We had to take a 5 hour train ride from Delhi to a city called Dehradun, and we took the most insane hour and a half cab ride through the city way up the mountains to our hotel in Mussoorie. I don't know what you all have heard about driving in India, but seriously, anything goes. You think Massachusetts and RI drivers are bad? You ain't seen NOTHIN! Driving in Delhi is terrifying enough, but going 30-40 mph on a very narrow, very windy mountain road where your view out the window is a several thousand mile drop was just nauseating! We put a lot of faith into our awesome cab driver, though, who has grown up in Mussoorie and his father and grandfather still reside there. He knew what he was doing, and after we got used to the turns and the honking, it was quite exhilarating!

Our first stop when we reached Mussoorie was this tibetan school for refugees sponsored by an organization called the Tibetan Homes Foundation. We watched a short documentary and were able to ask questions and learn more about the school and the greater tibetan refugee network in India from one of the staff who helps organize fundraising. There are a lot of tibetan reservations in India, and they are all greatly supported by the Indian government. It was fascinating to learn about, and afterwards we got a tour of the tibetan children's village where all the kids live, and also got to see the temple they pray at - which is where the Dalai Lama comes to visit.

We arrived to our hotel on Saturday night and were able to walk through the downtown once to get a gist of where we were. The hotel was, in my opinion, absolutely gorgeous and completely unlike any hotel I've ever been in. It was so surreal walking through the town and right from the street you would look over and see thousands of miles of green, fresh, fertile mountainside. The air was the coolest, cleanest, purest air I've ever felt, and there were parts when we were driving up that we felt as though we were at the edge of the universe because you couldn't see past the edge of the road since we were literally in the clouds.
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The next day, a smaller group of us had decided to take one of the cabs about an hour drive away from Mussoorie to a small town called Dhanaulti. It's smaller than Mussoorie, but like Mussoorie, they rely on tourism as their main income, so there were lots of interesting shops in the downtown area. Our main purpose of going there, however, was to trek up the mountain by foot 10,000 feet up to a Hindu temple. The hike up was probably the best part. When you first start you walk through a gated entrance and ring a big bell to signal the start of your hike. The higher we went, the thinner the air got, and a couple of us had to stop because their asthsma was getting too bad. In the end, we all made it to the top, and got to look around this really cool site. We met some other Indian tourists who were excited to see white people and took lots of pictures of us.

It was cold and rainy, so to prevent getting sick we eventually hiked back down and got some hot tea and soup for lunch back in downtown Dhanaulti. We headed back to Mussoorie and had the taxis drop us off on the main street so we could do some shopping before heading back to the hotel for dinner.
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Sunday we woke up early, piled into taxis, and headed further up the mountain to a local NGO office. I forget the name of the NGO, but what they do is help educate the women in nearby villages about proper health and hygeine care. In many rural areas in India, women are seen as impure while they are menstruating, so they are not allowed near the men, in kitchens, or places of worship. Because of this custom, many women who are pregant wind up giving birth by themselves in the cow shed, which is (obviously) extremely unhygeinic and frequently results in miscarriage or death of the mother. This NGO teaches the women proper pre and post natal care, and helps them to understand how to fill out the necessary paperwork to get vaccines and checkups at the nearby hospital, since many of them are illiterate. It was a fascinating place that does really great work.

After that, we drove down a little ways and visited a small village school for grades 3 through 10. You know those commercials you see in the US about "saving the children" in poor third world countries and you see the shots of their dilapadated schools? That was basically what we toured, except the children weren't moping around tired and hungry, they were genuinely happy to be in school and really excited to have us as guests. The students asked us our names and let us take pictures with them. Their attitudes reminded me a bit of those in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina; optimistic and perfectly content despite their less-than adequate resources and surroundings. Then again, their school is in the middle of the Himalayas overlooking mind-blowingly gorgeous mountainside vegitation. Also, the director pointed out to us that Marijuana grows wild there and we actually saw a few plants! Crazy, huh?

We all have been doing really well about not getting sick, but a couple of the other students were starting to get pretty light-headed and dizzy because of the altitude. Not bad, though, considering all the different kinds of food we've been eating and all the things we could have gotten sick from.
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Later on that day, we packed up our stuff at the hotel, piled into our taxis once more, and headed back to Dehradun so we could catch the next train back to Delhi. One other cultural obstacle we have had to over come during that trip: Indian toilets. For the most part, the bathrooms are...relatively clean, but it's still strange having to pee in a ceramic hole in the wall. And on the train, that hole doesn't go anywhere but down. You can actually see the tracks flying by underneath you. It's really not too bad...until you reach a stop and the mixture of train tracks covered in extraments with humid, India air is just NOT pleasant.

It was nice coming back to our residence later on that evening and sleeping in our cool, dry, comfortable beds. Our hotel in Mussoorie was beautiful and spacious, but one thing about being in the mountains during monsoon season is that there's sooo much moisture in the air it made our sheets feel damp, which made it difficult to sleep through the night.

Overall, our weekend excursion to the Himalayas was so amazing. Every moment was breathtaking, and every breath was a moment to remember. I remember feeling a bit uneasy at first, being a big group of white tourists walking down this touristy resort town. But the shops here are only open from June to September because the winters are very harsh here. It's a bit like ptown, in that sense. People hustle and work very hard for a few months so that they can afford to live throughout the year. On our way back from one of our shopping trips downtown we actually met this 16 year old boy dressed in a school uniform and started talking to him. He spoke great english and told us that his dad is a business man who owns a shop downtown. For me, that cleared my conscience because it set in a reality that the money I spend here indulging in senseless consumerism is actually supporting local families and paying for this kid's education. It was gratifying, in a way.

Anyways, I gotta run. We're in the midst of taking tours to different colleges, scrambling around trying to choose courses we want to take for the semester. I'll update later, and in the meantime check out the pics from Mussoorie!

written by  Indiestani on July 23, 2008 from Mussoorie, India
from the travel blog: Mussoorie
tagged Mountains, Mussoorie and Himalayas
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