A virtual tour of Bhimtal and its sister lakes

In my childhood, Nainital was featured often. But never as a place I visited with my family. I used to hear stories from my cousins and neighbours about their school or family trips to Nainital. Being from a lower-middle-class family and a student of a government school, I didn’t have the privilege to take these trips. I was aware that we could not afford it, so I never even asked my parents.

However, it made me even more determined to one day take such trips with my own money. I promised myself that when I am in that position, I will never miss the chance to experience these things that all my peers did in their childhood.

Currently, I am doing quite alright in my professional life (will talk about that someday in another blog) and earn a decent salary. I have been married for over a year now. It has been our good fortune that we both love travelling and found a life partner who also loves it as much! My wife and I have taken several road trips in the past one year.

Our trip to Nainital and its sister lakes – Bhimtal, Sattal, and Naukuchiatal – is one such road trip we took, among several others, last year. In this blog, I will try to take you on a virtual trip to these gems located in the lap of Uttarakhand.

Bhimtal is a lake city named after Bhima, the charismatic mythological character of Mahabharata. Revered for its aesthetic beauty, the lake proudly sits at an altitude of 1,370 metres above sea level in Uttarakhand’s Nainital district.

Start early from your location

First, I would strongly recommend all travellers to these destinations to make Bhimtal their base. The hotels are pretty nice and it is less crowded than Nainital. Sattal and Naukuchiatal are under 10 km from Bhimtal, while Nainital is about 24 km.

If our many road trips have taught us anything, it is to start early! This time also, we did just that. We headed out from Delhi at around 6 am. Pro tip: if you are taking the Meerut Expressway out of Delhi, be careful to not miss the cut going towards Hapur. You might end up taking a long detour to get back on track if you miss this cut.

Pit stop at Shiva Dhaba

Our first pit stop was at around 9 am. We stopped by at our regular Shiva Dhaba in Babugarh Chhavni. After some hit and trial experience, we have realised that this is the best place for a meal along this route. We ate some delicious parathas and had a kadak chai to give our journey a bit of momentum. After that, we decided that we would stop only when we were genuinely feeling hungry.

However, that was easier said than done! Finding a decent restaurant along this highway after Babugarh Chawni proved to be a bit of a challenge. But we finally found a cute little restaurant called Khan’s about 30-40 kms from Bhimtal. We ordered Chicken Zafrani, Malabari Parotta, and Biryani. Obviously, we couldn’t finish everything and had to get the rest packed.

We finally reached our destination around 4 pm. We always pre-book our hotels whenever we travel and this time we had decided on Hotel Lavanya in Bhimtal. After resting for some time, we went out to have coffee. In hill stations, the roads get secluded as soon as the sun sets. Being the month of December and the temperature being quite low, we were not surprised to see that not many places were open after 5 pm. We finally found a small kids’ play zone cum cafe by the lake. We had coffee there and went back to the hotel room.

The room itself was quite nice. But what was better was the view out of the huge French windows. We had booked a lake-facing room and decided to sit on the balcony to enjoy the view for a while. But the bone-chilling cold sent us back inside the blanket quite fast! As we were quite tired and had already seen that not many places were open outside, we decided to have a light room service dinner. The hotel’s restaurant actually did a pretty good job of our simple meal and even heated up our lunch biryani!

Day 1 of our journey

Fast forward to Day 1. We had decided the previous morning that we would get an early start to the day and spend time exploring cafes and sights. But of course, it would have been a waste of a lake-facing room if we didn’t enjoy the sunrise from the balcony with a steaming cup of tea in our hands. We were up early and spent almost an hour watching the sunrise and its beautiful reflection on the lake. It looks like there were millions of little diamonds glittering on the surface of the lake.

After this, we proceeded toward Sattal. On the way, we stopped at the I Heart Himalayas Cafe for breakfast. The food as well as the vibe were really amazing. I would definitely recommend it to anyone visiting Bhimtal. At Sattal, we did a short trek to the Hidimba temple. I will share our thrilling trekking experience in a separate blog. After the trek, we went to the lakeside and had a glass of juice there. Most of the juice vendors in these parts use the special pahadi nimbu to give a very unique flavour to the beverages. We spent some time by the lake, clicked a few pictures, and then started driving to Naukuchiatal.

At Naukuchiatal, we decided to go boating and chose the shikhara-style boat. A memorable and funny incident happened at the lake, which both Prakriti and I found quite amusing. A professional photographer approached us. He said that he would click 10 pictures of us for one hundred rupees. Quite cheap, I felt! We agreed, and the guy clicked a few solos of me while Prakriti was buying Maggi and banta.

We finally started off on our boat ride. The lake looked stunning and we felt mesmerised by it. We were feeling absolutely superb, enjoying the natural beauty and calmness around us. Suddenly, Prakriti remembered the photographer. We had expected him to be in the boat with us. To our surprise, he was behind us in a separate self-paddling boat! Prakriti laughed quite hard seeing this. When she finally settled down a little, he made us pose and clicked a few pictures.

However, the funny part is that even after all this, we don’t have the photos! The photographer sent me the pictures on WhatsApp. Out of the habit of decluttering my phone as much as possible, I mistakenly deleted the chats and all the pictures along with it. Anyway, we didn’t like the photos that much. So we were not that sad. But I still spent a good one hour at least, trying very hard to find the photographer on Google while lying on my hotel bed.

Colonel’s Cafe near Naukuchiatal

On the way back to Bhimtal, we stopped at Colonel’s Cafe near Naukuchiatal for a small meal. Cappuccino and pizza. Getting such amazing pizza in quite a remote location was a pleasant surprise for us. The cafe has a great ambience and the quality of the food was also excellent. Definitely recommended for all visitors.