Himachal Pradesh: Inertia in the Hills

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When most people think of India, the resulting image is probably nothing like McLeod Ganj. Founded by the British as a hill station in the mid-nineteenth century, there's little remains of it's colonial past, but it's easy to see why the British were attracted to it. Set on a pine ridge at 1700 metres with a mountainous backdrop, clean air and no pollution, it's a lovely place to while away a couple of days. Or nine as soon became the case for us.

We only meant to stop for a night or two, maybe arrange some hiking in the mountains or travel round some other towns and villages in the state, but the days passed, we found ourselves enjoying the break, and ended up staying for over a week. We weren't the only ones who had stayed longer than they expected, some people we met had arrived a month or two ago and still hadn't got round to booking their onward ticket. Others looked like they got here in the 1970's and just taken root. We didn't do very much while we there aside from play hundreds of games of cards, read books, wander round the monastry, and visit every cafe and restaurant in town (and a fair few bakeries). There was also a cinema. Well, it was an underground room with a projector and chairs which screened hooky DVD's onto a large screen, but having not seen any films for a very long time, we were both quite happy to spend most evenings there, with a flask of rhodedendron wine and a pile of blankets (it was freezing in the evenings).

Aside from a small Indian population and a troupe of ageing Western hippies, McLeod Ganj is also the home of the 14th Dalai Lama who sought refuge in the town 50 years ago, and now in his 70s, remains there to this day. Following him were a large number of Tibetans seeking political asylum and who now outnumber Indians often holding candlelit evening processions to demonstrate against the ongoing occupation of Tibet. As such this has meant that we exchanged our usual curries for old Tibetan favourites of noodle soup and momos. On one of our more active days we even went on a Tibetan cookery course and can now whip up no less than four different types of momo in different flavours and shapes (including chocolate).

We didn't expect to see the Dalai Lama, but actually saw him on several occasions. Chris got the first sighting of him being driven through town, but following this, we stumbled upon a group of monks holding a debate at a temple we were visiting and he happened to be chairing, so we sat around and watched for a while, soon realising that we didn't know any Tibetan and so didn't have a clue what was going on! Following this, we found out that he was going to give a couple of days teaching and so signed up for this along with seven hundred other people. Bob decided to give it a miss having recently discovered with some disappointment that a Lama is not a four hooved South American mammal, but Chris and Emma went along. It was certainly an experience but perhaps a bit lost on us since, as it turns out, we don't have the foggiest idea about any part of Tibetan Buddhism, and even with an English translation broadcast to the seated masses, it still didn't mean too much to us. Despite our clear ignorance of the subject matter, the teaching was interesting for people watching. Monks and Tibetans made up the majority, but there were also large groups of visiting Mongolians and a fair few Western converts who sat listening intently or meditating earnestly while monks to the side of them were comparing trainers or otherwise distracted! On the first day we turned up with mugs as had been requested to find that these were to be filled with Tibetan butter tea. Although we appreciated the gesture, we privately agreed that tea is better taken without a lump of butter dropped in it! On the second day we left our mugs at home!

We thought we'd best leave before we fell under McLeod Ganj spell, took up ashtanga yoga, bought some Buddhist prayer beads and had our mail redirected to the mountains. And so we left, without any religious conversion and before Chris relented and went for head-to-toe tie-dye and put his hair into dreadlocks, and without Emma quitting psychiatry to study ayurveda and become a reiki master (haha).

After our long stay in McLeod Ganj, our time available for visiting other parts of the state were a bit limited, but we managed to squeeze in a couple of nights in Shimla. Previously a summer retreat for the British owing to it's cool climate (it's over 2000 metres), we did find ourselves questioning why we had chosen to visit in late November. Although we were just about early enough to miss the snow, it was still rather chilly to say the least. The main street in the city, 'the Ridge', lies across it's highest point with views out over the Himachal countryside on either side and the Himalayas in the north. We were staying in the slightly institutional but interesting YMCA building, which had colonial charm aplenty including a posh members dining room, black and white pictures of Shimla aplenty and big wooden staircases. Tantalisingly all rooms also had fireplaces but they were all inexplicably blocked up meaning that we had to suffer the icy temperatures inside as well as out. Aside from the cold, the town's other real nuisance came in the form of large colonies of monkeys who were just about everywhere, stealing things from locals and tourists alike. Emma took up bearing her teeth and trying to make monkey noises to scare them off with varying success. One monkey was obviously feeling particularly brave and threatened to take our box of barfi at one point. We're pleased to report that it was Emma 1: Monkey 0. Bizarrely, despite their bad behaviour, it seems that some people still seemed to revere the monkeys and despite signs advising against, wanted to feed the furry critters rather than beat them off with a stick.

Battling the primates, we did the Shimla 'must do' activity of walking up Jakhu Hill to get views out over the town and across the Himalayas. As a reminder that monkeys rule the roost, when you when you reach the top of the hill, there is a temple dedicated to the Hindu monkey God, Hanuman, and in case you miss this, a giant statue of the deity that towers above the whole of Shimla.

There seem to be remnants of the historical occupation by the British in the small proportion of local Indian men wandering round town wearing tweed jackets, some of the mock tudor architecture dotted around the centre of town, and in Christ Church, a nineteenth century church at the head of the ridge. When we visited they were (we think) practicing for Christmas, with carols being played as we wandered around and saw the plaques of the many British names who had lived and died in the city. Following this we hiked to the state museum on the outskirts of town, which had a wide and varied collection of sculptures and paintings from across India, as well as a section on Gandhi and his attempts to negotiate with the British for an independent India.

We left Shimla in style on the narrow gauge 'Viceroy's Toy Train'. Covering 98 kilometres, over 100 bridges, a 650 metre descent and multiple viaducts over the course of 6 hours, it wasn't the fastest way to travel, but it was very pretty. The end of the line was Kalka from where we got another, slightly less interesting train to Chandrigarh half an hour further down the line.

Film Reviews

We have many tallies which could include: the hundreds of momos, glasses of chai, and slices of chocolate cake consumed; but we think we might be at risk of repeating ourselves and so having spent rather a lot of time at the cinema, we thought we'd do film ratings this time round:

The Dictator 13/20. Sacha Baron Cohen does his usual stuff. Saved by a few genuinely funny bits, but quite a bit of it was OTT and very wrong.

Hunger Games 14/20. A fight to the death in an alternative reality. There were mixed opinions. Possibly more of a 'boy film'.

Looper 8/20. Pretty awful, confusing sci fi.

Underdog 10/20. Cutesy dog heroes are probably best suited to the under 10's

Skyfall 15/20. Good, but lacking the magic of the old Bond's

The Campaign 15/20. Topical with a few laugh out loud funny bits.

Snow White and the Huntsman 11/20. Disappointing and slow. Sanders shows us how to ruin a good fairytale

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