Sunny Shimla?!

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Shimla was fantastically sunny during the day, but the minute the sun was out of action the temperature dropped to about -50. Whilst our room at Hotel Woodland offered us fantastic views of the mountains, after dark it felt a bit like we were camping because the room is so darn cold. There's something very unreasonable about shivering to sleep with a sunburnt face.

Compared with the dust and smog of Delhi, it was nice to breath the fresh air and everyone was fantastically friendly. The whole town is perched precariously on the sides of mountains, and in the places where there are no houses, there are massive pine trees alongside plenty of monkeys. It was a bit out of the main tourist season, so we were a bit of an attraction, being asked to pose for pictures, which was all a bit bizarre.

Shunning strenuous activities, we decided a trip to the monkey temple would be a bit of a weez. As it turned out, it was a bit of a wheeze given the steepness of the climb up. It felt a lot like Tomb Raider as we armed ourselves with sticks (at a cost) and headed up the hill. The noise of the traffic below disappeared, the trees gathered in imposingly, and from every corner, a monkey would survey our ascent towards their hallowed temple. But, armed as we were, we beat off the monkeys* (apparently they're rather fond of food, sunglasses and money - we even saw one eating an ice cream) and made it to the temple. Inside we wondered in awe at what lay before us... the monkey temple man, who was so touched by our offering of nuts and incense that he rewarded us with an orange bindi. The occasion was somewhat marred by the reaction of Jenny's hands to the nuts the monkey temple man told us to hold.

Bolstered by our homage, the monkeys posed little threat as we returned to town. I can't help thinking that the monkeys had a new found respect for us, having made our pilgrimage.

A great place to hang out in Shimla is the Indian Coffee House. It’s a fabulous people watching venue, in a setting that takes you back to the 1800s. Also, there's a great selection of old posters declaring 'Great type, great coffee, both Indian' and other such pro-coffee declarations of which we thoroughly approved. Time killing is best done here, or down the slope in the bazaar which is everything you'd expect, except that unfortunately it doesn’t sell shoes big enough to fit Jenny. She currently holds 'Bigfoot of Shimla 2007', which is no mean feat given that we're in Yeti country.

But we must move on. A night bus to Dharmasala awaits. Surely this is madness...?


(*meaning 'fend off', not the other meaning. That wouldn't be appropriate with monkeys)

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