Hotel Combermere 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.

Himachal Hill Stations is the favored ...

... papers were signed to end British rule, and split India and Pakistan. As we left we saw something even more jarring on a building that looked like it should be in Scotland - a monkey walking across the ramparts of the lodge.

On the subject of monkeys., Shimla has a lot of monkeys, a lot of very confident monkeys. Its main temple is dedicated to the monkey god, so they have the run of the place. We hired sticks to ward off monkeys - they can ...

... rail-tracks.

In Kalka we changed trains for a very different, but very pleasurable, rail experience. The "toy train" up to Shimla. This is something of a colonial relic, a narrow gauge railway that winds its way from the plains into the Himalayan foothills up to 2,150 metres above sea level. Crammed in tiny carriages for 6 hours, through spectacular scenery, an ancient ...

To kill time between the test matches in Chandigarh and Delhi, we decided to make our way to one last hill station before winter sets in - Shimla. Shimla is about 2000 metres above sea level and is the capital of the Himachal state. It is the largest hill station in India and was the Summer Capital of the Raj and it shows - the city just spreads out and over the tops of the mountains. But I am getting ahead of myself. The ...

... thrilled me with its changeable nature and extremes which can make one's heart sing when it complements the lush mountainous environment with it's rays of glorious summer sunshine. Finally I have met Sanjeev - purveyor of the Agro Stone Cottages (www.ravicottages.com) which sound delightful and which I may visit to relax after my course. He seems like a nice genuine bloke and I met another traveler Mat last night who is going there also. Organic vegetables ...

... She was hugging every member of her family and crying really hard while her new husband was walking in a circle completely lost! Then, her family went to the right and some girls took hold of her and walked her in the opposite direction to her husband family most likely........ Next I went to Sangla. Another beautiful place set in the mountains. This time I couldn't see the whole range, but I was much closer to the moutains. There were apple ...

... changed in like manner. "I thought that I'd had most of the Asian bugs by now," Kevin groaned (not the Indian ones). Nevertheless, the real test was yet to come: an eight-hour switchback bus ride to the Kullu Valley with Delhi Belly. How many Immodium and Pepto to take? Uncertain of success, we boarded the luxury bus complete with ripped unreclinable seats and vomit trails on the outside paint: to Kullu, the beginning point for our trek.

... and after a long time standing out in the street with all the other passengers trying to figure out "kya hoa?!?" (what happened), we finally grabbed our bags and started walking for it-praying that we were as close to our destination as we estimated. Shortly after dark, we'd made our way to the guesthouse and plopped our stuff down, and Keefe was gleefully reunited with his lovely Greek ...

... because of all the stigma associated with leprosy. The 'Little White House' (recently painted red!) houses many of their children (who are also ostracised from society just because their parents had the disease) along with other orphans and children from disadvantaged backgrounds. There's also a 'chronic ward' where four very old and decrepid men with severe physical disabilities live; they've been there since Raphael was first founded and no-one has the heart ...

... having a 24 hour water supply). The second day saw us planning our next step, we wanted to travel through the high himalaya but a review of our guide book left us non the wiser as we appeared to be 'spoilt for choice' from the bewildering amount of options available so we decided to get some advice from one of the local mountain guides who runs an 'adventure and trekking' operation in the town. This was when we met Naresh who was to be our mountain guide. We studied maps and ...