सफ़र, Suffer & Learning the Rhythm of the Kumaon Wilds

Day 1: The Anatomy of a Bus Scam & Thread-Ball Cricket

21st May – 22nd May | Delhi to Ramnagar to Chhodi Ghatti

The plan was simple: board a night bus from Delhi and wake up in Ramnagar.

Instead, somewhere in the middle of the night, I found myself dumped in Rampur — nearly 80 kilometres away from where I was supposed to be, half-awake, irritated, and completely stranded with no direct connection to my destination.

By 4:00 AM, running on equal parts frustration, caffeine, and very little sleep, I somehow managed to get onto a bus to Haldwani. From there, I slowly stitched together the rest of the route to Ramnagar

But the mountains have a way of interfering with anger if you let them. They don’t solve your problems or magically improve your sleep deprivation, but they quietly shift your attention elsewhere. The roads begin to curve through forests, the air changes, the horizon opens up, and somehow the urgency of being annoyed starts losing its grip.

Somewhere along that exhausting, winding journey, the birds began showing up. A Crested Serpent Eagle circling overhead. Bee-eaters flashing through the morning light like tiny sparks of colour. A solitary rock chat holding its ground by the roadside. Bulbuls moving through the landscape as if they had nowhere urgent to be.

Small sightings. But enough to remind me why journeys like these are worth the chaos.

I ended up talking to a local passenger who spoke about the realities of human–animal conflict around Jim Corbett National Park. Not headlines. Not statistics. Real places, real people, and stories carried quietly by those who live closest to the forest. Listening to him talk about lives abruptly altered — and sometimes lost — changed the scale of my own problem very quickly. My bus situation suddenly felt very small.

By the time I finally reached my room and collapsed onto the bed, my body was done with travelling.

Then came an invitation to play cricket. And some things are impossible to refuse.

We played on uneven mountain ground with a ball made entirely from cloth and tightly wound thread. No proper kit. No perfectly marked pitch. Just people, mountains, and the universal confidence that every Indian carries into a cricket game, regardless of conditions.

Cricket has a strange way of making strangers feel familiar.

I had barely slept, travelled far more than necessary, and spent most of the night fighting a transport disaster — yet there I was, laughing and playing cricket in the mountains with people I had only just met.

The first day had already been generous on the birding front. A healthy list of species, plenty of lifers, and that familiar excitement that comes with seeing a bird for the very first time. No matter how many birds you’ve seen, lifers still make you feel like a beginner again — and I’ve always loved that feeling.

Before sleeping, I stepped outside and looked up.

The mountain sky was crowded with stars — the kind of sky Delhi keeps making us forget exists.

For a day that began with a scam, wrong routes, and unnecessary travel, it somehow still found its way to wonder.

Day 2: An 8-Foot Standoff & Flying Flowers

23rd May | Chhodi Ghatti

Day two began with optimism, misplaced confidence, and a determined search for Chhodi Ghatti’s three legendary pheasants — the Koklas, the Cheer, and the Kalij.

The forest, however, had other plans.

I spent a good part of the morning weaving through dense undergrowth, scanning ridgelines, listening for movement, and essentially chasing ghosts. The pheasants remained firmly committed to their invisibility. But wildlife has a way of softening disappointment by giving you something you weren’t looking for. A Chukar — a relatively rare bird in the area — stepped briefly into the open, alert and beautiful in the morning light, and later, a quiet Hill Partridge revealed itself just enough to count as a small victory.

Then the mood changed completely.

I crossed paths with a Copperhead Trinket Snake.

Naturally, I pulled out my camera.

The snake was significantly less enthusiastic about this decision.

The moment I began filming, it reared up, body tense, posture unmistakably defensive. Now, I have enormous respect for reptiles, but I had absolutely no intention of escalating a disagreement with a snake that looked every bit as powerful as this one. It seemed close to eight feet long — muscular, alert, and carrying the kind of presence that instantly reminds you who actually belongs in the forest.

For a few seconds, we held position.

A brief, silent negotiation.

I respected its space. It tolerated my existence. We both decided that survival was preferable to unnecessary drama and went our separate ways.

Back at the resort, the forest offered a completely different kind of magic.

A Crimson Sunbird hovered around a bright hibiscus flower, moving so perfectly with it that, for a moment, it genuinely looked as though the flower itself had grown wings and lifted into the air.

Moments like that are easy to miss if you rush them.

After a quiet breakfast of omelette and toast — deeply appreciated after the morning’s adventures — I rested for a while before trying my luck tracking a local leopard later that evening.

The leopard, quite understandably, had no interest in participating.

But on the way back from the unsuccessful leopard search, luck finally decided to make an appearance. Sitting quietly by the roadside was a Large-tailed Nightjar — spotted completely by chance. We stopped, managed a few photographs and videos, and watched it for a brief moment before it silently lifted off into the fading light.

As darkness settled over Chhodi Ghatti, the forest handed over the shift to its nocturnal residents. A Large-tailed Nightjar called from somewhere beyond the trees, its voice hanging in the darkness, followed by the sharp, sudden bark of a Kakkar (Barking Deer) echoing through the valley.

The mountains sound different at night.

Less visual. More instinctive.

You stop looking and begin listening.

By the time I finally turned in, the day had given me everything except the pheasants I’d started out chasing — a reminder that in the wild, the best moments are often the ones you never planned for.

Day 3: “जो होगा, देखा जाएगा।”

24th May | Chhodi Ghatti to Van Serai (Jageshwar)

My eyes opened at 4:00 AM.

By 5:00 AM, I was standing by the roadside in freezing mountain air, wrapped in mist and questionable life choices, waiting for a bus that wouldn’t arrive until 6:30.

The wait was cold, slow, and mildly miserable.

The journey that followed made it completely worth it.

The road to Jageshwar was easily one of the most breathtaking stretches I’ve travelled in the Himalayas — endless curves through forests, valleys opening unexpectedly around bends, mountains layered into the distance like they had been painted there on purpose. Some roads don’t just take you somewhere; they quietly remind you why you chose to travel in the first place.

I reached Artola and trekked the remaining stretch to Van Serai.

The lodge felt instantly welcoming — simple rooms, no televisions competing with the silence, excellent Satvik food, and a warmth from the staff that made the place feel less like accommodation and more like someone’s home.

And then there was Gabbar. The resident dog.

Within an absurdly short amount of time, he had appointed himself my personal escort, emotional support system, and full-time shadow.

I spent part of the afternoon in the yoga room — mostly because it happened to have the strongest Wi-Fi signal on the property — finishing some pending work before heading out toward the temple trail.

Somewhere along the walk, I came across a tiny roadside ‘टपरी’ (Tapri) sitting alone against the enormous backdrop of forest and mountains.

Running it entirely by himself was a young boy named Ritvik.

Mountain people are natural storytellers, and this kid wasted absolutely no time firing questions at me with the confidence of a seasoned interviewer. I ordered a steaming plate of Maggi and a glass of fresh Malta lemonade while we spoke.

Standing there, watching this young boy manage the place alone in the middle of leopard country, a thought slipped out before I could stop it.

“अगर गुलदार आ गया तो?”

What if a leopard showed up?

He barely paused.

“जो होगा, देखा जाएगा।”

Whatever happens, we’ll see.

He said it casually. Almost carelessly.

But that sentence stayed with me for the rest of the walk.

The more I thought about it, the heavier it became. Here was a young boy standing on the edge of a wild forest, carrying responsibility with a kind of quiet courage that didn’t need announcing. No motivational speech. No drama. Just acceptance, resilience, and the practical reality of mountain life.

Further down the trail, I ran into a group of local kids playing cricket.

Naturally, I couldn’t resist. I joined in for an over before continuing toward the ancient temple complex.

Standing inside the temple, in front of the silent idol, something shifted.

Not dramatically. Not in some cinematic, life-altering way.

Just… stillness.

The kind I rarely experience in my regular life.

For a few quiet minutes, the constant background noise in my head — work, plans, timelines, distractions — seemed to loosen its grip. Time felt slower. Lighter.

By the time I stepped back outside, the sun had already slipped behind the mountains. The one-kilometre walk back to the lodge was now swallowed by complete darkness.

No flashlight.

Just forest.

As I walked through the trees, the moon slowly broke through gaps in the canopy and spilled light onto the trail ahead.

It felt strangely reassuring.

Like the mountains quietly saying — you’re fine, keep walking.

And so I did.

One foot after another, through the dark forest, with quite literally miles to go before I sleep.

Day 4: When Safar Turns into Suffer

25th May | Jageshwar to Pangot

They say travel is supposed to change you.

This was one of those days where it mostly changed my relationship with traffic, shared cabs, and human patience.

After a quick breakfast, I went to say goodbye to my friend Gabbar, who responded to my departure with complete emotional indifference and chose, quite reasonably, to continue sleeping.

I hiked back to Artola and began what should have been a straightforward transit to Pangot via Almora and Bhowali.

Should have.

I squeezed into a shared cab for what was meant to be a routine two-hour drive. Instead, it turned into four-and-a-half hours of slow-moving, bumper-to-bumper gridlock.

A nearby temple was overflowing with tourists, and with them came the ancient Indian tradition of parking absolutely wherever the spirit moved them. Cars angled across roads, abandoned at impossible spots, creating chaos so efficient it almost deserved admiration.

And somehow, the blame for all of it would probably still end up landing on the gods.

Thankfully, my cab driver was an absolute character.

A self-described rogue from his younger days, he had spent 31 years working in Delhi, so we immediately spoke the same language — culturally, conversationally, and spiritually.

As traffic crawled forward at geological speed, he narrated stories from his past — reckless decisions, strange adventures, roads taken without much thought, and the heavy clarity that arrived years later.

There’s something deeply human about listening to someone reflect honestly on their mistakes.

Not performing regret. Just carrying it quitely.

At one point, he looked at me and dropped a line that landed harder than expected:

“अक़्ल और उम्र की मुलाक़ात नहीं होती।”

Wisdom and age rarely arrive together.

That sentence stayed with me long after the traffic didn’t.

When I finally spilled out of the cab at Bhowali — dehydrated, exhausted, and questioning several of my life decisions — I spotted a shop selling Diet Coke.

A genuine act of divine intervention.

From there, I only needed to cover a small fifteen-kilometre stretch toward Nainital.

Simple.

Naturally, it became complicated.

Apparently, local transport rules prevent outside taxis from entering Nainital, which meant absolutely nobody wanted the fare.

So there I was — backpack on, stranded roadside, slowly becoming one with the dust — while driver after driver declined.

An hour and a half later, a man heading that way offered me a ride for money.

By that point, saying yes required remarkably little deliberation.

Thirty minutes later, I was finally in Nainital.

The driver then offered to take me all the way to Pangot. I agreed, but requested one urgent and deeply important detour:

Momos.

Hot momos.

Non-negotiable.

The drive from Nainital to Pangot was spectacular — steep forests, dramatic valleys, shifting mountain light, and absolutely zero phone signal. The Himalayas have a charming way of reminding you how little your notifications matter.

By the time we reached Pangot, my body was done.

Naturally, the adventure had one final obstacle waiting.

There was a single vague signboard for my stay.

I asked a local for directions.

“एक किलोमीटर आगे।”

I walked.

I asked someone else.

“एक किलोमीटर आगे।”

I walked again.

Third person.

Same answer.

“एक किलोमीटर आगे।”

At this point, I began suspecting that distance operates very differently in the mountains.

Eventually, I discovered the problem: people were confusing Jungle View with Jungle Lore.

I had been confidently sent toward the wrong property via a brutal, unpaved road that dismantled whatever patience I still had left.

A journey that should have taken four hours had somehow stretched to nearly nine.

I checked in exhausted, hungry, dusty, and operating on the last surviving fragments of goodwill. But wildlife, as always, remained completely uninterested in my suffering.

I washed the dust off my face, picked up my camera, and headed straight to the jungle bird hide.

The forest sat heavy and still. Then, quietly, almost ceremonially, a magnificent Kalij Pheasant stepped into the clearing. My first proper Kalij after chasing them unsuccessfully days earlier. The timing felt deliberate.

Later that night, I sat down to an excellent plate of butter chicken.

And somewhere between the pheasant, the food, and the simple relief of finally being still, the day softened around the edges.

A quiet reminder that even the hardest travel days eventually give you something worth carrying home.

Day 5: The Helmet Bird & the Art of Failing Successfully

26th May | Pangot

I woke up early and dragged my sleep-deprived body back down to the hide, quietly hoping for a repeat performance from the previous evening.

The birds, however, appeared to have collectively decided against participating.

By 7:40 AM, I linked up with a local guide for a birding walk.

I had heard rumours that the legendary Long-tailed Broadbill had been spotted in the area recently.

Now, the Long-tailed Broadbill is not the kind of bird you casually expect to see. It’s one of those almost mythical birds that birders talk about in lowered voices — colourful, bizarrely beautiful, and frustratingly elusive.

So I kept my expectations firmly grounded.

No premature optimism. No emotional investment.

Just cautious hope.

Naturally, the forest ignored all of my emotional planning.

We didn’t just find one.

We found an active breeding pair.

A proper, unbelievable lifer.

The famous little “helmet bird” itself.

For a few moments, everything else quietly disappeared — the tiredness, the early wake-up, the lingering travel fatigue. It was just the broadbills, impossibly real, sitting there in front of us.

Then came the photography.

Or, more accurately, my heroic attempt at failing successfully.

The lighting was terrible, the distance was unhelpful, and my shorter lens was fighting a losing battle against reality.

The photos didn’t come remotely close to doing justice to what I was looking at.

But wildlife has a funny way of teaching you that not every victory needs photographic proof.

Some sightings live more honestly in memory than on a memory card.

Later in the morning, I spotted a Maroon Oriole — which, under that particular lighting, seemed deeply committed to looking absolutely nothing like its own name and more like a bird-shaped patch of darkness.

Back at the property, I rested for a while before trying my luck at the lower hide in the afternoon.

It quickly became apparent that this particular hide catered more to mammals than birds.

Unfortunately, forest mammals possess a remarkably advanced understanding of timing and had collectively decided that appearing in the middle of a hot afternoon was beneath them.

My wildlife ambitions for the afternoon quietly collapsed.

So I walked down to the village market instead.

And ended the day with an unexpectedly excellent plate of veg momos. Not something I would normally get excited about, but that evening it felt perfect — simple, and surprisingly comforting.

Not every successful wildlife day ends with perfect photographs.

Sometimes it ends with a rare lifer you couldn’t properly capture, an empty hide, and a plate of momos that somehow tastes better than it has any right to.

Day 6: Learning to Speak Bird

27th May | Pangot

Today was a masterclass in patience.

Thanks to my friend Kenny, I spent hours learning the subtle, strangely beautiful language of bird behaviour — how birds feed, how they cautiously approach water, their invisible social hierarchies, and how the entire mood of a space changes the moment a human steps into their perimeter.

Not quite Dr. Dolittle levels of communication. But for the first time, I felt like I was beginning to understand fragments of the conversation.

I sat incredibly close to a small watering hole, completely motionless, simply watching the quiet machinery of the wild at work.

Who drinks first? Who waits? Who gets chased away? Who arrives confidently, and who approaches like every movement could be fatal?

It was deeply grounding.

Before this trip, I don’t think I fully appreciated how much drama, courage, politics, and structure can exist inside a single patch of brush.

The patience paid off.

I managed some beautiful, clean shots from both the upper hide and the restaurant hide — the kind of photographs that feel earned rather than lucky.

After a solid, unapologetically desi breakfast, the accumulated exhaustion of the past week finally caught up with me.

I slept through almost the entire afternoon.

No alarms. No guilt.

Just deep, peaceful unconsciousness.

When I woke up, I wandered back down into Pangot village — a quiet little settlement of barely fifteen houses.

I ordered a comforting bowl of पहाड़ों वाली Maggi and sat watching the slow rhythm of village life move around me.

No rush. No noise.

Just mountains doing what mountains do best — operating on their own timeline.

Then came an unexpectedly joyful discovery.

A tiny village shop had cans of Diet Coke sitting quietly inside the fridge.

I bought it immediately.

Then I bought another one to carry back to the resort, because some opportunities in life deserve decisive action.

The evening ended with Kenny, absorbing photography lessons, stories, and small pieces of hard-earned field wisdom.

Somewhere between the birds, the conversations, and the Diet Coke victory, I found myself feeling quietly grateful — for the learning, for the company, and for the rare privilege of slowing down long enough to actually notice what the wild has been saying all along.

Day 7: Camera Traps, Macros & Rain-Check Rumours

28th May | Pangot

The day began slowly, carrying a quiet undertone I couldn’t ignore.

Kenny was heading back to Delhi. Which meant my final day in Pangot would be a solo operation.

The slow morning atmosphere didn’t last long. Suddenly, the valley erupted with sharp, frantic Langur alarm calls — urgent, unmistakable, the kind of sound that instantly pulls every nerve in your body to attention.

Leopard. Somewhere close.

We scanned the treeline, eyes moving across shadows, branches, and every suspicious patch of vegetation, waiting for the forest to give something away.

Nothing. The ghost of the hills remained committed to its reputation.

I went for a cautious walk along the perimeter afterward, half hopeful, half aware that optimism and leopards rarely work on predictable schedules.

No luck.

Before Kenny left, he wanted to set up a camera trap to monitor the leopard’s nighttime movement around the property. I tagged along.

What followed was less “cool wildlife technology” and more several sweaty hours of clearing vegetation, positioning equipment, adjusting angles, and wrestling with small but deeply irritating technical problems.

Eventually, after enough troubleshooting and mutual stubbornness, the setup was finally live.

While Kenny worked on the cameras, I wandered off experimenting with macro photography on my phone — tiny mushrooms, beautiful butterflies, textures on leaves, insects, damp bark, the miniature universe living quietly beneath eye level.

The results were unexpectedly beautiful.

A reminder that forests don’t only reward you when you’re chasing large predators.

Mountain logistics, meanwhile, continued their long-running commitment to emotional instability.

Kenny’s cab got delayed. Then lost. Entirely.

Which meant more waiting, more uncertainty, and goodbyes stretched awkwardly across extra hours neither of us had planned for.

When I finally watched them drive away, the silence landed a little heavier than expected. So I headed straight to the upper hide.

Partly to practice some of the tracking techniques I’d learned over the past few days.

Partly because sitting quietly with birds felt easier than sitting alone with sudden emptiness. It turned out to be surprisingly therapeutic.

By dinner, the social circle had quietly rebuilt itself. I met two great guys — Sid and Sach.

Sid was already an experienced birder. Sach, meanwhile, was a dedicated street photographer who had never really paid attention to birds.

Naturally, I took this as a personal challenge.

The evening turned into an enthusiastic crash course in birding — alarm calls, behaviour, tracking, why tiny birds somehow become capable of consuming your entire personality once you start paying attention.

By the end of it, we had talked ourselves into a late-night stakeout at the lower hide.

High optimism. Questionable planning. Excellent intentions.

We sat in complete darkness for nearly an hour — silent, alert, waiting for something furry to make a dramatic entrance.

And then, right on cue, the weather decided to contribute its own opinion.

The skies opened up. Rain.

Immediate, decisive, unapologetic rain.

The stakeout collapsed. No leopard. No mammals.

Just three disappointed humans retreating through the dark back toward their rooms.

Sometimes the forest says no.

Sometimes it says no very loudly.

Day 8: The Return

29th May | Pangot to Delhi

The long road back to Delhi had begun. But before the mountains disappeared completely into the rear-view mirror, I made one final stop.

One last bowl of पहाड़ों वाली Maggi.

It felt non-negotiable.

There’s a particular kind of melancholy attached to eating a familiar meal when you know you’re leaving a place behind.

You eat slower. You linger longer. You try, somewhat unsuccessfully, to stretch a few ordinary minutes into something that lasts.

The Maggi tasted exactly like it always had.

Warm. Simple. Comfortingly familiar.

And somehow, on that morning, it also tasted a little like goodbye.

As the road wound downward, the mountains slowly began surrendering themselves to distance. The misty peaks faded. The forests thinned. The crisp mountain silence gradually gave way to traffic, horns, notifications, and the familiar metallic noise of city life reclaiming its territory.

Delhi was getting closer. The trip was ending.

And I found myself replaying fragments of the past week — wrong buses, bird hides, alarm calls, camera traps, leopard rumours, mountain cricket, roadside wisdom, failed photographs, shared meals, and people who had quietly become part of the journey.

Travel doesn’t always give you answers. Sometimes it just rearranges your perspective a little. Makes you notice different things. Ask slightly different questions.

By the time I rolled back into Delhi, I was exhausted, mildly scammed, occasionally rained out, carrying more laundry than dignity, and running mostly on residual mountain air.

But the hills had left their mark. The taste of the mountains still lingered somewhere in memory.

And, like most journeys that matter, I suspect I left a small part of myself behind in those quiet forests – still sitting somewhere beside a bird hide, listening for movement.

What Stayed With Me

Eight days. A wrong bus. Mountain cricket. Rare lifers. Failed photographs. Leopard rumours. Too much पहाड़ों वाली Maggi. Not enough sleep.

Looking back, this trip didn’t give me answers so much as perspective. The wild teaches quietly — patience from birds that refuse to appear, humility from missed sightings, and resilience from mountain people who face uncertainty with a simple, “जो होगा, देखा जाएगा।”

Somewhere along the way, I realised that birding, like travel, is really about learning to notice. To slow down. To pay attention. To accept that the wild doesn’t owe you a performance.

I returned to Delhi with photographs, stories, and the feeling that some part of me was still up there in the mountains.

As Ruskin Bond wrote, “The mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve; they are the cathedrals where I practice my religion.”

After these eight days, I think I finally understand what he meant.

Acknowledgements

Edited by Neha Sinha

Photographs by Nakul Aggarwal