Mussoorie: Queen of Hills | Travelogue

[allhyundaicars]

Recently went to Mussoorie along with my parents and a cousin. We always choose July \ August Months to travel to avoid the seasonal rush of summer holidays ( may and june)

Delhi to Mussoorie route taken
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total distance from home - 280 kms.
Time Taken - 7 hours 30 minutes with 2 breaks of 30 minutes each.

Left Home at 7:00am. Initially we planned to leave home at 6:00 am which would have saved us around 2 hours from the whole trip.
You can't say this is a NH for the first 100 kms as the route goes through the busiest roads of UP.

Break 1 : Cheetal Grand.​

Took us 3 hours to cover the first 100 kms. a very decent restaurant to have breakfast. Do order the omelette and mix pakodas. south indian was so-so.

For years this used to be our favorite restaurant but because of the new highway plan , one needed to take a detour. The problem was solved since the brand has opened 2 restaurants on either side of the highway.
A little ahead you can have breakfast at haldiram , kfc etc.

Reached Dehradoon around 1:00 pm , got a tankful of petrol.

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There is a famous clock tower in dehradoon with many shops and at noon there's a lot of jam and it's always packed. Now another mussoorie by-pass came up so we
skipped going to the clock tower and saved time.

I don't think the locals would be happy because of this by-pass. The roads are very narrow with residential home at either side.
Luckily there was no traffic jam but at these roads the car didn't go beyond 30kmph.

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Break 2 : Road Side Shop
The view was great and you will get eggs and maggi at every shop you see on your way.

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the roads are better since my last trip but definitely not the best.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEr0a9DnEJU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17Q99fMajM8


The roads were bad at most of the turns. The weather was good so i had windows rolled down and the car performed better than my verna. But then rain started and i had to turn on the ac and after that it got tiring. i had to do frequent downshifts from 3rd to 2nd and after the bad patch of roads i had to downshift to 1st to get the car going. Even the MID suggested to downshift. If i went ahead with the 2nd gear it took 2-3 seconds to gain speed.

Elantra seemed better than my Verna because the ac was turned off. After turning on the AC both car felt strained going uphill.
Both the 1.6 and 2.0 petrol engine suffered on slopes.​

 

[allhyundaicars]

Our Stay : Hotel Midtown near Picture Palace.
We always go to Picture Palace side ( other end is library road) to take rooms. the other end(Library Road) is always busy with cars and taxis. You will get 2 roads on your way to take any of the side.
Because of the long weekend ( 12-13-14-15) the rates were higher than normal off-season rates.
Hotel Manager quoted us 2000rs per room till Firday and 5000rs per room for the weekend.
Every hotel we checked had rooms available till Friday so in the end we finalized net rate of 3000rs per room.
In off season you can get the room as low as 1500rs. The view from the rooms wasn't great and the size of the room was medium but after checking 5 hotels we didn't want to check another.
The hotel's food was great , nothing to complain of. Service was good and rooms were kept nice and tidy.
Overall a nice expereince at the hotel.
















After sharing pictures of my trip with my friend they decided to come to mussoorie
They were 4 guys and were looking to stay at a reasonable place.
Hotel Piknik was very close to my hotel so checked the rates with them.
2200 rs for a room with 2 double beds.










Room size was terribly small with no parking space. you have to pay 200 rs per day to a near-buy public parking.
Rates can go reach 500rs in season.
It was a steal but there's always one person in the group who will say he can get good rates in another hotel.
In the end this room was booked when they reached and they ended up paying 5k per room ( 1 double bed and 1 sofa cum bed) in another hotel.
Wasn't the best hotel ,no point in sharing name and location. Food was terrible.

The Mall road and Camel's Back road.

There are 2 roads on which you can walk and enjoy the weather of mussoorie.
The former being full of people and shops and at the latter you will find very few people. There are hotels on both the roads.
If you want peace and serenity , a place away from people and noise , hotels at camel's back it is.








The weather was really good and this is not my favorite place for a vacation but it felt good right after reaching Mussoorie.

If you want to catch a movie you can at Ritz Cinema which is on the mall road. you can easily spot it on the Mall Road.

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[allhyundaicars]

Places to Eat

1. Lovely Omelette : You can have the best omelette here for your breakfast.



2. Cafe-de-Tavern - A really cool cafe with nice variety to choose from. you can have shakes , coffee , pizza , pasta , hot dogs , pancakes and deserts.












3. Urban Turban - we ate here once and the food was brilliant.



4. Chick Chocolate - A very famous shop for , you can guess it plus pizza pasta , shakes , deserts etc.


5. Little Lama Cafe - couldn't try this but reviews are really good.


6. Mom's Kitchen - If you want ready to eat and home cooked meals this is the place. rice and the vada pav was yummy. It's a really small shop but it's just after the downhill after crossing Chick Chocolate (going towards library road)




7. Kalsang - If you love chinese , this place offers the best chinese. Tried this at my last visit.

8. Parathas and Puri Bhaji - I can't remember the name but this place offered the best parathas ( better than aggarwal which you can easily spot )
Location - The very first restaurant to your right after the barricade near the picture palace.

9. You can also buy chicken and give it to a nearest restaurant\dhabha which will cook it for you ( 400rs per kg )​

 

[allhyundaicars]

Places to Visit

1. Laal Tibba or the Red Hill - The highest point near mussoorie just 4 kilometers from picture palace but didn't go there because of bad weather.

2. Kempty Fall - Around 20 kilometers from mussoorie you can enjoy here if you like waterfalls. The area has been highly commercialised and there was rush even in off season.
You have to take the stairs ( around 400 meters ) or take the trolley ( 120rs both side) to reach the falls.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0t3jRV4LkQs

The bridge collapsed recently and the way to the trolley was really dangerous. Fortunately the work was going on.









3. For other places to visit check this link ​

 

[allhyundaicars]

So our trip ended and we left mussoorie on 13th august at around 12:00 pm.

We started our descend and the weekend traffic started coming. There were cars lined up for aprox 1.5 kms.




On the way dad noticed the way to dhenaulty. Dad likes to relax in these months so we decided to go to Dhenaulty and let me tell you it was totally worth it. Words can't describe our feelings going towards dhenaulty. The weather was just amazing. Take a look at the pictures.














At several places i had to crawl the car at speeds of 5 kmph because of zero visibility. The first few kilometers were bad but after that wonderful roads to a wonderful place. Even the GPS went haywire at points showing we are driving off the roads.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRyMTLoJxGE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIgY7srRGDA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s60AtSUhkoI











































Again you will get eggs , maggi and pakodas. The roads were vacant but the main area was packed with tourists.

Took us 5 hours to go and get back to the mussorrie dehradoon road. I think it was 39 kms one side but we did stop at many times to click pics.
on our way back stopped at a road side shop to enjoy the weather. a lady was bringing radishes and she was offering 20 of them for 50rs told them to start charging 10rs per radish (washing , cutting plus lemon and masala)​

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[allhyundaicars]

Mussoorie to Delhi route taken :330 kms.


Since the roads were bad on the first route we decided to take a different route. This route is the best one to go to mussorrie. Goes through the forest , river by the side of the road and is around 40kms more than the first route.

But don't take this route at night especially if you have ladies in the car. No street lamps and very isolated roads even at 8:00 pm.
Although i think it will be the same case for route 1 also.
We always leave early to avoid driving at night but the detour to dhenaulty set us back by 5 hours.










https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8vaybeveZY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2Ty0Pg_yZY

Finally reached home at 1:30 am.​

 

[allhyundaicars]

I asked one of my friends to take some pictures of my car as well. Did a little bit of editing. Hope you like them.





















Mileage Update
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PS : Verna gave me 10 kmpl on my last visit because of bad roads.

 

[freakdude]

Brilliantly put travelogue man, enjoyed every bit of it. I did this last year and went upto Kanatal. What an awesome place it was totally off the grid and away from the busyness of the city.

 

[SilverEyez]

Nice detailed travelogue with lots of beautiful pictures
which is the app you are using for mileage calculation?

 

[Nanofreak]

Thanks for this picturesque Travelogue, brought back old memories, my son studied in Doon in the early 2k.

Will use this as a travel guide when I plan my next trip there.

Regards
Vinod

 

[allhyundaicars]

@freakdude - there are many cities like this. will surely plan a trip to dhenaulty and cities after that,

@ silver eyes - fuelio. you can search the playstore , lot's of applications.

@nanofreak - sure and i hope the route gets better after some time.

 

[VR Shenoy]

Very Interesting to read about your Mussoori trip and the photos captured by you are very nice. Felt like Im travelling all the way from South to North( though I know I won't be able to travel at this old age to Northern states). Of course reminded me of my trip about 7 yrs ago to Madikere ( Mercara).

Regards