High above the Punjab plain, on the edge of Himalayas is Shimla. British built hill station on a sloping hills. Just like McLeod Gang. With one distinction. In Shimla there is a lot British feel left. No surprise. It used to be a summer capital of all colonial India. Delhi was too hot at that time and so the goverment move to mountains for few months every year.
They have a great invention here. It is called The Ridge. A promenade. On the ridge. No buildings around. Only clouds. As if the whole thing was floating up in the skies. It merges with the main shopping street. The Mall. (In British hill stations it is always the Mall.) Expensive Indian clothing labels, expensive restaurants and foreign fast food joints. Baskin Robbins arrived long ago and Subway was about to open (the were looking for Sandwich Artists). Unsurprisingly, supermarkets stock Nutela, surprisingly they close over noon („Sir, choose fast, it is closing time!“). Buildings are very British, built of wood and stone, Tudor style. Including former Town Hall. Which is decorated with green neon tubes and at night looks like a hunted house.
Up until World War I natives were banned from the Mall. With exception of rickshaws and royalty. Today you rarely see a foreign face there. Lot of holidaying rich Punjabis and Delhites. But rickshaws are banned and so is all other traffic. With the exception of rubbish collecting trucks and VIPs. Everything else is brought there on the backs of porters. Signs prohibit smoking and spitting on the Mall and the Ridge. Under the threat of a Rs 500 fine. So nobody spits and nobody smokes. But as the signes do not prohibit pissing, Indian men can be pissing in public.
Short walk fron the town is Viceregal Lodge. On a hill. It used to be seat of British government, now it is occupied by Indian Institute for Advanced Studies. As if you were suddenly teleported to Britain. Huge. Gray. Stone. Carefully manicured lawns. Only few of the rooms inside are open to public. Among them the one where Partition was signed.
Not all of Shimla is colonial, though. Take flight of steps down from the Mall and the Tudor houses give way to corrugated iron. You are in the Bazaar. Narrow alleys full of people and merchandise. You can buy everything there. Shoes Made In China as the sign proudly claims. Incense, stuffed animals, saris, TVs, grain. You can have your knife sharpened by real bearded turban wearing Indian. And while at the Mall people are mostly window shopping, here it is shopping frenzy.
Peace: I stay at YMCA. Which is usualy outrageously expensive for me. But considering the exorbitant rates charged elsewhere in Shimla those ungodly Rs 310 (breakfast included) are an awesome deal. I have a room with a fireplace, red wooden floor, closet and view of a sunset over Himalayas.
Another Peace: It started on the way from McLeod Ganj. They were sitting along the roads. And they are here in Shimla too. Walking in the streets. Loafing on the railing. Baring teeth and hissing. Evil monsters. Monkeys. Red ones.
Few pictures
Viceregal Lodge.
Municipality house looks more like a hunted house.
Walk down from Bazaar and colonial architecture gives way to corrugated iron.
Bazaar.
Brousič nožů.
Breakfast at YMCA
Vicious creature above the Bazaar.
