Kumaon Hills — Nainital, Kausani, Ranikhet & Corbett

North-east across the plain and up into Kumaon, about seven hours with the climb in the last two. Nainital sits at around 2,000 m in a bowl around its lake, developed by the British from 1841 as a hill station and still built almost entirely around the water. The afternoon is the Mall along the lakeside and a boat out on it — the rowed ones rather than the pedalos, and the light in the last hour is the reason to go then.

Snow View early for the Himalayan wall to the north, Nanda Devi among it at 7,816 m, and Tiffin Top on the other side of the bowl. Naina Devi temple on the shore is one of the Shakti Peethas and is busy from first light. The afternoon drops to the lakes below the town — Bhimtal with its island, the interconnected Sattal, and Naukuchiatal of the nine corners — which are quieter than Nainital and, several travellers conclude, more attractive.

North into deeper Kumaon, around five hours through terraced hillsides and pine, with the twelfth-century temple complex at Baijnath on the Gomti as the stop worth making. Kausani sits on a ridge at about 1,890 m and exists for one thing: the view. On a clear day the Himalaya runs along roughly three hundred kilometres of horizon from Kedarnath through Trishul and Nanda Devi to Panchachuli, and Gandhi, who stayed here in 1929, called it the Switzerland of India.

Sunrise from the ridge, which is what people come for and which the weather decides. Anasakti Ashram, where Gandhi wrote his commentary on the Bhagavad Gita during that 1929 stay, is a short walk, and the tea estate above the town is among the highest in India. Then south to Ranikhet, about three hours — a cantonment town held by the Kumaon Regiment since 1869 and almost entirely undeveloped as a result, which is precisely its appeal: pine, deodar and very little else.

The morning in Ranikhet — the Kumaon Regiment museum, the Chaubatia orchards above the town where the apples and apricots grow, and Jhula Devi temple, hung with thousands of bells left by people whose wishes were granted. Then down out of the hills to the Ramganga valley, around three hours, and into Corbett for the evening. The reserve was declared in 1936, the first in India, and named for the hunter who became its advocate.

An early jeep safari into whichever zone the forest department has allotted — sal forest, chaur grassland and the river, with elephant and deer close to certain and tiger a genuine but uncommon possibility. Permits are issued by the department in your name and the zone is not something any operator selects. Then south-west to Delhi, around six hours across the plain, for an evening departure.