Weekend getaway from Delhi

21 May09

The week end was approaching and on Thursday, we came to know that my sister has a scheduled holiday on Monday. So we decided to take a leave too and head to Dehradun. Here is an account of the extended weekend and extended fun that we had.

Day I

Route taken- Delhi-Karnal-Yamuna Nagar- Saharanpur- Mohand- Dehradun

The road till Karnal is a part of the Grand Trunk Road (which extends between Kolkata to Lahore (now just till Amritsar)) and is one awesome road. It was a wide road and not with very heavy traffic. From Karnal we left the National Highway and got on to a State highway towards Yamuna Nagar . The road is single laned with pot holes. But after some distance, the road improved, pot holes reduced but the traffic became very heavy.

Reached Dehradun by about lunch time, and then went to see our house. The place was looking great…the house is a part of a society that is built on top of a plateau, closed to the river Tong and another rain fed river. The weather was gr8 too…all cloudy...a welcome break from the dusty and hot Delhi weather.

(Tall teak trees and clouds)

We didn’t do much on the first day, only got the house cleaned, installed a ceiling fan and a few light points and connected the Cooking Gas that we had carried along from Delhi etc... and came back to stay in the officers mess of the Special Frontier Force.

Day II

We had planned to have a small pooja at our house, so that we could stay there whenever we visit Dehradun. After the pooja, it is customary to stay at the house at night. We had nothing much to do and had all the time to enjoy the weather and the place.

And what a great weather it was, dark clouds- away from the maddening and polluted Delhi, it was a pleasant and welcome change. We decided to go for a walk in and around the colony, as it had started drizzling.

As we came out of the colony gate we saw an unguarded mango tree with plenty of raw mangoes. We tried everything to pluck those mangoes-shook the tree and even pelted stones and did manage to get plenty of mangoes. By then it started raining heavily so we strolled back home for a hot cup of coffee sitting in the verandah and enjoying nature. Incidentally there are huge teak trees (may be 50 feet or even taller) outside our row of houses and they seem to be enjoying (like us) the rains and dancing to the tune of wild breeze.

(Trying to pluck some raw mangoes :))

It was so hard to resist such weather that, we decided to go for a walk again, did a bit of trekking too. We went for a long walk on the bank of the rain fed river and on the way back sat down on the parapet wall close to the river and Pa couldn’t resist telling us what he would do if we came to stay at this place for a longer duration.

(Thats Pa with his YOGA pose ;))

It rained all day. We generally can’t see stars in Delhi thanks to the pollution, but in Dehradun it was also impossible, thanks to the clouds this time. A local there told us that the weather has been similar for the pas

t couple of weeks with rains, nearly every evening.

Also Dehradun being on the foot hills of Mussoorie, one could easily see the twinkling lights of Mussoorie (in between the cloud cover) and it was a breath taking site. In fact I am feeling jealous of the residents of Dehradun who would be watching this everyday. I did try to capture the scene but because of the distance, cloudy weather and night time, the digital camera actually did not do justice to the scene, but anyway I am including a pic of the same here.

(Mussoorie at daytime)

(Mussoorie by night, not very clear though)

Day III

We had to start back today because we had just taken one day’s leave, but it was difficult to leave Dehradun when you think of the weather in Delhi.:(

We took a different route this time and followed the following route,

Dehradun- Mohand- Roorkee- Muzzafarnagar- Meerut- Delhi

Though this route was a bit shorter, but most part of the route was single laned and had heavy traffic without a road divider. After Roorkee, the road was in parts four laned with dividers and then use to suddenly change over to single lane at transition points the roads became nearly undrivable with more pot holes than roads. (The road and flyovers are under construction). So in all it took us more time to cover a lesser distance and a beautiful extended weekend came to an end.

We have been told to try a new route next time after Yamuna nagar via Ponta Sahib to deheradun, as it is supposedly an awesome route via jungles and ghats. So soon, we'll probably be heading to Dehradun via this new route.