Happy Valley

Today was the first of our all middle school hikes. Every middle school student went on one of several hikes. As core middle school teachers, we were asked to chaperone one. We were hoping for a long walk off in the woods with some dedicated students. We ended up on a hike that was completely different, but we had lots of fun.

As you can probably imagine, it is difficult to get middle school students motivated at 8:30 on a Saturday morning...especially when they know they have a 7km hike ahead of them. Our students were not terribly excited about the trek, but they were generally fine once we made it to the bazaar. Our hike was out to a place called "Happy Valley." This is the Tibetan area which was donated when the first wave of exiles came from that country in the 1950s and '60s. It is on the opposite side of Mussoorie, so much of our walking was done through the bazaar.

We did take one detour out of the market, so we got some good views over the valleys below.

We also got to see some parts of Mussoorie that we had not been to yet. In the picture below is the entrance to an old cemetery on the hillside.

We were also plagued by a swarm of large black flies the whole trip. These emerged on Thursday in a process reminiscent of the 17-year cicadas that came out in Chicago last summer. They seem to be flying around and mating before dying. Hopefully we'll be gone before they come again. If you look closely in this picture, you can see the black dots of flies.

As mentioned earlier, our hike was close to 7km, so we took a couple of breaks. There was some mist in the distance, but there were signs at this shop where we stopped noting the excellent views of the snow-capped Himalayas (something we have yet to see). The kids were content eating parts of their pack lunches and reading "Archie" comics.

After three hours of hiking and resting, we finally made it to Happy Valley. Most of the hike was downhill (that's how we ended up in a valley), but the students were still ready for some food to recharge their batteries. The building in the right of the following picture was the target for all the students and chaperones because that is where the food was.

While enjoying the Tibetan art painted on the walls, we settled down and took advantage of the Tibetan restaurant's liberal use of buffalo meat. We had some buff momos (Tibetan dumblings, kind of like Chinese pot stickers) and another dish whose name we forgot. It was nice to have some red meat for a change.

Thankfully we had taxis planned to pick us up at the end of our hike. The walk back to school was just as long, but all uphill. On the ride back, Dave and some of our students displayed just how tired they were from the walk.

It was fun to explore a new part of Mussoorie today, and also to spend time with our students outside of the classroom. We hope to be able to do more of a nature hike the next time they come around.

Dave and Beth