Finding Landour on the map

I have been asked how to look up Landour on a map.

Below is the wikimapia address

http://wikimapia.org/#lat=30.4589767&lon=78.0952621&z=5&l=0&m=h

Below is the Google map address:

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&tab=wl

The major city near Landour is Mussoorie. Landour is actually the name of a British Cantonment above the city of Mussoore. A cantonment is an area set aside by the British military where only the British and the natives working for the British could live. These were all over India until 1947 when the British left. The cantonment had large homes built by the British where their women and children could stay during the summer months, March through November, to avoid the heat of the plains. Woodstock School was started in 1854 as a school for the daughters of British military officers, the sons were sent to England. The concept of a school for girls was quite interesting as everyone knew that girls were not a smart as boys so education would be wasted on them. These large homes, by Indian standards, had been purchased by various missionary boards to house the wives and children for the same purpose as the British. My family was up in Landour from May through August, so I lived there during those months, and returned to boarding school for the other months of the school year (March through November). Now many of these homes have been converted to guesthouses, owned by wealthy Indians, and have made rooms available to tourists and students at the Landour Language School. The house I will be living in has about 3 or 4 rooms available. This concludes the short geography and history lesson for today.

How much do I weigh??

I have been frantically trying to tie up the loose ends here. My great adventure so far is finding out if I can get everything to India without breaking the bank. I loaded up my two suitcases with all the equipment, clothes etc. I went the airport to get the official weight on the bags. I was over 4.5 pounds over on one and at the max (69 lbs) on the second. If I have to take a third bag it will cast me $112 each way. The total cost for both trips would be $448. I bet I can buy a whole lot of bedding in India for that amount. I will have to leave my sleeping bag home (weighs 6 lbs and takes up 1/3rd of the case). There was one tragedy in this weighty adventure. I returned home from the airport (my ams considerable longer) to discover a critical piece of stuff on the floor behind my chair. It weighs more the 2 lbs but is rather small, so it will go into my carryon luggage.

Why Landour in 2010

My parents were missionaries in India from 1947 to 1978. I spent most of my school years at Woodstock School (10 years) in the foothills of the Himalaya mountains of north India. The elevation of Woodstock is about 6,000 feet with the top of the Landour hills about 7,000 feet. As a teenager I was fascinated by the natural beauty of the hillside. I discovered photography in the mid 1970’s and was the production manager at a television station in the early 1980’s. I now had the technical skills and continued to dream of returning to the Landour hillside to photograph what I remembered. In April of 2009 I was in Landour for 3 days and I decided to follow my dream. I put a deposit on a room in a guesthouse for March of 2010.

This is my dream: I want to capture the beauty of the hills, its sunsets, flora, and sunrises in most of the seasons of the year. I will be in India from March through May and return for September through November. This will allow me to get the spring, fall and early winter seasons without having to go through the monsoons. Video cameras do not like heavy rain and wet conditions, so I will avoid it. I want to create a “walking tour” of the many trails and paths of the Landour Cantonment in high definition video. I want the viewer to feel like they are again walking these paths and stopping to view the various vistas.

I will include photos of the project as I go along and narrate the various experiences I have.