Travel style · Kumaon
Food and tea in Kumaon
Wazwan, momos, thukpa and first flush
Food trips through the Himalaya: Kashmiri wazwan, Ladakhi skyu, Himachali dham, Garhwali mandua, Newari feasts, Darjeeling tea tastings and Bhutan's ema datshi. Cheap, filling and the fastest way into a culture.
Photo: Travelling Slacker · CC BY 2.0 · CommonsMountain food is built on what grows high and keeps through winter: barley, buckwheat, millet, potatoes, dried cheese and meat, apricots and walnuts.
Kumaon is the eastern half of Uttarakhand: lake towns near Kathgodam, the old Chand capital of Almora, oak sanctuaries like Binsar, the stone temples of Jageshwar and the Johar valley at Munsiyari. Go March to June or September to November. Five to nine nights by train, shared jeep or private car covers the best of it.
Trips
Food and tea trips in Kumaon
Photo: Travelling Slacker · CC BY 2.0 · Commons
Saver
Almora, Binsar and Jageshwar on a budget
Shared taxis and jeeps, with two shared private-cab legs
Photo: ParthaPratimNath · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Commons
Saver
Hostel trail: Mukteshwar and Kasar Devi
Shared taxis and jeeps
Photo: Skalvanov · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Commons
Signature
Kumaon in depth: lakes, orchards and oak
Private car with driver
2 places
Where to go
Photo: Travelling Slacker · CC BY 2.0 · Commons
Almora and Kasar Devi
The Chand kings' capital, bal mithai and the pine ridge of Kasar Devi
Photo: Abhijit Kar Gupta from Kolkata, India · CC BY 2.0 · Commons
Kausani
Gandhi's ridge, a poet's birthplace and a 300 km wall of peaks
Experiences
Days that fit the style
Photo: Alexkom000 · CC BY 4.0 · Commons
Kasar Devi and the Crank's Ridge walk
Climb to the Kasar Devi temple, where Swami Vivekananda meditated in the 1890s, then walk the pine ridge beyond it that…
Photo: Ikneet · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Commons
Lal Bazaar food walk: bal mithai and singori
Walk Almora's stone-paved Lal Bazaar from end to end, tasting bal mithai, singori in its leaf cone and Kumaoni snacks, …
Photo: Enjoymusic nainital · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Commons
Chitai Golu Devta and the Katarmal sun temple
Two very different temples within 20 km of Almora: Chitai, hung with thousands of bells and petition letters to Golu De…
Photo: Kinkhab · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Commons
Sunrise and silence at Anasakti Ashram
Watch the peaks light up from the garden of the house where Gandhi stayed in 1929, then see the small exhibition on his…
Photo: sushanta mohanta sin… · CC BY 3.0 · Commons
A walk through the Kausani tea estate
Walk the tea rows on the slopes below Kausani, see how leaf is picked and processed when the factory is working, and bu…
Photo: Shikharsaxena1618 · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Commons
Baijnath temples in the old Katyuri capital
Drive 17 km down from Kausani to Baijnath on the Gomti river, where a group of stone temples marks the old Katyuri capi…
Where to sleep
Stays in these places
Photo: Abhijit Kar Gupta from Kolkata, India · CC BY 2.0 · Commons
Budget
KMVN Tourist Rest House, Kausani
Kumaon Mandal Vikas Nigam's rest house on the Kausani ridge is one of the cheapest ways to wake up facing Trishul …
Photo: Travelling Slacker · CC BY 2.0 · Commons
Luxury
The Kumaon
A small, design-led hotel on a terraced slope at Kasar Devi above Almora, with stone and timber chalets facing the…