Travellopedia Blog: Travel to Nainital - Part I (Budget hotels and travel info on Nainital)

Nainital, the land of lakes............

The name itself signifies the same. The word Naini means the beautiful eyed goddess and stands for the goddess pArvatI who is said to have been associated with the place, and the word tAl means lake.

It is located in the North Indian state of Uttarakhand. It has two parts, Mallital and Tallital, each located in the opposite ends of the Nainital Lake. The main bus terminus is located in Mallital and Naina Devi Temple, Gurudwara etc. are located in Tallital.

How to reach: (rather how we reached)

By rail: By Ranikhet Express from Old Delhi railway station. Departs at 10:45 pm and reaches Kathgodam, the last station in the north eastern railway broad gauge line at around 6 am, the next morning.

From Kathgodam, a 3 1/2 hour journey along the road embellished with natural sceneries leads you to the place I am talking about.

This is the most convenient mode of transport, as far as this place goes.

By Air: The nearest airport being Pant Nagar (70 kms from Delhi). But Delhi and Lucknow (in Uttar Pradesh) are better connected Airports. So, it is most prudent to reach one of these places and then by train.

By road: From Delhi, it is more 300 kms. This can be tiresome for few people. So again the conclusion is "go the rail way using the railways".

We traveled around September time during the rainy season from Delhi. We reached Kathgodam and were traveling from there to Nainital in a car. We thought that rain would be the only hurdle to cross before reaching the destination. But that's not all. We were to face the music of................

"the landslide."

We came to know that they have been created due to heavy showers the previous night. There was total panic for a moment. But then there also was excitement and an adventurous feeling in me to cross the hurdle packed with stones - rocky as well as lots of smaller ones. These rolled down to the road from the mountains flanking one side of the road and blocking the entire way (You can see above that they have rolled down from the left side of the road). So while crossing, we had to ensure that we cross over unscathed and also not be hit by a rocky one and fall down the slope on the right side of the road that leads to the "hell below". People coming from either side confirmed that there were no such problems anywhere else on the way.

The locals seemed to have lot of experience. There were cars standing on both sides of the blockade. On one side were those who were going to Nainital and on the other side were those who were coming back from. The stones weren't piled up to the same height and extent everywhere. Some parts of the blockade were just muddy and had lesser stones. One could cross over with less difficulty. When we found that there were no stones falling for some time, people would cross over and the cab drivers would also follow suit with the luggage. This cross over happened from both sides. Then the tourists got into the cars waiting on the other side. Then the cars drove to their destinations, (and so did we).

We couldn't book accomodation in advance as none of the hotels accepted the same. There are so many hotels that one can get when one reaches there.

Accommodation: Hotel National, Mallital Road, Nainital. Very near to the Nainital lake and good accommodation. Go for deluxe accommodation because ordinary rooms had a toilet which was on sharing for two rooms.

Food: The most important thing. I wouldn't recommend ordering from the hotel. There are restaurants located in close proximities to the hotel, that serve tasty and good quality food at lower rates.

Some of these that we found were:

Anupam Hotel: Serves Veg as well as Non-veg. High quality. +91-5492-236417. One gets to listen good devotional music, if you are a music lover. From National Hotel, we had to cross the lake to the opposite side either by boat or in a rickshaw along the road encircling the lake.
Vaishno Dhaba. Pure Veg. This is well known for homely food at reasonable rates. This is in mallital bazaar.
Opposite to this Dhaba is Shivalik Restaurant which serves Veg as well as Non-veg food which can be a third compromise.

Visits on the first day:

The main attraction of the place is the main Nainital lake itself. Most of the tourists make it a point to visit this lake first in first. In any point of moment, one can find maximum number of tourists here.

The first day passed on with the visit to Nainital lake.

The Nainital lake: