The Pangot Adventure!

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Pangot is a very small village 15 km away from Nainital into the wilderness of nature. It is home to about 150-200 species of birds and is a beautiful destination for all the jungle and hill lovers. I would rather consider myself lucky to have been able to discover and visit this beatific place in 'Dev Bhoomi'. It was an unforgettable experience with the best of nature from the 370 km Himalayan range to the variety of bird species to the amazing rainy season of the hills of Uttarakhand. I spend 3 nights and 4 days in Pangot and I am all excited to share my everyday experience with you.

So the journey starts..

Day 1:
A view of our Cottage From Inside
It took us about 7-8 hrs to reach our cottage in Pangot and our journey was a terrible one due to the ugly condition of road in Suar and Rampur. We booked a room in the Jungle Lore Birding Lodge which is the finest and oldest of all the birding lodges and I must tell you that the hospitality of everyone including the owner was applaudable. Once we reached the lodge we spend our time clicking a few selfies and pics in our balcony and in the cottage. We met two dogs named Gabbar and Dolly who escorted us from one corner to the other. The location of our cottage delighted us since we were in the middle of a jungle for the very first time with monkeys and langurs jumping from one tree to the other. After a bit of walk in the woods we had our dinner and planned to take rest for the next day's excursion.

Day 2:
After a long and no nonsense sleep we were all charged up for our second day adventure in Pangot. I said no nonsense since there was very less mobile network reception and no television to eat our time. We started our walk in the jungle woods early morning after our breakfast. It was an awesome scenic beauty with the clouds moving from one direction to the other right engulfing us within. We happened to locate the Ramakrishna Sharada Mission in the valley and thought of paying a visit to the holy place. It was long way and steep stairs to reach the gate, where we met one of the sanyasinis, Mata Prasanna Prana who spoke to us in length about the preachings of Swami Vivekananda on life. She also invited us to share our views with the kids who come every Sunday to learn something new in the ashram. We had a lot of learning and fun interacting with the kids that day. After a while we headed back to our cottage and on our way we were delighted to have a pleasant encounter with the rains in the hills. Literally we stood against a wall to save ourselves from getting drenched since we did not carry an umbrella. Once the rain subsided we went back to our cottage and took a long nap after enjoying the yummy butter chicken made by Tejpal, the cook.

Day 3:
Naukuchiatal 
Our third day was dedicated to sightseeing. We started at about 9 in the morning with our driver Harish and one of the cottage care-takers, Hari Om. Harish was a total entertainer and kept us engaged throughout the long journey with all the bears, leopard and jungle stories in his bolero. The first destination was the famous Golu Devta Temple, who is worshipped as the balak roop of Lord Bhairav in Hindu mythology. After paying a homage in the temple we were taken to a Hanuman Temple in the same vicinity. We spent good amount of time in both the places and headed straight to Sattal, which is a combination seven lakes, out of which three have dried up due to the enchroachment of human population around. Then our driver took us to Bhimtal, which is named after the strongest of the Pandavas, Bhim who discovered this lake during their recluse. It provides water through canals to nearby towns including Haldwani during the summer season. After Bhimtal we drove to Naukuchiatal which in my opinion was the prettiest of all the tals due to less commercialisation. Naukuchiatal has nine corners and one side of this gigantic lake houses pink lotuses which are also called "Brahma Kamal". We took a boating ride in shikara and our helmsman named Puran was a great company with talks of myths and reality surrounding the tal. The last destination for the day was Nainital which is a commercialised tourist spot with mall road and shops beside the naini lake which derived it's name from the Naina Devi Temple located on the banks. We enjoyed some local pakoras, papads and shopped a bit here and there. It was late evening by the time we started for our cottage and by God's grace we were able to view the 370 km Himalayan range with our naked eyes although it was a cloudy sky. It was a heavenly
The Himalayan Range with Nanda Devi and Trishul Peak
experience and no matter how much we tried to capture the scenic beauty in our camera, it was not enough. We stayed in the middle of the road staring at the inexplicable creation of the Almighty for hours. On our way back, we happened to meet the TV celebrity Gurpal Singh of Chupa Rustam who was also one of the Jungle Lore guests and a friend of the lodge owner, Mohit Aggarwal who met us with utmost humility. It was late in the night, by the time we reached our cottage and our very own Tejpal was ready with his delicious delicacy for dinner. We slept early that day to be able to start for an early morning drive back home. 

Day 4:
The Royal Bengal Tiger at Naini Zoo
Our last day at the cottage was full of mixed emotions since neither of us wanted to leave. We planned to visit the Naini Zoo, which we missed the previous day since it was closed. It was a great feeling to be able to visit one of the highest altitude zoo's inaugurated by Bharat Ratna G.B.Pant. The zoo is kept very clean and is home to six leopards one of them being 16 years old, named Sundar, two Bengal tigers and two mountain
bears among other animals. I experienced goosebumps on the growls made by the biggest cats of the wild. Since it was getting late, we moved back to our car for our journey back home after munching spicy bhelpuri and chana chat from a local vendor outside the zoo premises. This time we made sure that we avoid the Rampur-Suar route and we headed towards the Ramnagar-Kashipur-Thakurdwara highway towards Delhi. It took us about 9 hours to reach home but the drive was smoother with less shocker exercise for our car.
  
After a very long time, I had a fabulous vacation worth every penny and time spent. This time-off made me think about myself as an individual and realise as a human that it is our duty to protect Mother Nature because if the last tree falls, the last man dies. We made the lives of all living creatures hell because of our greed, now is the time to repay and be a guardian if we want our future generation to view the beauty of nature or else the day wouldn't be far when our planet will pay a price for our sins and diminish into nothing but dust. 

Save trees, save the wild, save our home, save our planet.~Ankhi Bhattacharya

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We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.-Swami Vivekananda

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