Oh dear! A monkey steals Jackie's prescription sunglasses at the Jakhu monkey temple, Shimla. We got them back (after it had chewed one of the ends) when someone threw a bag of sweets to it
After a good night’s sleep we met Manjit at 10.00 for the first of our “two days at leisure” i.e. organised by us, to take us, we thought, to the bottom of the Jakhu ropeway, a cable car that goes from the ridge to the Jakhu monkey temple on the highest point. It appears we have forgotten, or become incapable of organising a p**s up in a brewery as rather than take us to the bottom, he drove to the top. I thought we were going high but Brian was happy, till he wasn’t! It really didn’t matter though, we know what a cable car is like, and this way Manjit could park up and come and have a look too. We are doing a long hike in Sri Lanka that mentions monkeys living at the top that will steal your glasses, and then we read a vague suggestion of the same here, so, very efficiently I thought I brought my old prescription sunglasses with me on the trip too.
The very large monkey statue on top that can bee seen all over Shimla
Well, despite being prepared, or so we thought and as well as wearing a woolly hat, we walked out from the covered walkway, looked around and quick as a flash one had bounced up my back and grabbed my glasses. We were surrounded by a very friendly group of people, all looking slightly shocked, one of whom had a paper bag of sweets or something. He tried approaching the monkey to do a swap but all it did was look really aggressive and growl, it was really quite scary. He tried a couple of times but it obviously wasn’t going to work so he approached the guy who was sweeping leaves. He took the bag of sweets and threw it past the monkey who dropped the glasses and went for the bag. Brian went and gave the sweeper a tip, not realising they weren’t his sweets, not that I think the other guy was worried, he’s got a story about rescuing some stupid English tourist, I got my glasses back, albeit with the end of one arm chewed off, the monkey got some sweets and the sweeper got a tip. There is a suggestion in the Rough Guide that the monkeys may be trained to do this sort of thing, but who knows…. As we left one was sitting there holding someone’s woolly hat, so there could be some truth in the suggestion!
Fine views of distant Himalayan snow capped peaks marking the border with China
We decided to walk down from the temple, a lot less effort, well we are at an altitude of 2455m where Brian has certainly been known to get altitude sickness. Still a lot of steps that made my leg dithery, though nothing like this hike in Sri Lanka I mentioned. We then spent a very relaxed day walking along the ridge, looking in the shops of the mall and going further down the precipitous steps into the craziness of the bazaar. We stopped for a pleasant lunch and had a great conversation with 3 young people who work for Expedia. One local to Shimla, a second Indian who spent three years studying at the university of Aston, so very local to us and a Spanish girl from Madrid. The local girl recommended a drive to the north of Shimla, which Ranjeet, our tour agent had also mentioned so think that’s going to be tomorrow.
Down on The Ridge in Shimla town looking back to Christ Church, beyond on the top of the hill is the monkey statue, the mock Tudor building to the left of the church was constructed in 1860 and is the library. Left of that, on a white plinth is a statue of Gandhi
We were wondering how we were going to get in touch with Manjit when we wanted collecting, he’s a lovely guy but his English, particularly written is not very good. He showed me how to share my location on WhatsApp, which along with the message come please has worked very well. The fact that we have all got cell activity all the way up here in the mountains is quite amazing. I am very impressed with my Lebara SIM, £1.99 a month for 6 months then £4.99 and works U.K., Europe and India. There is a slight hiccup with it at the moment though, WhatsApp is working, as is data, and outgoing calls, I’m just not receiving incoming calls. Having said that I have just received one from a lebara agent, so just trying to find someone in the U.K. available to give me a call. Strangely everyone has got better things to do on a Saturday lunchtime than be on WhatsApp!
This is a short Relive video of our Shimla walk with a few more photos. Chick on the triangle to play, it really shows the sharp ridge Shimla is built on high up in the mountains
Day10
Phew, I’ve managed to plan a day! Naldehra was the place suggested by both Ranjeet and the girl at lunch, and it seemed a good place for a drive. Well we couldn’t have Manjit getting bored! About an hour north, along some thinner windier roads, but we were ok, we weren’t driving, and we could look out of the windows. It was very scenic it has to be said. We arrived at a place that wasn’t even a town but appeared to be our destination, there were lots of men with horses. That was a surprise! We are not really in to horses, particularly thin scraggy ones so we declined a horse ride but sort of followed two on foot. Some random bloke appeared, who works at the golf course, so he said, but he could show us the way, as it wasn’t the same as the horse way. For £5 we thought why not? He took us up through the woods, showed us the river (if you squinted) snow covered peaks, and the highest point hereabouts. We then got to the activity park, but having seen the state of the harnesses we weren’t tempted by the zip wire or climbing so we carried on walking to the golf club and round. It was an easy little saunter, but lovely to get out in the fresh air under a clear blue sky. And yes, I had enabled location on WhatsApp with Manjit, just in case anything untoward happened! There is still snow about from the last snowfall which I’m guessing is when we had the rain in Delhi. It would have been an entirely different journey up here if there had still been snow on the ground.
This is the view from The Ridge, a pedestrianised area by Christ Church and near The Mall pedestrian street in Shimla. Fabulous views all around
Coming back the way we came our next stop off was at Carignano nature park which I’d found on Google maps. It wouldn’t have been worth the journey just for this, but as an additional little stop, particularly with the slightly hairy road to get there it was a good addition. Brian was determined that Manjit should come too rather than sit in the car. The ticket man waived the entrance for him, though obviously we were going to pay, and so he came, whether he wanted to or not, though he did seem touched that we wanted him to come too. Definitely something and nothing but a pleasant enough little stroll.
Thats The Ridge from above. It literally is built on the ridge of the mountain and gives panoramic views all around
Back to Shimla to the Viceregal Lodge, that became the Rashtrapi Niwas, (presidents residence) or now the Indian Institute of advanced study. This variety of names and the random one way system in Shimla that Google doesn’t know about meant our journey took a little longer than expected, with Manjit stopping to ask for guidance along the way. One of the places he stopped was the Oberoi hotel, where he threw us out just to go in and have a look. It was beautiful, and was one of the suggested places to eat, but we’d have been right out of our comfort zone in the clothes we have available to us!
Whatever you call it it was beautiful. You could only go in on a tour, so we had to wait 45 minutes for the next one, which gave us time to look at the gardens and have a samosa each, which was delicious a
Its so disconcerting walking down The Mall as it could be any street in England. The shops are all built on the southern side so the shade kept shoppers cool in the summer sun. Behind those shops the slope is precipitous, gaps have steep steps down where there are several layers of the bazaar of typical Indian street shops huddled together selling everything. Its definitely worth the trek down there
nd the first food we’ve had that hasn’t been cooked fresh for us - we haven’t died yet! There were no photos allowed inside, but the teak from Burma in the entrance hall was certainly suited to the residence of the Viceroy of India. It was completed in 1888 for Lord Dufferin at a cost of 3,800,000 rupees or £38000. The Simla conference was held there in 1945 by Lord Wavell to sort out Indian self government. Once this had happened it past to the president of India who decided it was all a bit of a waste really so it was put to academic use.
This is the old Post Office (it is still a post office)
It’s felt like quite a full on day, so we are back to the hotel, to try and blog, as tomorrow will be travel, pretty much all day, 6 hours on the ‘toy train’ to Kalka where we connect with a train to Delhi, for a quick overnight before we move on to Jaipur.
A bit more of The Mall. We had lunch in a first floor cafe in the yellow building on the right
The are some beautiful buildings in Shimla and many have been very well restored. This one is Bantony Castle, built over 140 years ago and was the summer residence of Mararaja Sirmour. Its now a museum (£0.50 entrance fee!) and inside tells the story of the history of Shimla
Looking over the edge down towards the buildings containing the Bazaar
They were very happy to pose for a photo
Our very nice hotel in Shimla, The Woodville Palace
Here's another Relive video with a few photos. Another ridge walk as you'll see. Click the link to open in a new page
And finally, the building we really wanted to see, the magnificent Viceregal Lodge of Shimla. The summer residence (March to October) of the British Raj. It was from here that the whole of the Indian sub-continent was run during these six summer months:
Another Relive video with photos, but worth a look as you can see how it was built on the highest part of this mountain top. Click the link to open in a new page
And there it is, the magnificent Viceregal Lodge, now known as the Indian Institute of Advanced Study. The whole of India was ruled from this building during the summer months
We were both here, but you can see that Jackie definitely was
Everything about it is opulent and on a grand scale, befitting of a building from which a whole sub continent was run.
We weren't allowed to take photos inside, but this one is from the shimlatourism.co.in website. It really doesn't do justice to the interior, but this is inside the grand entrance and shows some of the woodwork of the hallway all made from teak from Burma (then part of British India)
This was inside the entrance of the 5* Oberoi Hotel
We looked through into a lounge area there and a member of staff asked if we'd like our photo. So here it is. Its not that expensive to stay here, Jackie looked on their website and it said room from £135 per night but, to be honest, its not really for us. We'd have had to bring a load of extra clothes to dress up for dinner and we're much happier meeting local folk and getting to know how a place really works
On the train from Delhi to Amritsar. We were first on, it was full by the time we left
We were up early, and no I hadn’t slept very well. We were in the car with the driver at 06.00 but we had to wait for our assistant, who as it turns out was our guide from the old town, Abhishek. He was a little late, but traffic to the station was fine. He took us into the station and onto the correct platform which was the one we first walked on to, though I don’t think we would have known that. He waited with us till the train arrived and ensured we were in our reserved seats. Talk about service.
First snack before two meals on our six hour journey
The train pulled away on time for our 6ish hour journey. Almost immediately we were brought a little tray with a tea kit (an envelope with a teabag and a sugar sachet) a creamer and a biscuit. This was quickly followed by the man with the cups and hot water and breakfast had started. We had a packed breakfast from the hotel, though B wasn’t sure about his egg sandwich, my cheese one was better than expected. An omelette quickly appeared from the train with some bread and butter, which was surprisingly ok. A bit of dozing, a bit of reading and crossword and 5 stops later the train had thinned out considerably. At this point the delivery man reappeared daal, chicken curry (odd as the ticket said veg, but hey) rice and roti. All very runny to be eating with a wooden spoon on a train so we went for the rice, not the roti and fingers. It was surprisingly good, and we are still her to tell the tale.
By the way Tim, there's the diesel locos pulling us. Not sure how many carriages there were, a lot!
We arrived a little late, but there was the man with a Magic Tours placard, our guide for the next three days, Param. Rather than risk getting stuck in traffic going to check in at the hotel (though he had got us confused with his next customers who are staying somewhere else) we stopped for a coffee, just to fill a little time. This was before we headed the 20km to the Pakistan border for the Wagah-Attari border ceremony. The daily lowering of the flags of the respective countries. This is a bit of ceremony, but each country trying to outdo the other, with volume of music and shouting and silly marching and salutes. I can’t believe our master of ceremonies was actually a soldier, he was more like Freddie Mercury reincarnated. This ceremony has been going on since 1957 with apparently up to 17000 people going every day. It was entertaining, and we are glad we went, though we really had no idea what was going on! They did start off with a shake of hands across the border before the marching, gesturing and performance made it appear that they really hate each other.
Watching the Wagah border ceremony at the India-Pakistan border. Its a light hearted, quite funny event, but it must be remembered that these two countries are sworn enemies and have fought one another on several occasions in the recent past. They also both possess nuclear weapons. This is one of the few crossing points along the short road between Amritsar and Lahore. We are sitting in India, a lot of people waving India flags, but the crowds beyond the gate are in Pakistan waving Pakistan flags. Its both funny but deadly serious at the same time. Watch the Youtube video below to get a feel for it
We’d been instructed to make a dash for it just before the flag was completely down, which we duly did. There weren’t 17000 people there but there were certainly a good number, so getting out first made very good sense. To our hotel then which couldn’t be more different from the first one. Delhi was fine, a homestay, all a bit tired and certainly nothing special. This is a heritage building with amazing furniture and staircases all over the place. We have a four poster bed and our own little balcony, though sadly it’s too cold to sit out. A thick duvet and electric heaters made it lovely and snuggly though.
Tuesday wee were collected at 09.00 to firstly go to Jallianwalla Bagh the site of the Amritsar massacre where in 1919 a peaceful group were protesting against the Rowlatt act, which gave the police the power to arrest anyone for no reason. Temporary Brigadier General Dyer instructed his troops to enter through the only entrance into the square and shoot until they were out of ammunition. Estimates of dead vary from 350 to 1500, but whichever it appears entirely uncalled for and caused a re-evaluation by the British Army of its military role against civilians to "minimal force whenever possible".
In 1919 this was the only entrance into the Jallianwalla Bagh enclosed area where up to 1500 protestors were gathered. It was blocked by British troops and they fired into the crowds until they ran out of amunition. People tried to climb the ten feet high surrounding walls to escape...
We exited from here to go to the Golden Temple, the main reason we are here I guess. An amazing structure of copper panels covered with gold leaf in the middle of a lake. It is spiritually the most significant shrine in Sikhism, with pilgrims coming to bathe and pray. We didn’t go inside as two hours to queue to not pray was a little much. We did walk all around the lake though as it was all quite beautiful. We also went into the langar (the dining hall) and through the kitchens. The same as any Sikh temple they will provide free meals, but here the scale is somewhat different. According to Rick Stein, (we’ve watched his food tour round India though I managed to leave my notes at home) up to 15,000 meals 5x a day. All prepared, cooked and served by volunteers with most of the food being donated. What an undertaking.
...Others jumped into this well to escape. Over 150 drowned bodies were recovered from here
The partition museum was our next stop. I had warned Param that Brian will try and read everything. I don’t think he believed me, though he does now! A real morning of opposites then, the wonderful atmosphere of the Golden Temple compared to the horrible story of partition. Partition was the creation of India and Pakistan, with the movement of up to 18 million people. Separating Muslim from Hindu and Sikh with the loss of a million lives as those moving were attacked by each other. (The why of this, is the bit I’m not sure about)
Bullet holes in the old walls.
Lunch, we shared a chicken tikka masala (had to be done at some point) which was creamier and spicier than at home, so a definite win. I’m never having lime soda with salt and sweet again though. Plain, fine, sweet, also fine , but salty? Yuck. A quick stop after lunch to another museum in the Ram Bagh palace of the maharajah Ranjit Singh. This was the owner of the koh-I-nor diamond that now resides in the Crown Jewels. A little extra stop, along with a shopping emporium, where I did buy a pashmina, but only because it is the colours that my wedding dress was 21 years ago.
The memorial in the gardens
Back to the hotel for a quick rest, most of which has been taken up with blogging and trying to make the last payment from the house sale. I could ring the bank, but for some reason they couldn’t ring me back which they have to do as part of their verification! What a pain. We are out again in about an hour for dinner and the procession ceremony as the holy book from the Golden Temple is taken to bed.
Preparing to go into the Golden Temple. Shoes and socks off and heads to be covered
The Golden Temple, lit up, in the dark is beautiful. We had a little mooch about before queuing to watch the pallanquin be decorated to go and collect the book. By now it was 21.30 so we didn’t wait for it to actually come out of the temple as it was cold standing barefoot and would definitely have been past my (and the guide with an hour scooter ride) bedtime. It was however a calming way to finish the day after the unpleasantness of the partition museum.
First view of the Golden Temple, the holiest site for Sikhs worldwide and, although its not mandatory, all Sikhs are requested to try to get here at least once in their lives. Their holy book is within the temple during the day and you can see queues along the access way to pray to the book, which may take 2 hours or more of waiting
A gentle start today, Wednesday, for a day in the countryside. We hadn’t known what this meant, but it was basically a home visit. There was us, and shortly after a couple born in India but now living in the US. These things can often feel contrived or intrusive, but this didn’t. We sat and made vegetable pakoras with grandma when we arrived before eating with grandpa and the baby. Brian who has been intrigued by the turban and how it works was pleased to be dressed in one. An 8.5 m length of fabric that was wound round his head in minutes. There are different lengths and styles, colour to suit outfit. Occasionally they are starched and may be taken on and off a few times, but usually tied every day though apparently not everyone has the knack so there are places you can go every morning to have it tied.
Next stop, the tractor, the four of us and the homeowner all piled on. Our guide and their driver hopped on a motorcycle and we went into the fields. The men both had a drive, which Brian says was quite scary, a narrow track with a drop either side and lots of play in the steering! We stopped to look at the man harvesting alfalfa for the cattle, they have 2 cows, one of which is pregnant, a bull and an ox (I think, though it may have been a yak, it was definitely hairy!) Again, Brian wanted to have a go, which he did, though he was told it was at his risk, in case he chopped his leg off. They have two crops a year, it was wheat at the moment, once that is harvested the fields are cleared and fertilised and used for rice. This area in the Punjab is known as the breadbasket of India as it is very fertile. Up here breads are the preferred accompaniment to food, while in the south it is rice. Rice produced here can either be sent south or exported to the rest of world. There was also mustard seed growing, with yellow flowers that is a common setting for song and dance routines in Bollywood movies. Mustard oil is what the pakora we had is cooked in, much healthier apparently and certainly crispier than when I’ve made onion bhaji at home. A little bit of research has led me to realise that mustard seed here is very closely related to oilseed rape at home. There was also spinach of a particular sort for a local specialty, about which our fellow guest was very happy, apparently it’s his favourite.
Inside the temple is the Langer Hall, which is a large hall where anyone can enter to get a free meal provided by the Sikh community. This is just one of thousands worldwide, although this is the largest. Below is a Youtube video of our visit inside. Have a look at it to see the tremendous work this community does to humanity, where they believe that everyone in this world is equal. Apart from equality of all, they believe in Honesty, Hard Work and Sharing. We have come away with a very positive feeling for the Sikh community
This spinach was one of the dishes at lunch, served with a spoonful of ghee on the top. It is this, I realised that which gave the distinctive rich, almost chocolate flavour that I’d noticed on our dhal the previous evening. I’m not sure it’s quite to my taste though There was also vegetable curry, dhal, rice and roti, one of which I made! Sweet lassi is a taste we are acquiring as yogurt is good for the digestion, though I think we have to be aware of the water used to dilute it. We may have to get to grips with chai too, just don’t think of it as tea but as an entirely different drink and all is good.
Two more activities made our trip complete some Bhangra dancing and a very strange martial art that looks easier than it is. Both of which need more practice!
This is the Town Hall in Amritsar housing the Partition Museum, a very thought provoking visit. We weren't allowed to take photos inside and Jackie has already described the visit here. So worthwhile visiting here, but very emotional
We ate in the hotel again, well I did. Brian had been feeling full all day, so really didn’t want to eat at all, but hadn’t wanted to appear rude at the home visit, so he’d had a good lunch. He did decide not to have dinner and stuck to it even though it was fish and chips. The fish I was expecting, and was delicious, the chips I wasn’t but were such a treat.
We've included this Youtube of a little bit of driving in Amritsar, just to give a flavour of what happens on a normal day
Today it is just us and Manjit our driver setting off for Shimla. A journey that will probably take us 8 hours, including stops. It’s going well so far, but this is the easy bit across the plain before we start the tortuous journey up into the foothills of the himalaya. Manjit will be staying for us for the two days ‘at leisure’ we have in Shimla which almost seems wrong just to save us the 40 minute walk from the hotel to the city centre, and the 10 minutes to the station in 3 days time. I don’t think we are good at having staff! His English is not so good, but we will get by and he has already told us we are good people which is very flattering.
We had a second visit to the Golden Temple at night to see the ceremony of taking their holy book to bed. It happens at 9:30pm every day and it is then returned to the temple again at 4:30am the next morning. We've done another short Youtube below showing the procession in. We didn't wait for it to come back out again as it was getting late
It certainly was a long way, and we weren’t even driving! We were all pleased to arrive in Shimla though I don’t think Manjit was very impressed by the road to the British Resort. I’d read about it so knew what to expect! Slightly dismayed to find a building site between the car and where eventually we found reception we carried on. We waited in the reception come dining room, doors open to the elements all around, thinking dinner at 3 degrees could be challenging, while Manjit finally found someone to show us to our room. It would have been lovely, a while ago, but now was just very tired. Patio doors and windows that didn’t fit, a floor I didn’t want to stand on barefoot, plaster coming off the walls and a toilet that didn’t flush! Collecting our bags I sent a photo to Ranjeet our contact and organiser who immediately responded that they weren’t informed of building work (unsurprisingly), did we want him to change hotel? And that he thinks it’s better if it’s not a good one! 20 minutes later we were booked into somewhere else. Just as we were going to the car, the manager tried to persuade us to stay, “this is a lovely room, part of a suite, here are the two shared areas, there is someone in the other part of the suite….(that’s a bit odd in itself) here is the bedroom….” I looked out of the window straight into the building site and had to laugh out loud!
It took us 20 minutes to find the new hotel which made me feel very guilty for Manjit, but it was a joy to arrive. Yes it’s bigger and more impersonal, but it actually feels like what it should be, a comfortable place. I understand why we were originally put where we were, but the shine was just too tarnished. We’ve had dinner which was delicious and half a bottle of Indian wine (no beer for some reason). It was nothing to write home about, but wasn’t the worst wine we’ve ever drunk, and it made me feel so much better
Our next days visit into the Punjab countryside to meet a local rural family. Here's mum preparing pakoras over an open fire
They were yummy!
Walking through the fields our guide Param stopped to pick a local weed that grows freely in these parts. Many people will recognise it. Its marijuana and it grows everywhere here, at the side of the road, in hedgerows, everywhere
Our host shows us how easy it appears to spin his special Indian piece. You can see on the Youtube below our pathetic attempts to do the same
Brian's pathetic attempts at hand harvesting. They didn't let him do much!
Brian has a go at driving the tractor
We both have a go at recreating a Bollywood dancing routine amongst the mustard grass
So here's the Youtube video our our day in rural Punjab. Until the next blog, bye for now...
