Musafir Cafe is Closed · opens 8:00 am
Visit
Musafir Cafe is on the Landour side of Mussoorie, past Kulri, where the road stops being a bazaar and starts being pines. If you have come up the hill from Dehradun you are already most of the way here.
Closed now
Thirty-five kilometres and about an hour and a quarter up from Dehradun. Three kilometres short of Char Dukan. Two from Gun Hill. Ask for the teal door on the valley side of the road — the terrace is visible from the bend before it.
The road narrows after Kulri and the deodars close over it. When the noise of the Mall drops away behind you and the valley opens on your right, you are two minutes from the door.
Road distances, not walking-app distances. The first three you can do on foot; the last two you should sleep before attempting.
The old cantonment square — bun omelette and a view down the other side.
The ropeway station, or twenty-five minutes on foot from the Mall.
A flat three-kilometre loop, no traffic, the ridge on one side the whole way.
Down the Yamuna side. Go early or not at all.
An hour and a bit down the ghat road, longer in season.
Six to seven hours if you leave before the plains wake up.
Everybody arrives through Dehradun. What changes is how you get to Dehradun.
Take the Dehradun–Mussoorie road out past Rajpur, through Kuthal Gate, and up the hairpins by Jharipani. It is a good road and a slow one — do not plan it around a fixed arrival time. At the Picture Palace end of Mussoorie, keep right for Landour Road rather than left for the Mall.
Six to seven hours to Dehradun on the road, plus the hill. The easier version is an overnight or early train to Dehradun station and a taxi from the rank outside — you are up here by mid-morning with the valley still clear.
Buses run up from Dehradun through the day and set down at the Library end of Mussoorie. From there it is a shared taxi towards Landour, or a walk of about forty minutes along the Mall if the weather is behaving.
After heavy rain the hill road can be held up for slips; leave earlier than you think. In January the top of the road ices before the bottom does. Either way, ring or message before you set off and we will tell you what it is doing outside the window.
Landour Road is one lane with a valley on one side, and in season the traffic police move anything parked on it. Use the municipal parking at the Kulri or Library end and walk the last stretch — ten to fifteen minutes, uphill, and the best part of the journey.
Coming with luggage or someone who cannot manage the climb? Message us the morning you travel and we will tell you where the taxis are allowed to stop that week.
A teal door and teal window frames — the colour every old cottage on this hill is painted — with three tables on the terrace and the railing behind them.
Daily · 8:00 am – 9:00 pm — every day of the year, including the ones the hill spends inside a cloud.
The bakery counter is filled by eight and the filter is running before that. This is the quiet part of the day and the window seat is free.
Maggi, momos, eggs and sandwiches straight through — no closed afternoon. The bakery thins out after six and whatever is left comes off the board at nine.
The valley lights come on below the window somewhere around dusk and the room goes quiet on its own. Carry a torch for the walk back — the road is not lit all the way to the Mall.
Shared taxis towards the Mall thin out well before we close, and the walk back along Landour Road is unlit in places. If you are staying down in Dehradun, start down the ghat road in daylight.
Closed right now
There is no bad month up here, but the window shows you something different in each of them.
March to June — warm, clear and full. Come before ten if you want the corner table.
July to September — the mist comes right up to the glass and sometimes through the door. Best month for the room, worst for the view, and our own favourite.
October and November — the air is scrubbed clean and on a good morning the Himalaya sit above the Doon valley for an hour after sunrise.
December to February — cold, thin crowds, the stove lit. Snow is not a promise, but it happens.
A layer more than the plains suggest, shoes that cope with a wet stone path, and a torch between October and March. The hill is 2,005 metres up; the evening arrives faster than it does at home.
The map shows the Landour Road stretch of Mussoorie rather than a pin on the door — it is a one-lane hill road and the walk in is part of it. Follow the directions link and it will bring you to the right bend.
Measured from the door on Landour Road, at 2,005 m.