Salogra and Shimla

Two weeks ago, we headed out of town to Shimla - a hill station in Himachal Pradesh. Shimla was the British summer capital and a very popular weekend destination in the summer months.

The train journey was fascinating. It started with a regular overnight train from Old Delhi to Kalka. This must be one of the slowest trains ever because it took 6 hours to travel 300 km. We arrived in Kalka early in the morning and crossed the station to wait for the train to Shimla.

Because this train literally goes up the Himalayas, it is much smaller, is on a narrow gauge track and travels at less than half the speed of a normal train. But all these factors made for a wonderful trip because you could literally stick your head out the window and enjoy the mountain air while taking in the spectacular lush, green views of the countryside.



In Salogra we stayed at the Railway Officers' Rest House, thanks to Ani's connections. We were the only people there - plus several dozen Boys Scouts camping on the grounds. Fortunately, the Boy Scouts didn't get in our way and it was incredibly quiet and peace.

The only downfall of our stay is that there really weren't any restaurants around, so we were pretty much on our own for food. In the afternoon we had a simple meal of rajma chawal (red beans and rice) and we bought supplies for our breakfast the next morning and some snack food.

After making our omelettes on Sunday morning, we caught the train to Shimla - another 2.5 hours away. We walked around the main pedestrian-only area in Shimla, along with lots of other tourists. We also found our way to Chapslee, a British-era manor that is now a small hotel (and featured in 1,000 Places to See Before You Die), but we found it closed. The guard was nice enough to let us wander around the grounds and peek into a few windows. We'll definitely need to make a proper stop here on our next visit to Shimla.



Once we were sick of walking around, we grabbed lunched and then stopped in a cafe to pass the time and escape the rain, as our train back to Kalka didn't leave for another 4 hours. After nearly 2 hours in one place, we headed down the street to Barista (basically India's Starbucks) where we had more coffee before going to Domino's (yes, that's right), to pick up a pizza for the train. Our pizza was much better than the food served on the train.

We arrived in Delhi around 6am exhausted and tried. I went back home to shower and sleep before heading into the office. But I got a little too settled in and never actually made it to the office.