So, what was it like to be in the foothills of of the Himalayas for a couple of days...?
Pretty steep.... but I'm getting ahead of myself...
... and pretty much stayed that way for the whole trip. Up and down the mountain we went and ... it was just AMAZING to be using my legs again ... to be walking around and getting exercise** ... to be a human billy-goat for a couple of days.
But it wasn't just the novelty of visiting a town, literally, carved into the mountain that made this retreat so perfect ... it was the chance to reconnect with nature that tipped the scale for me. (Can you find the cow in the picture below?)
The breeze!! The breeze through the trees!! Real live, wonderful, life-giving, shade-providing, wonderfully great and beautiful TREES!! Oh, how I have missed you!!!!! Meg and I would just walk for hours along "main" roads that were just engulfed in the forest; there was no traffic, there was no garbage, there was no honking, there were hardly any people... it was so peaceful. Throw in the ice-cooled mountain breeze ... and seriously, after 114 degree weather in Lucknow ... Mussoorie was heaven sent.
Mussoorie had other charms. Like pesto pasta (sauce)***
... and homemade Gouda cheese...
... and new favorite places to eat (with a slogan like that how can you possibly say no?)...
... and new toys...
... and new favorite games to play**** ...
... and throw-backs to the British Raj...
... and - no joke - some pretty enormous monkeys***** running around.
... oh, and have I mentioned all the trees yet?
(sigh)
Eventually, our time in Mussoorie came to an end... and my adventures getting to Benguluru (Bangalore) were just beginning. I took an overnight train from Dehra Dun (the station closest to Mussoorie) to Delhi. I arrived in Delhi at the crack of dawn and caught a cab to the Delhi airport. I then hung around the airport for a couple of hours while I waited for my morning flight. Trains, Planes and Automobiles, all in less than a 24 hour period ... not too shabby.
But more on what I saw when I got to Benguluru in the next post.
*I'm a sucker for alliteration, sue me.
** To be honest, by the end of the trip, I was really feeling all the exercise we were getting. Mixed blessing, I guess.
*** For those of you who know of my love of pesto you can appreciate how big of a deal this is.
**** The rules are, find the weirdest "foreign" phrases you can find in the discounted-reject-T-shirts-pile ... that go beyond ironic hipster.
***** To be fair, the Langur monkeys - pictured - weren't nearly as scary (or agressive) as the Rhesus monkeys)
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