This summer we took a long sought after vacation in the hills of Kumaon. The vacation began with a journey on a tramp train & ended again with a tramp train. And the period in between was just a perfect match wherein the mind & body decided to wander around with no known purpose – and why not? Its not always that one gets to explore the absolute green, verdant forest so close to Himalayas.

Its a different story that unlike most of our planned holidays, this one’s planning went for a toss when just a few days before the vacation was to begin, Gurjars of Rajasthan started rail blockade, severing Mumbai from the North. We were lucky to the extent that our train did not get cancelled.

However, travelling in a tramp train, which was scheduled to complete the journey in 16 hours but did it in about 26 hours, has its own share of fun and ordeals. Fortunately for us, the ordeals were lesser than the fun as we crawled through the areas like Chambal Ravines & getting a glimpse of Raj history through distant views of forts of Jhansi & Gwalior.

However, except the beginning & the end of this vacation, the trip had some of the most wonderful moments in our journey through Nainital, Ranikhet & Corbett.

The hills of Kumaon, unlike the hills of Garhwal, are more seductive, with their undulating landscape well covered with trees reaching towards heaven, fruits & flowers in abundance.

And they did succeed by converting an urban person like me into an urban yayawar. So here is me looking forward to being more of an yayawar while you all can get glimpses of some of these moments which I have tried to capture through my camera.