“dangerous mountain roads and broken buses”
We headed back into central Delhi for a couple of nights before venturing onto our next destination. We were keen to get some fresh mountain air to get away from the busy streets of Delhi. We settled on heading towards Shimla. Shimla is a popular destination with locals to escape the heat of the summer in Delhi. It was easy to find quiet spots off the beaten track in the area and was definitely an adventure.
The first leg of the journey was to get on the regular train to Kalka. We got up early to catch the train and it was a lovely warm morning. The countryside outside of Delhi reminded me of France, there were fields of sunflowers everywhere and large tall skinny trees. After speaking to some of the locals on the train they told us that the tuk tuk drivers should only charge 10 rupees per kilometer! (We had been charged a couple of hundred for each ride so probably the local price). We arrived in Kalka to board the toy train to Shimla into the mountains. The toy train is set on a narrow gauge single track British built railway which slowly works its way through dark tunnels carved through the mountains peaks. The scenery was incredible and every corner you turned a new view would appear with mountain vistas and pine trees lining the track. Kalka to Shimla is a 96 km route but would take us almost 8 hours and cost only 50 rupees each. There are 20 stations on the route providing passing places for the trains going up into the mountains and the ones coming down. At each station the driver would have to pass over a metal ball that was given at the previous station to give him authority to take the train further uphill. The journey consists a total of 103 tunnels, 912 curves, 969 bridges and it climbs 656 meters from Kalka to Shimla at an elevation of 2,075 meters. The seating wasn’t the most comfortable but it made you get up and look outside the window and enjoy watching the sun slowly set as you arrive at Himalayan foothills.
We arrived late at the station and it was dark. Our guesthouse we booked on Agoda seemed to have the wrong address on the app and the real address was some way out of town which was frustrating. We were tired though and it looked comfortable enough for the night. The next morning we had a problem as we didn’t have enough cash to pay for the room and no cards were accepted. There was an ATM a short walk down the hill but we were someway out of town.
Our experience of getting cash out had been bit difficult in places. The ATM didn’t work and the next ATM was a 20 minute ride back into town. Luckily, a local man who had spotted us struggling had offered to take us to an international ATM in town. He pointed out that some are national only and that we would need to use the ones that accepted International cards (a problem we had never knowingly faced before). After looking on google maps and driving Jonny to find what we thought was another ATM in his own car. After a while he said he would take Jonny back to the hotel and provide him with the cash to make up the remainder of what we needed. Hannah was waiting at the hotel with the bags. When we finally paid for the room we then both jumped in his car with our bags. He then drove us back into Shimla where we could then pay him back. He called us his family and helped us out of the kindness of his heart, it was such an amazing experience and we will never forget what he did for us.
Shimla is mainly a tourist destination for wealthy Indians. The summer temperatures are in the mid 20’s and in the winter the town is covered in a blanket of snow. You have to catch a lift up to the main streets which can get very busy and with our big bags we weren’t favoured by the locals. We had booked another hotel online and had difficulty finding it again and with our big bags going up and down hills we were quickly tiring. A man spotted us and asked do you need a hotel and Jonny went with him to check it out and it was a great find. We dropped off our heavy bags and headed into town and found some delicious ice cream to cool us down from the manic morning we’d had. The streets were lined with bazaars and street stalls selling local handcrafted goods it had a really nice relaxed feeling of what you would expect being in the mountains. There are parks and a wonderful old church you can explore inside. You can also catch a cable car up to the top of Jakhu hill where a large hindu statue is and lots of monkeys surrounded by pine trees. A monkey stole a ladies sunglasses so we kept our distance from the monkeys and kept everything in our bag!
We planned to spend a couple of nights in Shimla before catching a bus towards Manali. The Rohtang Pass at 4000m past Manali was closed because of snow. We knew our final destination would potentially be Manali and we liked the look of the small village of Katrain before Manali. We booked our bus tickets ready for our mountain road journey to Katrain. The road from Shimla to Katrain has a reputation as one of the most dangerous roads in the world. The journey was beautiful through the valley and a bit sketchy in some places as it felt like we were going to fall off the edge of the mountain pass as the driver would brake very late and let gravity take over. We stopped for a late lunch and the tyre of the bus needed to change which took a while as they had no machinery.
We were dropped off in the town bus stop in Katrain a small village on the road to Manali. Ambrish came to pick us up and took us to the Manali treehouses. Our accommodation was in a beautiful tent in an orchard full of apples. It was really important to us to get some time to relax and not feel like we had to constantly explore and see what was on offer, we explored the small village where they had a small fresh fruit and veg stall and other snacks. Amish would cook an incredible meal with cooked vegetables grown in the garden and we had an amazing potato curry, dahl, naan, rice and salad. As no-one else was staying we were moved into the new chalet which was beautiful and had amazing views. The weather was incredible most of the time we were there and allowed us to catch up on writing blogs and editing photographs. We decided to go on a hike up the mountain behind where we were staying. A red brown mountain dog followed us all the way up, it had started getting hot as we’d left later in the day. There were cacti everywhere and it was a constant uphill. We found an incredible viewpoint and came across some pulley systems like little cable cars where people would use them to trade goods and supplies. The next day Amish invited us to his sons ceremony baby blessing where the local priest would come and chop his hair. Unfortunately Jonny was not feeling very good and had been sick most of the day so we missed it. We spent a couple more days there to recover and left on our journey back home.
We were so incredibly grateful for the experience we were able to have exploring so many counties meeting so many wonderful people who shared their story with us and we will never forget the memories we made on this trip. If you’d like to read about what we learned on this 6 month trip read our blog here.
