Next Shimla- vastly overrated and not much to write about.

Very hilly. The bazaars are on the lower part of the mountain and I did literally collapse to make it back to the top.

Very strict- signs everywhere saying that there is no smoking, no littering and no spitting. Whilst this is very good (especially for India) it does make the town feel menacing.

Mayank's key phrase for the town was 'dead' and even though it was full of people I do agree with the statement. No life and impossible to go anywhere without an oxygen mask to help recover from the climb.

Next stop please.....

(P.s. if you are interested the Lonely Planet reads:

Until the British arrived, there was nothing at Shimla but a sleepy forest glade known as Shyamala (a local name for Kali). Then a Scottish civil servant named Charles Kennedy built a summer home in Shimla in 1822 and nothing was ever the same again. By 1864 Shimla had developed into the official summer capital of the Raj. Every summer until 1939, the entire government of India fled here from the sweltering heat of the plains, with all their clerks' books and forms filled out in triplicate. When the Kalka-Shimla railway line was constructed in 1903, Shimla's status as India's premier hill station was assured. The city was even briefly the capital of Punjab until the map was redrawn in 1966.

Strung out along a 12km ridge, Shimla seems poised on the verge of sliding into the valley.

The end).