Nainital: The Sacred Eye of the Himalayas
Seven green hills hold it like cupped hands. 2,084m / 6,837 ft. Northern India's most loved lake town sits right there in the valley. Locals call the hills Sapta Shring: Ayarpata, Deopata, Handi Bandi, Cheena Peak, Alma, Lariya Kanta, Sher ka Danda. Worth knowing if you want to sound like you've been around.
Old story goes like this. Lord Shiva danced the Tandava, Sati's burned body across his shoulders, and her left eye, the Naina, dropped right here. The lake took its shape from that eye. Emerald, oval, mountain fed. And on the northern bank in Mallital, the Maa Naina Devi Temple marks the spot where it landed. Shiva Purana tells it. The priests will tell you the same.
P. Barron, a British sugar trader, wandered in during 1841. Hill station fever caught on fast. By the next decade Nainital was the summer capital of the United Provinces. Now you've got colonial bungalows, a Mall Road that buzzes all evening, Tibetan stalls selling trinkets and woolens, and forests crawling with birds at altitude. Boating, cable cars, the works.