A Wonderful weekend at Firdaus, Naukuchiatal in Uttranchal state of INDIA

Few weeks back I was at Naukuchiatal which is a peaceful hill station in Uttranchal and near to Bheemtaal & Nainitaal. During the visit, we stayed at Firdaus and it was wonderful experience with never-ending freshness of the hills all around. Let's check out this Photo Journey to know about Firdaus and interesting things around it...

Here is the place where we spend a nice weekend - Firdaus

We started our journey from Delhi in early morning and reached there by noon. It was a decent drive except few road related issues on the way. Best way to reach Naukuchiatal from Delhi is to take train to Kathgodam and then 30-40 minutes drive. Drive from Kathgodam to Naukuchiatal through Beemtaal is beautiful...

After reaching the place and parking the car, we moved towards Firdaus we were about to spend the weekend. I was very excited about it, as I love spending time in hills :) Here is the view of Firdaus from Parking place. Firdaus is actually surrounded by hills. It's front part faces the lake & an international school on hill top. Generally it's located at a peaceful place with no disturbances. Clouds at Firdaus on that weekend were quite welcoming & slowly we realized that it's a usual stuff there...

After keeping all the stuff in rooms, we came out for a cup of tea. There is decent place outside with green lawn surrounded by colorful flowers and plants. Above photograph is processed a HDR in Photomatix, as it's quite challenging to capture hilly details in one shot and I didn't want to miss the cloud play here.

Firdaus Lawn is best place to have tea. During the weekend none of us wanted to tea inside the rooms. Either it was lawn or balconies. Weather around this place was wonderful !

Initially I wanted to capture this frame without face, but Nandan turned back as I was about to click. This is one of my favorite photographs form this trip. This one really shows the mood while having tea at Firdaus.

Here is a zoomed view of Naukuchiatal (Lake) from Firdaus. This one is shot through some of trees around Firdaus and there is another photograph which shows Lake-view from balcony on first floor.

After some tea outside, it was time to have some rest and gear up for exciting evening around the place. As I entered again, somehow I felt like entering a different pace. Probably this time I was more relaxed and noticed many things inside.

Here is what we see as we enter from main gate of Firdaus. There is a common seating place on entrance with nice sofa, some comfortable muddhas.

On right side of living room, there is kitchen separated with a door and dining area around the corner. Firdaus looks like a typical Hilly House, which we usually see in Bollywood movies. I loved the wood-word inside - Roof-tops, huge windows, furniture etc.

On left side of the living room, there is a huge room with double bed & table-chairs etc. This room is quite big and an extra bed can be comfortably fit inside it.

Here is how we see living-room from this room on ground floor. Now, it was time to go up and explore more.

Stairs from living room on ground floor leads to a common lobby on first floor. There is a balcony attached to this lobby. Above photograph shows view of lake and surrounding hills from the same balcony.