Shimla

I’ve hardly used my laptop at all this trip. But then it dawned on me that one useful function would be to use it to draft blog entries offline and on my own time, then simply put them on my jump drive and upload them next time I’m in a net café. That way I don’t have to waste precious paid internet time drafting blog entries. So what you are about to read was written in my hotel bedroom in Shimla. My laptop actually says it’s picking up a wireless signal here (!) but unfortunately I can’t get any of the internet programs to work. Tomorrow I’ll have to take it by a 5 star hotel and see if I get any results.

It is nice to be back in a real bed again after two nights on a train. As much as I love trains and find the idea of sleeping on one vaguely romantic, from an orthopedic perspective (?) it is not the world’s most comfortable way to spend the night. Well, I could have spent more money and had the AC sleeper car which probably comes with sheets and a pillow. But it costs three or four times as much as second class sleeper. At least it’s better than second class regular, where you sit upright (like I did whenever I rode Amtrak overnight). On Indian trains there are 3 levels of bunks. The middle one folds up and the bottom one serves as the communal bench during the day hours. For that reason I always reserve an upper bunk. It is always there and provides a space you can retreat to at any hour of day. It provides more privacy. And it provides more security for your bags. People on the other bunks store their bags under the bottom bunk, where they are vulnerable to the hands of thieves. Sure enough, on the train to Calcutta, my compartment-mates told me in the morning that they had to fend off thieves during the night. So I just put my bag on the bunk with me. Unfortunately that means less room to stretch out. I tried alternatively using my bag as a pillow (not soft enough) and resting my feet on it (I settled on this in the end, despite the fact that you’re not supposed to sleep with your head lower than your feet). The beds themselves are lightly cushioned but pretty hard and don’t come with any bedding. Compared to the Chinese trains, they’re pretty inferior. On Chinese trains, second class sleepers had bedding, pillows, carpets, reading lights, and hot water thermoses. But that’s okay.

You don’t have to worry about bringing food with you on the trains in India because there are always hawkers going up and down the aisles selling things – chai, coffee, bottled water, juice, milk, lassis, samosas, snacks, biscuits. There are both official hawkers, who work for the train, and unofficial ones, who get on and off and go back and forth on the same stretch of rail all day. One of the most interesting things I got was a bean salad. It’s made right in front of you – mixing up the fresh beans, lime juice, salt, and masala, shaken and stirred, and served—like so many things in India—in a piece of newspaper.

Another problem with second class cars is that they are not air conditioned. Normally this does not bother me, as I don’t believe AC should ever be necessary. But despite the electric fans turning on overdrive on the ceiling of the train car, things got pretty bad on this trip. It must have been well above 100 outside. I woke up after my first night on the train stuck to my bed, I was so drenched in sweat. One nice thing about second class cars is that you can roll down the window and get a nice breeze. Well, theoretically you can. But the passengers who controlled the windows seemed to think it was a better idea to keep them closed during the day. I know what they were thinking – the air outside was hot and they didn’t want hot air blowing about the train. I still think any breeze is better than no breeze. But oh well.

I passed the time trying to make some progress in The Brothers Karamazov and watching the scenery. I spent much of my time standing in the open doorway in the vestibule where I could catch the breeze at full force. No, I didn’t dangle my feet out, like I was doing last year when I broke my foot. Yet I watched an Indian guy do just that, and he suffered no injury. In fact, I made a point of studying the clearance between where my foot had been and any possible obstructions, and I’m convinced that whatever it was that hit my foot was a fluke and should not have been there. But there you go. Flukes happen, and my accident proved it. I wasn’t going to try for a second time.

The train journey more or less paralleled the Ganges River, the Grand Trunk Road, and was the first major intercity railway route built by the British. It also goes right through the heart of the most densely populated part of India – the Gangetic Plain. So our train made numerous stops. It was technically an express in that it didn’t stop at every single stop, but it sure stopped at a lot of them.

The second morning as I awoke on the train I could see hills in the background, the foliage had become thicker, and there was a cool mist hanging in the air. We were almost in Kalka, the end of the line. Once there, I switched to the “Toy Train”, the narrow gauge mountain railway that would take me the remaining 96 km to Shimla, elevation 6600 feet. I was very excited because I’d heard that India’s toy trains are the only remaining regularly-operating steam trains in the world. That must have changed, however, because it certainly looked like a diesel locomotive to me. Somehow I had gotten myself booked on the first class car, which is entirely unlike me. I think the booking agent in Calcutta slipped that one past me. But it turned out to be pretty fun, so I didn’t complain. The train is seriously miniature in size, with only 6 cars holding about 18 people each. The chairs are big, comfy, and reversible. A porter was assigned to each car, and served us complimentary tea, breakfast, and newspaper.  The ride itself left little room for complain. We rose swiftly enough (average of 20 km/hour) through tunnels, bridges, and  switchbacks, all the while with outstanding views. Although I’m a human geographer and not a physical geographer, I’ve always been interested in the shape of mountains (the geomorphology, if you will, which results both from uplift and fluvial processes). I’m well acquainted with the stages of mountain form back home in the Sierra Nevada and was curious to see what the Himalaya looked like as you approach them from the dead flat of the plain. The answer is that they are quite different. They seem to just jut up out of nowhere. At near vertical slopes. Densely forested, with some cacti mixed in, and then quickly giving way to pine forest. The amazing thing is that throughout this 5 hour journey we passed settlements. Not just isolated little settlements, but substantial settlements, scattered about the hillsides. They didn’t seem to concentrate in anything resembling towns or villages so much, but instead consisted of random homesteads here and there, separating terraced fields and apple orchards.

It’s the same thing with Shimla. Although there is a definite town center,  the greater “metropolis” (if you can call it that) spreads over 30 km, and probably ranges in elevation 3000 feet. The incredible thing is that the entire city is draped upon some of the steepest and most dramatic terrain you’ve ever seen. Unlike mountain towns in the US or Europe which are usually located in valleys, here the city is on the mountain tops, and all the way down its slopes. There is no flat land to speak of. This makes for some fascinating urban morphology. In the main part of Shimla, there is only one main road with vehicular access. This is both because the city has passed ordinances keeping it this way, and out of topographical necessity. The slopes are scaled by a convoluted network of narrow paths and stairways that no motor vehicle would ever conquer. The amazing thing is that these paths, as steep as they are, are nevertheless dense and urban. They are lined wall-to-wall with several-stories high buildings, and the street level is a bazaar of legendary proportions. Shops sell every thing under the moon – hardware, TVs, pharmaceuticals, textbooks, shoes, produce. How do these goods get transported to these shops? By the backbreaking efforts of manual laborers – a fleet of porters without whom this city would not survive. It’s heartbreaking watching them, old tattered men with incredible loads on their backs. I watched one man carrying boxes full of Glaxo-Smith-Kline products. One of the boxes burst while he was climbing a staircase and he lost an entire load of medicine. What all these shops told me was that Shimla is not just a city of tourists (although it is certainly that too) but that there is also a local population here, and that this is their city too.

Indeed, as I talked to Indians throughout my first day this was confirmed. I had assumed that everyone I saw was either a tourist or worked in the tourist industry. But many of them are locals. And they hang out in the same spaces as the tourists. They like the people-watching too.

On the top of the ridge is a pedestrian mall called The Mall which runs along the ridge of the mountain. This is a truly great public space. Wide, open, and entirely given to pedestrians. People stroll, eat ice cream, take pictures, and people-watch. Families. Honeymooners. Indian tourists from all over India representing all the different ethnic groups of India. All different types of dress, although modern styles seem to predominate among the youth, which makes sense given that tourists in India are probably not a representative cross-section of the population as a whole, but represent India’s middle (or upper) classes. For instance, I met a family of tourists from Delhi who recommended the Bhel Puri at a roadside stand. Next week, they’re off to Seattle, then Canada, then Singapore, for their summer vacation. The 16 year old daughter had all kinds of questions for me, such as where the malls were in Seattle, and if Fallout Boy (apparently, a popular music act these days) would be playing.

Indeed, hotel options in Shimla definitely reach well into the 5 star range. Even the low end places are quite a bit more expensive than they would be elsewhere in India. The cheapest place I found is in a poor location, at the bottom of the hill and right next to the bus station and above the main road into town, so it’s noisy. It’s okay though. I still have a view of the mountains through my window (hey, a window!) and I even have a TV. All that, sheets and a pillow, and no cockroaches (knock on wood). All that for just more than double what I paid in Calcutta for a concrete, windowless chamber with dirty stained sheets and seven cockroaches.

People seem to be really nice here. There is not much of an international tourist presence, so there are likewise not many touts and scams targeting international tourists. They don’t seem to go after the Indian tourists the same way they go after foreign tourists. Himachal Pradesh has one of the lowest crime rates in India. People seem to be genuinely friendly. I’ve had several people come up and start a conversation, and they had no ulterior motive. It’s not that they were awestruck by the sight of a foreigner or anything. They’d seen plenty before. They were just making conversation, making suggestions for things I should see, telling me a bit about the history, and willing to answer any questions I had.

Whereas Delhi is a city of dogs and cows, and Calcutta is a city of cats and dogs, Shimla is definitely a city of monkeys and dogs. The monkeys are so funny, by golly! You have to be careful around them because they can bite and steal things from you. That’s why all the hotel windows have bars in this city. Otherwise, the monkeys would climb right in and steal things. What I find so interesting is how the monkeys adapt to the human-made urban environment. It is one giant playground for them. They jump and scuddle all over the city, over electric wires, up lampposts, across rooftops. They are truly the most mobile of the city’s denizens. They are so unpredictable. They travel in packs, with big monkeys and little baby monkeys, who are often the most playful. But the city considers them a nuisance and has been trying to the rid the city of them and ship them off to Tajikistan (no joke….apparently the Tajiks can’t get enough of India’s monkeys).

Himachal Pradesh is known throughout Asia for its apples. But apple season doesn’t start until August. Right now it’s cherry season, and they’re bright and beautiful and for sale all around town, as are peaches and other goodies.

On my second day in Shimla I climbed Jackoo Hill to the highest point in town - 8048 feet. A funny sign at the bottom explained that based on your age and the number of minutes it takes you to climb to the top, you are either "absolutely fit", "fit", or "need improvement". I'm happy to report that I am "absolutely fit"~ :) I met some foreign tourists up there and got my first interview. The couple were American but live in Kyrgyzstan and work for an NGO.

Back in town Cafe Coffee Day I met some nice female college students. I keep assuming that everyone I see is a tourist, and keep finding that many of them are in fact locals, yet they take part in this same leisurely milieu. What a neat place this must be to live in!