Mussoorie Diaries...

Tripoto
Photo of Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India by Gayathri Iyer
Photo of Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India by Gayathri Iyer
Photo of Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India by Gayathri Iyer
Photo of Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India by Gayathri Iyer
Photo of Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India by Gayathri Iyer
Photo of Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India by Gayathri Iyer
Photo of Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India by Gayathri Iyer
Photo of Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India by Gayathri Iyer
Photo of Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India by Gayathri Iyer
Photo of Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India by Gayathri Iyer
Photo of Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India by Gayathri Iyer
Photo of Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India by Gayathri Iyer
Photo of Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India by Gayathri Iyer
Photo of Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India by Gayathri Iyer
Photo of Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India by Gayathri Iyer
Photo of Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India by Gayathri Iyer
Photo of Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India by Gayathri Iyer
Photo of Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India by Gayathri Iyer
Photo of Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India by Gayathri Iyer

Travel is about so much more than the momentary thrills, innumerable pictures and social media posts. It creates memories which bring a smile every time you think about an experience or a place. Memories, of which you will fondly talk about for years to come, to someone generations ahead of you.. could be a boat ride in the pitch dark of the twilight hours, a cup of warm yak milk in biting cold, a kind stranger on an arduous trail…or a pretty lady in an obscure village with green eyes. . . Memories that may still give you the goose bumps… that time when you missed the last bus to your next destination…. or when you misplaced your wallet somewhere, only to realise it later.. and went running to all those places again with your newly made travel friends to try your luck…to no avail and eventually went broke!

This is about my trip way back in 2013 to Mussoorie in Uttarakhand, India. Mussoorie is rightly called the queen of hills and is surrounded by the mighty Shiwalik ranges. Like Shimla, back in the days of the Raj, the British used to take shelter in Mussoorie during the warm tropical months in other parts of India. Mussoorie is that perfect place, of which you can take photos and make personalised holiday postcards … Take a look at these photos! All these were taken from a very low end phone camera.

An evening drive up from the base, Dehradun (capital city of the Uttarakhand state) to Mussoorie with the curves and bends makes a lovely picture… with the sky changing its colour every five minutes… bright blue, bright red, ink blue with a stripe of yellow and orange.

For a person living in a city like Mumbai with its incessant hustle-bustle, towering buildings and the countless people that wander its streets and train stations with a jostle … a push here.. . a shove there, Mussoorie is that envious small town where everybody knows each other, there are post-work sit-down meet-ups in a small café, bungalows with tall trees and big lawns which remind you of ghost movies, where probably you don’t need google maps to find someone’s home….. “oh its straight ahead from mall road … the red bricked house … the one with two lamp posts on each side”

Mussoorie has a couple of go-to spots like a typical Indian hill station which can be covered in a day or two. Mussoorie usually forms part of a mandatory two-day relaxing stop-over for people visiting Rishikesh and Haridwar . When in Mussoorie, you can just soak in the views of the mighty mountains from practically everywhere and just relax in a small cafés, relish the momos and maggi off the street corner, go on long walks on roads that lead nowhere, and just be by yourself in the silence of the mountains. .. no places to tick off.. no agenda.

An amazing idea would be to camp for a day or two in Dhanaulti, further ahead in terms of altitude and enjoy the snowfall amidst tall pine trees. The snowfall can get very heavy in January and February which can cause road blocks. In the December of 2013, my experience was that the day when the local newspapers reported of a snowfall in Dhanaulti, students of nearby boarding schools, people from Dehradun and visitors and locals alike, started heading towards Dhanaulti for the sheer pleasure of watching the first snowfall!

People usually visit the hill stations like Mussoorie in the sweltering summer months to escape the heat. But, in my opinion, Mussoorie is to be enjoyed in all its glory in the peak of winter, from November to February (which is technically the off-season months). Not too many people and nature at its best, having its own playtime - bright warm sun and a sharp chill in the air…. you shiver in the cold and at the same time, tiny beads of sweat trickle down your forehead on a long walk in the daytime.

Coming back to where I started, memories… for me Mussoorie will be in my heart forever, as it is one of the very few vacations I have taken with my parents (They are not too fond of travelling … this trip was a gift for finishing college, which is a once-in-a-lifetime event). As life moves on and gets busy, friends, colleagues and partners take a lot of our time and parents start taking a back seat. But travelling with parents is a fabulous experience and you take back so much memories, break away from the mundane conversations at home, have those common experiences….. the ones that will make nostalgic dinner table conversations in the years to come...