too old for dreads

Shimla – Queen of the Mountains. It’s where India comes to play. And this weekend is the start of the Hindu holiday season which culminates in Diwali at the end of the month. 

This place is packed with folk from all over the sub-continent enjoying the long weekend; people from Kolkata to Delhi and Mumbai to Pune. Families have piled in to Shimla for the clear blue skies and warm days. The weather is perfect and a respite from the sweltering heat of the cities. The city is divided by The Mall, the smart street at the top and Cart Road, the dingier part of town with the centre and its Christian church, Scandal Point (named as such by Kipling after a particularly juicy bit of gossip in the city’s history). 

The sunsets from the balconies around the town that hangs on to the hillside are quite something …

…and everyone is gathering to get the best pic. It’s not quite the ‘Sundowner’ vibe of elsewhere in the world but we’ve managed to find a beer and we’re doing all we can to create our own little party!

The place is packed. Just as it was when the Brits adopted Shimla (or Simla as it was then) as their summer residence back at the end of the 1800s. Calcutta was just too hot to remain the capital throughout the year and Simla was developed as the retreat in the mountains. 

Today we walked to the Viceregal Lodge to see what a bit of the Raj felt like. The building was based on a Scottish pile and was where the country was run from during the summer. The granite looked like something you’d find in Edinburgh today. It has an important place in the history of India; for instance we saw the table where Mountbatten and Nehru agreed the partitioning of Pakistan. Interesting, thinking of the tensions still being felt along the border today. 

Shimla is spread out across miles of hillside and is hard to understand when you first arrive. It was made harder for us by the fact that we’d just fallen off a bus after an eight hour journey and found ourselves at a very ropey place called The Swastika Hotel on the edge of the city; we should have known. We’re now in a different place (hotel #3) and much happier. 

It all feels strangely British here. From the Gaiety Theatre, based on the Old Garrick in London to the Post Office in the centre of town. Right now we’re the only non-Indians here and we’re enjoying their holiday weekend with them. 

Tomorrow we’re heading off in to the Himachal Pradesh mountains for a good walk at more than 2000m. Then we’re hopefully getting the ‘Toy Train’ as it’s known down the hillside on its narrow gauge which was finished in 1904. It takes six hours to travel the 90 odd km to Kalka passing through hundreds of tunnels and under numerous bridges. We’ll then pick up an Express train (Shatadabi) from there to New Delhi station where hopefully we’ll have an easier time than we had two weeks ago!

In the meantime, back to the evening in Shimla. The firecrackers have started already and India is ready to party here – just as people have for decades.