Well we are finally here or at least we have been for a few days. So far we have experienced all the craziness of delhi which is hard to describe and we are presently in the foothills of the himalayas in the hill station of Shimla.
We arrived in delhi last thursday where we were picked up at the airport and taken to our hotel the smyle inn. I am so glad that we booked the pick up it gave us a little more breathing time before we had to start dealing with all the touts and chaos of delhi. The hotel is down a little allyway (which does smell a bit like a sewer but it could be worse) off the main street our room has everything you could need a tv, fan, hot water in the bathroom and more importantly it is clean. Once unloading our stuff at the hotel it was time to venture into the hustle and bustle of the bazaar in paharganj. The main route through this area is frenetic and walking along it involves dodging cars, rickshaws (both the bicycle and auto varieties), cows and even elephants, motorbikes and push bikes and then all the people trying to sell you something you don't want for a price you are not willing to pay. It is certainly an experience. It is possible to buy just about anything here if you have patience and a determination not to give in but i can't imagine it is a the most pleasant shopping experience.
I think that having just got to Delhi fresh from the UK you emit some kind of vibe that says 'i am easy to con!'. We did not fair to badly we ended up in a few dodgy travel agents but left with all our money and a more cynical attitude. We walked around a bit and found some places to eat and drink some better than others it has to be said. One place that did impress was the roof top bar/restaurant on the metropolis hotel where we went for a drink, i think this is definately somewhere to try when we get back to delhi after simla. I think that we are going to try and stick to veggie food to hopefully minimise getting ill but there is so much to choose from i don't think i will miss meat too much. I think that sam is trying to eat and drink his way through everything on this trip so it will never get boring.
The biggest challange we faced in delhi was trying to get train tickets from the station. Everytime we tried to get in to the station to get to the ticket office on the first floor we were intercepted by someone telling us we could not go as it was not there anymore. We first tried the day we arrived and ended up in a rickshaw to some "official government" tourist place. Once getting there and being given the hard sell from some annoying guy with a part south london accent who told us not to go to shimla because it was like london we realised that this was not so. He did offer us a very nice sounding trip around the himalayas but even in our sleepy state (that had led us to get into the rickshaw in the first place) we decided against it much to his annoyance. We did nearly make it into the station the next time, we did not get into the rickshaw (which felt good) but instead we were taken to a travel place (again official!) opposite the station which had the same result as before. After these incidents we were determined to get into the station and finally managed it and bought our tickets to shimla. The one thing we did not manage to get (and still have not) was a train timetable, searching for this has now become a bit of a mission!.
It was an early start to get to the train station for the 6am train to shimla. This journey was split into two the first train from delhi was not the most comfortable and it was very busy but we made it to train number two. I had been looking forward to this part although the 5 and 1/2 hours on the first train had taken the edge off the excitement as had the fact that it was raining!!. Train number two was the toy train from kalka to shimla with amazing views for the whole journey, it also travels through an impressive 102 tunnels on the way. On the way i just could not help thinking of the amount of effort it must have taken to build. This journey did feel like it took about 10 hours not 5 but we did get to see some beautiful scenery despite the rain and clouds which towards the end were followed by darkness.
When we got to shimla all we wanted was to sleep and so we headed to the closest hotel in the guide book. We did manage to aquire a man who said he would show us his hotel but we declined, he did however show us to the one we had decided on. I think that being in delhi even a few days made us so suspicious of people and in shimla the people were so much nicer even after such a short time it is amazing how fast attitudes can change.
Shimla is a nice place, you could not get much more different from delhi. As it was built buy the british there are still lots of old colonial buildings around and there are english book shops and english beer and wine shops. It was a nice place to walk around during the day although at night it was so cold. We ended up sleeping with 2 duvets and a blanket and i was still cold!. The hotel had a great view of the valley and in the distance the snow covered himalays (it was just a shame about the trees blocking some of it). It was comfortable enough and most importantly it had a tv which meant that sam could watch the football it would have been a shame to miss man utd losing.
We did not really do a lot in shimla except for wander around look at the view and try some weird and not very nice beer called sandpiper (exclusive to himanchal region). The shops were not very interesting most of the stuff you can buy at home. It was not the most indian of places, it was fairly clean, it is illegal to litter, smoke or spit in public places, the main streets are traffic free and there is even a rule about which side of the street you have to walk on!! and for anyone who has been to india they will know that this is the opposite of most if not every other place. I have a lot of photos which i will try to get on this site although it has not been proving too easy so far. I did not manage to get a picture of a monkey though even they were all over the place, every time i got my camera ready to take one all the monkeys disappeared!
Since i started to write this we have got the train back to delhi and are back in the smyle in before travelling to jaipur tommorrow.
I will try and keep future journals shorter and more frequent but we will see what happens.
