Day 1 - Drive to Mussoorie

It was a crazy week as usual, it always happens that the week is very bad for work, commute and others just before we go on vacation and come back. So somehow we finished our packing on Thursday night and set our alarms for early Friday.

We woke up on time and got ready and then call for Uber, the app shows the taxi is just next to our apartment where normally few Uber/Ola always are found. on tracking it was found no movement, I call the number and no one picks. After trying few times I gave up and cancel my trip. Again book another Uber and this time the guys picks up the phone and promised to be there in 5 minutes. The cab was an old one the headlight was barely working asked him to switch on the headlight and his response it is already on. Well, finger crossed we reached airport and journey to Delhi was in peace.  

We landed on time and called our car rental company they told us to come to a designated spot but the wait was quite long. The representative does the handover outside Airport area near Aero City Metro (Mahipalpur junction). Signed few documents took pictures of the car. There were lots of dents around ( nothing surprising a rented car in Delhi).

The car had around 53K KM on ODO. What was bad is that the car came with very low fuel where the pre-sale promise was it will come with full tank fuel. Now it was already 11 and the traffic was horrible and we started our journey in crawling speed. The names were familiar but I could not recollect anything about Delhi, like Bhikaji Kama, AIMS, SouthEx… .

Crossed Jamuna and stopped for UP road tax. Now the real UP wala feeling came alive. The tool was only 120/- but the guy wanted 170/- When asked 50/- is his fees for which there was no receipt. After raising my voice little and asking what is wrong it was agreed at 150/-.

We crossed Noida and then entered Ghaziabad.  Traffic was getting little better but the day was getting hotter and hotter. Now I was desperate to find a petrol station. Thanks, Google Maps we had to take few U-turns very confidently as for no reason it asks you to take a road when your common road sense also tells you it is very wrong. We saw a massive amount of newly constructed apartments and people are waving their hands to the car so take a look. Indian realty market did not look that promising.  

We fill our car with fuel and then stopped for a quick bite. The food was OK but the moment we come back the car felt like a furnace.

The road google map took us bypassed Ghaziabad, Meerut, Muzaffarnagar,Roorkee, Dehradun for Mussoorie.

We stopped before Roorkee to pay road tax for Uttarakhand but now this time has to give 300/- to that guy for which there was no receipt. It was a just a tent where these private operators are working. Only good thing I understood what needs to be done for next time as he did the process in front of me on the computer.

As soon as we entered Roorkee the roads just disappeared for some good distance. It was back to crawling speed and minute maneuvering. And it seems there is no real bypass as the whole town was on the road.  At last, the road got better as we escaped out of Roorkee. We passed Dehradun around 5/5:30 PM. And from there uphill of 20KM started to reach Mussoorie. We were told the road will be tricky but found it OK.

We reached Mussoorie when the sun just went down completely behind the mountains. As usual like any other British hill station this also has Mall road, and we anticipated that it will be closed to vehicular traffic in the evening. And it was so we had to find a public parking and park our car there. It was a transition from the driving on plains as roads here get really narrow.

We checked in our hotel GMVN and oh! No, it was a not a room we were expecting. The staffs were courteous but very slow in response.   I really feel bad as most of our hotels are GMVN/KMVN for next 10 days. We walked to another end of the Mall road and had a good dinner. The place was very crowded, but we all have tested better Chinese food. Maybe our choice was not great as the dishes we ordered were extremely spicy or oily.

Now with a little sore mood, we headed back to the hotel and left Aarush for sleeping as we walked back to get our car back to the hotel. Oh boy! what a parking. You go steeply down from the Coffee day and then drive along two hotels and their parking kissing those cars side mirrors. And then there 90° turn to be made. I really do not know how I managed the same. The hotel guy was there to help me but Pamela was screaming I was maneuvering left, right, front back and what not. Anyway once crossed that hurdle the parking area was just behind our room.

Disappointed so far we just crashed on our bed even without changing our dress. A long day from morning 4 a.m came to an end finally.