On the 17th I took the narrow gauge (2 1/2 feet) rail trip from Shimla at about 7000 feet down to Kalka at a little over 2000 feet. It's only about 60 miles, but took 6 hours on the narrow tracks surrounded by cedars and pines and many steep descents. We left at 10:30 in misty weather and it stayed that way most of the trip. There are something like 102 tunnels and almost a thousand stone bridges, one of them a four level aqueduct type bridge. Quite a scenic and enjoyable trip. I think there were only 7 of the tiny cars, plus the diesel locomotive. I opted for the chair class ticket at about $3.50, five times the second class ticket. My car was only about half full, all Indians (including four friendly civil servants returning from a short holiday in the hills) but for me, though there were quite a few Western tourists in the other cars. The line was completed in 1903 to make the trip to Shimla easier. There were stops at little stations along the way, where you could get tea and food. Upon our arrival in Kalka almost everyone else on the train got onto the waiting broad gauge train bound for Delhi. I bought a ticket to return to Shimla the next day and found a decent hotel and restaurant only a few minutes walk from the train station.
I took the return trip the next day in a much more crowded train, leaving just after noon and arriving about 5:30. It surprised me that it took less time to ascend than descend. The weather was about the same and I again enjoyed the beautiful trip.
Spent the next day in Shimla. It was foggy all day, with a big rainstorm in the afternoon, which I waited out at the local museum in what appears to be an old home from the British days..
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Monday, August 16, 2010
August 14-16, 2010 - Manali to Shimla
Finally left Manali on the 14th, taking an afternoon bus for 4 hours down the Kullu Valley along the rocky and turbulent Beas River to Mandi. In places the valley is wide but in other places there is just the river and a road cut into one of the steep banks. Mandi is about 4000 feet lower than Manali so it was considerably warmer and more humid. I eventually found a decent hotel and looked around, visiting a crumbling palace turned hotel and some temples along the river.
At dinner the family, including seven month old twins, at a table next to mine jumped up from their table when a snake appeared. They hadn't ordered snake. A guy came out from the kitchen with a long, thin pole and killed it, a short, thin one. The family moved their dishes to another table and continued dinner. I had a good dinner there.
The next day I made the 6 hour trip over the mountains to Shimla. On one stretch we traveled 28 kilometers in an hour and 20 minutes -- averaging about 12 miles an hour. The bus was another old, rickety one, but a little more comfortable than usual, with reclining seats. These Indian bus drivers are quite good at judging just when to get back on their side of the narrow mountain road to avoid being hit by the truck or bus coming the other direction.
Shimla is at about 7000 feet and was foggy when I arrived about 5. Every once in a while the clouds would break a bit and you could see the hills beyond. Not many foreign tourists here, but lots of Indian tourists. Shimla was where the government of India moved from 1864 until 1947 to escape the heat of the plains and the monsoon from April to October/November. There are lots of old buildings from the British era, including the former Viceregal Palace, built in 1884-1888. I took a tour today and it still has the original 122 year old electrical switches and wiring and a sprinkler system (with wax seals meant to melt at 122 degrees) for combating fire. The partition of India was agreed upon here in June 1947 and there were lots of pictures of notables of the time: Nehru, Gandhi, Jinnah, Mountbatten and others. The building is showing its age. I'm surprised the Indians don't keep it up better.
Shimla is spread out along a steep ridge, with buildings tumbling down both sides. The center of town is a flat area on the ridge with the old Victorian Town Hall, Post Office, Church and other colonial buildings, plus more recent statues of Indian notables, Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, Shastri, and others. There are great views, when you can see them, from the ridge. There are no cars allowed in this central area, which is great, and big crowds of people in a carnival type of atmosphere, despite the rain and drippy fog. The old Viceregal Palace is along the ridge about 3 miles west from the center, a nice walk along the pines, with a few other large colonial buildings on the way. Lots of menacing macaques along the way, and it town, too. There is a narrow gauge railway completed in 1903 down to the plains, which I may take, but with the rainy weather the views won't be very good.
From here I plan to go up the Kinnear and Spiti Valleys and reach Manali again, for another attempt at getting to Ladakh, but I suspect the rain will impede this journey, too, closing the road between Kinnear and Spiti.
At dinner the family, including seven month old twins, at a table next to mine jumped up from their table when a snake appeared. They hadn't ordered snake. A guy came out from the kitchen with a long, thin pole and killed it, a short, thin one. The family moved their dishes to another table and continued dinner. I had a good dinner there.
The next day I made the 6 hour trip over the mountains to Shimla. On one stretch we traveled 28 kilometers in an hour and 20 minutes -- averaging about 12 miles an hour. The bus was another old, rickety one, but a little more comfortable than usual, with reclining seats. These Indian bus drivers are quite good at judging just when to get back on their side of the narrow mountain road to avoid being hit by the truck or bus coming the other direction.
Shimla is at about 7000 feet and was foggy when I arrived about 5. Every once in a while the clouds would break a bit and you could see the hills beyond. Not many foreign tourists here, but lots of Indian tourists. Shimla was where the government of India moved from 1864 until 1947 to escape the heat of the plains and the monsoon from April to October/November. There are lots of old buildings from the British era, including the former Viceregal Palace, built in 1884-1888. I took a tour today and it still has the original 122 year old electrical switches and wiring and a sprinkler system (with wax seals meant to melt at 122 degrees) for combating fire. The partition of India was agreed upon here in June 1947 and there were lots of pictures of notables of the time: Nehru, Gandhi, Jinnah, Mountbatten and others. The building is showing its age. I'm surprised the Indians don't keep it up better.
Shimla is spread out along a steep ridge, with buildings tumbling down both sides. The center of town is a flat area on the ridge with the old Victorian Town Hall, Post Office, Church and other colonial buildings, plus more recent statues of Indian notables, Mahatma Gandhi, Indira Gandhi, Shastri, and others. There are great views, when you can see them, from the ridge. There are no cars allowed in this central area, which is great, and big crowds of people in a carnival type of atmosphere, despite the rain and drippy fog. The old Viceregal Palace is along the ridge about 3 miles west from the center, a nice walk along the pines, with a few other large colonial buildings on the way. Lots of menacing macaques along the way, and it town, too. There is a narrow gauge railway completed in 1903 down to the plains, which I may take, but with the rainy weather the views won't be very good.
From here I plan to go up the Kinnear and Spiti Valleys and reach Manali again, for another attempt at getting to Ladakh, but I suspect the rain will impede this journey, too, closing the road between Kinnear and Spiti.
Friday, August 13, 2010
August 1 - 13
I had trouble gaining access to this blog when I first got to India, so gave it up for a while.
Arrived in Delhi about 11 pm on the 31st, took a taxi to the Paharganj area, arriving after midnight, and the taxi had to let me off some distance from my hotel as the street was torn up. As I walked down the dark street, a cow suddenly loomed out of the darkness but I managed to avoid it. Further on, masonry was tumbling onto the street from a building demolition site. A man on the street stopped me and yelled at the workmen to stop and let me pass. I heard the bricks come tumbling down again soon after I passed.
The next morning I looked around a bit in the rain and headed north to Chandigarh about 2 in a rickety bus, arriving about 7:30. The next day I made the long (11 1/2 hour) trip in another rickety bus further north into the Himalayas, up the Kullu valley along the Beas river, to Manali at about 6500 feet. Beautiful scenery along the way. Manali is surrounded by steep green mountains covered with cedar trees and dripping with waterfalls. Plus there are apple orchards everywhere, with trees covered with apples. I spent a couple of days looking around, visiting temples and waterfalls and an old fort at Naggar and preparing for the trip to Ladakh, including buying a down jacket and some other clothes.
Then the rains hit, closing the passes to the north. And I got sick, getting the flu, which knocked me out for about 4 days. (Didn't take me a full week in India before I got sick.) Meanwhile, it kept raining, more heavily than usual they say, including a freak rainstorm, something like 2 inches in an hour, that caused mudslides and flash floods that killed more than a 100 (probably several hundred) in Ladakh.
Reports were that the road to Ladakh would be closed for a week or two, or more, so I decided to head to the Spiti Valley, also a Tibetan area. On the 12th I set off at 6 am in a jeep bound for Kaza in Spiti, but after less than 2 hours we hit a roadblock caused by a landslide on the Rohtang La ("La" means "Pass") to the north. We were well above the treeline, at about 11,500 feet up, I think, so about 1500 feet from the top. It was rainy, the road muddy and rocky. A bulldozer fruitlessly moved rocks and mud off the road only to have more debris slide down. A long line of vehicles waited on each side. After more than 6 hours of waiting, with no progress made, two others and I decided to get our gear (it had stopped raining and there were some great views when the thick clouds briefly parted) and hike down the muddy switchbacks and the rocky paths between them to the little settlement (Marhi) we had seen when the clouds parted, about 1000 feet below us. It took us an hour and a half to get there, but once there we could get something to eat and catch a 5 pm bus back to Manali. The roadblock still hadn't been cleared and I've heard here in Manali no one got over the pass. The bus ride was very crowded and uncomfortable. I was wedged against others in the aisle and finally sat on my pack leaning against a pole as we descended the switchbacks down. At one point we were stopped by two cedar trees recently fallen and obstructing the road. A group of men, maybe 40 of them, lifted them away from the road. Back in Manali about 6:30 I checked into my hotel and went to bed about 7:30 after a long, hard day. No shower, no dinner (though I had eaten at about 4 in Marhi).
The next morning was sunny and I showered and ate, washed my clothes, and relaxed all day. Clouded up in the afternoon and by evening it was raining hard again. Time to make another change of plans.
Arrived in Delhi about 11 pm on the 31st, took a taxi to the Paharganj area, arriving after midnight, and the taxi had to let me off some distance from my hotel as the street was torn up. As I walked down the dark street, a cow suddenly loomed out of the darkness but I managed to avoid it. Further on, masonry was tumbling onto the street from a building demolition site. A man on the street stopped me and yelled at the workmen to stop and let me pass. I heard the bricks come tumbling down again soon after I passed.
The next morning I looked around a bit in the rain and headed north to Chandigarh about 2 in a rickety bus, arriving about 7:30. The next day I made the long (11 1/2 hour) trip in another rickety bus further north into the Himalayas, up the Kullu valley along the Beas river, to Manali at about 6500 feet. Beautiful scenery along the way. Manali is surrounded by steep green mountains covered with cedar trees and dripping with waterfalls. Plus there are apple orchards everywhere, with trees covered with apples. I spent a couple of days looking around, visiting temples and waterfalls and an old fort at Naggar and preparing for the trip to Ladakh, including buying a down jacket and some other clothes.
Then the rains hit, closing the passes to the north. And I got sick, getting the flu, which knocked me out for about 4 days. (Didn't take me a full week in India before I got sick.) Meanwhile, it kept raining, more heavily than usual they say, including a freak rainstorm, something like 2 inches in an hour, that caused mudslides and flash floods that killed more than a 100 (probably several hundred) in Ladakh.
Reports were that the road to Ladakh would be closed for a week or two, or more, so I decided to head to the Spiti Valley, also a Tibetan area. On the 12th I set off at 6 am in a jeep bound for Kaza in Spiti, but after less than 2 hours we hit a roadblock caused by a landslide on the Rohtang La ("La" means "Pass") to the north. We were well above the treeline, at about 11,500 feet up, I think, so about 1500 feet from the top. It was rainy, the road muddy and rocky. A bulldozer fruitlessly moved rocks and mud off the road only to have more debris slide down. A long line of vehicles waited on each side. After more than 6 hours of waiting, with no progress made, two others and I decided to get our gear (it had stopped raining and there were some great views when the thick clouds briefly parted) and hike down the muddy switchbacks and the rocky paths between them to the little settlement (Marhi) we had seen when the clouds parted, about 1000 feet below us. It took us an hour and a half to get there, but once there we could get something to eat and catch a 5 pm bus back to Manali. The roadblock still hadn't been cleared and I've heard here in Manali no one got over the pass. The bus ride was very crowded and uncomfortable. I was wedged against others in the aisle and finally sat on my pack leaning against a pole as we descended the switchbacks down. At one point we were stopped by two cedar trees recently fallen and obstructing the road. A group of men, maybe 40 of them, lifted them away from the road. Back in Manali about 6:30 I checked into my hotel and went to bed about 7:30 after a long, hard day. No shower, no dinner (though I had eaten at about 4 in Marhi).
The next morning was sunny and I showered and ate, washed my clothes, and relaxed all day. Clouded up in the afternoon and by evening it was raining hard again. Time to make another change of plans.
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