Traveling guide / Solo Travel
Exploring Mussoorie on foot: Part 1
Day 1: Reaching Mussoorie, exploring Gun Hill point and the Mall Road
This one is in continuation to the previous article, if you haven’t already please give it a read.
And the journey begins….
Being used to sleeping late, I couldn’t put myself to sleep that day as well and ended up sleeping around 3 am. I had set an alarm for 4:45 am, boy I had a sound sleep that day. My train for Dehradun was scheduled to depart at 6:45 am from NDLS, I had some hiccups at the station as the train was on the other end of the station than it was expected to be. Keeping it short, I’ll say “I was in my seat at 6:43 am.”
You know you’re lucky when you find yourself sitting with a joint north Indian family (can’t make it any more obvious). To my surprise, I fell asleep just 30 mins after the departure. Looking back I think the credit goes to the “aloo paratha” my mom packed for me.
Anyway, I got up when we reached Saharanpur, I went for a quick stroll on the platform and then again went to sleep once the train left for Roorkee. I woke up when we were close to Haridwar. At this point, I could see the Raja Ji National Park, so I decided to enjoy the view and in one hour we arrived at Dehradun railway station. I was ready with my travel pass and vaccination certificate, which sadly weren’t required anymore.
My plan was to take a bus to Mussoorie from the station but as lucky as I am, that day no buses were on time and the crowd just went crazy. The taxi stand was right there but it was INR 1300 for a cab, so I did the next best thing and started spotting a group of three who would be ready to share a cab with me. I found this guy, Himanshu, who was traveling to Mussoorie for a weekend trip with his friends, and luckily they had one spot in the car so I did a carpool to Mussoorie for just INR 300.
The journey was full of amazing views, it was one hour long and luckily that was just below my “motion-sickness throw-up time”.
No co-passengers were harmed during this journey.
I got off at the Library chowk stand in Mussoorie and it was surprisingly colder than Dehradun which is not that far. I took some pictures quickly as it was overcrowded and then started walking towards my hostel.
I always wonder how much of a different place you can end up by just traveling for six hours in India.
So I went to GoStops, which was downhill, 200–300 meters from the Mall road. Only when I thought I’ve reached the destination, the receptionist told me “Sir, we are out of beds”. I’m like “No dude, no!”. So I started walking back and I found a homestay just above the GoStops. I got a room at the same rent, not the best but manageable.
After checking in to the room, I went to explore the Mall road and my first stop was “Gun Hill Top”. I bought a ticket for the ropeway, which cost me INR 180, and hopped on to the cabin. I was experiencing ropeway for the first time. Reaching the top, the view was just astonishing. It was foggy on and off, so I got myself a masala tea (didn’t know ginger isn’t a masala). While paying for the tea I realized I had not taken the change for the ticket balance, I thought it was gone and decided to move on.
Anyways, I clicked a couple of good pictures at The Tikka Terrace. It was a lovely place. Met a trio of girls, they were from Mumbai and really nice to me. They took an amazing picture of me from the viewpoint, obviously, I took theirs as well. We had a chat and I left to explore the rest of the hilltop. It wasn’t good for me, there were activities like shooting and haunted houses but I don’t like them much. So I decided to head back.
In the ropeway I could see the famous winter-line of Mussoorie, it was truly breathtaking. While leaving the rope I stopped to see if they still had my change, lucky for me the lady was just telling the guy starting his shift that “A boy might come asking for this INR 320…” and I said, “I’m the boy!”. Walking out I said to myself, “You aren’t all unlucky after all.”
Like I had forgotten about my food while writing this article, I did the same that day. I had my second meal of the day around 6 pm, which is around my usual dinner time (I know you’re judging). I had dinner at Shahi Rasoi and had Rabri & Jalebi for dessert.
I decided to stroll around on the mall road before heading back, walked around in the chilling weather enjoying the night view of the Doon-valley for almost an hour, and then finally crashed onto my bed where there was no signal so I had to take the calls outside.
Well, that was my first day. I hope this article was helpful to you. Feel free to comment below if you have any questions or suggestions, I will be more than happy to help you. If you haven’t already please follow me, to get notified about such posts.
Read the next part in the series here
