Far from the noisy streets of the city where the sky appears grey and air so impure we entered the Queen of hills – Mussoorie after a 7 hour journey from Old Delhi Railway Station to Dehradun. The journey which started with the birthday celebration of our mentor Ajay Singhi continued with some fun filled activities like truth and dare where we left not a single passenger in our train and some fun filled talks before finally going for sleep.
8:20 a.m. in the morning and the time was finally here, to deboard from our train to continue our journey to Mussoorie in the cabs we have booked for ourselves which will take us to our place we are going to stay, Hotel Sun n’ Snow. In our cabs we started our road trip towards our hotel with a small stop in between at a dhaba to fill our empty stomach. After the short stop and breakfast consisting of stuffed paranthas we resumed our journey.
10:40 a.m. and we arrived at our hotel and god, the view from the hotel was alluring. With clouds coming our way, the scene of the valley looked ravishing.
It was time to take a short break before we resume our expedition. We entered our hotel rooms and they were no less, and as soon as I entered the room the first thing that happened was lying flat on the bed, we (Me and my roommate) took a short nap and yeah coffee too before we finally left our room to join our Mozpacers family to resume the trip.
Mozpacers?? Who? Well, we are a community that promotes Mozilla and its vision of the open source softwares and we are not limited to this. We hold a lot of events at different places to create awareness about open source softwares and different possibilities and events where people can learn how to create new things.
12:40 p.m. and it didn’t looked like it was afternoon, all the Mozpacers met outside the hotel entrance to start our mission of Stumbling Mussoorie. Before we start our stumbling, we all were given the Mozilla swags.
It was time to start our journey. We all entered our cabs which will take us to different parts of Mussoorie. And there started our expedition.
The first destination was Company Bagh, where we just roamed around and yes enjoyed on the columbus ride. With the entry into Company Bagh, got revived was my passion for photography which was lying dormant for the last few months. Some nice clicks here and there and some selfies using DSLR (Selfie love maybe :P).
The next spot for expedition was the Gun Hill and as some adventurous people out there we dropped the idea of using the Cable Cars to reach it in favor of going there by foot. The journey which was only 0.5 km looked like a 5km walk on a steep slope, leaving all aside (including a small incident that took place with me between our journey) we finally reached the top. The view from the top was just amazing, we could see all the clouds covering the hills and the deep valleys. With Gun Hill top explored, we finally left for our hotel.
Reaching our hotel, we went straight back to our rooms to freshen ourselves up for the bonfire party that we planned for the night. The hotel staff made absolutely stunning arrangement for the bonfire party. With the end to our bonfire party which consisted of dancing, singing and a heart touching poem by our Mozpacer Abhinav, we moved on to have our dinner. Before leaving for our rooms to take a much required sleep, we the enthusiastic Mozpacers contributed to make a birthday party more lively.
It was 11:30 p.m. and I finally entered my room, completely tired and fell flat on the bed.
7:30 a.m. and it was time to finally wake up for the last day in Mussoorie, the day started quiet unexpectedly with me suffering with fever. But nothing can stop my excursion, took the medication and rested for some more time waiting for the fever to come down.
8:30 a.m. in the morning and I woke up again, feeling better now. Now it was time to freshen myself up since it was only few hours left after which we have to vacate our hotel rooms and go to some more destinations in Mussoorie before finally leaving to Delhi.
11:00 a.m. and we were done with our breakfast and ready to vacate our Hotel rooms. The first spot in today’s checklist was George Everest. Well we sat in our cabs that took us to George Everest where the clouds were below our feet, some photography here and there and we were done exploring the place.
The next and the final spot in our expedition was Kempty Falls, and it took us an hour from George Everest to reach there. The falls just pleased the eyes from a long distance and as soon as we were nearing it, my excitement was growing exponentially. Finally we reached our destination and as said we are crazy and hard working so we continued it here too, by not taking the cable car towards the falls and instead taking the stairways to reach the falls.
As soon as I reached the falls, the sound of water falling from the top was mesmerizing to the ears and everyone of us was excited to get into the waters right there and it was a short moment before every Mozpacer was inside the waters enjoying each and every drop of water that poured over there head from the top (ohhh… those shivers due to coldness of water :P). With Mozpacers coming out of waters, our expedition was coming to an end and we were getting ready to leave this mesmerizing place to go back to our cities.
After having our lunch, we reached our cabs which were going to take us back to Dehradun Railway Station.
6:45 p.m. in the evening and we reached our destination (Dehradun Railway Station) where some of the Mozpacers will leave for there home towns while we wait for our Train that was scheduled to arrive at 8:45 p.m. Since we were left with quite some time, we all decided to visit a nearby restaurant to have our dinner followed by Ice Creams.
9:15 p.m. and we all boarded our train to go back to our city, Delhi. The journey was in its final phase and I must say, this was the most awesome trip I have ever witnessed. With the experience to interact with some of the most awesome people out there I have ever met, and exploring some new areas and trekking, all under the Mozpacers community… I will really miss the time spent. The whole journey made my will to contribute in the Open Source Communities more strong.