Nainital by Road

Can someone tell me is it good to go to Nainital by road from Delhi(Gurgaon) at night? Or which is the best time to travel by road to Nainital?

Want to go to Nainital by Aug 1st week.know it will be rainy

i would love to leave Delhi at 04.00 am so as to reach Nainital by 11 am. road condition is very nice (vis Bazpur-kaladhunghi)
in Aug expect rains anytime...

thanks Tilak for the advice...even i'd love travelling in the dawn...

Pardon my ignorance is it shorter going via kaladunghi compared to going via rampur haldwani ? Becoz both my earlier trips to nainitaal from Delhi have been via rampur haldwani !!

Yes....

yep, its short by 35-40 kms...

ummm... can you expand on that for outdated people like me? wasn't that stretch full of causeways? and is the road comparable to the rampur-pantnagar segment? uk grade road as i call it.

agree on the timing though, maybe more like a 3am. is the truck line menace still a traffic issue during the sugarcane season (not august obviously). one place that sticks out in my mind is simbhaoli.

tia.

Mountainlad, road conditions are generally pretty good there now. Although daytime traffic, especially on weekends, makes one wonder sometimes if one is still in the city.

still its very better than the usual Highway... less traffic and green fields on both sides makes the ride smooth... and if one leaves Delhi around 4 am then i doubt he will apply brakes except halts of his wish...

thanks captain and tilak for your responses. can you elaborate on this newly improved route via bazpur and kaladhungi? resembled a kutccha road back in the day. so you split off nh24 at moradabad, and go via swar, tanda et al? would appreciate a detailed response on the time reduction, road/traffic conditions aspects vis-a-vis the traditional rampur-bilaspur-rudrapur-pantnagar route.

Road to nainitaal via kaladungri is amazing. I have been many times through that.Lush green fields and water crossing the roads.After crossing moradabad bypass road turn towars the ramnagar road (jim corbett)instead going towards rampur.u will find this journey amazing. Prefer early morning hrs. to enjoy beauty there because a lot of flyovers r under construction between delhi to moradabad.No doubt, many of them r operational now.

Hey ml,

That must really have been BACK in the day. Bazpur-Kaladhungi (onto Haldwani) has been in very good condition for years now (Uttarakhand, you know). That left the UP section in what can only be described as sh.. condition (and I mean SH.. - this was 2004). But since about 18 months UP has got its act together, on one route that is (the Darhiyal one - I think it's because of all the Delhi-Nainital traffic).

Now read this post.

Done? Good.
As you can see, Tanda and Swar are on different routes - Tanda is before Darhiyal, for Swar you have to go to Rampur first. The routes meet at Manpur Uttari (that's the Manpur being referred to in the other thread. There's another Manpur south of Darhiyal - I believe that's why the a.m one has the tag 'Uttari').
The Darhiyal road as mentioned is in good condition now, the Swar road as far as I could tell (Aug-Sep last year) was still in bad condition.

Yes, if you're familiar with Got Doraha at the end of Moradabad - you turn left there, go upto a place called Sirsavan Doraha. Straight goes to Kashipur, turn right for Darhiyal (no worries, there's a signboard). If coming along the Moradabad Bypass (NH), there's a U-turn at the end with a signboard pointing to 'Jim Corbett Park', you take it to arrive at Got Doraha. But early morning it's no problem to come through the city - and save 30 bucks in NHAI tolls in the process .
The detailed route should read like this:
Via Got Doraha-Sirsavan Doraha-Manpur-Tanda-Darhiyal-Manpur Uttari-Bazpur-Nayagaon (left for Ramnagar)-Kaladhungi .

There are causeways here and there, but I wouldn't call it full. Frankly, the only one I can remember is the one on the Boar at Chhoti Haldwani, because it's in the most scenic setting (name-dropping with a vengeance aren't I? But I think you won't mind, you must have been fed a diet of Corbett in childhood as well . Then again, you might be resenting me bringing back memories of yore, what with you at least 40 hours away ).

The traffic is a lot less than on the Rampur-Rudrapur road, one reason being the long-distance and other state-owned buses don't use it. I'd say you can easily save 45 mins to an hour getting to/from Nainital. (Don't tell anyone, but I clocked 140 kmph early morning south of Kaladhungi when coming back )
Btw, you don't need to go upto Pantnagar on the a.m route, 7 km north of Rudrapur there's a point called Tanda Mor (yeah, North India is full of Tandas and Kandas), from where a road leads direct to Haldwani.

amazing post/info Dilliwala...

...

Sure is, considering what has happened (and is happening) there in the last 15 years. Man, do I get awed sometimes at how quickly things have changed; and it is not long since I was doing the bone-shattering ride in a baking/freezing UPSRTC tin can from undergrad school to home on vacations. Reaching Gajraula from Kashmiri Gate was cause enough for celebration.

Minor nitpick: the most prominent water body seen during the ride from Kaladhungi->Barapathar is Gularbhoj reservoir. Check here. Nanakmatta is way to the east of Gaula, and is usually not visible from that route. Your best bets for viewing Nanaksagar are from Sher ka Danda (or maybe the Observatory).

DW, DW, you leave me wordless with your updates to my thoroughly antiquated bearings...

Owe you one next time I'm @28N 77E.

Corbett, Baur, Chhoti Haldwani... I can almost smell the "chulhe ki roti" at the Kaladhungi PWD pad. Guess by now the guy (or his son) probably cooks it on an LPG stove; reminisces, reminisces...

But on second thoughts, places like Kaladhungi and Haldwani are nowhere near what they once were. You could still smell Corbett's world there till the early 90s. Now the eye sees just brick and mortar sprawl, all the wide green spaces are gone. The lesser said about the smells the better.


Sure enough, the one via Belbaba and Jitpur. I had mentioned Pantnagar for people who are not DW . So how many other Tandas are there apart from the Tanda (forest range), and Tanda (town/village near Swar)? The only Kanda I know is near Bageshwar. Any others? Fill me in.

p.s.: so you think the Dariyal route is better if one is heading to places north of Bhowali from Delhi?