Mussoorie
278km (172 miles) NE of Delhi; 35km (22 miles) N of Dehra Dun; 110km (68 miles) NW of Rishikesh
Smaller than Shimla and some 450m (1,500 ft.) lower, this hill station enjoys a more spectacular setting but has rather gone to seed, its regal colonial mansions all peeling plaster and overgrown hedges. It was once a favorite summer refuge of the Raj, but these days the strutting sahibs and memsahibs have been replaced by hordes of visitors escaping Delhi's blistering summer heat (which is when Mussoorie is best avoided). Until recently, Mussoorie's historical ambience was also overwhelmed by unchecked urban development; the government has now intervened (a little late, it must be said).
Unlike Shimla, Mussoorie in its glory days was pleasantly free of administrators, with plenty of nocturnal cavorting between young men and the wives of the hardworking bureaucrats who had remained back in the plains -- it is said that a bell was rung just before dawn at the famous Savoy Hotel to encourage impious lovers to get back to their own beds. The quintessential crumbling relic, the Savoy has been visited by Indira Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, Jawaharlal Nehru, Haile Selassie, the king of Nepal, and Queen Mary, but it now tries to push barren, moldy rooms on unsuspecting travelers seeking Raj-era glory. Still, do ask the manager, Mr. Bhandari, to take you on a tour of the "best" rooms and of the melancholic Writers' Bar, which has hosted Rudyard Kipling, Pearl S. Buck, and Arthur Conan Doyle -- but you'd better rush to pay your respects before the whole thing collapses.
The town's lifeline is the Mall, a stretch of pedestrian road that links its two centers, Library Bazaar and Kulri Bazaar. You can walk the entire length of the ridge, from the bandstand at the western end of the Mall to the old churches and cemeteries at the quieter end of Kulri. Above the town is Gun Hill, from where the British punctually fired their noonday guns. Today, visitors reach the summit by means of a ropeway, or rent horses for a 15-minute ride from the central police station. Along Mussoorie's upper ridge, Camel's Back Road is another fine place for a stroll. Farther east of Kulri Bazaar is Landour, which is quieter and better-preserved than touristy Mussoorie. Continue on foot for an hour beyond Kulri Bazaar and you'll reach Lal Tibba, where the lookout point provides sensational views of the Himalayas. Farther still is Sisters' Bazaar, a wooded area named for the nurses who attended to convalescing soldiers, and where you can explore an empty colonial mansion, said to be haunted.
Rishikesh
It was The Beatles -- who came here during the 1960s to visit the Maharishi (a visit that inspired much of Sgt. Pepper) -- who put Rishikesh on the map, and today the town is full of ashrams and yoga schools catering to Westerners keen to fine-tune their spiritual tool kits. Sadhus (holy men) in ginger robes, hippies in tie-dyed cheesecloth, and backpackers with plenty of time (and plenty of First World credit) gather on the banks of the Ganga to talk about the evils of the West and the failure of communism. By day, it's a spiritual Disneyland, where the commercial excesses of packaged meditation hang heavily about the concrete ashrams, bedecked with gaudy statues of Vishnu and Shiva. But at night, to the accompaniment of hypnotic prayers and harmonious singing, Rishikesh undergoes a magical transformation. Thousands of golden marigolds and devotional candles mounted on banana leaves are set adrift upon the river, a gloriously simple spectacle, reminding all that this really is a spiritual retreat.
