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While visiting Lucknow (my home town) last weekend, I thought about the kind of people visiting Lucknow and realized that tourists normally do not travel specially to ’see’ Lucknow but visit it for work or on the way to some other city as it has an Airport and a major Railway Station.
Being originally from lucknow, i thought of sharing some information which may be useful for people who are passing by and would like to get around the city in-between trains/flights/meetings.

Lucknow offers some interesting places, markets, gardens, eating joints but depending on the time on hand, one can choose among following, but remember if you need to catch a flight, do take some time buffer before going for any of these places as Airport is around 30-45 minutes (depending on traffic) away from central part of city.

Bara Imam Bara:

Situated in old lucknow area, this old building is also called Asafai Imambara. Nawab used to hold their public hearings in central hall. It is said that this hall is the world’s largest arched room without any pillars.The upper floor, Bhulbhulaiya, is also famous as a fantastic labyrinth. It is believed that a stranger cannot come out of this maze without any assistance from some expert guide. From the top of this Imambara, is a fine view of the city and the Aurangzeb Mosque.

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We were looking for a decent place to spend couple of evenings so we looked around and zeroed on ‘Solluna Resort’ which is sold as a ‘Sarovar Plaza’ property. Only few months back we had stayed in their Mussorrie hotel and were too impressed so after negotiating on price-package, we thought we are done.

The package was Rs 7500 for a double for two nights + all three meals, a welcome drink (I dont know why the hell they mention this at all, its such a trivia in any case), tea-cofee maker in room, sports facilities etc etc.

So here is what we discovered.

Solluna is at Marchula and is not conveniently located if you want to do Corbett day sojourns, its actually quite away, about 30 odd KMs. Marchula otherwise is very scenic, very quiet and jungle-ish area which should be enjoyed for its own. There is a river just adjacent to resort to kill time. Its pretty big with large lawns (not well kept when we went), lots of sport facilities, a mini-theater with a projector, ok-ok dining hall and lots of green. The lodges are in groups, so they have this concept of a small area which has 3 sets of two doubles each with a mini-lawn. With A/C, hot water and very polite service, its all good good except for few things which we didn’t like.

First of all, its not really a Sarovar property. After snooping around, we figured out that there is some Raja Hotel in Paharganj, Delhi which handles its booking n all. Apparently Sarovar is in some tie-up with Raja guys and do mostly marketing of it. Well what that means that you get quilts w/o covers, the ones of shaneel (that shiny thing), bed sheets were clean but not crisp (more…)

We just decided to go out so with wife, Smita, and daughter, Pihu, I took the car out to the closest highway from our home. Its about 200 meters :) and called NH24. Well to be honest, it was better planned then this one since we had made the booking in one of the Sarovar properties called ‘The Solluna Resort’. A review on that resort down the week.

Corbett is closed during monsoon and opens only by November but we went for the drive. Here are some photos from the trip.

This one is right after Ramnagar, we spotted this 3 feet Iguana crossing the road. Animals get the first right so we stopped and by the time I could get the camera out, it has already crossed and was climbing up the hill so we got a little close and shot few.

We crossed Dhanagarhi Gate and crossed Mohan (pronounced as Mohaaan). We were on the way to Marchula. After Mohan, you get into a more dense foresty area and there is no traffic. Almost every decent hotel at Corbett would try to sell you a night safari and what they typically do is to take you on this road. Here’s a pic right before a rapta (the place where rivelet crosses the road). Also notice the small temple. Its right at 1′o clock or so but it appears like a evening shot. There was a mild shower and fresh clean water.

On the way back, Smita shot the following video at the same spot.

In the resort, a butterfly and a Bhanwra (Dont know what you call a Bhanwra in English). We noticed that Bhanvra never really sits for more then a few seconds, guess the massively exploited analogy to real men does make lot of sense.

Bridge over kosi

Dhanagarhi Gate which is closed. They no longer allow day visitors through this gate and this is only gate which is now worth going in. The one at Bijrani and Jhirna do not go too deep.

And finally how does it look from the inside of a car

And thats about it. We were back the very next day. I also stopped by at Kaladhungi at Corbett Museum and would write about them down the week as well. A weekend well spent :)

Last weekend, I drove to Corbett and I discovered few new things and thought that a quick road review would benefit fellow ghumakkars.

Delhi - Ramnagar (Corbett is just a little beyond Ramnagar) can be divided into following stretches.

1. Delhi - Hapur (NH 24)
2. Hapur - Garh - Gajraula (NH 24)
3. Gajraula - Moradabad bypass end (NH 24)
4. Moradabad - Thakurdwara - Kashipur - Ramnagar (NH 121)

I actually drove further and went to a place called Marchula which is about 30 KM away from Ramnagar. For Marchula you go straight till Mohan Barrier and then take left and keep left.

Ok, so this may not hold true if you are reading this beyond 2008 Summers as by that time NHAI would have started work on other sections and probably finished off the current section where they are currently active but I guess this review will work for at least one more year.

Stretch 1 is cream. Its about 60 odd KMs and you wont take more then an hour for this. The beauty here is the fantastic Hapur - bypass which was a Indo-Japan collaboration project. This buypass is there for quite some time, may be as many as 5 years or so but is still very good.

Stretch 2 is pain. So time your drive to avoid this part in dusk or just after dawn when visibility is mixed. There are villages where everyone has put a speek-breaker in front of their house then Garh can be killing. This is about 60-70 Km as well and would take you an hour and a half.

Strech 3 can be a good one or a real bad one. In this stretch most of the part has been four-laned and its all new NHAI tar which can take a 100+ very easily but there are bottle necks in between. If its raining or if there is some accident then it can easily suck more time but overall this stretch is better then the previous one. Moradabad bypass is good, dont know that why they can’t take the toll at a single place instead of asking to stop twice, they used to do that in the begining. Also, if you are driving post-siesta you would notice a few folks squatting on the side railing and wonder that what the hell they are doing here, well they are the cattle-baby-sitters and are over-seeing the cattle. Also, one other small thing which I noticed, at the point where there is a elevation (say a bridge starting point) vehicles sort of get that little bump, you might notice lots of house-sparrows (more…)