Hotel Asia The Dawn Shimla

Himachal Pradesh is known as Deva Bhoomi the land of the gods. Himachal is situated in the western Himalayas. Himachal Pradesh is a mountainous state elevating about 350 meters (1,148 ft) to 6,000 meters (19,685 ft) above the sea level. Tribes such as the koilis, kinnars and kirats inhabited the region from pre-historic era. Himachal Pradesh was established as a state on April 15, 1948. <br><br>Himachal Hill Stations is the favored ...

Shimla is supposedly one of more relaxed parts of India - getting off the toy-train to a Delhi like scrum of taxi drivers, and crowded streets with car horns it was obvious this is "relaxed" for India.<br><br>Shimla clings to the side of the mountains, buildings flowing down the hillsides. The main historic street runs along a ridge, and is quite relaxed once you get there, though with some very strange buildings - old English colonial creations ...

Headed out of Delhi on the fast train to Kalka - in class AC Seater 2nd (Indian railways have numerous, complicated classes). Neatly uniformed staff bringing a seemingly endless number of things a newspaper, bottles of water, tea (naturally), food. All very comfortable and efficient, whizzing across the plains of Northern India. You do however see some horrible shanty towns clustered by ...

... It was quite confusing at times because we had NO idea what was going on for the most part. We were able to figure out some of the plot but inevitably just ended up getting carried away with the catchy songs and the dance sequences they had. The down side...the movie was an incredibly long 3 HOURS. I have been told that that is the standard length for Bollywood movies though. We all went laughing back to the YMCA and got ourselves packed up for the trip the next day.

We have hitchhiked from England to the Indian Himalayas. Despite numerous people telling us our task was an impossible one, we have managed the journey up to this point with relatively few hitches (excuse the pun). The latest in the series of doubters was a philosophical scientist from Guernsey that we met in Lahore: Malcolm. A soil expert who professed that he is at the top of his field (I couldn't help that one), had some great insight ...

Lots of rain the last 24 hours. Leaving the training centre yesterday it took an hour longer to get back - normaly a 10 minute drive. Think there had been an accident. Felt relieved when we hit gridlock as our bus had not been able to come pick us up so three other students and I ended up in a random car arranged by the training ...

Today we caught the train to Kalka and had to change trains at Delhi as we are catching the toy train to Shimla. The German couple who were also staying at bird place caught the train with us to Delhi. We got to Kalka and had to go and find a moto driver (normally you have to fight them off) and did the rounds of the few hotels which were all disgusting and overpriced. We finally settled on one which cost us AUS$10 and the guy should have been paying us to stay there.

The antique engineering marvel narrow-gauge toy train to Shimla slowly climbed from the Punjab plains into the Himalayan foothills, through tunnels and over hundreds of small bridges. The hill station of Shimla, once the summer capitol of British India, was our first stop in the mountains, highlighted by breakfast in the Indian Coffee House, a climb to Jakhu Hill, and Kevin getting sick. We stayed here two nights, in part because a long ...

... to Raphael Ryder Cheshire International Centre, where I will spend the next two months. As it was late and most of the staff had left, there wasnt really anyone to properly greet me; so I was dropped off at the Volunteers' Mess, cooked a quick dinner by some dude, then left on my own! Hmm... It was clear that there were no other volunteers there, and wont be for quite a while, so I became suddenly rather down-hearted at the prospect of spending every evening alone ...

... contains mock tudor style buildings as if they had been dragged straight from 19th century England. We strolled along the 'Mall' a pedestrianised area which stretches from Christ church (again typically English) to 'Scandal point' at the furthest end of the ridge, it was as if we had been mysteriously transported home during the night, we could have been in any historic english town. Shimla really is THE archetypal British hill station (see photos).The morning passed quickly as we ...