Sweet yet sickening...

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Woke up at 5.00 am after a pitiful 4 hours sleep. Caught a cycle rickshaw to the train station as were too tired to walk the distance w/bags.

Got on the train and Chloe began to feel ill...

She kept feeling as if she was going to throw up, then going to the toilet and not being able to, then feeling better, proclaiming recovery, before it returned in a more vicious wave than before.
The sickness finally passed, and in an attempt to reassure a shaken Jesse, she jollily told him how great she felt. Little did she know that Jesse felt rather hellish himself!

However, both of these passed with the arrival of our friend Bobby, at about ten o'clock! A very cheerful and camp young Indian student who succeeded in making the entire student population of the train descend on us! They all asked us questions and chatted extremely jollily while blasting Bhangra music into our ears from various mobile phones, very loudly. Chloe was given a bracelet by the group!
All this occured under the amused eyes of another western couple sitting near us. After the students left, we discussed travelling with the other couple, who were using a year to slowly travel to Australia.
We were then accosted again by a cheerful Nepali army cadet, wearing an England football shirt who was en route to Jammu. He asked to take our picture and him and his friends offered us walnuts, which we struggled to open sucessfully, to their amusement.

We arrived at Kalka station at about midday, the other english couple were also going up to Shimla, and none of us knew where to catch the next train! Chloe identified it, as in the guide book it was called a toy-train and that's exactly what it looked like!

We were joined in our carriage by a large tour group of middle-aged/old english people! They had obviously only just arrived in India recently, it made us feel like experienced travellers!

The journey was spectacular! The little train winds its way slowly up through the mountains- the views were fantastic. It took five and a half hours and went through 103 tunnels, some going straight through the mountain!
Chloe wanted to finish her book, and kept reading despite the sick feeling rising in her stomach....
The second half of thee journey was spent with Chloe leaning out of the window for fresh air. Jesse was fine! About ten minutes before arriving in Shimla, with the sun setting behind the mountains, Chloe was violently (yet neatly) sick into a plastic bag. Jesse didnt notice, until she turned round completely ashen faced!

We got a taxi up a hill, all the taxis here are landrovers as the town is build on a series of ridges on the mountains. Its extremly scenic, and a popular spot for indian honeymooners apparently. There are also loads of monkeys, befitting of a place with a temple to Hanuman, the monkey god, so we have to keep our windows shut, not that we'd want them open as its probably about the same temperature as England here! We ate in our room, first meal of the day! Had our first hot showers- it was fantastic! We slept with two heavy blankets, as there is no central heating.

We will try and get photos on, but this is a very slow internet cafe and we've just spent two hours blogging, so you'd better enjoy!

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Photos

A View From The Train
This is from the New Dehli - Kalka train

An Interesting Suicide Attempt
We didn't have the heart to tell him its more traditional to jump in front of the train (actually he was about to cool the engine with a hose)

Our Train
We took this standing on the step out the back door of the train, very fun.

A View
One of many great views

A Station
One of the many mini stations we stopped at

Chloe contemplating the View
I cannot remember whether Chloe was contemplating the view or trying not to be sick, so I've gone with the more romantic option

A Sunset
The Sunset was much more visible than just through trees but its hard to take photos from a moving train.

Simla
This is a view down one of the many alleyways off the Mall

One of Simla's many monkeys
We caught this one sliding down a drainpipe

Chloe, ill
Sorry about the red-eye, can't get rid of it on this pc

More Monkeys

Comments

[Frances]

monkey
dont get bitten!

[Kirsty Howie]

Travelling on trains and eating icecream
Sounds like you are really into the travelling now, meeting all kinds of fascinating people, trying to buy tickets in stations, long train journeys, cycle rickshaws and being sick! It may well have been the icecream - it is still icecream even in shakes! and even the best restaurants do not protect you in fact they can be the most likely place to get ill because you let your guard down. But I also remember everyone used to get sick on the toy train up to Dargeeling, must be something to do with the mountains and the twisting railway journey. Still at least you can now claim to be bone fide travellers - everyone has to sick at least once (or several times!) Are you going to get the chance to do any trekking up there?

[John]

Extreme parenting
Ha! Thought you had got away from parental controls. No chance. We are all affected by our risk averse environment. When I was a mere lad ...... well, we needn't go there. Second ever blod. You both sound as if you are having a marvellous time. Anna down the road said she managed to get an audience with the Dalai Lama but it only lasted a matter of seconds!