April 30, 2023
This is in continuation of the Kumaon experience with Chitai being our last stop for the first day. See other parts of this journey - part 1, part 2, part 3.
We stayed at hotel Shikhar which is one of the oldest hotel in the town of Almora.
The hotel is a 6 floor building on a mountain slant. Hotel lobby on the Mall road is on 6th floor while everything else is on the floors below so one has to take the elevator and go down to get to the room on lower floors. This is a basic facility with hot water and thick comforters available (much needed in Almora even in April nights). After some rest we started to see the town and bazaars (market).
Almora has many bazaars, closest to us was Lala bazar. If you know the famous Kumaoni song 'bedu pako..' you will remember the name of this bazaar. Bazaar street is narrow and almost feels like walking in the housing neighborhood.
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| Lala bazar |
There are shops on both sides housed in old traditional buildings with wooden doors and windows beautifully carved by artisans. Windows are painted in bright colors primarily light blue but one can also find others such as bright green, red, brown etc. This gives a very traditional feel while walking in the bazar.
These days patal has been replaced with other stone tiles which can be slippery. One can find traditional kumaon cultural aspect in the bazar. Below is the picture from the small shop we bought some morepankh (peacock feathers). The chaukis here are traditional Kumaoni culture, used in various rituals like pujas and wedding each with predefined design specifics.
The same bazaar is later called Karkhana bazar and then Thana bazaar near the police station (thana). There is a good Jalebi specific shop in Karkhana bazar (it is marked as 'Famous Jalebi' on the internet but I don't remember seeing a name board above the shop). One can plan to taste jalebi here.
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| Jalebi |
In between, my father asked us to come to a narrow alley off the bazar at the end of which was an old house almost unmaintained. It was the house where my father and their family spent a few years of his childhood while my grandfather spent a longer time. It felt like no one was living there at the moment. From there we started to head back towards hotel through the bazaar. We used another narrow alley to get to mall road from bazaar and stopped at a small tea shop. Co-incidentally the tea shop owner turned out to be the one living in the same old house my father's family lived before. A joyous exchange of memories and we reached back to the hotel.
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| Papa's childhood home |
Later in the evening we just spent some time looking at the city and the lights around from the hotel terrace. The hilly landscape of the town makes the night pictures beautiful.
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| Almora at night |
Our stay at Hotel Shikhar in Almora was comfortable. Night was cold and the thick razai did the work. We needed to move forward the next day for our onward journey. After enjoying the morning views of the town, we started for our next destination.
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| The same Almora in the morning |
Here are some pictures of the boards outside the hotel that are helpful to gain broader sense of various locations and their distance etc. -
After visiting a few other places up north of Almora (part 5, part 6, part 7), we visited Kasar Devi temple on our way back to Almora.
Kasar devi
Some 100 or so stairs take one to the main Kasar devi temple from the road. There is usually more rush at this temple compared to others. It is famous amongst foreigners as a number of foreigners as well as Swami Vivekananda visited and meditated at this temple.
Some 100 or so stairs take one to the main Kasar devi temple from the road. There is usually more rush at this temple compared to others. It is famous amongst foreigners as a number of foreigners as well as Swami Vivekananda visited and meditated at this temple.
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| Kasar Devi Temple |
That night we stayed at the Kumaon Mandal Vikas Nigam Holiday Home.
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| Kumaon Mandal Vikas Nigam guest house |
Later that evening, we were all a bit exhausted (even though the journey through the hills is pleasing, it can be tiring to travel through the winding roads). After some tea, we decided to do another walking tour of Almora. My father was our tour guide as Almora is his birth place and this is where he spent his childhood. We were able to watch the sunset on our walk to the market.
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| Sunset |
Since we were walking on the Mall road and were close to the south end of the town, we had to walk up a tall staircase to get to the market street (thana bazaar).
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| Stairs connecting 2 roads :) |
By the time we reached up, we were exhausted after the long day. This was the same market we visited the first day but were just walking from the other end. I couldn't help but stop and enjoy looking at the colorful windows and doors in between. There is something about them that was attracting me.
In between we stopped to eat jalebi and then stepped down onto Mall road from the other end to buy the famous Baal Mithai of Kumaon. Kheem Singh Rautela ji's shop is famous for Baal Mithai since ages and so we decided to pack a few boxes of Baal Mithai, Chocolate and Singauri with us before heading back. All sweets are made of milk. Baal Mithai and Chocolate are more or less same (made of roasted khoya to run into chocolate) except that Baal Mithai has small sugar coated roasted poppy seeds stuck on them. Singauri is another sweet made of roasted khoya and is wrapped in green maalu leaf.
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| Famous for Bal Mithai |
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