Silk Route

Day 29 - Sun 13 Apr 08

Shimla

Got to see Shimla in the daylight, and it's still a weird mix of Surrey and India. The main street is clean, tidy and pedestrianised, so unlike a real India road. Got breakfast in town and booked a taxi into Delhi. Decided to walk up to a temple over looking the town, it was a tough climb up to the top and not helped by the nasty monkeys hanging around. Then it was back down to the town centre and the lift down to bottom road, and a walk through the less than peaceful part of town.

Found the railway station and saw a train leaving - quite glad that we didn't use it, the train isn't quite as pretty as I'd imagined. Then it was up to the Cecil hotel for a drink and a snack, very nice, but very expensive as well. The hotel seems to be a throw back to the old days, and very much has the feels of Raffles in Singapore. Then it was back to the hotel and our vast room to chill out before heading out at dusk to eat and people watch.

I'd spotted that there are people renting out baby buggies here, they even push it around for the families. I guess that's because most Indian families don't own a buggy because they wouldn't be able to use it anywhere..

On our way back after food our taxi man spotted us and said he'd found another person for our taxi tomorrow, 'Gil' who also needs to get back to Delhi. So the cost of the taxi has now dropped to close to the price of the train I cancelled this morning.