Traveling guide / Solo Travel
Exploring Mussoorie on foot: Part 3
Day 3: Exploring Landour, Lal Tibba, and Mall road
This one is in continuation to the previous article, if you haven’t already please give it a read.
Day 3
The next morning I woke up to another amazing morning view from the balcony. I jumped straight out of bed to get ready and leave. My stay at this homestay was until today, so the homestay owner checked me into his other homestay, it was one kilometer downhill from the previous one, which was a considerable hike towards the Picture palace on Mall road.
My plan was to have breakfast at Char-Dukan, Landour. I left my room at 9 am and started heading towards Landour. The first 2 Km were super steep, like a 200 meters hike from the base. I reached Picture palace around 9:15 am. From there the road was not that steep for a while, at least till the Landour clock tower. So I kept walking, I reached around 10:05 am at Char-Dukan. And if you haven’t already guessed, it is literally “Char Dukan”: “Four-Shops”.
I had a Bun-omelette there, bought myself mango juice. The omelette was good, could have been a little better but I was too hungry to care about it. Char-Dukan was just on the side of the St. Paul’s Church, so I clicked a couple of good pictures there. There was a small park sort-of setup, I relaxed there for a while enjoying the warm sunlight and watching a dog doing the same. At 10:30 am, I started walking towards Kellogg’s Memorial Church but there was some truck offloading work in progress, so I kept walking towards the Landour Bakehouse. I had heard a lot about this place, moreover, I was craving a dessert after that spicy omelette. The road was super scenic, and I was the only one walking there, hoping that monkeys don’t show up. Singing songs with poorly knit lyrics I kept going. I saw a landslide on my way, I’m glad it was cleared up already.
Finally, I reached the Landour bakehouse around 11 am. Oh, God! I can still smell that the freshly baked bread and hot coffee from that bakehouse. I couldn’t choose which cake to try, lastly, I went for the one which I had never tried before. I’m so glad, I chose the Walnut Coffeecake. It was so dense and that I couldn’t finish it in one attempt. So I had to sit there for another ten minutes before trying to finish it again. It was totally worth it (damn I want it now). I clicked a couple of good pictures there, then walked out to explore what else was there. There was only one gift shop, but the view from the point 100 meters ahead was nothing short of breathtaking. I stopped there for a while and then turned back to the way to Kellogg’s Church. Walking back I met these two girls, strangers (at this point), they asked me for the way to Landour bakehouse. I gave them the directions as well as my new favorite dessert’s recommendation. I continued on my way alone, thinking how lucky they are to have each other to travel with.
I reached Kellogg’s church in 10 minutes, to my disappointment, it still wasn’t a clear shot because a couple was doing their wedding shoot. So I waited, and waited and then finally got a chance to take a couple of pictures. I could see there were two ways from here, one going uphill and the other one going down. I decided to go uphill, couldn’t go too far because a security personal stopped me saying “It’s a Defence Department restricted area”. I came back and started walking the other way. It was so amazing, me walking alone on the road, no music, no noise… just me and my thoughts, my crazy thoughts about that cake I just had and the momo which I wanted to have today.
I walked about 1km and finally reached the Lal Tibba scenic point cafe, to the contrary opinion I believe it is not the highest place in Mussoorie. Confirming with the property owner, the place is the highest commercial property, also it gives you a 360 view of the beautiful mountain range. I stayed there for a while, ordered tandoori momo which was a disaster and I left them as it is. Walking out, I ran into this friend’s trio who asked me to click their pictures. I clicked a great photo (they said it, not me), and they even clicked one for me with their Java bike. Even though I don’t know how to ride one, I surely know how to fake one for the shot. I took the road towards Char Dukan and started walking, trying to get over the worst momo experience by far. On reaching Char Dukan, I rested for a while and bought myself another pack of mango juice.
While heading back to Mussoorie, I ran into the same girl duo and asked them about my recommendation. Turns out they were from my city only and they both were doctors. We started chatting, and you remember how I was ranting above about the long up hike to Landour, guess what it didn’t feel long at all while coming back. I have always been curious to know about a doctor’s life, we talked about a lot of stuff ranging from life as a student to being a professional, from eating momo to jamming on DDLJ songs, turns out doctors are fun! They told me about this momo shop where they had nice momo last night, so we had a lemonade and momo from there. The conversation got a lot more serious here, making business plans for “Sabyasachi: wow wow” isn’t a plate of steamy momo, or is it? Good for our healthcare system, these doctors were quite dedicated to serving people, so they had to head back the same night. We spent another half an hour talking, before saying bye we clicked a selfie (okay, they asked me to feature them in this blog so we clicked it to put down below).
I ended my day at 3:30 pm after seeing them off, I walked downhill to my previous homestay and talked with the uncle for a while. Later I walked to the new place to rest and plan for tomorrow. About which I’ll share in the next one. If you haven’t already please follow me, to get notified about such posts.
Well, that was my third 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.
You can read the complete series from the link below
