Shimla As the summer capital of the British Raj, Shimla - or Simla as it used to be known - was once the seat of power for more than one fifth of the world's population. For almost a hundred years (from 1864 to 1939) the entire colonial administration debunked en masse, first from Kolkata and then Delhi, into the hills to avoid the stifling heat of the Indian plains. Often described as Epsom in the hills, the quaint hill station is today a surreal place, with a mall lined by mock Tudor cottages, the Viceroy's neo-Gothic Palace at one end and Christ Church at the other. And halfway along is the Gaiety Theatre, a charming miniature Drury Lane. And all round the core of the old colonial town has grown a very large Indian town
Friday October 24. Rishikesh to Shimla.
We had a pleasant breakfast at 8 am and this was delivered much more quickly than the previous day and we were ready to leave the room by soon after nine. The manager had not prepared the bill at all. I wonder what else he had been doing with all his non-existent guests! When the car came to collect us, we went down David carrying one case and a so-called Porter ran up the steps to get the other one but then failed to appear for over five minutes very very odd. All the staff lined up to edit farewell. The new driver,Ji, spoke some English and we found that he was going to be with us for the rest of our trip in India. He told us it was going to be a nine hour day and it proved to be well over eight hours anyway, particularly as the last bit into Shimla was so slow.
The scenery for the first two or three hours was very uninteresting and the road wondered through towns full of traffic, there was a short stretch of dual carriageway. Then the scenery became more interesting but it was still very misty and we couldn’t see the furthest peaks. We stopped three times for a short stretch and arrived at Shimla about five. The overall lasting impression was cars parked beside the road, continuously for miles and miles, the city of 400,000 people having a singular lack of parking.
A new guide, Mr. Push, was picked up on the outskirts to the city and we then took a back road to avoid some of the traffic and eventually arrived at Chapslee House, and were greeted by 4 or 5 staff and showed to our room by a lady who I think was the hotel manageress. The whole place was just as it had been 100 years ago, very dated. Our room had a dressing room and then a bathroom with quite antiquated fittings and no view whatsoever. We were informed that dinner would be at seven but we’re not asked what we wanted. At 6:50 pm they knocked on our door to say dinner was ready but there was nobody in the dining room when we got there. Eventually, two others, Martin and Jerry, appeared and then food appeared silently with no indication of what it was and seemingly very little English on the part of the two male spooks that were serving it. Chris was not impressed but she did like the pancakes that they served for pudding and got them to make some more and all the other three also had some more. We then had some coffee in the room next door to the dining room in order to prolong the stay outside our bedroom. When we went to bed, there were two other people eating in the other side of the dining room, presumably the family? We shall consider how spooky it appears in the light of day tomorrow morning.
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Saturday, October 25. Shimla.
We breakfasted at 8:30 am with the other two people and I enjoyed the porridge and then some poached eggs but it was all a strange experience as the two waiters there spoke very little English and there was a funny negotiation on what we all were going to have for supper, Chris declining any supper. We met our guide at 10 am and he offered to find us another hotel but we did not think this would be possible. Anyway he spoke with the office and once the manageress had presented herself on duty at 10:10 a.m. we managed to arrange for our room to be moved. The manageress was not too keen on this as our agent had not booked the other category. We insisted that we had not booked a windowless room and she gradually came round to our way of thinking. So we went back into the hotel and quickly packed everything into the suitcases ready for them to move us as we were out.
We then walked down the drive and up along a hill towards the town: I had to stop once for breath, but we got to the mall within 20 minutes. Before this we had spent some time on a large flat area they called the ridge, underneath it was a water reservoir. The second earliest church in India was situated in this area but was closed today. The famous stained glass windows at Christ Church in Shimla were designed by Lockwood Kipling, the father of Rudyard Kipling. These five windows are designed to tell a story with each one representing a Christian virtue, such as Faith, Hope, and Charity, and create a vibrant display of color when sunlight passes through them
They were also statues to Gandhi. And to Indira Gandhi. After this we continued to walk where there were some quite normal shops and dressed up policewoman in the middle of the area. This area is known as the Scandal, as everyone gossiped here in the past. Roads ran out to all the different suburbs, each at about 30 minutes walk away.
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We continued along this pedestrianised streete and got to the anticorruption police unit which was a fantastic building, built with cast iron from Bombay amongst other things. He also passed the original offices of Thomas Cook. There were lots of monkeys along the way and many houses had lots of coiled wire on their roofs to prevent the monkeys attacking the roofs. We were then picked up by our driver and driven to the viceregal Lodge.
Vice Regal Lodge was built in the late 1800s with a Scottish Baronial design. Here we obtained a time ticket and then wandered around the outside with explanations given by our guide. The actual visit was meant to have been guided in Hindu and English but we really couldn’t tell the difference between the two so learnt very little from the guide inside but we were very impressed by what we saw. Nowadays it is used for postgraduate students, around 45 to 60 of them, who get accommodation there, and the use of a huge library which has been established in the once ballroom.
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We then continued by car to the military museum which was situated beside a large area which at once been the racecourse, a cricket pitch, a golf course and all sorts of other sports use. The golf course of nine holes must have been the most un interesting nine holes in the world, just going back and forth on a featureless field.
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We got back to the hotel about 4:30 pm and we’re very impressed by our new room on the first floor with good views over similar and generally a much better positioning of furniture. I had a siesta and then a shower and hair wash. Then dinner at 7:30 pm where I just had a bowl of mushroom soup which was delicious, plus a couple of bits of local bread and then add delicious bread and butter pudding.
Sunday, October 26 . Shimla
After a pleasant breakfast, we were shown snow capped peaks from outside the kitchen by our guide: nowadays you only see them on clear days as pollution is widespread in India. We were then driven to the train station and walked along the platform seeing the station master's and superintendent's offices and neither of them were at home. We had learnt about them from a YouTube video.
We boarded the 10.55 train and was shown to 2 tiny seats in a very crowded carriage. The windows were so dirty that we could not see out of them. We sat there wondering what was happening as the guide had disappeared . Anyway he eventually got back on the train as it departed. David told him that he wanted to get off at the first possible station and have the car meet us there: both of us had considered this mountain railway as a climax of our holiday and this was certainly not what we have been expecting. Anyway, the guide said that he would have a word to the ticket collector and see if there was any chance of getting into a tourist carriage where there would be more space. This he achieved and after about 45 minutes we struggled to exit our original carriage, as it was cluttered by large suitcases in the corridors as well as all the people, and we were shown into another carriage where there was plenty of legroom and we could have the windows open more, although this was still far from perfect as the glass had completely deteriorated so half the window was opaque. But the scenery was very spectacular and on the whole we enjoyed the experience. We alighted at Kandarghat after two hours on the train and were met by our car.
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Then we had a two hour drive back to Simla, one whole hour is this being spent in a stationary traffic jam, so that was far from excellent. Once in Shimla we were dropped at the base of a lift and took two lifts up to the other end of the Mall, which we had not visited the previous day. Then a walk along past surprisingly modern shops until we got to the theatre where we entered and listened to a description of its history: this woke me up again and was very interesting, the first play ever produced their was by Rudyard Kipling and he actually acted in it as well. Then we stopped at the café and had a mango and almond shake and two gooey cakes which the boys thoroughly enjoyed. Then onwards to to the Ridge where we were able to enter the church and see its stain glass windows.
To get a larger photo, click on a thumbnail below
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After this we told the guide that we could find our own way home and did so, getting back to the hotel about 16.30. We enjoyed tea in the room and then I had a siesta before dinner at 7:30, once again I just had a bowl of soup. It was very pleasant and the others had fish cooked in the European style with plenty of vegetables which I think they also enjoyed.
After dinner Mr Singh (the current maharaja), who had inherited the house in 2018, his grandfather ( Raja Charanjit Singh of Kapurthala( had bought it in in the late 1800s) At first it had just been a summer house for them. But when nationalisation seemed eminent after independence they found they had to stay here permanently and create a reason for doing so in order to avoid being taken over by the state. This started by establishing a nursery school with just three children at the time. This explained the fact the two aspects of the house have been destroyed by later extending that school to 800 pupils. Another interesting fact we learnt with the Chapslee house which was once called the Secretariat , was the venue where the disastrous Afghan war was planned which resulted in just one man and a horse returning from Kabul. After his talk, he showed us round the ground floor of the house which was also quite interesting.
Monday, Octobe 27. Shimla to Pragpur
We left Mr. Singh's residence at 9 am after a pleasant breakfast and had seen his sister for a few minutes, she is the head of the adjacent school. We were heading for Dharamshala with an overnight stop at Pragpur