In November I got another opportunity to travel and spend a fine weekend at Mussoorie. It's a nice settlement on a hilltop, with cold weather round the year and snow in the winters.

This was a road trip with some friends. We had to attend a marriage and Shubham was quick enough to steal this opportunity into a road trip. Glad he did.

Ahead of schedule

We started from the office around 4 PM on a Friday evening, and reached the wedding destination around 9. We ate our hearts out there, had some fun and left for Mussoorie around midnight. To our surprise we reached Rishikesh around 4 AM and Mussoorie was another 2 hours drive from there. We had a good breakfast at 4 in the morning(lots of noodles and some bread) and started having second thoughts about heading to Mussoorie. We were way ahead of schedule and decided to visit a dam(damn that dam) in Tehri before hitting Mussoorie. It was around 2 hours of drive from Rishikesh, and we all agreed on that.

Damn that dam

The night was dark, and we were traveling through mountains. We could hardly see any other vehicle. Everyone except me and the driver fell asleep while we were on our way. We started to approach the dam. I saw a lot of signboards with multiple warnings about the place. "No stopping!!!". "No parking!!!". "Photography not allowed!!!". "Videography not allowed!!!". The place crawled with signboards like any highly secured area would. After we crossed multiple signboards, we saw a cop who didn't bother to stop or give any instructions about the place to us.

I knew something looked fishy, but I was too excited and was almost dozing off so didn't care a lot about the warnings. We finally parked in a place where they had put multiple signboards saying "No Parking!!!". I know, I know, you guys might think I was acting crazy but the reality was, I was too tired and my brain was hardly working to comprehend anything. I woke up Nimish, and we walked towards the dam. We took multiple photos, and our other friends followed us soon after. We were just starting to relax when we heard someone shouting. "Hey, come up here!!!"

Beauty became scary

We ignored the man, assuming he was calling someone else. He came closer and in an angry tone asked us to follow him. He looked super pissed. He took us to a military camp where he along with some others started enquiring about us. He asked us about our business there and reminded us of the multiple signboards.

All of my friends had no clue what he was talking about, but I knew exactly what was going on there. He was talking about 124(he kept reminding us the number) signboards that we ignored on our way. Now I was wide awake. Others were pretty calm, we could only see him speaking all the time. We tried to convince them that we were tourists, and intend no shenanigans.

One of the officers was pretty calm and assured us that we can go. He, however, was pretty adamant and called his superiors. All this went on for about half an hour and then their superiors arrived. They came and let us go without any problem. They also told us the route which if taken will ensure we get a good view of the dam and enjoy the most. We hurried through it and then stopped after crossing the military zone to take some more pictures. We were also adamant.

It was almost sunrise and we left for Mussoorie.

Mussoorie

The drive to Mussoorie from there was very scenic with mountains, a little bit of fog and chilling weather. Once we reached the city, I was a bit displeased. I thought it would be like Lansdowne, empty and uncommercialized, however, it was a fully commercialized city with a lot of tourists. To my amazement, Shubham kept saying the city looked empty. We checked-in to our hotel and headed out for breakfast. Lemme tell you, the entire Mussoorie city was all about food. We didn't do anything else but eat.

I went to sleep after breakfast, hadn't slept the whole night like others, so whatever conspired till the evening is unknown to me. In the evening we walked around a mile uphill to reach a famous eatery which we found out was closed. At least I lost some weight from all the walk up there. We had some light snacks up there at other places and came down to have our dinner. It was a pretty heavy dinner followed by some shopping for us and our families. We had a long walk and retired to our rooms after that.

After a long night's sleep, we were ready to depart for Delhi in the morning. We decided to take a pit stop at Robert's cave in Dehradun and have lunch there.

Robert's cave

Robert's cave was the most amazing place for me on the entire trip(second would be Tehri, ahem ahem ). There was a stream flowing inside the cave, the water was really cold and it felt relaxing. There was water dripping along the sides, and at the end of the cave was a small waterfall. There were a lot of tourists in the cave but it still felt pretty empty. It's hard for me to explain the feeling in words so, I'll just go ahead and attach some pictures hoping they'll do some justice to the place.

We spent another hour having delicious lunch. Having a food guide on a trip has its pros. It was around 3 PM when we left Dehradun and took another smaller break around 7 PM for some refreshments. We were home by 9 PM and it was a nice and relaxing trip.

It was my first trip with a bunch of friends and I enjoyed it to the fullest. Stay tuned guys for my next trip to Pangot, a place with no cellular signals and a lot of snow.

That's it for this one guys, stay tuned and I'll see you around in the next one.