I awoke around 9 in the morning in the cold room of my guesthouse at Kasar Devi, outside of the small town of Almora in the foothills of the Himalaya Mountains of northern India, just west of Nepal.

From the balcony of my room there were stunning views of the series of craggy, snowy peaks that were just a day’s bus ride away. I dragged myself out of bed and into the chill air, pulled on several layers of clothes and then went to the main house, where the family lived, and got a hot cup of water in my metal mug for a steaming cup of herbal tea.

The plan for the day was to visit the Katarmal Temple, which was about ten miles outside of the town of Almora. I hadn’t heard of it until a couple of days before, and it wasn’t mentioned at all in my guidebook. But I’d come across a story about it in the India Times (India’s nationwide English language newspaper), which made it sound worth visiting. And considering that it was fairly close by, I figured getting there and back would make a good adventure for the day.

After tea and then splashing some ice water from the faucet on my face (both hot water and heating in your room are hard to come by in India), I packed up my daypack and headed out the door with an empty, growling stomach. I’d made a routine the past several mornings of having breakfast at a small chai stand on the road into Almora, where they cooked up excellent omelets. But I also figured that if a jeep taxi came along that was headed into town, I’d hop on and get myself into town, since the jeep taxis were sporadic. It was about five miles from Kasar Devi into the bustling town of Almora. But it could take 20-30 minutes since it was a winding road, and they stopped constantly to pick people up and drop others off.

Just as I was approaching the chai stand, visions of omelets wafting through my brain, a jeep taxi came along. I decided to go for it. I crammed myself into the back seat, as a thought crept into the back of my mind: “I wonder what this winding road is going to do to my empty stomach?”

We made our way along the narrow, forested ridge of Kasar Devi, with amazing views on both sides looking down into the deep, wide valleys of the Himalayan foothills. I quickly started to feel queasy as we wound around tight curves. We stopped several times to pick up others, so that soon enough people were sitting on each others laps. Riders paid a flat rate per person, so the driver made more of a profit the more people he could squeeze in.

At one point we turned left, where I knew from having taken the route before that we should have gone right. I managed to figure out (no one in the jeep spoke English) that we were going a different way into town, in order to drop someone off along the way. My stomach was getting worse and worse. I usually didn’t have much of a problem with motion sickness, because I knew not to hop on a bus with a stomach full of sweets, or directly after a big meal (due in part to previous puking experiences). But the empty stomach scenario (other than the tea) was something of an experiment. I wasn’t quite feeling like I was going to throw up yet, since there was nothing at all in there to purge anyhow. But I was feeling increasingly horrible in a general sort of way, and desperately wanted to get out of there, especially considering the crammed space. I would have been happy to get out and walk the final mile or two into town. But since it was an unfamiliar route, I wasn’t sure how far away we were. I knew of a good restaurant in Almora, and just wanted to get there and get something into my gaping hole of a belly. The ride went on and on and on, because we’d taken the long way. In all, it ended up taking almost an hour.

I survived the jeep ride, but crawled out of it wanting to crawl right back into bed and forget of any vaguely adventurous plans. I felt completely drained, physically, mentally and emotionally. I stumbled down the main street of town to the restaurant I had in mind; then took a seat at one of the tables and just sat there for a good ten minutes, waiting for all the swirling in my stomach and my head to slow down. Then I ordered a vegetable omelet and toast with butter. When it arrived I ate slowly, testing each bite to make sure it was going to stay down.

After finishing breakfast, and contemplating it for a good little while to make sure it was all going to stay there, I began to return to normal. Part of me wanted to head back to my room and just take it easy for the day. But that would have meant hopping in another jeep right away and taking that same winding route back up to Kasar Devi. Instead, I resolved to continue with the plan and go find the temple.

After walking around the bustling town and taking a few photos, I wandered down to the bus station and found a bus headed for the nearby town of Ranikhet. Apparently the temple was somewhere on the way there, and then you had to walk about a mile from the main road. I was counting on the bus-hand to know where it was and tell me where to get off. (On Indian buses there’s always the driver as well as a helper who takes money, issues the tickets and answers any questions. This is definitely a good thing, because it leaves the driver free to focus solely on the driving.) But he gave me a quizzical look as if he’d never heard of the temple, which was entirely possible since it wasn’t that famous of a monument. Fortunately a man sitting across the aisle, who spoke pretty good English, said he knew of it and would tell me where to get off.

A half hour or so of winding road later (much easier on the stomach since, for one thing, buses don’t whip around the corners as fast as the jeeps, and besides my innards now had something to gnaw on) the man indicated to the bus-hand and the bus came to a stop, at a dusty dirt road that curved up from the main road and out of sight. I hopped off the bus. No one else was around. There was only a very small, rusty sign, all in Hindi, which I assumed (or at least hoped) indicated that this was the way to the temple.

I started hiking up the road in the warm sunshine. Pretty soon I had to take off a layer of clothing. After twenty minutes or so I came to some men sitting around a table at a funky little chai stand along the dirt road, which at that point was narrowing into a path.

Namaste.” I said (“Hello“ in Hindi, the language of northern India.). “Katarmal Temple?” And I waved my hand up the path the way I was headed.

Ha,” they all said, nodding their heads in unison. (No, they weren‘t laughing at me, as “ha” means yes in Hindi.)

The path wandered past an assortment of village houses with laundry hanging out to dry, a few children running around, the odd cow or chicken about. Soon enough I came within sight of the ancient temple, situated on a point looking out over the wide valley that the bus had driven through on the way there. I could see some of Almora clinging to the side of the mountain off in the distance.

There was no fee to visit the temple, and the only people there were a few workers who were doing some renovations on a new entrance gate to access the site. The temple wasn’t overly impressive by Indian standards, as it was fairly small and simple. But it was still very beautiful and definitely spoke of a very different time from hundreds of years ago. There was one main temple building surrounded by dozens of pillars and small shrines, all of which were constructed in the same gray sandstone, carved in a distinctive style I’d seen elsewhere in India. One of the young workers came up to me and offered to open up the inner shrine of the temple, where there were candles burning and flower necklaces draped over tiny stone carved statues of some of the Hindu gods such as Shiva, Krisna, Vishnu, Laxmi and Nandi, Shiva’s bull (which is the reason that cows are revered in India).

After taking some pictures and enjoying the spectacular view for a while, I headed back down the hill to the main road. Then I started walking along the road towards Almora, since I’d seen a few things from the bus that I wanted to get some photos of. A few buses passed but I was fine with walking for the time being. After a couple of miles my legs started to get a little weary, so I took a break at a sunny spot on the side of the road and waited for the next bus to come along, which didn’t take very long.

I hopped off that bus a little ways before Almora, at a road that connected with the other road going up to where I was staying at Kasar Devi. I figured I’d walk up to that road, and then flag down the next jeep that came by.

It was all uphill from there, but my legs were feeling pretty good after taking a break on the bus. So I made it up to the main road in good time, which the jeep taxis would be coming up. Then I continued up that road, looking back every once in a while for one of the jeep taxis. The problem was, none came along. Or else if they did, it was when I was distracted taking pictures. At least I knew that, if no jeeps came along, it was doable to walk all the way back to my guesthouse from there. But, I’d done quite a bit of walking already that day. And did I mention that it was all uphill?

I continued winding my way up the road as it started to get dark and also chilly. I stopped and put back on the extra layer of clothing I’d taken off earlier, then continued walking. I started to wonder if it really was only 5 miles from Almora to Kasar Devi, because it was starting to feel like I’d walked that distance already, and I still had a long ways to go. Finally I came to the same junction where, that morning, the jeep driver had gone left instead of right and taken the long way into town. At that point I knew that I was more than halfway there, and also the steep grade mellowed out a bit. But my legs were definitely wearing down, and a few more miles of walking was sounding like a long ways still to go. I was also starting to get hungry, and my mind was fast forwarding to that moment of finally taking a seat in a restaurant near the guesthouse, with no more walking for the day and a hot Indian meal on the way.

I tried to flag down a few regular vehicles, without any luck. At that point it was fully dark. I came to a convenience store of sorts, and as I walked past it I saw a few good snacks on the shelves. So I stopped and loaded up on an assortment of goodies for lunchtime during the next few days. As I was waiting for the shopkeeper to calculate the bill, another Westerner puttered up to the store on a motorbike, stopped and then came up to the counter and talked with the owner in English. I recognized his Israeli accent, which is probably the easiest accent to pick up.

After paying for my goods, I continued up the road in the darkness, plastic bag of snacks in hand. At least I knew I wouldn’t starve. A couple minutes later, the Israeli guy came along on his bike and passed me. Before he had disappeared down the road, however, I saw him turn around. He came back down the road towards me, and I was thinking to myself at that point: “Man, I sure hope he turned around to come back and offer me a ride!”

And sure enough, he did. I climbed onto the back of the seat and hung on as we sped along through the cold, glimpsing the snowy peaks of the Himalaya mountains gleaming faintly off in the distance, and the stars overhead through the trees. It took longer than I’d expected to ride back to where the guesthouses were. I was glad as hell that I was walking it.

He was in fact Israeli, but lived most of the time between the U.S. and India. He had an apartment in another guesthouse, right down the road from mine. He was going to stop and use internet on the way, at a restaurant that I’d seen before but hadn’t tried yet. He recommended the restaurant, so I figured I’d hop off there and have dinner, since it was a short walk back to my room at that point.

But the internet was down, and after taking a quick glance at the restaurant, I was considering going back to my usual place since the restaurant looked a little on the spendy side. So he offered to give me a ride the rest of the way back down the hill.

As we were climbing on the bike, though, he said, “You know what? I’ve got all this extra food over at my apartment. If you like, you’re free to come on over and I’ll cook you up dinner. It’s actually halfway done already. I just need to heat up a few things…”

One of the chapters in my book of travel stories is titled “Never Turn Down a Free Meal”. Besides, Israelis are almost always interesting characters and good company. So I took him up on the offer. We continued along the road for another five minutes or so, passing my guesthouse, and then turned down a driveway about fifty meters later to his.

His spacious apartment had a novel thing: heat. What a relief, especially after hanging on the back of his motorbike with the chill air rushing past. He cooked up an amazing meal of brown rice, steamed vegetables, tahini and an assortment of other healthy dishes. He had been living there for the past several months, but was leaving the next day. So he wanted to get rid of the last of the food in his fridge.

He was indeed an intriguing character, who was deep into news and politics and especially conspiracy theories. We discovered we were the same age, or rather I was older by just a couple of months. The meal hit the spot big-time, and it sure was amazing to rest my legs after however many miles I’d ended up walking that day. After finishing off the delicious meal, we hung out in his toasty living room and bullshitted through the evening. Finally I headed back to my refrigerator of a room; where I crawled deep into my sleeping bag and under three or four blankets, and thankfully called it a day.

For some budget traveling tips and suggestions, including a complete list of things to bring while traveling, visit Gabriel’s “Travel Tips” page on his website at: http://gabrieltraveler.com/tips