A few kilometres ahead of Mussoorie, near the village of Kempty, there are a few hostels and other properties by a stream. I had booked one of them for a few days. I usually like to visit places off-season to avoid crowds, but here I had overdone it, and there were hardly one or two other travellers in the hostel. The nice thing about the one or two rare people you find in these situations is that they are usually just the one or two people you want to meet. If someone decides to show up in the same place as you at the same off-season time, you’ll most likely get along!
In my dorm room, there were two startup founders from Delhi. And, another guy named Prashant was travelling solo to celebrate his birthday. We all played table tennis that evening, and the next day, the founders checked out. I was left with Prashant, who wanted to rent a scooter to go around for the day. We also considered renting it for two days because the rental guy could give us a discount if we rented it for two days. We did some smart math and realized that if we had the scooter the next day, I could drop Prashant in Mussoorie City, where he had to catch a bus back home. A scooter costs around 600 rupees a day, while getting a taxi to the city would cost around 1000 rupees!
On that day, we tried going to a waterfall that was inaccessible due to a landslide, and then in the evening, we went to Dalai Hills. We spent some time there watching the sunset behind the hills and getting a time-lapse video of it.
The next day, Prashant left, and I was the only traveller staying at the property. I have come to realize that I can spend hours and possibly days staring at the mountains. Along with this realization is the fear that I will actually do it and suddenly turn out to be 60 years old. So I decided to move. I had the scooter to myself and decided to head east for no reason. There were hills and the Yamuna River was flowing through the valley in between.
After about 2 hours, I decided to turn back, and at around 5 p.m., I stopped at this road leading down into a valley. There was a board that read “Sainji - The Corn Village.”. Prashant said there was a nice bakery cafe there, and I was hungry, so I took the detour.
The cafe was located among the corn fields, which seemed to be the staple crop of the village. The cafe seemed deserted, and I entered after I peeped in and saw that there were no dogs. It was clearly off-season because there was only a small girl in the kitchen and half the items on the menu weren’t being served. I also learned that the village grows corn predominantly, and the cafe’s proceeds go to the volunteer-run English-medium school in the village.
I got a small cake and sat there with my laptop to do some work. Once again, the mountains were a beautiful distraction, and I found it hard to focus. As I sat there, another traveller walked in, and I realized I looked like the cafe owner, the only person sitting there, glaring into a laptop. To confirm my assumption, she asked me if the cafe was open. I told her, “Yes, but I’m not the owner. I’m also traveling.”. Her name was Narita, named after Tokyo’s airport, where she was born. A traveller by birth, indeed!
I was initially apprehensive about walking further into the village, given my experience with being barked at by random dogs in the hills. One of the cafes I’d visited near Dehradun had a dog chasing away any potential customer that tried to enter; it seemed like the staff did not want to deal with customers. Now, Narita found a dog that had been under the table in the cafe all this time. He was a harmless chap, just having his siesta. This motivated me to join Narita in walking further into the village.
As we started walking, we first noticed a signboard that asked us to be careful while venturing in and that they recommended we get a guide to show us around. We looked around to see if we could find a guide somewhere, and one doggo walked towards us with a wagging tail and led us into the village!
Inside the village, we were welcomed by the humblest of people I’d seen in a while. There were some houses painted with bright colors, and most importantly, all the houses had bunches of corn hung up everywhere. The only thing brighter than the corn in the village was the villager’s faces! Everyone, including kids and grandpas, was happily walking around or hanging up corn. I truly felt like I was in paradise.
Finally, we walked to the other side of the village to get a better glimpse of the sunset and were greeted by some villagers who were there to get fresh drinking water from the stream. The stream apparently gives the coolest water in the village! After the sunset, we saw the full moon rise on the opposite side of the sky as we started our scooters to very unwillingly leave this beautiful village behind!
Two days later, I had to get back to Mussoorie City, and Narita had a scooter to be returned there. So she dropped me. As they say, what goes around, comes around!
Sukha Puri*
More food stuff - Everything I Ate in Dehradun by @thatgoangirl
Travelling at the Speed of Soul: https://www.densediscovery.com/issues/286
The Village Venus Effect by Sketchplantations:
“The Village Venus effect describes the experience of someone living in an isolated village and knowing the most beautiful person there. Because the person is the most attractive person they've ever seen, it's easy to think that no one could be more so. Yet, beyond the village is a whole world of people, many of whom could be more beautiful.” Full Article
*Sukha Puri: the complementary dry puri usually served after having a round of gol gappa on the street side
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