A Road Trip to Enchanting Mukteshwar

Hello Ghummakar(s),

This is my first attempt at writing. Hope you all will like it…

As soon as our calendar reflected a break of 2 days the “Ghummakar” inside us started taking turns. We started exploring each and every possible destination that we could cover via Road. Read several posts/blogs, had discussion with friends and finally post reading all the reviews of Mukteshwar on Ghummakar.com we finalized this place to knock down :)

Day 1:
We estimated a total run time of approx 8 hours in reaching Mukteshwar by Road from Ghaziabad. Wasting time on road due to traffic is a big NO-NO to us. So we started at sharp 4:45AM from Noida. Switched on the navigator and took NH-24. Road was quite smooth and due to early winter morning there was no traffic on roads. We touched Mc-Donalds in Gajraula by 6:15AM. We took a short break there, fed our hungry tummies and again hit the road. Road condition was nice till Moradabad bypass but a patch of 32 KMs was pathetic near Rampur district. The dense fog started from Tanda (around 7:30 AM) till Kaladhungi – around 10AM).

By 11 AM we were on the mall road of Nainitaal. Took a quick break again, gave our legs some treat by moving across the mall road. Moving across mall road means “Shopping” for girls and “eating” for boys ;) Luckily we managed to complete all these stuff in less than an hour and again tightened our belts to touch Mukteshwar by 12:00pm.

Due to the hilly area, the way from Nainitaal to Mukteshwar had numerous no. of zig-zag turns. Apart from driver, every one of us started feeling the nausea. As we moved higher, the sceneries started to emerge. A perfect white-snow covered range of Himalayas made us cheer and we started losing the sensation of nausea. There were several beautiful points on the way. Each spot was so attractive that we could not resist ourselves from clicking. But we did not want to waste our day by reaching late to Mukteshwar. So we agreed upon skipping few of the scenery views and managed to reach by 2:15 PM.

With all the theoretical knowledge collected through blogs, we had few recommended names for our stay. We started having a look on hotels. First and the very pleasing one was MT- Mountain Trail. Ambiance/view here was awesome. After discussing about the tariffs we moved on to other hotels. We were more concerned for a captivating view rather than the tariffs. We went ahead to few more lodges along with PWD Guest house. But, we had already lost our hearts to MT. So we called back the manager and asked him to book 2 rooms for us.

We parked our car near the entrance of Mukteshwar temple and started taking a walk towards the main tourist attraction point “Chauli ki jali”. After putting in few efforts in climbing the rocks we finally reached on the top of the cliff. The cliff gave a splendid panoramic view of snow-white Himalayan ranges. Captured the “Orange- setting Sun”, did some archery. As it was getting late and the temperature started dropping with Sun, instead of going for Rock climbing we opted to just give a pose :)

After having loads of fun on peak we moved towards the temple from there. It was a very pleasing and peaceful walk in the arms of nature. Forest was so quite that we all forgot all our burdens/tensions and started behaving like a kid. Soon after few meters of walk, we found a place full of snow. We played in snow and again started moving to the temple. Mukteshwar Temple is an old Lord Shiva temple where swami Mukteshwar took his Samadhi. Despite of being small there was something that gave us lot of satisfaction.

Post darshan we rushed back to the hotel. Along with the facilities (such as 24 hrs running hot water, heaters,games room, library) Staff was very nice and co-operative. After ordering for dinner, we explored their games room that had TT table, fuse ball, carom and darts. As temperature started dropping further, we rushed back to rooms and started playing cards there.

On the way back to room something attracted us :) Being away from all the pollution, Mukteshwar had a bright and clear sky. Moon was lighting as if some LED bulb has been put on. We enjoyed moon light and stared on stars for a while.

By 9:30 PM we were delivered the dinner. Soon after feeding our hunger we crawled to beds by 11:30pm. Alarms were set for 6 AM.

Day 2 :

We got out of the bed at sharp 6AM. Moved out for a morning walk and to capture the Rising Sun. I am feeling lack of words to explain the beauty of those moments. After having a walk for an hour and after welcoming sun we came back to room to get ready. We got ready quickly and checked-out by 8:30 AM from the hotel. One of us had heard/read about the panoramic view of Himalayan Range from the guest house. We rushed towards the guest house. Having a look on the panoramic view of Himalayas was a real treat to eyes. There is a stone on which names of the peaks have been engraved. After collecting the beauty of nature we rushed back to our car.

We targeted to get back to Ghaziabad by 9-10PM. But due to traffic we managed to reach by 11PM.

A single word for the whole trip is “Marvellous”. Due to lot of feedbacks and reviews we had a clear picture in our mind which saved lot of our time also helped us in making decisions. And, that’s the motivation to write this long review. Thanks for reading till end.

Thanks Ghummakar.com for sharing well written blogs/reviews. Keep up the good work :)