Way to Jim Corbett

We were back after watching super boring "Tanu weds Manu" on Siso's recommendation. Back home while having dinner over few drinks Siso mentioned about planning a trip to Vaishno Devi in coming weekend. We got to know that next day was holiday for Siso and I was already on vacation. So we discussed and decided to go to Jim Corbett Tiger Reserve. We left for Jim Corbett at 11:30 pm with Siso's GPS enabled phone as our guide. Few kilometers away from home we realized technology is not always helpful when the aunty from the GPS system made us make 2 full circles to bring us at the same spot. That is when we decided to not follow aunty's instructions.

We hit NH 24 and by around 2 am, just before Moradabad we met a long queue of trucks, with no way to pass them. Finally we managed to cross the long queue and got confused by the policemen, who had blocked the entry of heavy vehicles on the flyover. So, instead of taking the flyover, we took the by lane. When we reached the turn that connected to the the road we missed, we were met by few policemen blocking the entry. Following conversation followed:
Me: Hume Nainital jana hai. Ye rasta kyon band hai?
Policeman: Lekin ye rasta to band hai.
Me: Lekin upar se to chalu hai. Gadiyan ja rahi hain.
Policemen: To tum yahan kaise aa gaye?
Siso: Wo trucks ko nahi jaane de rahe. Hum galti se trucks ko follow karte hue idhar aa gaye.
Policeman 2: Theek hai idhar se nikal jao.

And we managed to come back on NH24 again.

Few kilometers ahead, we stopped at Choudhary Highway Tourist Dhaba and there we had awesome tandoori parathey and tea. We spotted a unique college behind the dhaba. Well, that was the name of the college and also Ahsan Para Medical College. Not sure students yahan padh ke teachers pe ahsan karte hain ya fir it's other way round.

At this moment Siso decided to consult his GPS system and aunty told us Nainital is 387 Kms ahead. At this point Siso said, "aunty pagal ho gayi hai." Next mile stone told us that Lucknow was 321 Kms from there. Aunty ne pata nahi kahan ki distance calculate kar li thi.

Finally when we took the turn to Jim Corbett, it was around 4 AM and we were almost 60 KMs away. We thought we can make it there by 5:30 AM and go for 6 AM safari. Lekin khuda ko kuchh aur hi manjoor tha. We again met long queue of trucks and this time there was no way we could cross them. On inquiry we were told that the jam will be cleared by 2 in the afternoon. At this point following conversation followed betweem me and Siso,
Siso: "main wapas jaa raha hun."
Me: "abbey pareshan mat ho, koi dusra rasta bhi hoga."
Siso: "arrey dusra rasta nahi hota. ek hi chadhai hoti hai."
Me: "aise kaise. delhi to kitni saari directions se enter kar sakta hai."
Siso: "nahi. hill stations me aisa hi hota hai. ek hi rasta develop karte hain. Mount Abu me aisa hi hai."
Me: "abbey mount abu me hota hai to iska matlab duniya ke sare hill stations me same hoga kya."

We found out that there was an alternate way via Rampur. That somehow got Siso excited.

Siso: "arrey Rampuri to chaaku hoti hai naa."
Me: "haan, filmon me to yahi dikhaya hai."
Siso: "abbey sahi hai. ab agar hum jim corbett nahi pahuche to wapas jaake kahani suna denge ki hume rampur me dakuon ne rampuri chaku dikha ke loot liya."

At this point we realized, we were driving on such a bad road and I pointed out that we are in UP and all the budget to develop the road has been consumed by more important Mayawati's statues. I told Siso, "priority samajhte ho?" Siso was cursing the road and UP government so much, I am sure next day Mayawati would have woken up with swollen face and viral fever.

From Rampur, we had taken left turn to NH 87, which was leading towards Haldwani. On the way we did not find any mile stones about Jim Corbett, however all the mile stones informed about the distance and direction towards Nainital. That got Siso worried. May be his Mount Abu formula was not valid for Nainital and may be this way was leading to Jim Corbett via Nainital. So we decided to ask the way to Jim Corbett at Bilaspur. People there were clueless when we asked about Jim Corbett. I think aisa angreji type naam un logon ne pahli baar suna tha. (we were only 60 KMs away from Jim Corbett). Finally one intelligent person suggested, "Newspaper wale se puchho, use pata hoga." To this I told Siso, "chal yahan se. jis gaon me sabse samajhdaar aadmi akhbaar wala hai wohan hume kuchh nahi milne wala." We drove on.

Finally we stopped at Haldwani for tea and there we asked the way to Jim Corbett. We were told that we will have to go to Ramnagar for that. Ramnagar-Rampur got us little confused but we managed to reach Ramnagar. Since we had no idea about what, how, where; we drove on NH 121 and finally stopped at one of the gates of Jim Corbett. It was 9:10 AM. At the inquiry counter there, we were told that next safari will be at 2 PM and we will have to go back to Ramnagar for that. The guy at the inquiry counter gave me contact number of Chandan, who will do that arrangements for us.

We reached Ramnagar, met Chandan and gave him our name and ID details. It was 10 AM and we were to meet Chandan again at 1:30 PM. We decided to eat something. We went to a place which claimed to serve food. The menu at that place even claimed to serve chatpata indian. I couldn't take any risks and asked for maggie. Siso settled for cheese sandwich. The guy who was taking our orders made me repeat the order 5 times. Looks like nobody before us ordered cheese sandwich there. We ate whatever they served. We then got a room for 3 hours to rest. Siso went to sleep. I kept awake playing solitaire.

At 12:30, we left the room and went out to eat lunch. The menu there inspired by IPL categorized foods under Delhi Deardevils (not Daredevils), Mumbai Indians and Chennai SuperKings. We ordered food, it was unexpectedly decent. Then we left to meet Chandan at our agreed spot at 1:20 PM.

For the pics refer SmokerJoe's facebook page.