Knowing that the trip from Rishikesh to Mussoorie involved not just my first real taste of Indian public buses, but also a change of bus in a town I'd not yet visited, I set off from my guest house at about 10:30. Not too late, but not too early either. It was only about 45km to Dehra Dun, and then another 35km or so to Mussoorie. I knew the latter part of the journey was supposed to take 1¾ hours, which seemed reasonable as the bus has to climb over 1400m along a series of hair pin bends. So how long could the first part of the trip, on the flat, possibly be? Answer: nearly three hours! This was mostly because of a nasty snarl-up at a village near Dehra Dun: roads too narrow, with too many buses and trucks trying to squeeze past each other. In typical Indian fashion, no-one was giving an inch, resulting in gridlock. I bit my tongue so my fellow passengers wouldn't hear what I thought of their compatriots' driving skills.
After having to wait an hour and a half for my connecting bus, I finally arrived in Mussoorie at about 5:30pm, just half an hour before dark! At this point I congratulated myself at having decided to treat myself to slightly more upmarket lodgings than I'd had in Haridwar and Rishikesh. At over 2000m above sea level, it gets cold in Mussoorie, and my room at my hotel was not only large and comfortable, it was warm despite a lack of any visible heating system: the thick stone walls of this former colonial home retained the heat of the sun accumulated during the day. There is a sizeable Tibetan community in the hill country: dinner that night consisted of tibetan momos and noodle soup. Plus beer. Hooray, finally free of religious constraints I could have a beer. Not that any of the 'bars' (if you can call them that) in Mussoorie had any atmosphere to speak of. At this point I wasn't too bothered.
I spent the next couple of days happily just wandering around and taking in the amazing views to be had all around. Mussoorie is perched on a ridge high above the city of Dehra Dun below. Although the two are 35km apart by road, you can clearly see Mussoorie from Dehra Dun. And at night, the city lights illuminate the valley floor, providing a fantastic view from Mussoorie that you can't appreciate during the day because of the direction of the sun and all the smoke and haze that accompanies any Indian city.
On my last day I took a bus tour out to the village of Dhanolti and the mountain-top temple of Sukhnanda Devi. The latter sits atop another high peak, at over 3000m above sea level. Getting to it involved a steep walk up a good path, ascending probably 300m or so. Now I know I'm not amazingly fit but I found this climb incredibly hard work. Hopefully this was due to the altitude rather than the state of my health! At the top, ceremonial bells hung from gateways leading into the temple complex. I felt like I'd earned the loud ringing I gave them as I staggered to the summit!
From the top, the views were even better than those I'd appreciated in Mussoorie, or from the window of the bus as it careened around hair pin bend after hair pin bend, causing at least one of the Indian tourists aboard to be sick out of the window (classy). I could even see snow covering distant Himalayan peaks to the north.
After Mussoorie I had to stay a night in Dehra Dun to catch the 6am 'express' train back to Delhi (on which I am killing time by writing this post!). I have decided to rename this city 'Dehra Dump' as it seems to be terminally choked with traffic and completely bereft of redeeming features, apart from buses and taxis to Mussoorie, and buses and trains to Delhi.
Changing the subject completely, I've decided to spend most of my last week in India in Goa. I fly there tomorrow (Saturday) afternoon from Delhi. It should be a bit of a change of scene from North India, and it will be the last chance I get to get some beach action before the summer I guess... the cold climate of Mussoorie and around provided a nice break from the heat of the plains, but I'll have all the cold weather I want once I'm back in the UK...!
Robin
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