Cafe With A View – In Dharamsala

I had been to Chandigargh for a wedding, the city in itself was very beautiful, but I was so close to Dharamsala that I had to visit. So I went to Upper Bhagsu to stay, it is a beautiful mountain village in the Kangra Valley with all the hippie vibes I love, and all the climbing I hate. I stayed in a small cottage room , which was a lot of climbing, that also meant I had to keep climbing up and down for food. I love the places trekkers go, but I don’t like to trek, so in my need to find a good location to sit, where I could write, sketch and just gape at the magnificent view I found a small café , perched on the end of the main road that leads to Mc Leodganj. All of this comes under Dharamsala, and Mc Leodganj also known as “Little Lhasa” where the Tibetans in exile have their headquarters , which also means the place of the Dalai Lama.

This café had the perfect view of the street full of curios, Yoga centers and their ultra fit attendees , small chai shops , steep roads all flickering against the backdrop of the gorgeous mountains.

Cafe Mondegar Mumbai

Being a hardcore Bangalorean, I had very little inclination to visit Mumbai or Bombay as they used to call it, it was neither on my list of places to visit nor did it hold an interest in me like Kolkata did.

I had to visit Mumbai to take a few illustration and Urban Sketching Workshops. I was expecting an unfriendly city, a city of big ambitions and no time for chit chat, which was also kind of true, but it pleasantly surprised me with its friendly café and pubs, where especially if you are traveling solo you are neither disturbed nor looked at much, most of the waiters and owners of the establishment were more than cordial. Whether it was because I looked like an obvious clueless outsider or they are that way, or because my friend had chosen the best list of places to visit I don’t know.
Café Mondegar established back in 1932 was one of the first few café’s I visited. It is situated in the Metro House in Colaba, an Iranian café that was refurbished in 1990’s with one of my all time favourite artist’s work on it’s wall – Mario Miranda. It was one of the first few places to install a Jukebox, and I am from a generation that saw Jukeboxes just before they vanished. It is one of the landmarks in Mumbai now, one that props up in tourism brochures, though I usually intend to avoid these tourist traps sometimes they pay off.