Looking back, we did our short Uttarakhand trip in the correct ascending order, Haridwar (Uttarakhand 2018: The holy land of Haridwar), Rishikesh (Uttarakhand 2018: Rishikesh, the charming riverside town) and finally Mussourie. The hill station of Mussourie was certainly the best part of our trip. It was followed by a totally harrowing drive from Mussourie to Delhi, but it was very pleasant to meet my mother-in-law’s family and my bestie Kavita Mehta in Delhi.

However, I continue my story and trip from the day we left Rishikesh for a very winding and steep road from Dehradun to Mussourie. As we covered switchback after switchback, I found myself wishing I could have walked up instead. Yet, Mussourie was worth that crazy drive (Note to travellers: take Ondansetron and plenty of tic-tacs). As we drove through the mist that always surrounds Mussourie, we pulled down the windows and breathed in the crisp mountain air till we reached our charming hotel (brilliant choice by hubby again) with a great valley view.

I could have sat for hours looking out of the window, but the best view was on the day we left when we finally saw a cloudless sky with the Himalayan peaks.

My niece went crazy taking pictures here and some were simply outstanding.

All Indian hill-stations are built on a similar theme, a central mall road with shops and gorgeous valley views. As we hadn’t shopped much on this trip, two mothers and two daughters set out promptly to explore the mall road and (naturally) shop in peace.

We walked down the road through the mist that blew through us, hogged on ice-cream in the cold, dove in and out of shops, trying to buy clothes for us and the kids, but it proved tougher than we had thought. Finally we needed our mother-in-law’s precious help.

We loved the mall road and strolling aimlessly along it. There were amazing murals and paintings on the sides and the dslr sure enjoyed itself.

We walked past the cycle-rickshaw pullers who were calling out to us for a ride, till the site of the cable car which goes to the second-tallest point of Mussourie, Gun hill point. We chose not to go up as it was so misty that we wouldn’t have seen the valley at all and just roamed about, loving the mist covering the valley.

Looking at the strollers available for rent.

Amazed by the mist that suddenly obscured most of the view.

Wishing we could move to a home like this.

By now, hunger struck and we made our way to a gorgeous valley-facing café with delicious food (and hummus that our kids devoured so fast that I couldn’t even take a picture!)

We sat there watching the sun set, enjoying the retro music and then stared at the lit up valley side.

We walked back to library square, near our hotel, loving the last 2 days of the cold before we got back to Mumbai heat.

It was quite chilly and we huddled up in our jackets while we had a great dinner at café library, our food haunt for the remaining meals and the kids’ favorite.

The next day, we chose not to go to Kempty falls as they were quite far off, but merely roam about local Mussourie. I’d hoped to go to Landour, a twin colonial town, but we couldn’t squeeze it in and walked down the mall road to the cable car.

A short ride took us to the highly commercialised plateau of Gunhill, with great views over the valley all around.

Gorgeous Himalayan wildflowers grew up the hill and all along it.

The kids had a blast shooting down balloons, my favorite game as a kid.

Photo of the trip:

In the evening, we drove a short distance to the unimaginatively named but lovingly created company garden. Flowers and fountains filled the garden and we spent a very relaxing evening roaming around.

We spent our last evening strolling about on the mall road once again, loving the mist that seemed to hang in the air like a fluffy cloud.

This evening, we caught the sunset in all its glory. We had thoroughly enjoyed our time in Mussourie and came back refreshed as could be and ever-ready to plan the next adventure.