“You know, I don’t feel very self-conscious here,” Sue was saying as we made our way towards Kulri in Mussoorie. I could appreciate that. In India she had been at the receiving end of (often unsought-for) male attention. My olive skin and dark eyes, on the other hand, had kept me ‘safe’. In Mussoorie she no longer felt like an ‘alien’, there being so many foreigners. We were dragging our luggage up to a bed and breakfast joint called All Seasons recommended and booked by a friend from India.
The main town was a disappointment; especially after the drive up from Dehradun, the valley-town of the new-born north Indian state of Uttarakhand. Too much traffic, dirt, smells of cow dung and tourists from the Indian capital Delhi. And yet it was all quaintly unique, so rustic although Mussoorie was developed by the British into a hill station.
All Seasons is an unpretentious guest house cheek-by-jowl to a couple of swanky five star hotels. Yet it manages to hold its own thanks to its cozy, homely interiors and warm staff. Run by ‘Winkie’, a turbaned Sikh gentleman, it is the acme of hospitality. He gave Sue and me the best room with a huge king-sized bed, bath, walk-in closet, TV, fridge, and Wi-Fi access. My favorite feature, however, was the balcony overlooking the hills?
The guest house doesn’t provide lunch so we decided to eat Thai and Chinese food at The Tavern which was close by. The egg noodles that Sue ordered were pretty nice but I loved my Thai chicken curry and iced tea.
That afternoon we booked a taxi to take us to Kempty Falls, so named by the Brits thanks to their love for tea. ‘the word Kempty’ happens to be a corruption of ‘Camp Tea’, a 19th century colonial tradition. Kempty, frankly, was a disappointment with the water having thinned and the trash. The drive back to All Seasons was far more entrancing. But nothing to beat the sun spreading its orange resplendence while slipping behind the mountains- a sight that caused us to down our teacups in the evening.
No comments:
Post a Comment