Ranikhet and Nanital

I think I left off with leaving Tungnath behind. As we left, I pulled out my camera to take one more picture and it wouldn't turn on. I tried new batteries but no dice... my camera had apparently died in the night. :(

So these pictures are from Matthew's camera (thanks Matthew!)

Our next stop was Ranikhet. which could mean Queen's meadow or queen of the meadows. Our guidebooks assured us that the Ranikhet club was the place to stay for old world charm and people. it's one of those old timey places that supposedly still has a dress code.

And sure enough, here's the board posted outside to prevent guests from "being embarrassed by the staff" 

And here are the other guests...

Nope, not in the dining room.

they weren't in the billiard's room either, or in the library or lounge.

Hello? Hello?!!

Really, we were it. It was pretty disappointing. I was hoping to step back in time to play billiards with mustachioed military officers that called each other "chap" and instead it was like a ghost town.

We did enjoy the scenic walks, however. And there were many beautiful churches although most of them have been re-purposed for other uses. The war widow's woolens factory where women weave scarves and shawls was the former Presbyterian church. It also houses a bank.

This was the catholic church but it's still used by the Catholics. We were there Sunday morning and saw quite a few people in the pews.

From there we moved on to Nanital. There we hiked, ate some good food and some mediocre food, visited the high altitude zoo, and we enjoyed views of people boating out on the lake.

Nanital is built around this beautiful lake. The water was amazingly clear.

You could see fish several meters down in the lake. I even wondered to myself, "wow, this lake is very clean. I wonder how they did it."

Fast forward a few days and I'm on the train to Delhi to pick up my friend Becky and I end up by happenstance sitting next to this man. This is Professor Harsha Sinvhal from the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee.

He teaches earth sciences but he also does consulting work with the Indian government on lake restoration. Apparently he was part of the team that helped to clean up the lake in Nanital. How cool is that?!

He's also an Aggie dad... his daughter got her master's at A&M University. Whoop! It's such a small world.

He was very nice and kept me entertained for most of the six hour trip to Delhi. Then he helped me to get to the metro station to catch the train to the airport. That's another story for another day, however. 

But thank you Harsha! Hopefully we will meet again before I leave India.