Pauri

Pauri, the district headquarters of Pauri Garhwal, sits high on a forested ridge at about 1,650 m, looking straight across the deep Alaknanda-Nayar valleys to one of the finest snow-peak panoramas in the Garhwal Himalaya — on a clear morning the wall of Chaukhamba, Trishul, Neelkanth and Nanda Devi fills the northern skyline.

• It is an unhurried administrative and market town rather than a mass-tourism resort, and that is its charm: quiet oak-and-rhododendron walks, a colonial-era hill-station calm, and a cluster of genuinely old temples.
• The Kandoliya Devta temple and its meadow above town, the ancient Kyunkaleshwar Mahadev (traditionally traced to around the 8th century), and the ridge-top Nag Dev (serpent-deity) shrines anchor its sacred map, while the deodar-shaded hamlet of Khirsu, about 20 km away, offers an even more panoramic and untouched retreat.
• The district also holds the famous Nagraja and Jwalpa Devi temples down toward the Nayar river, and the cantonment hill station of Lansdowne with its Bhulla Tal lake.
• Pauri is a hill town where food is mixed, so vegetarian travellers should choose clearly pure-vegetarian bhojanalayas and sweet shops; Garhwali vegetarian staples are the local flavour.
• Best visited March to June and September to November for the clearest mountain views, with crisp, cold winters; it lies about 150 km from Rishikesh by road, a scenic if winding drive of five to six hours up through Devprayag and Srinagar.