Teizeen:
Last night, we returned to Delhi from our hill top experience in the town of Shimla. We spent the last five days here in temperatures in the low 40's (farenheit), or 5-10 (celcius). We were going to spend 7 days, but the cold cut down our visit to 6, then 5, days - we changed our train tickets two times! The day we arrived, we were greeted by hail as we walked around town with our large backpacks, trying to find a reasonable hotel (the one we had reserved turned out to be more expensive than we had thought, and further away from town).
Shimla was once the summer capital of British Viceroys of India during colonial rule, and after that, by Indian governmen officials, who took their clerk books and escaped to Shimla from the heat of Delhi for weeks at a time.
Ryan and I did the opposite: we escaped to Shimla from Delhi in the middle of the Indian winter, and it was cold. And there was no central heating. We could rent a heater for every night, but the cost of renting one exceeded the cost of purchasing one, so we decided otherwise. We would envelope ourselves every night into our 15 deg F (-9.5 deg C) rated sleeping bags, which where our saviours at night. The nights were warm once our body heat was trapped inside our sleeping bags, creating a warm cacoon. Emerging out of our cacoons in the morning was the biggest challenge - we would poke our heads out into the cold room only to snuggle back inside like tortoises inside our shells, cautious to expose ourselves to the outside world.
We didn't quite make it out of bed till 10 or 11 am, eating 'breakfast' at noon at the Indian Coffee House down the street (with excellent and extremely cheap breakfasts - about $3.00 for the two of us).
Though this picture I'm painting of Shimla may sound cold and grim, it was actually a really spectacular little town. We could walk from one end to the other in less than half an hour, observing the street life around the bazaars, and not worrying about cars (no cars are allowed on the main roads). Spitting, littering and smoking is banned around the town - so the streets were clean. There were few to no beggers or homelessness - the cold makes that prohibitive.
There were no cows on the streets, but lots of monkeys (macaques) with naughty eyes trying to get at whatever scarps of food they could, showing off their expert climbing skills as they clambered from tree tops to buildings and slithered down water pipes. One even got half way up my leg with its agile little hands!
Ryan enjoyed his daily morning ritual with the monkeys from our hotel window sill (the sound of monkeys was enough to get him out of his warm cacoon), where he fed them our fermented guava fruits, and dried dates, watching them scramble up from neighboring rooftops simply because of the sound of our creaky window opening, and the sight of his hand poking out with a piece of food. He tried to fool them once by throwing out a non-food item, and they didn't budge. These monkeys were smart.
The whole town of Shimla is perched on the side of steep hilltops, and vertical buildings are stacked in a terrace-like fashion - a structural feat, to say the least. And in the background further north, was a magestic line of snowtopped Himalayan mountains visible when the morning haze had cleared.
We spent our days either walking around a lot (since this was the best way to keep warm) and trying to find warm places to eat and hang out. We found a cosy little timber cottage-like restaurant where we sipped banana lassi's and played our first game of chess (the first for both of us). The owner was a friendly middle-aged Indian man with kind eyes and good English, and we were so excited about this find, we vowed to return again the next day. However, after 3 hours, when we were ready to pay our bill and leave, we found out that this friendly owner also charged a friendly cover charge for 'long sittings' in his cafe/restaurant! Though the charge wasn't too high in American dollars, it cost us more than our night in the hotel for our drinks, snack and cover charge of Rs. 100/hour. The cover charge was higher than the cost of using internet somewhere else for an hour! We left, annoyed, not as much because we had to pay, but because he wasn't open about it when we sat down in the first place - his friendly cafe had turned out to be a little sour.
Nevertheless, Shimla was beautiful, even if cold. But I'm glad to be back in warmer temepratures where I don't have to wait 30 minutes for my fingers and toes to thaw. Growing up in warm places has left me unarmed with the right kind of blood to withstand the cold. Our trek to Nepal is around the corner, coming up in a little over a week, and I am thinking of our 16-day trek in one of the majestic moutnain landscapes in the world. I am both excited and eager, but also have a little bit of trepidation. I hope that the spectacular views and constant movement of our bodies will make me numb to the cold.
Before we head to Nepal, we still have 4 days in Delhi, and a long train ride to the city of Varanasi, which sits alongside the holy and mighty river Ganges.
Last night, we returned to Delhi from our hill top experience in the town of Shimla. We spent the last five days here in temperatures in the low 40's (farenheit), or 5-10 (celcius). We were going to spend 7 days, but the cold cut down our visit to 6, then 5, days - we changed our train tickets two times! The day we arrived, we were greeted by hail as we walked around town with our large backpacks, trying to find a reasonable hotel (the one we had reserved turned out to be more expensive than we had thought, and further away from town).
Shimla was once the summer capital of British Viceroys of India during colonial rule, and after that, by Indian governmen officials, who took their clerk books and escaped to Shimla from the heat of Delhi for weeks at a time.
Ryan and I did the opposite: we escaped to Shimla from Delhi in the middle of the Indian winter, and it was cold. And there was no central heating. We could rent a heater for every night, but the cost of renting one exceeded the cost of purchasing one, so we decided otherwise. We would envelope ourselves every night into our 15 deg F (-9.5 deg C) rated sleeping bags, which where our saviours at night. The nights were warm once our body heat was trapped inside our sleeping bags, creating a warm cacoon. Emerging out of our cacoons in the morning was the biggest challenge - we would poke our heads out into the cold room only to snuggle back inside like tortoises inside our shells, cautious to expose ourselves to the outside world.
We didn't quite make it out of bed till 10 or 11 am, eating 'breakfast' at noon at the Indian Coffee House down the street (with excellent and extremely cheap breakfasts - about $3.00 for the two of us).
Though this picture I'm painting of Shimla may sound cold and grim, it was actually a really spectacular little town. We could walk from one end to the other in less than half an hour, observing the street life around the bazaars, and not worrying about cars (no cars are allowed on the main roads). Spitting, littering and smoking is banned around the town - so the streets were clean. There were few to no beggers or homelessness - the cold makes that prohibitive.
There were no cows on the streets, but lots of monkeys (macaques) with naughty eyes trying to get at whatever scarps of food they could, showing off their expert climbing skills as they clambered from tree tops to buildings and slithered down water pipes. One even got half way up my leg with its agile little hands!
Ryan enjoyed his daily morning ritual with the monkeys from our hotel window sill (the sound of monkeys was enough to get him out of his warm cacoon), where he fed them our fermented guava fruits, and dried dates, watching them scramble up from neighboring rooftops simply because of the sound of our creaky window opening, and the sight of his hand poking out with a piece of food. He tried to fool them once by throwing out a non-food item, and they didn't budge. These monkeys were smart.
The whole town of Shimla is perched on the side of steep hilltops, and vertical buildings are stacked in a terrace-like fashion - a structural feat, to say the least. And in the background further north, was a magestic line of snowtopped Himalayan mountains visible when the morning haze had cleared.
We spent our days either walking around a lot (since this was the best way to keep warm) and trying to find warm places to eat and hang out. We found a cosy little timber cottage-like restaurant where we sipped banana lassi's and played our first game of chess (the first for both of us). The owner was a friendly middle-aged Indian man with kind eyes and good English, and we were so excited about this find, we vowed to return again the next day. However, after 3 hours, when we were ready to pay our bill and leave, we found out that this friendly owner also charged a friendly cover charge for 'long sittings' in his cafe/restaurant! Though the charge wasn't too high in American dollars, it cost us more than our night in the hotel for our drinks, snack and cover charge of Rs. 100/hour. The cover charge was higher than the cost of using internet somewhere else for an hour! We left, annoyed, not as much because we had to pay, but because he wasn't open about it when we sat down in the first place - his friendly cafe had turned out to be a little sour.
Nevertheless, Shimla was beautiful, even if cold. But I'm glad to be back in warmer temepratures where I don't have to wait 30 minutes for my fingers and toes to thaw. Growing up in warm places has left me unarmed with the right kind of blood to withstand the cold. Our trek to Nepal is around the corner, coming up in a little over a week, and I am thinking of our 16-day trek in one of the majestic moutnain landscapes in the world. I am both excited and eager, but also have a little bit of trepidation. I hope that the spectacular views and constant movement of our bodies will make me numb to the cold.
Before we head to Nepal, we still have 4 days in Delhi, and a long train ride to the city of Varanasi, which sits alongside the holy and mighty river Ganges.
No comments:
Post a Comment