25th October, 2006.
Get up 8 am, have a leisurely breakfast, sun worship in the garden for 30 mts; we have entire day to kill. Options are to go to the high altitude zoo, mall road, the cable car up the snow view point or drive to lakes in and around Nainital. I am keen to drive to Bhimtal, the opposition is mounting, Anu and kids vote me out for a quieter day, the decision is the Zoo and boating in the lake. I bow down to this pressure tactic thinking I could try driving to Bhimtal later in the day ( little do I realize the ability of a wife and kids to mount counter-strategies and play the psycho game equally well ). 10 am we drive up the steep and narrow zoo road; one need to be careful of the taxi drivers and DL registration cars doing crazy antics. There was this guy with a jazzy Tucson trying to squeeze by a parked Quails on his way up, gave him way and kept a safe 15 feet away from him, sure enough he scrapped the sides of the Qualis and there was this unholy uproar. Took about 20 mts and lots of us getting into the act to clear the mess and disengage them !!!!!
The Zoo was great; kept nice and clean and animals looked healthy. We spent till 1 pm inside, we al have a field day out, looking next to a walk in the mall and some boating. We descent, park the car on the mall road, haggle with a boatman and settle for Rs.250/- for 2 hours, full round of the lake. We spend a quiet 2 hours floating round lake and get back to Naini Retreat for a late lunch around 4 PM. My plans to go to Bhimtal goes out the window, it will get dark in 2 hours, driving after that makes no sense. Get back to room, watch some TV and 7 PM again to the gardens, the music is already on, people with glad-rags around camp fire, it’s a cold day. Pick up our dinner and join the crowd around the fire and listen to live music for some time. Around 9 pm we get back to room and its voting time again.
Get up 8 am, have a leisurely breakfast, sun worship in the garden for 30 mts; we have entire day to kill. Options are to go to the high altitude zoo, mall road, the cable car up the snow view point or drive to lakes in and around Nainital. I am keen to drive to Bhimtal, the opposition is mounting, Anu and kids vote me out for a quieter day, the decision is the Zoo and boating in the lake. I bow down to this pressure tactic thinking I could try driving to Bhimtal later in the day ( little do I realize the ability of a wife and kids to mount counter-strategies and play the psycho game equally well ). 10 am we drive up the steep and narrow zoo road; one need to be careful of the taxi drivers and DL registration cars doing crazy antics. There was this guy with a jazzy Tucson trying to squeeze by a parked Quails on his way up, gave him way and kept a safe 15 feet away from him, sure enough he scrapped the sides of the Qualis and there was this unholy uproar. Took about 20 mts and lots of us getting into the act to clear the mess and disengage them !!!!!
The Zoo was great; kept nice and clean and animals looked healthy. We spent till 1 pm inside, we al have a field day out, looking next to a walk in the mall and some boating. We descent, park the car on the mall road, haggle with a boatman and settle for Rs.250/- for 2 hours, full round of the lake. We spend a quiet 2 hours floating round lake and get back to Naini Retreat for a late lunch around 4 PM. My plans to go to Bhimtal goes out the window, it will get dark in 2 hours, driving after that makes no sense. Get back to room, watch some TV and 7 PM again to the gardens, the music is already on, people with glad-rags around camp fire, it’s a cold day. Pick up our dinner and join the crowd around the fire and listen to live music for some time. Around 9 pm we get back to room and its voting time again.As per original plan, we need to go to Jim Cobert and then get back to Delhi; opposition of 3 votes go for Delhi straight and give Jim Cobert a pass; again I had to comply or face mutiny!!! The logic given by the 3 voters are; Jim Cobert is fully not open, we hear reports from others in the hotel there aren’t many animals to see and you need to stay there for at least 2 nights to get a flavor of the place !!!!!!! What can you say……. we decide to pack off to Delhi next day !!!
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