Shimla is the capital of the state of Hamachal, about ten hours north of Delhi, by train. The first train from Delhi arrives in Kalka, at the edge of the plain, where the passengers continuing to Shimla change to a narrow gauge rail that winds up through countless switchbacks for five hours. The gradually ascending path is a creative marvel: switching from one side of the ridge system to the other, plunging into total the darkness of long tunnels.
Shimla itself is a sprawling cluster of multistory homes that stretch up over several aspects of a complicated ridge structure. Level roads and paths are few and far between. Almost any walk leads either up or down at agressive inclines, made even more fierce by the alititude, which is over 7000 feet. The social center of Shimla is the pedestrian mall, an east-west street running along the ridge. In the afternoons it is quite crowded with locals, vacationers from other parts of India, and a handful of Westerners. Just above the pedestrian mall, at the shoulder of the ridge is a large plaza called Scandal Point that overlooks the valleys to the north and south. Long ridges of snowy mountains are visible to the north. A temple dedicated to Haruman, the monkey god, sits at the top of the ridge, a long, steep walk above the plaza.
When I arrived in Shimla, it was frigid. I walked immediately to the bathroom of the train station to put three more layers under my jacket. The overcast sky intermittently dropped rain and sleet. I found what I thought was a taxi driver and asked him to take me to the accommodation I had picked out, which was the YMCA. He was, in fact, a tout/guide who then flagged down a taxi and insisted on taking me to another hotel first. The other hotel was quite bad and expensive, so after a long discussion, I he led me to my original choice. He followed me around as I looked at the room and would not accept the fact that I chose to stay there, until I paid him about a dollar for leading me around.
After I settled in, I stepped out to walk around town to find the guide waiting for me at the gate. He followed me around for about thirty minutes telling me what I was going to do the next four days, despite my increasingly creative attempts to tell him no. Finally, I told him I was going to email for a long time and walked into an internet cafe. I think he finally took the hint, for it was another three days before he caught up with me again.
On the train I met a Dutch man named Henk who is staying in Shimla to take classes at a technical training institute called Koenig Solutions. The school caters to European and American information technology professionals and offers all kinds of the latest certifications much cheaper than they can be had in the West. I caught up with Henk by chance at dinner and we agreed to meet for breakfast the next day. His classes did not start until March 21st, so he had a few days to sightsee.
On Thursday, the sun rose bright and clear under perfectly blue skies and the weather was beautiful for the rest of my stay in Shimla. Henk and I always sought out restaurants with rooftops or balconies to bask over lunch or a beer.
Henk and I planned a day trip around the surrounding towns and hoped to visit a place called Tattapani where we we read there are hotsprings. Unfortunately, we could find no car to rent and hiring a taxi for the day to Tattapani was quite expensive. Instead, we took a shorter tour around the valley. We visited the Himachal State Museum, the Indian Institute for Advanced Studies, the University at Summer Hill, a mountain-top temple named Tara Devi, and another temple in the vally below Shimla called Sankat Mochan.
The state museum had some nice artifacts, but was not much in comparison to the National Museum in Delhi. There were some nice displays of native clothing, weapons, stamps, comtemporary paintings, and some of Ghandi's correspondence.
The Indian Institue of Advanced Learning is a school for PhD studies in Humanities and Social Sciences. The building was built by the British, completed in 1888, as the center for administering all of India from March to October when the plains are too uncomfortable. Shortly after independence from the British ni 1947, the building was given to the Ministry of Education and converted to its current role. The tour was short but informational. Much of the original furniture and woodwork remain.
The University at Summer Hill is a bit run down. Henk and I stopped for some tea and walked around a bit. While we were enjoying our tea and the view, a third year law student stopped to talk with us for a while. Most of the male students were dressed in a similar fashion: button-down shirts or sweaters and blue jeans or khakis. The women had a much wider variety of dress from traditional saris to blue jeans to stylish outfits and highheels.
The road to Tara Devi was deserted except for the workers doing some spring maintenance, which was good because it was a challenging drive with a single car on the road. Several kilometers of steep corners and switchbacks delivered us to a parking lot from which we hiked to the summit. There were several Hindus worshipping in the temple, ringing the two bells at the entrance whenever they arrived or departed. The view is magnificent encompassing valleys in all directions, the hillsides terraced and covered in bright green crops, contrasting with the darker evergreens.
The last temple in the valley also had a nice view up the ridges into Shimla. There were few people worshipping. Henk and I found a devotee inside that sold us some offerings, applied an orange smudge to our foreheads, and tied colored bracelets around our wrists. We returned to Shimla shortly after four to bask in the late afternoon sun and watch sunset from the terrace at the Hotel Combermere.
On Saturday evening while we enjoyed another fantastic view, we met some other students--a Dutch man named Mike, and an Englishwomen living in Japan named Michelle--who are studying at Koenig and joined them for dinner. After dinner we stopped by the Discoteque Footloose at Mike's suggestion. The dance floor was not crowded but there were several groups of men and one group of women dancing to a DJ who mixed both Indian and Western dance music. One of the men told me a bit about some of the songs--sexually suggestive songs followed spiritual techno in a strange mix of sacred and secular. The YMCA closes its gate at eleven, so Henk and I headed out just at about a quarter 'till, bidding farewell to Mike and Michelle.
Henk and I hiked to the Monkey Temple at the top of the ridge overlooking Shimla on Sunday afternoon. The paved road was ridiculously steep and quite hot in the sunlight. Near the summit, the evergreens cast some pleasant shade over the grassy expanses at the top. The temple itself is small, but brightly covered. There was a constant flow of people coming and going to worship.
I met another fellow traveller, Mike from Scotland, Monday afternoon and walked a bit more around the valley. We found yet another temple, Kali Bari Mandir, past the east end of the mall that had another grand view to the west. Mike worked the past six or seven years in Madrid and I got quite a few recommendations for my visit to Spain with my parents.
Most of the restaurants close quite early in Shimla, which I found odd, because no one seems to get up and around before about ten o'clock. The exception was the Pub at the Willow Banks Hotel, which is a pleasant place with very nice help. There we met a couple Canadians and an English couple, both of whom were visiting family in India. We stopped in quite often to talk and watch the Cricket World Cup, going on in the Carribean right now.
When I arrived in Shimla, I had only planned to stay a few days but it was so quiet, pleasant, and friendly that I stayed almost a week. I left on Tuesday, almost missing my bus because of breakfast with Mike and Henk, and arrived in McLeod Ganj last night.
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