Mussoorie

After a whirlwind week in India, I'm now back in Kathmandu, with plenty to tell about the trip, which I will be doing in six separate posts.

First up, Mussoorie.  After flying into Delhi and spending the night there, we (Sapna, Sandhya, Supreet, Sangita and myself) left very early in the morning for New Delhi train station.  Six hours on the train and an hour in a taxi later, we were in the 'Queen of the hill stations'.  I'm not quite sure how I got it into my head that Mussoorie is off the beaten tourist track, because I couldn't have been more wrong about that.  It's been a popular retreat ever since the British colonialists designated it as a cool (literally) place to hang out in the summer.  Now it receives throngs of tourists, mainly Indians from Delhi, who are likewise keen to escape the heat.  The town itself, centred along an approximately 2km strip called The Mall, is tacky and charmless and our hotel an unfortunate combination of drab and expensive.  The thought of spending three days there made my heart sink.

My low first impressions meant that things could only get better, and thankfully they did.  The evening of our arrival we went to pick up Uzir (Sapna and Rabi's son) at his school, a little further up in the hills from The Mall, from which there were lovely views over the town and valley.  I was delighted to meet Uzir after hearing so much about him.  He's a lovely guy.

The next day Sapna and the rest of the gang had to visit family in Dehra Dun, about an hour down the hill from Mussoorie, where they were to spend the day.  I opted to stay in Mussoorie, went to the tourist office and the rest of the day followed the itinerary that the official there set for me.

That started by taking a cycle rickshaw a short ride away from The Mall to the rather charmingly named 'Happy Valley'.  The main attraction there is the Buddha temple.  The temple itself is nothing special but the location is marvelous, a half hour climb from where the rickshaw dropped me off, with really spectacular views over fir tree covered hills and, beyond that, the Himalayas.  Then it was back to the rickshaw and on to the Municipal Gardens, which, my tourist brochure informed me, used to be a botanical garden.  Before deciding to go there, I should have paid more attention to the words 'used to be' and thought to inquire what it is now.  It's now an extraordinarily tacky amusement park, full of photo touts, the most dismal looking fairground rides I've ever seen and tinned music piping that ruined any chance of at least quietly contemplating the view.  I left promptly.

The rickshaw dropped me back into town from where I caught a tourist bus to Kempty Falls, an apparently lovely and popular waterfall 13km from Mussoorie.  At first sight it turned out to be both far less lovely and far more popular than I would have hoped.  Once again, my heart sunk as the bus pulled up along dozens of other tourist buses and heaving crowds made their way down a road lined with any kind of store you can imagine that has been designed with the sole purpose of parting tourists from their money.  To make matters worse, I couldn't even find the falls or the cable bar that ran to the bottom of them, though the view of them from the bus suggested that it wouldn't even be worth it.  And I still had almost two hours until the bus back.

Eventually I found a stair way that lead up the falls and found there a number of pools in which one could swim.  Hundreds of other people had found them too and were happily splashing away.  So I climbed higher, finding more pools and fewer people.  Though I never found the total solitude that the crowds at the bottom had left me craving, I did eventually come to a lovely, relatively quiet spot, away from all the vendors, with a good view of the falls coming down over the rocks, between the trees.  There was also a very tempting little pool.  I settled down on a rock, cursing the fact that I didn't have my swimsuit whilst coming to the conclusion that the only way that I wouldn't think the trip I was a total waste of time was if I got into the water.  Paddling only got me so far.  I NEEDED to swim.  Remembering that I had a spare T-shirt in my bag, I finally worked up the courage to throw caution to the wind, stripped down to my pants and T-shirt and took the plunge.  It was refreshing, invigorating and totally worth having to go without underwear for the rest of the day.  Finally glad that I had come, I happily made my way back to the bus and into town.  And then I walked.  And walked and walked.  From the bus stop, I took Camel Back Road to the other end of town, the only alternative to walking down the Mall again.  A stroll down the Mall gives some lovely views over the vast Dehra Dun valley, whilst the road I now took is a designated scenic route with views across the mountains.  You can see the the Himalayas on a clear day.  From there I went up into the suburb of Landour.  Although only 300m from the Mall, it feels like a totally different place, having an actual bazaar of shops for local people.  Then past the bazaar and up further into the hills which, needless to say, offered more fine views.  This is a photo of Woodstock School, which Uzir attends.  As you can see, the buildings are rather spread out but it's undoubtedly a lovely setting:

And here's a view back down over Mussoorie:

The next day, the family wanted to shop and relax in the hotel, which was pretty much the complete opposite of what I wanted to do.  I wanted to walk more and that's exactly what I did.  I walked almost solidly for six and a half hours, probably covering somewhere between 20 and 25 km, taking largely the same route as the day before, first to the lookout from Gun Hill, then back to the Buddha Temple (all the time I was in the cycle rickshaw I thought about how lovely the route would have been to walk), then around the town on Camel Back Road and up through Landour into the hills, going higher this time.  Mussoorie itself is just over 2000m above sea level and I reckon I climbed another 500 or so above that.  I couldn't have enjoyed the day more.  I was glad for the exercise, appreciative of the scenery and overjoyed by the deliciously fresh, crisp and cool air.  It all bodes very well for trekking.

During the walk I had met a retired British couple and they invited me to go with them the next day to a place called Sister's Bazaar.  I had no other plans so accepted, despite not knowing what Sister's Bazaar was.  We took a taxi which climbed even higher into the hills than I had walked the day before and arrived at the place.  It was essentially a convenience store, in many ways not dissimilar to any corner store you'd find in England, with shelves stocked with Walkers biscuits and Marmite, and a proprietor who made his own cheddar cheese.  Yet there was something infinitely charming about finding such a place in the unlikeliest of locations.

And so it was that by the time we left Mussoorie later that afternoon, I had developed a much more favourable attitude towards the place and overall will have fond memories of my time there.  We made our way back to Delhi, about which I shall have plenty to say in my next post.