Mussoorie - my experience

Introduction and the plot :- We decided to visit this hilly place during our final year of engineering, now it is about 850 kms from Allahabad(my college), so it was very difficult to convince other guys about this, apart from economic reasons, more friends meant more fun.

Finally after about 1 week of planning/funding/persuation/(and even threats by our Tiwari don) 10 of us got ready for this trip. Here is a short introduction of characters in the following description:-
me - affording the partial funding of 2 guys, so now my main interest was shifted from dreams of watching/experiencing snow to the reality of minimizing the trip expense.
Tiwari- Our Don/Mafia, his weight has been fluctuating around that alarming 1 quintal mark. We relied a lot on his powers( of both body n pocket)
Kamal(OOnchi)- a bit reluctant to start with but thereafter he was Very sincere about the trip.
Nitin(Golu):-Digital camera waale, nice n cool but gets a bit upset with continuous leg pulling.
Ghutna:- Akal ghutne mein, really it was hard time for him as his mind/knees totally froze in Mussoorie.
Palua:-Khaane peene mein mast, dunia ki aisi ki taisi
Sourabh(Babba)-Cool and friendly, dedicated towards the success of the trip
Punnu:- easy going, just enjoyed the trip as it came
Amit:- Shayari waale, Allahabadi, fun loving

Madness begins :- So the train journey towards Dehradun from Allahabad was very nice, We hardly slept as most of the time was consumed in long gossips/leg pulling and the photo session, in the morning the train halted for a long time at Haridwar, thats when Ghutna(definetle akal ghutne mein) n punnu decided to do something adventurous and defied sanity by crossing some lanes n sitting on some other goods carrying train, had our train started they had very narrow chance of making it to our train or even worse some other train could have blocked them from doing so. Was it really courageous? i donno..

Finally we reached Dehradun and then jumped into a mussoorie bound bus.

Tiwari was a bit upset at the start(He wanted to go to Auli, for winter sports like ski-ing, fortunately we convinced him to drop his plans and saved Himalayas from a cataclysmic avalanche that he could have caused there) , I mustered all courage to take this picture. ha ha

The cold welcome:- none of us had witnessed a snow fall before and we all were praying that it takes place during our 2 days stay there. Due to some confusion we got down from the bus some 5 kms from the main city. and to add to our woes, soon it started to rain.
We desperately wanted to arrange for accomodation, fortunately it was off season(this place attracts more tourists in summers, very much like other hill stations)
So there were many hotels having vacant rooms and consequently dropped rates.
We were invited by the 'chotu' of some hotel to come upstairs and talk to his owner, we wanted 3 rooms and had to bargain about room rates, he started by saying that he usually gives room at 1200 Rs(luxury ones at 2000 during peak season) But during off season he will give at 600, Now believe it or not .. we finally settled the deal(through requesting, pleading, telling that being students we are short of money and even coersing him at the end)for 400 Rs for all 3 rooms. Rooms were very much better than our expectation(considering about 150 Rs of rent) But at that time there was no power in the whole town due to some major fault, but nobody was complaining, we all set together, chatted, roamed around in hotel and enjoyed the cool environment. The floor was as cold as ice, and it was pretty cold otherwise as well.
I shared the room with Amit and Golu, We were shiwering badly and it was not a bad idea to share the room with 2 others. though we had another bed but due to chilling winter no body was ready to sleep alone. all 3 of us settled on the double bed and covered ourself with all the three quilts. Just a while after we started to feel a bit comfrtable, we realised that all of us are very thirsty, the water jug was their on the stool, but one of us had to fetch it. You can estimate the intensity of coldness by the fact that for about half an hour we persuaded each other/joked/giggled/created poems(shayaris) about our situation/ but none of us moved..and donno when sleepiness overwhelmed our thirstiness. If I am not wrong the Sayari was something like this -

Jee to karta hai ki chal ke do ghoont paani pee loon
(Irshaad Irshaad! consider the intensiy) ....
Jee to karta hai ki chal ke do ghoont paani pee loon (Irshaad Irshaad) ....
Magar kambakht Utthe kaun!! Wah Wah!!!!

We enjoyed our first snow fall, but.. :- Then when all 3 of us were smugly sleeping, somebody knocked(Ohh thats a bit too civilized..I mean!.. Kicked) at the door. We went out and Ghutna was going berserk yelling barf barf.. barf pad rahi hai be!(snow snow.. its snow fall) we also got excited and came out, actually it wasn't a snow fall, it was rain, but due to extreme low temperature, small rain drops were a bit solidified. So at the floor/road we could see a thin layer of transparent ice(not snow), but for us it was snow fall, and seeing our first snow fall from some hotel wasn't really exciting so we decided to venture out, we wrapped ourselves in the warmwest clothes that we had and hit the road.
the first thing i noticed was that my Adidas sports shoes that looked quite okay till then were not made for this weather.. as icy cold water got into the soul, freezing my feet. So we were very near to the mall road and main chowk within 5 minutes, we were the only living element(except trees n foliage) out at that time( after all it was 3'o clock in the morning), we noticed that thick layers(at that time we thought that anything more than 1 cm is thick) of this ice were their on tops of taxis/cars, so we started playing with that..natuarally it wasn't a good idea as this half freezed ice/water was very heavy and very wet as well. But anyway we were very happy to have our first experience of hurling snow balls(read ice balls) at each other, meanwhile the rain stopped and we walked to the main chowk.
There we noticed an open Pan/Cigarette shop and decided to have Pan, justifying the fact that we came from Allahabad, That guy told us that there are good chances of snow fall tonight or maybe tomorrow.
Hey just wait a sec! what did he mean??????
our conceited feeling of having experienced the snow fall was shattered by his one sentense. Actaually as i said it wasn't snow fall it was simple rain with some portion of it geting converted to ice due o extreme low temerature(called paala in local language) Ohh that was very discouraging and suddenly all my happiness about my clothes being dabbed by fresh snow was gone, and I was now having this cold feeling of remorse about letting others to through this cold water on me.
We realised our stupid condition and marched straight back to our rooms.

The marvelous morning :- I was extremely tired and a bit subdued(coz of this latest misadventure), so woke up quite late at around 11 o clock, to my surprise there was lots of natural light coming into our room, i looked out of the window to find the whole surrounding clad with thick white snow. Now this was a pleasant surprise, then I went out with Ghutna to get a first hand experience while others were getting ready. I was just in sleepers, but was so excited that i didn't mind that too much, all the cars were stranded on the road, it was a very heavy snow fall , maybe already more than 8-10 inches, all the roads and trees were covered with this fresh snow, i was delighted to see the sight.

morning view of mussoorie, from and around our hotel

Came back and told others about how much fun filled it will be. We ventured out at around 12 o clock, the roads had been converted to snow balls throwing battlefields. It didn't matter if you know somebody or not, if you feel like than hit anyone you want to and people don't mind coz of the festive/joyous environment. we got into a friendly snow balls fight with a local bunch of guys obviously we got a good thrashing at their hands as their snow ball size was 4 times than ours and they were throwing them at an alarming frequency. they were hardly 5-6 and they scattered us in no time. Only tiwari had the courage(or maybe lack of swiftness) to stand against the onslaught, definetly these snow balls were nothing compared to his size/body mass :), but he was so slow in attacking others that he ended up being a smiling sand bag for them, they had to stop after seeing that they can not win over this monster.

My mobile got buried in the snow :- Just beside the main chowk we found a churchyard, large enough in size and perfect for playing with snow. we played a lot there and during that time of jumping and running around, i lost my mobile. I knew that it was there in the lawn itself, but due to continuous snow fall and as so many people were playing there, it got covered with snow. We tried giving it a call and the ring was going but it was a big lawn and in so much noise it was impossible to find it out. then I thought that maybe i forgot it in the hotel room, me and Amit came back to hotel room to check this, while coming back the roads were extremely slippery, maybe coz of downward slope and melting of some of the snow. We slipped on almost every step, so many people were falling around us, it would have been fun but at that time i was more concerned about my mobile, but sadly it wasn't to be found in the hotel as i had lost it in the church ground. I had no other option but to forget about the mobile. and finally i accepted it as the first personal setback frm the trip.

Lal Tibba/ 5kms of walk/ enjoyment and dissapointment :- OK anyway after that we heard about a unique and picturesque location lal dubba/(i think correct name is Lal Tibba), with high expectations we started our march.. we were climbing the hill and this part was witnessing greater snowfall, it was around 4 kms from the main market but there was too much enthu in the group so we never felt any tiredness.
Finally the road ended on a peak but it was already late evening and due to prominent signs of snow storm, there was nobody in sight to tell us about where to go to visit the lal dubba, we had a red colour water tank kinda thing and joked among ourself that this is the damn lal dubba we were looking for. after some time of wandering about to check if there is any route from here we spotted a local boy, he clearified that this place itself is known as lal dubba, n that box/tank was the reason for that place being called like that.
ohh GOD! we walked for more than 2 hours and covered these 4-5 kms in such difficult conditions to witness this absurd piece of artistry, which was anyway invisible coz of darkness. The only moments when my great expectations were so brutally ridiculed by reality was maybe the incident when during my college days, while I was travelling from Dehradun to Allahabad, the seat just opposite to mine was reserved by some Shreya Goyl(saw it on the list at D'dun itself.. :)), aged 19years, WOW! She was supposed to board at haridwar, it felt like an endless wait n haridwar seemed to be very far off, but finally it turned out that this is a strongly built guy(Shrey-a , n not shreyaaa :P) going for his interview in Army.WTH!
OK back to mussoorie, there was very thick layer of pristine snow there and we had to make the most of that. we made this big snowman in no time .. it was dedicated to MNNIT cS 2005 class. we played a lot there like crazy little boys, didn't mind the snow that entered our clothes in quite generous proportions. we played till we got tired to the hilt. the snow fall was getting more and more intense, we started our journey back to the hotel room, it was still about 6-8 kms from that place and we were too tired for that, but the journey was downwards from the hill so it required less efforts, there were slopes were we could actually skate on our normal shoes(with a bit older n worn out sole). The day was very funfilled, but we were not particularly happy wid the efforts we put into getting to that lal dubba( literally it was nothing more than that), but later i came to know that it is one of the top most point on the mussoorie hill, that was verified by the thickest layer of snow that we got there. and anyway the way to Lal dubba/Tibba is extremely beautiful and it compensated for our efforts.

Day 2, energy reloded :- Initially we spent some time in market, we wanted to board the ropeway but than somebody pitched in with his suggestion to go to Company Garden first. Now the name looked quite appealing, and the fact that NAA(IAS academy) will come in way was a good enough a reason for me support this company garden march.Now we looked at a board that showed that company garden is some 4.5 kms from that place, we kept on walking stopping only to sip brandy frm a small quarter that we had(sorry to say but it was extreme cold and for us our life was more precious that our non existing decency, and anyway the quantity was hardly 0.1 pegs per head) we kept on walking, went across the gate of NAA, posed with broad smiles as if we all are gonna land up in this campus next.

Seemingly endless journey towards Company garden :- The signs the direction and the kilometers kept on changing or better i should say that they kept on fluctuating.it is a comman problem that i have noticed in hilly areas, the distances are very poorly recorded and no matter how much you walk you are always 2-3 kms away from your destination(acc to the boards) unless you travel atleast double than that. Finally after walking continuously for 2 hours and atleast 6-7 kms we reached company garden, there was nothing special here because everything was covered by the thick layer of snow, maybe this garden looks great in summers.
But then there was a canteen where we had some snaks and there was a photo point as well, you can get the traditional attire for a rent of 20Rs, we had some great snaps there. We started outr journey back coz we wanted to enjoy the ropeway ride, but unfortunately we were a bit late to reach there as there was a power failure just before we reached the place. We waited a bit in expectation but soon it was dark and we were forced to wind up our mussoorie trip without enjoying the ropeway(and without visiting KemptyFall, as all the roads were jammed because of heavy snow fall) Overall it was a great trip, later i came to know that it was the heaviest snow fall witnessed in mussoorie in last 2 decades. Just like this has been my longest post(written piece) in last 2.5 decades :).

Anyway my few suggestions/precautions -
1. If you are going in winter season, please check your shoes, they should be suitable for walking on snow.(like water proof, and spiky/grippy sole) carry additional pairs of socks.
2. Better to arrange for things like batteries/shoes/warm clothes before reaching mussoorie, its being a tourist place, prices will be quite higher.

Mussoorie - Queen of Hills

Beauty of Snow Clad Mussoorie

Mussorie is about 26 kms by road from dehradun(Uttaranchal), though arial distance will be hardly 4-5 kms. You can easily see mussoorie hill from the western side(chakrata road) of the dehradun city. Infact in the night the hill look beautiful with thousands of bulbs giving an impression of a finely knitted illuminated net, being spread over the hill by some divine power.

The beauty of that sight is only challenged by the night view of dehradun from mussoorie, the light is many fold more intense and dense, lakhs of homes, well within your view, loosing there separate identity together, as they just fill the valley with light.

But surely there is a lot more to see in mussoorie than seeing the night view of dehradun.

After all, it needs good reasons to be called the Queen of Hills. Due to its serene environment, great views of snow clad mountains and cool and refreshing climate, it attracts lots of tourists. The place is full of energy with all these tourists roaming and shopping in a carefree manner, away from daily life/job pressure, enjoying some relaxing moments. So what you see is lots of newly wed couples exchanging roles of cameraman and the emerging supermodel(So what? if he/she is a bit shy :) ) for each other every now and then. This is the beauty of this place that forces them to stop after every 5-10 steps.. gaze the new scene, and then capitulate against the desire to capture/save that scene for ever.

There are two roads to get to this place, the more popular one goes directly from Dehradun to Mussoorie, Other one goes from Yamunotri -Doon Highway to Mussoorie(from western side)
If you are traveling from Dehradun, you can stop at Bhatta Falls(about 7.5 kms from Mussoorie, serves as a good picnic stop or just refresh here before finally reaching your destination) and Nag Devta Temple.

Path to Lal Tibba - whether summers or winters its always fascinating

In Mussorie you can enjoy while strolling on the busy mall road, or more purposefully you can enjoy the ropeway ride to and from GunHill, you may take a beautiful path that leads you to the LalTibba(the highest peak in mussoorie), or you can visit the beautiful company garden.

Nearby there are many falls, the most famous of them is the Kempty Falls, about 15 kms from Mussorie towards Yamunotri. It is a beautiful fall having a height of about 50 feet and enormous amount of water spread into 5 streams, giving it a wider look.

Snow clad mountains, as seen from mussoorie, Kempty falls and the Ropeway in boxes

During winter this place is one of the first in lower hills to attract snowfall, that gives this plae a totally new look, as most of the people around are on holidays, this town itself gets into that mood, So you can see groups of people suddenly engaged in catapulting snow balls to some passing by group, and then all the people bursting into laughter after sometime of friendly rivalry.

Overall whether the season is summer or winter, this place is a great spot to go on holidays, and as it is so near to dehradun, these two together form an irresistible combination.

It is a must visit to all of those who appreciate the nature and the abundant beauty of the Himalaya. Definetly you can not miss to see the Queen of Hills.

The best place to stay here is the Jaypee Residency, and their service justifies the extreme price they ask for providing you the stay.

Park Plaza Sylverton is almost of the same league.

For midway range HoneyMoon Inn and green castle are good options, anyway there are tons of hotels/ resorts/ Guest houses in Mussoorie, suitable for everyone’s budget.

My suggestions:-

• Be ready for a quick climate change, even between Mussoorie and dehradun there is normally a temperature diffrenece of 5 degrees, So be ready with your warm clothes. Afterall you don’t want to catch fewer or cold and than see the beaty of HillQueen from your hotel room or pass your time watching TV, it is not a bad idea to keep some god antibiotic pills ready.
• If you are planning to visit mussoorie during snowfalls, please keep a buffer of 2-3 days, and decide about that once you reach dehradun. Don’t drive towards Mussoorie when it is already witnessing heavy snowfall, because many people will rush towards that and as road will jam because of heavy snow fall, you will stuck in a big traffic, maybe for more than 12 hours. Plan your trip to visit mussoorie during normal days and than pray for the snowfall when you are staying there, don’t worry! the beauty of the hill will not allow you to complain, even if you doesn’t witness a snowfall.
• If you are going there during winter, please ensure that there facility of hot water in the hotel/lodge where you are staying, there are chances of power cuts during heavy rain/snow fall, and after long walks on snow clad paths, putting your feet in hot water will slowly drive away all the pain.
• Also after snow falls put on the warmest cloths(it gets colder once the snow fall stops and the ice starts melting), and water proof boots/footwear. You will be inviting sickness if you let the snow/cold water(melting ice) to enter your shoes.
• Plan before and purchase all important things(Like camera betteries/Film rolls/memory sticks/ torches) in dehradun itself, you may have to spend double the money once you reach mussoorie, this one being an exclusive tourist place.
  

Dakpathar-2 (memories of my childhood )

180 degree view of mountain range and yamuna river from dakpathar

Dakpathar! hmm what to say? it is such an integral part of my identity.
Most of whatever I remember about my childhood is associated with this place.
OK so get back to my experiences related to this place.
the city is divided into two parts - upper and lower dakpathar. initially our quarter was in lower dakpathar(known as lower lakhwad as well), well we had a triangular playing ground very near to our place. I remember that when i was a kid we used to play cricket there , having the narrow end as the pitch and the wider one as boundary fence, i somehow could never hit a six in that ground and with those eyes it was a bit too far for me, but when i recently visited that place i realised that it is hardly 50 ft in length. truely amazing! the whole picture that i had in my mind of this huge ground changed.. shows that as a child, we see and percieve things in relation to our size.

behind our colony was a sevage stream running out of Yamuna(in fact Shakti canal, that is being carved out of yamuna), this used to overflow a lot during rainy season and was major cause of snakes found in our colony, but in summers it was cool and we enjoyed floating paper boat on its calm water. then upon crossing it there was vast farmland and then there was yamuna and next to it was range of tall ad huge mountains full of wild life and foliage.
when i was a child i was fasinated by those mountains(later on i satiated this feeling by trekking one of them.. facing reptiles/ spiders/ guns and what not.. that story to follow)


then we moved to upper dakpathar and following 2-3 years were a bit uneventful for me as all of my friends were left in my earlier colony. But then things picked up when i moved to high school, somehow i started performing better in exams, created a bit of reputation for myself and some unforgettable bonds of friendship with some wonderful persons.

We used to play(mainly cricket) in evening, and each evening, I would go to the ground thinking that today would be my day, but unfailingly i always failed to play well. hardly once in a month or so i will lead my side to victory but i played, and at that time i used to think that i played for those 1-2 days out of a month, but now i realised that i enjoyed and remember the rest of the days as much as those, when i performed well.

The Stadium in backdrop of mountains

Then we grew a bit more and that ground became small for our shots, so we moved to the stadium, now this is a cool place because there is no problem of ball falling into other people's lawn or get missing after hitting thick bushes. But the problem in stadium was that it is totally open, so all the fielders had to do a lot of running, being lazy to the core I did'nt like this at all, so my friends nicknamed me gadhdha(pit) coz often i was spotted resting when the ball flew past me.
but i was a useful fast bowler(i had the pace but the control over the ball was surely out of my control), and had the ability to block all the balls without worrying about scoring.( now you can think about my utility in a 6 over match while 6-8 players are waiting for their chance to hold the bat) :)

About schools:- dakpathar has two english medium schools and one of them is St Merry's, i somehow never liked this one because they refused to take me when my father tried to enroll me there, what i remember is that i stared the principal a bit and maybe i showed her some signs of becoming a head ache for my teachers one day.(which i eventually became but alas! in some other school), they insisted on my TC from previous school which my father didn't have coz he never thought that having a TC for KG standard will be this much important, as during his time he was directly enrolled in class 5 in our village.
So anyway my father challenged the principal that their behaviour is a bit too atrocatic and I will be educated in a hindi medium school and will become better than many of their student in every regard.( Well! upto what extent i fulfilled this is questionable, but surely i have done enough to make this question somewhat ponderable)
So finally i was educated in Saraswati Shishu/Vidya Mandir amidst proper indian sanskars. and i do believe that they are great schools.
It was SVM where i transformed a bit and emerged as the district topper in HighSchool examination, then moved to GIC(final frontier for all dakpathariets) and cleared my intermediate with a plain honours(no district topping this time). then with some luck with multi choice questions i got a good rank in state level engineering test and got into NIT allahabad, CS branch, though i cleared IIT n Roorkee exams as well but their ranks were among the last 20% among those who cleared them.
I have a lot to say about my school/college life but i will stop here because this blog is dedicated to dakpathar and not me.

The evening walk road and park:- now when i grew a bit more and during times when our cricketing genes were not that much activated, we used to stroll around during
evenings.(aawaragardi is the correct word). This was the beautiful road from upper dakpathar to the park which is situated in lower dakpathar it had yamuna and mountain range on one side and stadium on the other. You can sit on a lonely bench and can see all the beautiful girls passing you one by one, you can discuss among your friends about each of them and their current status regarding their school/ class and boyfriends. with cool breeze coming over from the river and so much beauty all around you(scenic and otherwise), time looked to be in a hurry. We shared jokes(mostly non-veg), gossiped, debated till the street lights were turned on.. giving us a signal to go back to our homes.

The status of this park is also quite unique, it holds its own place in people's psyche over there. During summer evening you may count upto 500 people here, and then there is hardly any place to sit, families sit as close to each other that identifying the bounadaries become difficult, you may clearly overhear a private conversation between a couple(probably thats why they prefer to sit almost in lap of other unknown couples rather than sitting even near to any bunch of boys), but the atmosphere become electrifying, with so many kids playing all around, colourfull attires of people, colorful fountains and ofcourse the mountains in the background all adds to the mood.

The park and the road leading to it

sadly i could capture only these images as i visited it on a dull rainy season afternoon.
I will soon update this post with my encounters with some wildlife/ spine chilling experience with huge spiders/ my attempts to bring archids from mountains and how i narrowly scaped a major mishap in my attempts to learn the art of swimming in the yamuna, i may also inform you about the fairs around the place and some nearby places with some updates of pictures..

Dakpathar

This is a small town in dehradun district of Uttaranchal state.
You can sense a calmness in the environment as soon as you reach here, this town has its own character, you will surely appreciate this if you don't have much exposure to small towns or villages, contrary to the scenario of big cities, time is the thing that people have in abundance out here, you will find groups of people(specially ladies) chatting in small groups everywhere.

Range of mountains across yamuna river, as seen from dakpathar

you will find boisterous and enthusiastic school kids in their uniforms, thronging the streets during morning and evening, You will find a small but concentrated market of about 100 shops, you will see small goverment quarters(this is basically a huge govt colony for hydrelectric projects nearby) spread all over on one end and an imposing Shivalik range of mountains on the other one.. with a quite yamuna separating the two.. but simultaneously imparting its calmness and beauty to both.
and you will never find any rush, even the main road will remain mostly free of any vehicular movement most of the times.
And most importantly you will find peace of mind.
Because this whole town was developed by govt, so it is very well planned, so though it has calmness of a village but simultaneously it has comforts challenging any top tourist locations.
For example it has very good accomodation in form of GMVN tourist house(that sports a big size swimming pool as well) and the irrigation department guest house, then their are two parks( one general and one deer park ), one stadium and shops catering to whatever you may require.

The Park, main road and the picturesque evening sunset over the mountains

There is a great road surrounded by natural beauty, that serves as a paradise for nature lovers and probably the best place in the world
(OK..K i am axaggerating a bit.. but thats what i feel) for morning and evening walks, it is around the water reservoir/dam of combined yamuna and tons rever, with tall mountains forming the boundary for this great amount of water, the scene needs more than words for its description. This road leads you from upper dakpathar to the park.

You can easily go to the other side of the river by the bridge to be at the bottom of this mountain range, if you are lucky enough you may get the opportunity to see the release of water from the reservoir, that looks like a beautiful waterfall. even many of the localites are unaware of this.

If you wish to visit the place here are my suggestions-

• Reaching this place is very easy, frequent bus service is their from dehradun, but taking a taxi is preferable as these buses may take 2.5 hours for this 45 kms distance.
  

• Previous booking in GMVN tourist lodge is advisable, you can do it through any GMVN(garwaal mandal vikas nigam) counter, normally occupancy will be available if you just drop in there, but anyway it is better to avoid such situation.

• Enjoy the calmness and beauty of the place, you will not repent your decision if you visit nearby places like paonta sahib(boating and a big lake) and kalsi(one of the 14 stone pillars inscribed in Paali language, they were installed by Ashoka.. more than 2000 year old).

• Please refrain from entering the yamuna river or Shakti canal(boards of warning are there at sites of danger), there are two dams on them just before dakpathar and they do release water time to time, as strangers don't recognise the sirens, they may find themselves stranded and facing a huge amount of incoming water.( these two invariably take some lives every year due to sheer ignorance and stupidity of people).

• If you are planning to trek the mountains please ask for a guide, because the mountains falls in Himachal Pradesh(Yamuna serves as a boundary between Himachal and Uttaranchal), so locals there may not understand hindi, or otherwise also mountain paths can be a bit confusing.

I hope that the above inormation was useful for you, If you are interested in knowing about my interactions with this place and seeing more pictures of this place please click this.