Next morning, we start from Delhi to Corbett, home to Jim Corbett National Park. This has been extremely renowned for its jungle animals especially the tigers. The kids were looking forward to seeing some animals up close and personal. As soon as we reached out of Delhi and into Ghaziabad district, we regularly came across bad stretches of road till we reached the NH which till Moradabad was a dream. The nightmare began when we had to cover the last 90 odd kms. to Corbett and had to take a deviation from the highway. First, there was a massive jam on a narrow road where construction was on. That caused us to lose a good 45 minutes, and then the stretch of road was so bad that for the sake of life, limb and vehicle, one had to do dead slow. The 60-km stretch took us over 2.5 hours. We were exhausted and angry, and the road was so bad that all trees and vegetation had turned black with the rising dust and sand from the pathetic road. We cursed Mayawati all along whose smiling face is there on the entire horrible stretch. The driver had some horrifying tales of his own to narrate. As we touched Uttarakhand, the roads magically became fine, and we managed to reach our resort by 3.30 pm. We also bought some really tasty apples and guavas here. Tired and famished, we attacked the food which was super awesome. Home cooked in UP style with hot phulkas, it was heavenly :). The other outstanding element was the extremely good service and courtesy of this tiny resort called “Corbett Serenity.” Definitely recommended if you visit here.
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| Lovely Corbett Falls |
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| Another view |
We were then told that for the safari, one requires to fill some form for permission with ID proof for which my husband had to wake up at the ungodly hour of 3 am. What was meant to be done in a jiffy took 3 hours of his precious sleep time! All excited about the safari, we started at around 6.30 am and were in for a huge disappointment. Except for a couple of exotic birds, deer and a sambar, we did not see any animals. It was such a waste of time! Are there any tigers there or are they a myth now? The jungle though was lush and green and cold. So, I guess to see animals we should have gone to our local zoo or better still the National Park close to our home in Bangalore. Thoroughly disappointed we came back, had a wonderful breakfast and headed out towards Nainital. Thank God, no UP roads to traverse on this stretch! On the way, we visited Corbett Falls, the only redeeming feature of the trip to Corbett. The spring water was so fresh and tasty that after a long while I drank unfiltered water and even filled some in a bottle. It was crystal clear! After spending some time here, we started our trip to Nainital and the steep mountain roads that were almost 40 kms. The roads were pretty good but had to be traversed carefully. Ah! we reach Nainital, it is as beautiful as I remember it from the days of my childhood…
I would recommend skipping Corbett when you plan your itinerary and preferably take a train till Nainital unless you want to rattle your bones on Maya’s roads. I originally belong to UP and was saddened to see the terrible state of infrastructure and apathy first hand.
Rachna says 
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