Alan discovered Nanda Devi Mandir (“mandir” means “temple” in Hindi) during his first week in Almora, before I came to join him in India. We returned to this temple time and time again while staying in Almora, and now that we are living in a nearby village, we visit Nanda Devi whenever we’re in town for shopping or errands.
The Bell Temple – properly known as the Chitai Golu Devta Temple – is just a short walk from our guesthouse, and it’s a wonderful place to visit: full of tradition, incense and of course, the ringing of bells. (I wear earplugs.) Continue reading
After arriving in Bageshwar yesterday afternoon from Almora, we were tempted to climb up to Chandika Mandir, a beautiful temple sitting atop one of the peaks that mark Bageshwar’s location at the confluence of the Saryu and Gomti rivers.
But after nearly four hours on a bus, with a speaker directly over our heads belting out Hindi film music, we really needed a nap. So we walked around Bageshwar for an hour or so, ate lunch, and had our rest, planning to make our Chandika Mandir visit the next morning.
We’ve spent nearly a week in Almora, more time than I might have imagined we’d want to spend in a town of perhaps 36,000 people whose most famous monuments are mostly outside the town.
Rambulatory 