The Vale Profound

Hike-able, likeable and historical Naikana village is home to the comfortable Kot Naikana by Mountways homestay, discovers Manek S. Kohli

- Manek S. Kohli

I wandered lonely as a cloud / that floats on high o’er vales and hills…”

Just like William Wordsworth, who begins his poem Daffodils with these lines, I started my trip pondering upon the loneliness that comes with being alone amid hilly meadows and silent among birdcalls and whooshing gusts. However, my March visit to the slopes of Uttarakhand took me to a quaint-yet unique village filled with gregarious folk. As I stayed there, the poem continued in my head—“When all at once I saw a crowd / a host, of golden daffodils…” I wondered, perhaps, Wordsworth speaks of a literal flower, but also intends for us to find company in nature, and ourselves.

I reached Naikana village (1,940m), which lies about 35 kilometres east of Almora town, on a spring afternoon. My route was fringed with trees bearing pinkish flowers that danced with the breeze, as if chuffed to fruit apricot, peach or plum the next month. The village, though, was in a slightly arid region. I wasn’t exactly headed to the main hamlet either—my destination lay on the opposite hill, at the seven-month-old boutique homestay called Kot Naikana by Mountways, run by the bubbly Dinesh. This 30-something fellow does not belong to these parts, but going by his knowledge of the place, he might as well have.