You are welcome to Shimla!

    I hired a driver to take me on the journey from Delhi north to Kalka yeterday. My driver is very nice, but always wants to practice his limited English. So the whole six hours was filled with questions like "what is your favorite animal?" (elephants) and "what is your favorite beautiful thing?" (lipgloss) and "what material is your house made of?" (seriously?). I have to admit I was having a patience problem right around hour four, and was very relieved to arrive in Kalka.

    

I woke up, very covered in bedbug bites. Yuck...Yuck..Double yuck. This on top of having to wake up at 3:50am to catch the 5am toy train to Shimla. But, the train ride more than made up for the rocky morning start. The toy train is a narrow gauge railroad and is also a UNESCO world heritage sight. The ride is 5 hours through the mountains and passes through 103 tunnels. I loved every minute of it. The views were gorgeous, and I was able to enjoy the ride in silence with no interrogating :)..just me, 5 very grumpy Germans who didn't seem impressed at all, and a very nice Indian family.

Today I wandered around Shimla. It reminds me of Cinque Terre, Italy because it's built on up a cliff and there are ridiculously steep and narrow stairways connecting all the different roads. I had a great time exploring because you never knew what was going to be down some stairs and around a corner. I met some really

nice Indian college kids and wandered around with them for the afternoon.  I mentioned I wanted to buy a kurta (tunic) and they made it their mission to help me find a nice one and not pay the tourist price. One of the boys is studying fashion design and took our shopping trip very seriously...examining fabrics and colors. I was impressed with his patience for a guy. We ended up finding one and I paid $1. Amazing. They said I look like Shakira and Angelina Jolie in one. Every scruffy backpacker needs a compliment now and then...no matter how farfetched. In India, it's really easy to feel like everyone has an angle and is only out for your money so it was refreshing to hang out with these kids who had no agenda.

      I have the most amazing view from my cliffside hotel. It overlooks the town of Shimla and the entire valley and mountains. I have my own sitting room that's mostly windows and is seriously phenomenal. Can you believe I paid about $15 for this view? And to top it off, there's a music festival going on near my hotel and the sound carries perfectly across the valley. So last night, I listened to good music, sipped my chai, munched on my naan, and enjoyed my fifteen dollar-million dollar view. It doesn't get much better than that.

                          Me on the toy train to Shimla

                                   New fashionable friends :)