The Drive to Mussoorie

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Delhi is a notoriously hectic city, and so the trip to Mussoorie was a welcome respite. After a ten hour bus ride from Delhi to Dehra Dun, one where the landscape changed from dusty plains to green forest, and the smoke transformed from smoke to mist as we climbed in elevation. I stayed awake the whole time just to watch. Once reaching Dehra Dun, we transferred to taxi jeeps and vans, with four passengers to a taxi. The drive was along a skinny, almost one-lane road that wound around a mountain. However, the taxis traveled at ridiculous speeds, lapping one another just in time to miss an oncoming car, and flying around hair-pin turns with only a honk to warn cars coming the other way. I was silent the whole time because I didn’t want to distract our driver and find myself tumbling hundreds, if not thousands, of feet over the mountainside. I am thoroughly convinced that I could never drive as well, or with as much fearlessness, as these drivers. We eventually reached the top of the mountain, or what I thought was the top of the mountain, and we were suddenly in a city. The roads still being skinny, only now populated with people, cows, and dogs, and lined with looming buildings, our taxi often had to back up to allow another car to move through. Still, the taxis will honk a million times and with full force at an old lady walking near a ledge, and then speed by. We made it through Mussoorie in one piece and then went about a five minute drive farther uphill to where we would be staying, a little street called Landour. This place overlooks the city of Musoorie, and in turn the whole valley (though most of it is not visible due to mist), and is where our language school is. We will be studying Hindi at the famous Landour Language School, which has been here since 1911, for the next four weeks. Landour, and Mussoorie, are extremely relaxing after Delhi. The air is fresh, the people friendly, the weather cool, and the views spectacular. Sitting in the Himalayan foothills, Landour is at close to 8,000 feet, and there are steep drops next to every road or path. I cannot think of a more amazing place to learn Hindi.

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