Mussoorie

We reached Mussoorie around 4 o’clock. Although we saw the youth hostel
on the way we weren’t sure if they provided accommodation and it was a
bit far from all the places we wanted to trek to. At the bus stand an
agent approached us asking if we wanted rooms and then led us to a
nearby hotel where we got a large room where the 4 of us could stay. The
Russian asked if a room warmer was available. It was, at ₹200 extra. We
went for it and that decision was a lifesaver as you will soon come to
know.

By then the Sun was going to go down and we didn’t
want to waste that day by not going anywhere. I calculated the distance
to various places we could go to and settled on going to Everest house.
The distance could be covered on foot in about an hour said Google Maps.
But that hour easily stretched into two. I’ll write about how
GPS-enabled/dependent our treks were in a later post.

We
did get lost once and reached a high-security hotel with dogs that
would look like they could rip you apart. But we retraced, walked, and
stomped our way forward. At about 800m to Sir George Everest House you
reach this cafe called Seagreen. It was really dark by then and so we
decided to go to the Everest House first and then go to the cafe on
return even though we were really hungry and hadn’t had any food (I had
promised my travel mates that there were so many restaurants on the way
where we could eat from, but turns out the map is different from
reality). Here, two dogs joined us on the upward climb.

The
climb is steep but there is a clear unpaved path upwards and although
it was dark we had enough moonlight to see our way. The dogs – we named
them Schwanan (Malayalam for dog) and Hillary. We were so late that the
tiny shops on the sides which would sell soft drinks and noodles were
closing down one by one. It was still wonderful how there were people
running such shops everywhere. Schwanan was leading the way at times and
at other times slowing down to catch up with Hillary who was trailing.
But I realized that day that these were probably the descendants of
those very same dogs which gave Sir George Everest company when he
climbed that hill to set up his house on top.

And then
we reached the house, quite literally at the top of the hill and at the
edge of the land. But to call it a house would be a mistake because all
that remained were a few walls which have now been written over with
names of couples inside huge ❤ symbols.

And then there
was a surprise. There was light! There were the Himalayan mountains far
away glistening in red, orange, and all the colours of the setting Sun.
The horizon was a rainbow between the starlit dark sky and the snowy
white mountains. We were the only people there, the last trekkers of the
day. The 4 of us and Schwanan. Hillary had gone away somewhere else.

We
spent only about 15 minutes on the top because we were hungry, it was
getting cold, it was getting darker, and we had taken enough panoramas
and selfies and timer shots. On the way back, we had to intermittently
shine a fridge market torch one of us had to make sure there were no
snakes or holes. And we did stop here and there to look at the stars and
make out random constellations that didn’t even exist.

As
we had decided we took a break at Seagreen Cafe where we had a large
pizza and hot coffee. More importantly they had a room warmer which
worked on coal maybe and we took a lot of warmth from it. Working on his
tablet was a fellow traveller who was spending some time in North India
before flying to Scotland to meet his girlfriend. We waved him goodbye
and walked back, trying and failing to hitchhike. On the long way back
which felt shorter, the 3 of us who were Malayalis sang some of our boat
racing songs to keep us going faster. When we got tired, the Russian
taught us his marching songs too. We reached our rooms and slept
peacefully with the warmer first on, and then off.

This is where warmth comes from

For
next day, I had decided that we would trek to a “Tibetan Buddhist
Temple” which looked good in photos on Google Maps. We woke up early,
had breakfast and started walking. We weren’t even a kilometer down when
it started to drizzle slightly. We walked on till the rain got heavier
and we had to find shelter in a building on the roadside. As we stood
there we tried to find a hike to the temple but unfortunately it was too
early in the morning and there were no vehicles going that side. The
rain gave in slightly and we continued to walk. checking off landmarks
to make sure we were on the right path. But then, all of a sudden there
was heavy downpour and our woollen clothes were absorbing all the water
like a camel at an oasis. We tried taking cover again, but by then we
were so wet and so close to the temple on the map that we decided to
brave the rain.

There was ice on the road. It was a
hailstorm. There was water everywhere. Our shoes were wet despite our
best attempts to not step on water. And the hail was hitting us hard
too. Anyhow we reached the Buddhist temple. Like the rain wasn’t enough,
the temple was closed that morning. We could not go inside, but we
could take photos from outside and see the valley. As I was trying to
take a picture of the temple, I realized to my horror that my fingers
were getting so cold that I could not bend them to click. It was the
case with everyone. We were going to die probably while still searching
for an open cafe to buy some warmth.

This was everywhere!

But there was a
saviour. The language teacher of a Tibetan school there was going to
Chandigarh in his car. And after removing all the hailstones from his
car’s windshield he was willing to drop us back to the city. We jumped
in and he turned the AC on to full heat, dropped us near our hotel, and
we ran to our rooms after thanking him and wishing him a happy journey.
When we reached room we were drenched and shivering. The only warm thing
in the room was the warmer and we sat around it warming our clothes and
body in turns. The wet socks were fuming. Shoes definitely had to be
dried. The room service brought cups of tea and we had bought some
bananas on the way. After about an hour we were dry enough to pack up
and leave.

We had brunch at a nice warm restaurant just
above the bus stand. It was still raining. The Mussoorie Library were
Ruskin Bond is known to frequent was right next to us but we were in no
mood for reading. The buses to Dehradun are the same buses that come
from Dehradun. We waited for about half an hour and got our seats back
to Dehradun.

As soon as we reached the bus stand I
realized there was a train about to leave from the station – the
Dehradun Allahabad Link Express. We ran to the station and made sure the
train hadn’t left and then ran to the ticket counter which is outside
the platform and took tickets and ran back to the train and got in to
the general compartment and the train started, all within a span of ten
minutes. The compartment was full and the Russian got the taste of
general compartment journey and we alighted at Haridwar.