A friend!

I finally left Bir on the 5 Dec and headed back to Delhi to meet my pal Meurig at the airport - a welcome friend with which to wrap up my year! 

We only had two and half weeks (which isn't a lot of time to explore even a fraction of this vast country), so we didn't spend long in Delhi (and didn't want to spend long in Delhi!) - just enough time to find some camping supplies and organise a taxi to take us back into the Himalayas; this time to Uttarakhand and our first stop in Nainital - a popular lakeside hill station in the Himalayan foothills. 

Its a pretty town with a very touristy main drag, but a lot more interesting in the old bits of town with the locals. We ended up spending much longer than we'd planned there however: India struck and we were both laid low with a case of Delhi belly. We were a bit bored after a few bed ridden days in Nainital and having worked out a plan for a trek, we summoned the strength to move on to Bageshwar.

Got to know this view too well...

Bageshwar is a small town at the confluence of 2 rivers, with a lovely market and no tourists. India can be a challenging place when your ill (not much to eat when you don't fancy a curry!) and the choices in Bageshwar were even more limited. We had a good movie channel in our guesthouse at least. 

Another few rest days were required there before we felt strong enough to undertake a 6 day trek to Pindari Glacier.