I booked a private taxi back down to Haldwāni from Kasar Devi through Rainbow restaurant for a very reasonable fee (around £20). I couldn’t face another bus journey; this was the start of a few days on the road and I wanted to conserve my strength. There were no objections from Tim. I made the right choice. The journey, which should have taken around 4 hours, took at least 6. It would have been more like 10 on the bus.

The delay started before Kainchi Dam Ashram. This is the ashram of Neem Karali Baba. His picture is all over north India from little shops to people’s cars. Ram Dass, aka Richard Alpert, an American spiritual leader, was a disciple of Neem Karali Baba. He wrote a book that was popular among the hippies called ‘Be Here Now’ and hung out with Timothy Leary.

I recommend an interesting article in the ‘New York Times’ by one of Ram Dass’s ex disciples, Christopher Fiorello, who attended him at his death https://search.app/kgZg3t3EWrF54Ge4A.

The hippies may all be dead or in nursing homes by now, but Neem Karali Baba and his followers still seem to be wildly popular in India. There was an enormous queue of people waiting to get into the ashram and a traffic jam snaking for many miles along the winding mountain road. I noted a public information sign: No race, no rally, enjoy the valley’; chance would be a fine thing!

We finally reached Haldwani, which was hot and polluted after Kasar Devi. Tim managed to direct our driver to our hotel, which was in a rather out of the way location. As they didn’t serve food and we couldn’t face leaving the hotel, I downloaded the Zomato app which delivers food everywhere in India. We spent our entire time in Haldwani ordering food to our room and recovering from the journey.

Our coach from Haldwani to Delhi was booked for 2:30pm the next day. Although not quite as bad as a local bus I would not describe it as luxurious. I felt like I was slowly driving into a post apocalyptic landscape as we got closer and closer to Delhi. Even in daylight the sun was struggling to pierce the thick clouds of pollution surrounding us on the road. We were in traffic jams for the majority of the journey. Thankfully for my bladder, we had a pit stop at a service station after about four hours.

We finally arrived at Delhi Kashmere gate around midnight, four hours late. I say Delhi Kashmere gate, but in fact the place we were dropped was equivalent to being dumped on the edge of the M25. In any case, by this time the Delhi metro was closed. I rang our hostel to let them know what was happening and they advised me to call an Uber. Neither I or Tim have yet mastered the art of the Uber app in India, so we had to throw ourselves on the mercy of the auto rickshaw drivers of Delhi, who quickly surrounded us.

Initially we were offered a ridiculous fee by a young auto rickshaw driver who could smell our desperation. Tim was then approached by an older man who could see that we were not completely stupid, but that nevertheless he could make good money out of us. Negotiations ensued: ‘No that is too much’ (acting as if walking away) ‘But it is night rate sir…etc’. Eventually a price was agreed on and we set off through Delhi, the driver giving us a running commentary on all the sights we passed, which we would have been more appreciative of in daylight.

Our hostel, when we reached it at around 2am, was lovely, with no mushrooms growing from the walls. We collapsed into bed. We had two days to brave the pollution in Delhi before heading for a different set of hills.