Kalsi 0 Mussoorie 1

Mussoorie is foamy clouds and chilly evening breeze. Mussoorie is plates after plates of hot Maggi, because you can convince yourself every time that the weather demands it. Mussoorie is small, cozy cafes with great pizzas and hot chocolate. Mussoorie, then, is like most other hill stations of the country. Which doesn't take away one bit from the fact that it is still a fantastic place for a weekend getaway - or longer, if you're lucky enough to have that option.

How I landed in Mussoorie, however, is because I planned not to go there. That's right. So when there was a 3-day weekend coming up and we started planning a trip from Panchkula (Haryana), we discussed and subsequently discarded Mussoorie because, well, it was like any other hill station - crowded, commercialized, infested with tourists. We wanted to go somewhere off the beaten track, somewhere more exotic. So we googled up options and choosing from a list of obscure places approachable by a 3 to 4 hour drive from Panchkula, settled on Kalsi in Uttarakhand. We were big on keeping the trip open-ended and spontaneous, so the deal was to decide on only the place and take off in a car on Friday morning - no fixed itinerary, no hotel reservations, no other planning in place.

KALSI

Kalsi, we read online, was serene, peaceful, and as one traveller-reviewer put it, a paradise on earth. Sounded perfect. No one, including the driver of our cab, seemed to have heard of it, which made it even cooler that we were heading for someplace totally unheard of. Now the problem with unheard of places is locating them. The problem with small, indistinct, unannounced sleepy hamlets is identifying them, sometimes even as you're passing through them. So it happened that as we approached where we thought Kalsi should be, as per Google Maps, the first passerby we asked about the place informed us that Kalsi was straight up ahead, and after driving for some 5 minutes the second passerby we asked, gently broke the news that we had already left it behind. Okay then. We had driven through the promised paradise on earth without realizing it, which did not bode well for the 2 more days we were planning to spend there. Reversing the car, we slowly traced back our steps to reach Kalsi and after getting over the initial disappointment, headed for the most famous sight of the area - an Ashoka rock edict preserved by the Archaeological Survey of India.

The dome housing Ashoka's Rock Edict

Now, I like my historically significant monuments and artefacts, but travelling four hours by road to gaze at a rock and not feel let down (later amused) required much more unconditional love for history than the four of us collectively had between us. The edict is a huge rock dating back to Ashokan times, inscribed with principles of Buddhism in Brahmi and Prakrit languages. It is housed inside a domed structure built in recent times by the ASI to protect the rock. After trying to extract maximum travel-time value from the lone edict by walking around the domed structure a couple of times, and peeking at the rock from each of the four grilled windows, and reading the ASI tablets on the edict's historical significance (once in English and once again in Hindi), and taking a stroll around the well-manicured garden within the complex, we concluded there was nothing else to do but head back, and decide on our next destination on the way. Which, as it turned out, was Mussoorie, conveniently situated at about 2 hours' drive from Kalsi.

I should confess that we could have done a little bit more in Kalsi by going to this place called Dak Patthar that we had read about earlier. But by that time, we were impatient and hungry, and a little out of love with the idea of exploring the place any more. We were promised a sleepy hamlet with 'astounding vistas, mesmerizing river-side and scintillating historical legacy'. We were sorry to not find one. Except for the sleepy hamlet part. The river Yamuna flowing through the place was down to a steady trickle amidst the nearly dry bed rock, and a few temple ruins dot the landscape where we had read about many excavation sites. Maybe the time of the year was wrong - it could've been more alluring in peak monsoons. Maybe not. The Asan Barrage right before reaching Kalsi is quite stunning, though, and offers some water sports depending on the season.

MUSSOORIE

Going from Kalsi to Mussoorie via Dehradun, we were relieved by the chilly breeze that started hitting us as the car moved uphill. We had been apprehensive that the weather may not be very pleasant (it was only the last week of September and considered off-season) so we happily rolled down the car windows. Even at 6000m height, for people with travel or altitude sickness, Mussoorie has got to be one of the most easily accessible hill stations, considering it's about 1.5 hours' drive from Dehradun, and Dehradun is pretty well connected through the railway network. We stayed at Hotel Silver Rock in Mussoorie which was pretty much the kind of place we wanted, and was located right on the Mall Road. The only thing to keep in mind is that this side of the Mall Road (the Library end) is not where the best eating joints or main attractions are. Those are at the other end of the Mall Road, about 15 mins' walk from the Library chowk and further on from the Cable Car point.
My Mussoorie recommendations:

Devdar Guest House

1. Landour: About 4 km uphill from the main mall road of Mussoorie, Landour is far less crowded and commercialized than main Mussoorie, which is weird because Landour is far more enchanting and beautiful. Tall deodar trees, fresh mountain air, that happy I’m-in-the-hills feeling, and perfect for walking trails. Go for pizzas at the Devdar Guest House, a quaint Raj-era type bungalow (and remember that their “large/family” size is indeed huge). On the way up, you can see Ruskin Bond’s house right next to a very funky place called Doma’s Inn, which was so pretty it made me wish I’d stayed there for the night, or at least had time enough to lunch there. I spent only a couple of hours in Landour which I regret now, and Landour is the major reason I’ve already made up my mind to go to Mussoorie again soon. If you have two nights to spare, I’d recommend one in Landour and the second in main Mussoorie. Also, when I read up about Landour after coming back (the only downside of an unplanned trip; apparently Facebook status updates made en route, asking friends for suggestions on what to visit or eat, can’t tell you EVERY thing), I added a few more places to my next-visit list like Pari Tibba ("Witches' Hill", suitably believed to be haunted, to boot) and a walk around Woodstock school.

2. Gun Hill: The name is a hangover from the pre-independence period when a canon stood on top of this hill and was fired at midday to signal noon. Go up to Gun Hill an hour or two before sunset (via the cable car, or walk it if you feel up to it) for some amazing views of the setting sun. Helps if the weather that day is cloudy, like it luckily was when I went there. Frothy seas of big, white clouds against beautiful pink & orange hues. And it’s the perfect weather for grabbing a cliff-edge table and ordering some Maggi, pakoras and honey ginger lemon tea. Which brings me to the next bit.

  Minutes before sunset from Gun Hill

3. Honey ginger lemon tea: Seems like a local specialty, and unless you hate ginger, you’ll probably like the unexpected masala/ginger/something-I-can’t-put-my-finger-on aftertaste that hits you after every sip. I quite dislike ginger, but this tea I loved.

4. Chick Chocolate: One word – Perfect. Just the kind of place I imagine sitting for hours in, at a hill station. Quirky menu, great food, very cool décor (framed retro movie posters, some with notes of appreciation from happy customers cellotaped on them), friendly owner lady at the counter. Their hazelnut coffee is awesome, and so is their home made chocolate (you’ve got to try the chilly chocolates, they’re quite something!). Grab a nice seat and lounge around, taking in the chilly evening air and feeling slightly heady. Savour your hot chocolate. Pick on every person in your travel group one by one and make fun of them and laugh till your sides ache. If you like the place, ask for paper and scribble some words of appreciation. Draw something, if you’re artistic. Ask for cello tape and stick the note to one of the framed posters. Do NOT, repeat not, try to balance yourself on the edge of a table attempting to reach the highest poster… it topples over, duh. But then if you’re sane, you didn’t need me to tell you this, did you. Only hitch with this cafe: the menus are all over the place. Literally. There's the main food & beverages menu stuck to the window of the counter where you place your orders (it's a self-service system), there's another more diverse beverages menu at another counter, and a third menu at the main chocolate counter closest to the entrance. Look for all of them before you make your choice or you may have pangs of regret peeking at neighbouring tables later.

Bob hangin' at
Meeting Point Cafe

5. Cheese Momos: Try cheese momos at Meeting Point Café (apparently recommended by Lonely Planet, or so the board says). Great stuff. The place is tiny but it’s got a nice look and feel to it, especially this smoking Bob Marley poster. They take their own sweet time preparing the food, though, so make sure you’re not in a hurry if you enter this one.

6. Cambridge Book Store: Small store overflowing with books that makes you wish you had time to grab a book, plonk yourself down on the floor and just keep reading. Ruskin Bond comes here every Saturday to meet readers, talk with people, and sign books. How cool is that!

7. The Central Methodist Church: Located along the Mall Road, this one's a pretty sight at night, all lit up in funky neon colours. Unfortunately that's all I can tell you since we found the church closed both the times we passed by it. We were told that it opens only on Sunday mornings for mass, and we were also told that if you request him, the church gardener sometimes agrees to open up the church and show you around... something we couldn't get him to do. Note to self: Work more on sadpuppy face.

8. Kempty Falls: This one's probably the 'sightseeing attraction' you read about on every travel site/blog/forum. This one's also the one I can't tell you much about, since we were totally out of time by the time we reached here (since we lingered about too long in Landour, but no regrets), and one of us was getting late for a train and so we couldn't stop here for more than 5 minutes. Enough to see that the waterfall is quite something - the biggest I've ever seen for sure, and how it gushes down from the heights, roaring past a couple of S-bends, ending finally in a biggish pool of water which is so far away and below that you can reach it only through a cable car. The point till where your car/feet can take you is only a bridge, closer to the  beginning of the waterfall rather than its end point. The water surges under this bridge as it makes its way down to the pool far below where, if you squint enough, you can see heads bobbing out of water and people splashing about like you see in shady water park advert billboards. You can probably make out I'm not a big fan of communal bathing.

Mussoorie is, undeniably, more a destination for tourists than travellers, although Landour manages to give it more of a rambling traveller feel. That said, if you're somewhere around this part of north India and have to squeeze in a two-day break between your hectic schedule, Mussoorie's a better bet than many others.
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All images are copyright of fellow traveller PB.