I woke up around 5 am as the room only has some basic curtains that don't block out any light at all. I looked out & was delighted to see that all the cloud had disappeared from the night before.

I quickly threw on some clothes and went out onto my balcony to take some photos of the incredibly beautiful valley before me. It was so clear, I could even see the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas in the distance! Stunning!

After eventually dragging myself away from this as the sun rose higher in the sky, I did a little research on Manali & decided to book a private trek to the base camp of one of the mountains there called Teo Dibba. Maybe one day I'll do some mountaineering training and go climb one!

Went downstairs to get some breakfast and the caretaker was making chapatis. He said they'd only take about 10-15min but as I'm slowly learning, Indian time estimates are approximately 50% of the actual time things take.

Even though I'd told him what time the driver was coming to pick me up, he only served up the chapati's about 5min before I was meant to go.

JP's driver arrived on time but then had to wait for about 15min while I finished breakfast. Not that he seemed to mind. He seems like a very nice guy actually.

He took me about 5km down the road and there I met JP. We walked up to the Shimla Water Catchment Nature Reserve.

After some negotiation, they let us in, even though they didn't officially open for another 1.5 hours.

JP had said we were going on a trek so I'd brought my trekking poles, ready for a hike up and/or down some of these Shimla hills. Instead, the trek turned out to be more like a forest walk along what is probably the flattest road in the whole Shimla forest!

Apparently, it was built by the English to allow their horses to travel along this to the next town so there were cute little bridges over the streams and moss-covered, stone-wall embankments supporting the path in many places.

Most of the track was litter-free, which is a welcome change for India. It's quite common to see people just throw stuff on the ground and so there is crap everywhere along the sides of all roads, paths, and outside buildings. It's quite gross.

The nature reserve was really beautiful. According to their brochures, it's home to monkeys (we saw 2 different types), a couple of species of deer (including one that barks), and even leopards.

Although we heard several of the barking deer, we didn't manage to see any so the most exciting things were the monkeys, birds, bugs and of course, the beautiful trees.

The track was 7km long and along the way, I learned quite a bit about JP. He used to be in the army, fought in the Bangladesh war against Pakistan, and has travelled quite widely to Asia as well as almost all over the Himalayas. He's now 74 and it's amazing he's alive at all with the number of cigarettes he smokes!

I'm not sure whether it's due to the cigarettes or his age but our trek was VERY slow. I was walking quite slowly but constantly had to stop & wait for him as well. Hmmm ... can I take another day of this? I don't think so, especially as he said we were going to climb up the highest mountain around Shimla!

The turnaround point was a concrete dam in the middle of the forest that looked more like a giant swimming pool with about 30cm of water in the bottom. Shimla has had a water shortage for the last few months as they didn't get the rain they normally do ... not that you'd know it judging by all the puddles and mud on the ground, and the greenery of the forest.

The trip back was largely uneventful & slightly faster than the trip on the way in as I wasn't stopping for photos all the time, plus the cloud had started to set in again.

We eventually arrived back at the main gate and went down to a local restaurant for a vegetarian lunch - that's one great thing about India ... lots of vegetarian options!

Lunch cost a huge $8 for the two of us, including a 1.5L bottle of water.

We finished lunch around 3 pm and JP asked if I wanted to do one more trek today. I asked how long it would take as my trekking friends were arriving back from their trek at about 4.30pm. Unfortunately, they'd run into bad weather and that prevented them from completing the trek so they'd had to turn around & come back early. Great that I get to see them a little earlier but very disappointing for them!

Anyway, JP said yes, it wouldn't take long so off we went (I should have remembered my earlier learning about Indian time estimates!). Anyway, we jumped on another bus which took us into the centre of Shimla and we started walking up a hill to go to the Monkey Temple on Jakhu Hill.

The hill was steep and so JP stopped for another cigarette. Yes, I'm sure that will help.

After a while, I decided I couldn't stand the pace anymore plus I wanted to get this part done to have more time to see my friends so I told JP I'd see him at the top and took off.

It was so steep that some of the little cars were even having trouble getting up the hill!

I made my way to the top to see Shimla's #3 top tourist destination. There's a huge 30m high orange statue of the Monkey God (I made lots of jokes on FB & Instagram about Monkey Magic) then took off my shoes and went inside the temple.

There were the usual gurus handing out head dots and rice bubbles in exchange for donations. The rest of the temple was pretty basic & run down however so it took all of about 60 seconds to walk around it. No photos allowed of the inside ... but that's OK, there's nothing I want to photography anyway.

I put my shoes back on & took a few more photos then JP arrived.

It was after 4.30pm now and Hasneet & Natasha had just messaged to say they'd arrived in town. I thought they said they were going to go to a restaurant that shut at 8.30pm so I told JP I needed to get back to my hotel as quickly as possible so I could freshen up then meet them there.

We started walking down the other side of the hill, back towards Mall Road (which was surprisingly close!) but then it started to rain. Actually, the term "rain" is a complete understatement as it was absolutely bucketing down. The drains were overflowing and the streets turned into rivers. We took shelter in a nearby bus stop along with everyone else who had been out walking.

While waiting in the shelter, several people finished whatever they were eating or drinking and just threw the packaging onto the street and no one blinks an eye or cares! It's quite amazing - you have to wonder whether they ever think about what happens to all this stuff they just chuck on the ground. No one seems to care about the fact that there is crap everywhere. It's quite sad.

We waited for about 15min to see if the downpour would ease up but unfortunately, it didn't seem to be stopping any time soon so I got the number of the taxi driver & found out where he was, paid JP for the day, cancelled tomorrow, popped on my rain poncho, then set out to wade through the streets and find the taxi.

After another 30min of walking & waiting for the driver, we eventually met each other and he started to take me back to my hotel. Since it was getting late, however, I asked him to turn around & take me directly to the cafe we were meeting at. However, after a few more messages back & forth with Hasneet, it turned out that they weren't actually getting to the cafe until 8.30pm so then I asked my driver to turn around again and take me to my hotel! I don't know what he thought of me but he seemed quite cheerful about it all. Fortunately, no one gets upset if you just do a u-turn in front of oncoming traffic and block traffic briefly in both directions. Ah yes, Indian drivers!

Shimla traffic is terrible anyway but the rain and peak hour made it even worse so it was slow going and took nearly an hour to get back.

I asked my driver to wait while I went & had a shower. He was quite happy of course as it meant he wouldn't drive back to town empty.

I made it to the cafe about 15min before everyone else did and was so happy to see Hasneet & Natasha and hear all about their trek experience, even though it wasn't the best for them.

We drank Long Island Iced Teas from 500ml long glasses ... one was plenty! Then, we had a tonne of food.

We all went back in the same cab, which dropped them off at their hotel, then took me to mine.

Really tired by now as it was after midnight so went straight to bed.