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Shimla, a British built town and summer retreat for British colonialists, is remarkably different from the other towns we have seen. For one, it has a church. It Aldo has BINS! Something the rest of India seems to have either forgotten to invent, or simply ignores. Shimla's buildings are akin to British Victorian buildings, and the town has a reputation for a holiday/honeymoon spot with Indians. We explored the bazaars, an art gallery, a Himalayan bird aviary (including the most haggered collection of taxidermy ever), and unsuccessfully tried to find the local waterfall. We did however spot a second type of monkey, more silver in colour, but Hugo missed the dream shot - the baring of his teeth and hissing may explain the blurry picture! We also walked past a man carrying a huge packaged washing machine on his back as if it was a standard thing to be doing. On the way to a cafe for tea, a man stopped to ask where we were from. He chatted happily before his agenda became apparent and he handed over the ubiquitous business card, advertising his yoga and astrology course. We were quickly put off his business pitch as he spouted a load of garble about my future, all of which was untrue, unless I have an Irish grandfather I don't know about, or have forgotten about my history of fainting attacks?! Hugo looks polish apparently. This morning we caught the UNESCO status Himalayan queen train and rode the 111 year old train track through 102 tunnels. That is after being attacked by two crafty characters looking to steal my bombay mix! Hugo returned to see my face of fear, as they scampered empty handed, mwah ha ha. We are now in Chandigarh and have just eaten butter chicken, veg biryani and chapatis, which blew our heads off.
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Mum A Actually you do have an irish grandfather (only joking) and you fainted once in your early teens! Question - why did you go to Manali, as on the map a real zig zag from Solan to Shimla, or was that the route of the bus? was the Himalayan Queen a nice train ride? Gdad will be v jealous of all these train journeys - I hope you are collecting train timetables for him! what were the crafty characters - monkeys? thought butter chicken was supposed to be mild! sorry couldn't Skype tonight, just couldn't sort out computer hitches. love you lots, mum x
Marie The blohy automatically set our location as solan, but we went mcLeod Ganj, manali, shimla. Solan was on the train route of the Himalayan queen, so stick to the timetable rather than the location of the blogs! Train was OK, good scenery, but there was a !more luxurious train we could have gone on - we decided to save money, as it does the same route anyway. Yes monkeys! It was the biryani that was hot! No problem, maybe we can Skype tonight xx