My purpose of travel is to learn, take a short refreshing break from my professional life, meet new people and to explore something that I have never done before. This time i selected Road Trip but I had to choose that place which would be safer to drive on hills and would be within roughly 300 km radius from Delhi NCR. We had a lot of discussion from Bhangarh to Lansdown and finally we locked Dehradun/Mussoorie as a destination. The date chosen was 29th September and the period when we travelled was 29-Sep to 02-Oct’18. We already planned to cover all the destination of Dehradun. When you plan for any trip, especially when its first of its kind then it’s hard to wait for the moment and same was for me. I haven’t had any experience of hills driving even though I was very excited about my trip as this was my first road trip and none of them knew how to drive but even then, it’s better to have helping hands in case you need one.
Day 1: New Delhi→Dehradun
After counting of days, finally the day had come, we started our road trip on September 29 morning. I took a fine sleep before rising early. we woke up early, got our bags ready and headed for a 3-day trip to Dehradun/Mussoorie on 7:30 AM. Early morning helps you to cut through from the city traffic, the traffic was minimal, and we drove smoothly. At 245 kilometers, the drive from Delhi to Dehradun will take you roughly six hours. Since we’d not had breakfast, so we need to make an immediate stop anywhere for breakfast, but we decided “Haldirams” as our first stop to take a food etc.
While planning for the route, we had no idea about the road conditions and the more worse thing was leaving the highway for a while and take a route of village anyway, next 40 km. we were on kind of worse unending roads. You can imagine the roads with the fact that we were not driving and there was no road at all but just mud. We managed to reach Muzaffarnagar by 11:40 hrs. and our first stop “Halidarms” was just to came. We stopped there for 1 hour, had some Brunch, stretched our legs and then headed towards Dehradun. This was a perfect spot for your one stop travelling destination, situated just midway to and for end route to majestic Haridwar, Rishikesh, Dehradun and Mussoorie.
The road condition was also getting better with every passing kilometer and we gained some pace. Muzaffarnagar to Dehradun is around 130 km and it took us more than 3 hrs. to cover. We faced little jam before Dehradun at tunnel and then we finally reached to our hotel “Amrit Resort”, Dehradun by some 4:00 PM O clock. A little settling in the Hotel we took bath and then we started our party as usual and after that we decided to roam around the city and went out for dinner at “Black Pepper Restaurant”. It is a Lovely little restaurant with great service and awesome food apart from that exemplary ambience, extensive sitting, and an extremely professional staff is the best part of restaurant.
Day 2: Green Mountains, Reckless Roads and Mesmerizing Chakrata
Charkrata is a destination that has a perfect combination of mountains, valleys, and rivers. It is situated between the Tons and Yamuna river, at an elevation of 7000–7250 feet, and is 100 km away from Dehradun. You would realize the height of this place when you proceed further from Dehradun.
We had breakfast and began our travel by 10:00 AM from Dehradun. Today, we had to cover more than 200 Km. Distance from Dehradun to Chakrata is 89 Km. and then 20 km. for Tiger fall from Chakrata. I had never been on such a dangerous, curvy, and narrow route but it felt exciting. The sceneries on the way were terrific and a treat to our eyes. One could see streams of water flowing out of mountains with sheep and farmers on its sides.
Camping in this quaint hill station is one of the exhilarating things to do besides camping there was only one popular attraction in chakrata is “Tiger Fall”. We were keen on clicking a lot of pictures and so decided to move first towards Sunrise/Sunset point where we had spent couple of hours.
We had initially planned to cover tiger fall after Chakrata but we were too late because we had spent a lot of time in Chakrata and 4:10 PM was not the right time to cover 20 km. uphill mountain road. We had discussion whether we should cover the Tiger fall or not because we need around 1 hours to reach there and 1 hour for roaming around the Tiger fall and then time would be approx. 6:30 PM when we started to down from tiger fall to Dehradun. Finally, our risk takers people decided to cover tiger fall with the statement “Which will be seen later, what happens” and then we head straight to “Tiger Fall” without any delay.
Tiger Fall: Water Roars
We reached at 5:00 PM. As said ‘nothing comes easy’. We had to trek 1 Km to view our destination – the Tiger Fall but the result was worth it. The roaring sounds of water were deafening (that’s how it gets the name ‘Tiger Fall’) and I could literally feel the misty drizzle on my face. The waterfall was one of the most soothing and rejuvenating part of the trip. Later after spending a half an hour at the waterfall, we trekked back to the starting point, took some refreshment and ready to drive downhill and cover 100 km. in darkness means no lighting at all.
I can say that it was very thrilling and most peaceful drive I have ever had, I said “Peaceful” because we were the only one who drive on the road. We felt that driving conditions was less challenging than day because we can easily judge the coming vehicle by their light beside the adventure it was dangerous as well as turns on mountains are extremely sharp, and visibility is not as clear. If you don’t approach them with caution, it can be easy to lose control of your vehicle. Somehow, we reached to our hotel in Dehradun and everybody was feeling tired and we need refreshment.
Overall, it was very enjoyable and memorable journey, and I personally had some takeaway that on a mountain road, it’s important to apply your brakes and horn before turns, not during them. Braking early will help you turn more easily and make sure your mountain trip is safer. While driving on a mountain, make sure you keep your vehicle completely in your lane, staying as far from the center line as is reasonably safe.
Chakrata was an awesome experience for me! In short, I explored and enjoyed a lot here. It was adventurous, soothing and rejuvenating – a combination which is hard to find!
Day 3- Drive to Mussoorie and Lal Tibba: The real hill drive
We woke up in late morning and missed our hotel breakfast. We started our journey in afternoon around 12:00 o clock, we decided to first towards the breakfast, stopped our bikes outside the Forest Research Institute took our breakfast and then visited FRI. The Greco-Roman architectural beauty with the lush green tress makes it the most popular places to visit in Dehradun. These 450 hectares spread beautiful campus has been often chosen by Bollywood movies like – Paan Singh Tomar, Student of the year, Krishna cottage to name a few.
Next, we visited a Robber’s Cave that was not in our list at all but what a place it was. The Robber’s cave is bound by imposing hills and showcases nature at its best. The route to Robber’s cave is kind of Narrow Street. Literally, transparent water touching your feet with its coldness. A kilometer-long trek brought us to a refreshing stream which elevated us of all our tiredness. Trust me it was so much fun there and we were in no mood of leaving the place early. We stayed there for 1 hour and then drove back.
Drive to Mussorie started a little late. It was around 3:30 pm in the evening when we finally headed towards Queen of the Hills, which is another name for Mussoorie. Just 35 km from Dehradun, the roads till Mussoorie were quite smooth and easy. In the way we had seen glimpses of nature around the roads, it was ideal for hills ride.
The next target in mind was Lal Tibba about which I heard a lot even since before. At a distance of 6 km from Mussoorie, Lal Tibba is the highest point in Mussoorie situated in Landour area. It is located at an altitude of 2275 m. This place offers scenic views of sunrise and sunset and is one of the best places to visit in Mussoorie. A telescope was placed at the tower on a cliff by municipality to offer scenic views of Badrinath, Kedarnath, Banderpunch, and other Himalayan ranges.
A haven for photo enthusiasts, you can enjoy a panoramic view of the Himalayas from here and take back a million good photographs to hang on the living room wall. We had amazing cold coffee, while sitting right on the edge of a cliff and staring at the beautiful mountains. It was all what one would have wanted to draw a painting sort of. The road to Lal Tibba was very picturesque, the route to there was a kind of big lesson for the one who never drove on hills with extremely tough turn on narrow slopes. It was the toughest road I have ever seen. Next, we visited our last stop Mall road.
The Mall road was very crowded, full of shops and tourists but it was so beautiful, bright and colorful. Personally, I would prefer this mall road instead of the Shimla or Nainital Mall Road. There is an awesome omelette shop on the main road. We had already recommendation to visit this place. we went to this famous shop called “Lovely Omelette Center”. This was established in the time of the British. It’s was a small Cafe type shop with a variety of omelets running by a very humble owner. When we ordered the omelette there was waiting for 1.5 hours, Its very normal during weekend. After 1 hour we were able to taste, it was like pizza where you have base as bread cheese in center and top you have eggs. You all the wait time is forgotten once you bite into the cheese omelette – also declared India’s best omelette by many food critics. Lovely Omelette Centre is always packed with students in the morning, who get preferential treatment. kids eat for free! Kids who can afford it pay and eat, and those who can’t, eat for free. I Would certainly recommend it to others.
For a while, we strolled around the mall road only and bought a few things. After shopping, we left for our hotel in Dehradun as Mussoorie had already won our hearts. We started driving down by 08:30PM and driving down was much easier than drive uphill’s for sure. We must have driven at speed of 40-50 hrs. even on those steep curves that we managed to reach Dehradun by 11:00 PM.
We reached our hotel, settled down for a bit, rested and then went out for dinner. Some random walking over the roads and then an early dinner to fill us up after a tiring day as we had to plan for the return on the next morning.
Day 4: Dehradun → New Delhi
After a sound sleep, I woke up early in pleasant Dehradun weather. It was 7:00 AM and time to head back to Delhi as it was a long journey ahead. We have started our return journey with heavy hearts. It was very painful for the pillion to adjust the seat to reduce the stress. The ordeal finally ended by some 03:00 PM.
Reaching Delhi makes you think that journey is almost over while next coming hours tells that much part yet to be travelled. Kind of last mile rush… but finally we reached back home by 04:00 PM and the smile on ours faces despite of being tired was signifying that we have finished our first hill ride successfully without any trouble and would be ready to take on bigger battles from here…
Santosh Maurya 