Glimpses of Majesty, Mostly Fog

The next day we had to get up at 4:45am in order to get to the airport in time for our flight out of Jaipur.  We hadn't managed to get to bed much before midnight, likely because we were both procrastinating packing (especially myself -- repacking the same backpack every other night for five weeks is exhausting).  In any event, we were absolutely exhausted, and got to the airport super early because, guess what? There isn't any traffic in Jaipur at 5:30am. Go figure.  Our flight consisted of two legs: Jaipur-Delhi, Delhi-Dehra Dun.  The first leg was a breeze -- primarily because I passed out immediately and stayed passed out for the entire one hour flight.  We grabbed some much needed coffee and breakfast in the Delhi airport, and then hopped on another easy 40 minute flight to Dehra Dun, which is a city at the foot of the Himalayan foothills.  We had a driver, but no guide, for this portion of our trip, and we really didn't like our driver.  He was possibly one of the most abrasive and rude people I've ever met! I'm sure, if he'd been able to speak English, I would have been even more put off, but he absolutely exuded abrasiveness.  I was also not overly confident in his driving skills, but whatareyagonnado.  Generally, that's the attitude you need to have in Asia, because in most situations, there's absolutely nothing you can do about anything. Just gotta go with the flow.  So, we embarked upon our two hour car ride up into the foothills of the Himalayas.  Our destination was Mussoorie, a small town nestled in the Himalayan foothills.  After two hours of negotiating small roads, navigating through cows, and climbing a windy 6,000 feet, we arrived at our hotel, where our car underwent some pretty strict security measures.  The guard not only circled the vehicle and looked in the trunk, but he also used what I would call, a mirror-on-a-stick to look under the hood of our car, presumably checking for explosives.  Talk about intense.

Trees, on our way up the mountain

More pilgrims, this time close to Haridwar - Ganges source

Tent for pilgrims to rest

Oh hey there cows, just chillin in the road

Look at that fog

So foggy you can barely see anything behind the tree

Oh heyyyy there monkey

After getting settled, we decided to venture out to Lal Tibba, the highest peak in the area, to try and catch a view of the actual peaks of the Himalayas.  Because we were in Mussoorie during the off-season and what is generally defined as the monsoon season, the weather is often not ideal (either heavily raining or ensconced in dense fog), so it's pretty hit or miss whether or not you'll be able to see anything.  We figured we might as well give it a go as soon as possible.  When we arrived at the peak, sure enough, there was a heavy layer of fog obscuring any view we might have had.  But we had come prepared to wait. So wait we did, for the better part of three hours.  During that time, we met a cow. Actually met one. Face to face. And then he decided to do his business exactly where I had been sitting.  Thanks a lot cow.  As if there hadn't been enough flies, there sure were flies afterwards!  Over the course of these three hours, the fog in the valley in front of the peaks did lift, but there was always a swirl of clouds enshrouding the peaks, such that we never actually saw them.  Too bad. But now I have an excuse to go back to the Himalayas!

What was visible when we arrived

Starting to clear

Even a little blue sky

Getting clearer, but still cloudy around the peaks

Oh hey there Mr. Cow

I guess he was waiting too

This was as good as we were gonna get

Sunset

Gorgeous

View of sunset from our hotel window

The next morning, we got up and had masala dosa for breakfast.  This is, perhaps, the kind of Indian breakfast food with which I am most familiar, although I had never eaten it for breakfast before.  It is basically a giant, thin pancake that is really long and kinda crispy and is rolled up and filled with spiced potatoes and peas.  The pancake itself has a little bit of a sour taste, kind of like sourdough bread but more mild.  It also comes with sambar (a kind of soup) that you can dip it in. Oh, and don't forget my beloved coconut and hot chutneys. Yum.  In my family, it is a tradition that every Christmas Eve, we order out Indian food, and we always get masala dosa. So having it for breakfast was a real treat. 

Then we set out for Kempti Falls, which is the biggest and most beautiful waterfall in the area.  We had some pretty high expectations (especially after the abysmal waterfall I had encountered in Thailand), but unfortunately we were pretty disappointed.  First of all, the waterfall had kind of been turned into a water park of sorts.  So, not only was it near impossible to capture any photographs that omitted the water park itself, there was no natural ambiance to the falls.  Not to mention the hordes of men in their underwear. I guess that took away from the magic too.  It was definitely disappointing.  In order to get down to the falls, you could either take a cable car (like a ski lift) or walk down lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of stairs.  Dad's not a fan of ski lifts, so we opted to walk, agreeing to take the car back up.  I'm honestly not sure that the walk down was worth it, except for the awesome monkey that we saw.   So we headed back to the car pretty quickly.

Top portion of Kempti Falls

Oh heyyy there awesome looking monkey!

Full view of Kempti Falls

Awful water park

Kempti Falls in its entirety

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at the Municipal Gardens, which were supposed to be another highlight of the area, but they were really just some plants, and again, amusement park-like facilities (but on a very small scale).  It was also supposed to be a look-out point of sorts for the Himalayan peaks, but again, the weather was overcast and no peaks were visible.  Later that afternoon, we took a walk down the Mall Road, which had sounded like a big deal in Mussoorie.  Really, the big deal is that no cars are allowed on part of the road.  It was full of small shops and roadside stands, but nothing particularly interesting.  We opted against taking our cameras to try and avoid unwanted attention, but I continued to be stared at the whole time.  I wish I could say I was getting used to it.

The next morning when we woke up it was pouring rain.  So, we hung around the hotel hoping that the weather would let up.  Right after lunch time, it looked like were getting a bit of a reprieve, so we set out for Dhanolti, an area that had been recommended to us by the hotel staff.  The drive there was quite harrowing.  It was only supposed to take forty minutes, but it ended up taking closer to an hour and a half.  First of all, we ran into a huge mudslide, that was still being cleared.  Luckily, we arrived near the end of the clearing process and didn't have to wait too much longer to proceed down the road.  However, the road was very windy and quite foggy.  Needless to say, it was slow going.  Our driver maybe redeemed himself on this trip.  Everyone else was driving way too fast -- it was terrifying the way some cars would come around corners.  Or you would be coming around a corner and all of the sudden, BAM, there's a cow sitting in the middle of the road. Be careful.  Lots of honking too.  Before and during every curve to ensure that the other guy knows you're coming.  Talk about feeling unsafe.  I think Dad was on the edge of his seat the entire time.

Fog and left over darkness from the storm

Lots of monkeys along the road

Bet you've never had to do that before (car negotiating two cows)

Look at that fog!

 Once we reached Dhanolti, we went and hiked a bit through an Eco Park.  It was really pretty, but again, super foggy, so there wasn't a whole lot to see.  After we had climbed for maybe a half hour, we decided to turn back once the path turned muddy and uneven.  Furthermore, there was no promise of any kind of view at the top due to the weather.  But the air was nice and clean smelling, and it was nice to take a walk out in the chilly air.  The weather up in the mountains was obviously much cooler than what we had been dealing with anywhere else.  Probably in the low to mid sixties for the most part.  It was a relief, let me tell you. 

Giant trees at Dhanolti

Our ride back was perhaps even more terrifying because the fog had thickened even more.  Plus, it was starting to get dark, so Dad was eager to get back to the hotel.  The cool thing about Dhanolti is that its elevation was so high that a lot of the time we were driving through the clouds rather than through fog.  That's pretty awesome, if you think about it.

Mountain goats on the side of the road

That is some crazy-thick fog

View of the valley through the clouds

Back at the hotel, I challenged my dad to a few games of ping pong. Bad idea. I mean, my dad used to play a lot of ping pong in his day, and boy does he still have it.  I had taken a ping pong class while I was in China, and I'm much better than I used to be, but not good enough.  He beat me 6 games to none.  But I think I put up a good fight, and it was definitely an entertaining and relaxing way to spend the evening.

The next morning, we were supposed to get up and drive back down the mountain to fly back home.  But during the night, I got super sick.  I'm talking severe chills and general discomfort in the stomach area.  When I got up, my dad called a doctor and it turns out I had a 102 degree fever. Yuck.  He gave me some medicine and cleared me to travel, but I was not feeling super fresh.  Not only that, but our journey home would have been miserable notwithstanding my sickness.  But feeling awful, I had to sit through a two hour car ride back down the mountain, then sit in the airport at Dehra Dun for three hours (freezing), because our flight kept getting delayed.  Finally, they put us on a different flight so that we wouldn't miss our connection in Delhi.  That flight, although only 45 minutes, was miserable because there was barely any air-conditioning and it was unbearably hot on the plane.  When we got to Delhi, we only had an hour to make our connection.  But when they had changed our flight, they had put us on a different airline, meaning that we had to grab our bags and re-check them. What a nightmare.  Luckily, we were able to hire an airport porter to help us through the airport, since we didn't really know our way around.  But there we were running through the airport.  Which might have been fine had I not felt so awful.  We made it to our gate just in time, but apparently the airline people at Dehra Dun hadn't communicated that we had been put on a different flight.  Since our original flight had been canceled, the Delhi people assumed that we weren't coming and gave away our seats. Nightmare. Nightmare. Nightmare.  Luckily, they reassigned us seats, but when we got on the plane people were already sitting in them! The nightmare continues.  We ended up sitting in the galley while we got seat reassignments, and we both lucked out with exit row seats (sitting in the middle, but honestly I really only care about the leg room).  I spent that two and a half hour flight shivering, and was relieved when we made it back to Bangalore, only to have to endure an hour and fifteen minute ride back to our house.  Needless to say, I felt awful when I got home and wanted nothing more than to sleep. Which is pretty much what I did for the next two days.  But I did get better.

Better enough that I was able to make a few last rounds with relatives the day before and the day of my departure back to the States.  Last minute, on the day that I was actually leaving, my dad took me to have henna done (officially called mehandi).  Basically, the artist free hands onto your skin with henna.  Henna looks and feels like puff paint, and it dries on your skin like puff paint too.  You can get henna done in many different colors, but I opted for a more traditional brown color, although I had it outlined in black, which is apparently a relatively new trend.  The designing only took about twenty minutes (I only had it done on one foot), but then I sat there waiting for it to dry for almost an hour.  When I got home, I began the process of carefully peeling/scraping off the puff paint.  By this point, the color has sunk into your skin and the design stays.  It probably lasted for about two weeks.  I'm still waiting for the very last remnants to fade.

Me with Dad's cousin and her husband

Henna before I peeled off the puff paint

Henna after the puff paint is scraped off

So, that was on Monday afternoon.  My flight left Bangalore at 4am on Tuesday morning, i.e. I didn't sleep at all.  I got to the Bangalore airport around 1am to check, and then worked really hard at staying awake so that I wouldn't miss my flight.  The first leg of the flight was about fours hours to Dubai, and I slept the entire time.  When I walked off the plane in Dubai, the first thing I saw was a Pinkberry.  Crazy!  The next leg of the flight was a grueling 16 hours - direct to San Francisco.  I was flying Emirates, so the overall experience was great -- especially the amazing entertainment system.  But honestly, there's no way to make a 16 hour flight not miserable.  By the time you get to hour ten, the only thing you can think is: "How can there possibly be six more hours?"

So, I guess that's the end.  Five amazing weeks full of adventure -- exactly how I wanted to spend my summer before law school. You'd think that after a trip like this, my thirst for travel would maybe be sated, but rather I've found that my destination list has expanded.  But I don't know when I'm going to find time for Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tibet, Nepal, New Zealand, and Peru.  Ack! And I'm sure the list will continue to grow.  But I guess that's the thing about traveling, it's like a drug; no matter how scary or exhausting the experience, it is always so gratifying that it necessitates more and more travel.  Now don't get me wrong.  I don't want to go this second. But I do need to go again. And soon. But for now, this marks the end of my big, bad Asian adventure, and I survived.  Until the next one!  Thanks for reading and joining me throughout my travels.

Over and Out.

-- Priya/Pri/P/Preesh/Pixi/LPJ/P-Money/Baibiya