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Published: March 5th 2013
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Shimla 4.3.13
My birthday and lots of Happy Birthday messages that made a good start. Steve bought me a pressie also lovely, have Internet, hot shower, lovely view, sunshine, my man what else could I want? Well lots actually as I am very greedy want my family and friends too and some muesli for breakfast well none of those on offer so settled for scrambled eggs Indian style quite good.Updated our blogs then received a card and flowers from Nim and a birthday cake from the manager that was a lovely surprise! Danny tried to Skype twice but we weren't here that was sad, now to Shimla.We are 2000m high surrounded by mountains. The air is very clean, cold in the morning and evening and warm in the day. We took the free hotel taxi to the Mall which is a shopping area nothing like the malls we know, quite refreshing that India is different and has its own identity. The journey to the Mall is scary so that's my scary thing for the day. Why? Because Shimla is built on a hill or rather a mountain and all the roads have sheer drops and are very narrow and two way.The
streets are very clean, no litter anywhere until you look over the edge and that's where the rubbish goes. Most shops are like we have encountered in Vietnam, small dingy, and packed to the gunnels with tat, some tat more attractive than others. The centre of Shimla has a wide traffic free zone with seats and amazing views, in fact most of he mall is traffic free, smoke free, there are signs everywhere saying, no smoking in public fine R5000, no spitting, no litter, no plucking of flowers, no drinking, each with an appropriate fine. It seems to work as we saw no one breaking the rules. There are various statues about the place and remnants of old Victorian buildings. We went for a coffee in a place recommended to us by an Indian Australian guy at our hotel and the coffee was OK, thought we might eat here
tonight. After visiting the tourist information office we decided to walk to the institute of advanced studies(the former Viceroy's house) as this was the top tourist attraction. However before that we took a short walk to the white church established in the 1800's and not well maintained, it was all locked
up so we couldn't go inside. We set off with a couple of bottles of juice for what we thought was a 2km straight level walk. It turned out to be 4km and not level and we didn't really know where it was so walked straight past. The journey there took us through the town and everywhere there seem to be dogs sleeping and monkeys. we were warned about the monkeys and were quite startled by one sitting on a sign we were reading. As we noticed it I turned away and Steve stared at it and the monkey hissed at Steve so he hissed back, luckily we managed not to get attacked by it. Eventually we got there, bought a ticket for us and the camera, had a snack and waited for our tour. Walking around the gardens there were again lovely views but we were not allowed to walk on the grass! We were not allowed in the building until the guide came and then a party of school children arrived and the whole talk was in dialect that we had no clue about. The guide was very kind and said he would answer any questions and he
chatted on in English that neither of us could really understand but didn't like to say so we just nodded in what we thought were the right places. We only went in three rooms as the rest of the house was now a university, it was all so quiet and controlled. We couldn't believe how these little children could be so quiet and well behaved learning about the history and architecture of this house. It was about 4 when we came out and it was starting to get chilly so we took a taxi back to the hotel, if we thought the journey to the Mall was scary this was fright night only in the day and we could see all the near misses. Well we survived and returned, showered and the hotel had fixed all the problems, impressive or what!We took another taxi in town intending to go to the coffee shop we saw earlier but saw the Hotel Marina on the way in and decided to give it the once over. This is a brand new hotel, very modern and clean and the restaurant also looked great.The menu was extensive, always a bit worrying so we explained that
White Church
First church built 1840 we didn't have big appetites and didn't want too spicy and left it to the guy in charge. We sat with a G& T and chatted in the bar that was playing modern music and were then invited into the dining room. The food, a mushroom dish and a chicken dish with nan bread , pink pickled onions and lime pickle arrived and was delicious. We were served by a lovely waiter who brought us water and wine and served the food, we felt like royalty, only problem was that there was no one else there. A pity because that would have made this place exceptional.We decided to go back and were picked up by the hotel, when we arrived back there was a heater on in the room ( Steve had said he was cold the night before) and another duvet was bought and the shower was spouting out hot water so a plumber was called and all was fixed Steve and I laughed and then watched a film about American kids dancing, not that good and I fell asleep. It was a great day!
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expressionsbyKT
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Lively description
Very vivid and lively description of the trip. I visited Shimla sometime ago and my experience from the trip is available at http://www.expressions-kt.in/2013/11/queen-of-hills-amidst-beauty-of.html Do visit if you get a chance. Any suggestions and ideas for improvement are welcome :)