Majestic Mussoorie : Imperial Travel

Howsoever materialistic you thought you were, you are destined to melt. Melt into worship, melt with awe and melt with wonder! In Mussoorie you see what you came for: the glorious, the green, the strong - Himalayas.... and suddenly Your guilt vanishes! Your past is irrelevant! Your future does not matter!!!

The road from Delhi to Dehradun is familiar, indeed. I have figured that no matter what you do, it always takes 7 hours to reach there, give or take 10 minutes.  This is the time when, summer visitors thronging towards Dehradun/Mussoorie... And like all other good tourists, we also make sure our plans of noon spend in book stores/restaurants/local attractions and night merge in playing indoor games while watching beautiful lights over the hills.

Next day we started from Dehradun for Mussoorie. You’ll get many small dhabas on your way to Mussoorie. With a ravenous appetite from the fresh mountain air, we eat a large breakfast and sip coffee looking out at the pine and deodar covered hills in the foreground.

A steep rise from Dehradun, overlooking the Dun valley from the heights of the Shivalik Himalayas and existing quietly away from the maddening crowds, discovered by the British as a repose during the hot northern summers, made home by the author Ruskin Bond, lies the two-century old Mussoorie. Disruption of the ozone layer has not disrupted her.

While at Mussoorie, we enjoy hanging out at Mall road. The little Mall is very short lived. Walking down this road, you would reach the end within fifteen minutes. Keep walking till the last point and take the lane going steeply down to your right just after the point where the multinational ice-creamers Baskin Robbins have decided to magnanimously treat tourists to their thirty-one flavours of frozen delights. During ice-cream break, you can also smell nice, crisp, buttered "parathas" near by... and then suddenly you mind reminds you... Itsss Lunch time...

For book-lover like me can also visit Cambridge Book Store at the mall road, where the owner is the typical old-style bookstore owner, who is great to chat with and where the books are stacked so close together one on top of the other that only one person at a time can go through the narrow rows in between.

After lunch, we go down to see the Kemptee falls. The fall tumbles down great heights to land on the rocks below that have almost disintegrated to sand. You bend down and touch the clear, cold water, and can also raise a cupped palm full of it to your lips.

After spending magical days and glorious moments in Mussoorie, we have to return with heavy steps and a heavier heart. While coming back Again and again, I turn back to see the glimpses of the mighty Himalayas. Again and again I shiver, something tingles my cheeks and something surges through the back of my head. Again and again, Keats sings in the distance--- "A thing of beauty is a...".