snack.  Onions in vinegar.  They look disgusting to me, but TC ate them like they were candy.

 Mosque in Nainital.  I love the symmetry!

 Elevator in the hotel.  My first thought was - What a beautiful elevator!.  My second thought - There is no way an American could fit through those skinny doors.

 Lodging in Nainital.  Arif Castles.

 Driver stopped to get directions to our lodging in Dunagri.  I was nervous.  What do you mean our driver doesn't know where to go?!?

 Apparantly, they needed to gather the whole town to figure out directions.  The more people that congregated the more nervous I was that we wouldn't reach our destination.  Really?  You need 5 people to help find the lodging?!? Gah!

 Yay!  We reached our destination in Dunagri.  This was a school for local children to learn English.  As part of the stay, I visited with some of the local children.

 Local color before trekking 1 km up the mountain to the Dunagri Temple

 So many steps to reach the Dunagri temple.  It was fun and tiring.

 Bells at the Dunagri temple

 Amla!!  I was eating at a restaurant outdoors and this boy climbed a tree and plucked this amla for me.  It was romantic and funny.  So 17th century!

 These women work so hard.  I never see men doing this work.  Hmmmm.

 American "Corns"

 Time for a boat ride on one of the seven lakes.  These boats seemed much more appealing than the self-paddle boats.  I like to relax, not work!

 My Slippers

 TCs post-sightseeing dinner.  

 TC and Lakshmal (the driver) discussing the zoo.  Looks like TC needs more information...

 TC and Lakshmal pointing to the zoo.  Its over there.  You need to walk. 

 After a little hike, we made it to the zoo!  Somehow this is the only picture of an animal I took in the zoo.  Strange.  I know.

 This sign means shortcut.  Or so TC says.  I'm a big fan of shortcuts on the way down, but not on the way up.

 High tech Cyber Cafe.  Here TC is checking to see if we have confirmation for our tickets back to Delhi (No, they weren't confirmed - always an adventure)

 Stopping to rest.  My toes are definitely cuter than TCs!

 Lodging outside of Nainital

 Huge hole in the road on our way to our lodging.  Seriously?  Nobody thinks this is strange?  Its a HUGE hole!

 Dussehra celebration in Nainital.  Later in the evening this guy with 10 heads was burned in a burst of flames.

 I was shocked to find out we needed to stop for an hour to let these construction workers finish paving the road to Nainital.  No room to pass.  We had to just wait it out.  I found it a bit disturbing that they have fun with each other by throwing hot asphalt at each others feet.  Yikes!

 Shirts at the Tailor where I got my pants hemmed for 50 cents in 10 minutes.  10 minutes I tell you!

 Temple where I was chased my monkeys.  MONKEYS!  It was all good until I reached the bridge and then the monkeys swung down like some horrific scene out of Wizard of Oz.  They started chasing me.  I ran.  No wonder the locals were carrying slingshots.

Train back to Delhi.  Until next time!