Shimla

I absolutely loved Shimla. It was CLEAN. But apart from that it was really charming. And people came up and talked to you, except they just wanted to talk. It was a really nice break from all the normal hecticness.

A funny thing was that there was Tudor housing, in India, and Scottish architecture, in India. Quite odd. The vice regal lodge, where Ghandi signed the Treaty of Independence, was a bit like having a tour of Glamis Castle. This part of the world is kind of Scottish. Shimla was right next to a place called "The Glen," I'm sitting in a place called McLeod Ganj and just down the road is Dalhousie.

We went to a roller disco in Shimla. Not since the 70's could roller skates look cool. The regulars were taking chairs from the cafe and jumping over them. They also had no women to dance with so they were figure skating with each other which was odd.

Before that we had been up a hill to a monkey temple, with violent monkeys which I had to fend off with a lonely planet guide. But listen to this. They had developed the habit of stealing people's glasses and then bribing the cafe owners to give them back in exchange for food.