All posts tagged: hill stations near Delhi

Te Aroha Dhanachuli, hill station in Uttarakhand, Delhi weekend getaways

Te Aroha Dhanachuli: Under The Yellow Rooftops.

In the Kumaon Himalayas, my experience at Te Aroha Dhanachuli – a unique boutique hotel in Uttarakhand. Every stone in Kumaon has a story. It speaks of the fierce spirit of the Kumaoni people during India’s freedom struggle. It carries the whiff of tea gardens that once flourished on this land. It looks humbly upon mighty Himalayan peaks that sit in the distance. This is the story of some such stones, erected by Sumant Batra back in the nineties. Stones that became my abode for a rainy July weekend. His love affair with travel started while he was still a child. Much like anyone who’s travelled in Kumaon, he was captivated by the charm of the lower Himalayas of Uttarakhand. In his late twenties, he fell in love with the small, obscure village of Dhanachuli. There were terraced valleys here. Verdant mountain slopes covered with apple orchards, forests of pine and rhododendron, gushing rivers, small streams and waterfalls, and no development or tourism infrastructure to speak of. The locals were friendly, nay, full of warmth, …

Peora, traditional village hut, Kumaon, Uttarakhand, Kumaoni villages, offbeat travel, Indian villages, Himalayan villages, countryside

Conversations on Love in Rural India from Peora Uttarakhand.

In Peora Uttarakhand and at the Dak Bungalow Peora, amid the scenic Kumaon Himalayas, my introduction to life or something like it. Loud Hindi music blares through the silence of the valley, the wind scarred with it. Women dressed in jazzy saris walk down the path to a village hut below, big smiles pasted on their faces. Their eyes fixed on their toddlers who keep running faster than their heels can take them. This is not your usual day in Peora Uttarakhand – a small village quietly tucked away in the Kumaon Himalayas. It’s the day before a wedding. The entire village seems to be rejoicing, dressing up, laughing, singing, dancing, feasting and celebrating. I arrived in Peora this morning, in an attempt to ‘disconnect’ from my online addictions. We drove from the Kathgodam train station past the lake of Bhimtal, along slopes dotted with pretty green pine trees. Through python-like winding roads, amid dense coniferous forests. I knew even then that I was going to the right place. As we went higher, the air felt …