Landour, and the four tea shops

Landour is the old cantonment above Mussoorie, and it is the one place on this side of the hill where the thing worth doing is simply walking around.

What is actually there

Steep lanes, a colonial-era church, a bakery, and the four tea shops at Char Dukan that everybody ends up at. That is the list, and it is a short one, which people occasionally find disappointing until they have walked it.

Because it is the walk, not the shopping, that is worth the drive. The lanes climb, the deodar closes over them, the views open sideways without warning, and an hour disappears without your having been anywhere in particular. If you arrive looking for a list of attractions to tick, you will leave unimpressed and it will be nobody’s fault but the itinerary’s.

Char Dukan, honestly

Four tea shops at the top of the climb, and every single person who goes to Landour ends up at them. That is not a criticism — it is the natural end of the walk and the tea is the reward for the gradient. It is simply worth knowing that this is the busy part, and that the lanes on the way up are the quiet one.

When to go

Early on a weekday, or not at all. Landour is on the same lists that everybody else has read, and on a weekend afternoon the lanes carry more people than they were built for. We say this bluntly on offbeat places near Mussoorie, where Landour is one of the two entries we take off the list: still lovely, no longer undiscovered.

From here

Landour sits above Mussoorie, which puts it about sixteen kilometres below us — you drive down the ridge rather than up it. That makes it the natural stop on the way in or the way out rather than a separate expedition, and it means you can be there early without leaving in the dark. The routes are on how to reach us, and where it fits in a short trip is on the two-day itinerary.