Lakes, Jungle & the Queen of Hills, 6 Nights

Your driver meets you at Pantnagar airport or Kathgodam station and the road starts climbing almost at once — ninety minutes of bends to the lake. Check in, then take the evening as Nainital intends it: a slow rowing-boat circuit of Naini Lake, a look into the Naina Devi temple at the northern shore, and the Mall Road at lamp-lighting time.

The ropeway runs you up to Snow View for the Nanda Devi panorama before the haze builds — go early. The rest of the day loops the lake district by car: Bhimtal with its island aquarium, quiet Sattal ringed by seven small lakes, and Naukuchiatal of the nine corners. Back in time for a walk on Thandi Sadak, the shaded, traffic-free side of the lake.

A two-and-a-half-hour descent through oak and pine to Ramnagar, on the edge of India’s oldest national park. Stop at the Corbett Museum in Jim Corbett’s old bungalow at Kaladhungi, then check into your riverside resort. The evening is the Kosi riverbank and the Garjia Devi temple on its mid-river rock; safari documents are checked and briefed tonight.

Wake in the dark, tea in hand, and into an open Gypsy at the Bijrani or Jhirna gate as it opens. Three hours of sal forest and grassland: spotted deer, sambar, wild elephant with real luck, and the tiger if the forest decides so — nobody can promise that, and we never will. The afternoon is yours by the resort pool or on a guided village walk along the Kosi.

The long driving day, and it earns its keep. Out through the Terai farmlands to Haridwar in time for lunch and an hour at Har Ki Pauri, where the Ganga leaves the mountains and the ghats fill with lamps. Then up past Dehradun into the last thirty-two bends to Mussoorie, arriving as the lights of the Doon valley come on two thousand feet below your hotel.

Kempty Falls first, before the crowds arrive, then the ropeway up Gun Hill for the Himalayan line on a clear day. The afternoon is the better Mussoorie: the flat Camel’s Back Road walk, and the deodar lanes of Landour above the bazaar with a pause at a hundred-year-old bakery. The Mall Road, lit and loud, closes the evening.

A last mountain breakfast, then the ninety-minute descent to Jolly Grant airport or Dehradun station for your onward journey. Leave three hours of margin for the hill road — it is generous, and generosity is the correct policy on mountain departure days.