Shimla & Chandigarh

FRIDAY

Shimla was a weekend of my escape. We were not even supposed to go to Shimla. Alessandro mentioned the trip to me a couple of days before. It was the week after I came back to work from my week in Goa and Kerala. My boyfriend had just dumped me and I was prepared to go anywhere, just to stop myself from staying in my room obsessing over what went wrong. (That’s what women do.) And then Alessandro mentioned he was going somewhere with Luisiana and Burkhard. I didn’t really know who they were. They were supposed to be cool. I didn’t know where we were going. Some place called Nainital. It was supposed to be cool. Mountains. Lake. I bumped into Sandra in the kichenette at work while I was getting my overly sweetened cardamom tea (elayichi chai for you Hindi speakers). She said Nainital was a sweet place and smiled at me sweetly. Good, that’s what I needed.

I turned up to work with my backpack, met Abhi on the way to my desk as usual ... His “workstation” (corporate talk, sorry) was on the “highway” – a kind of corridor between desks in one of the main rooms of our open-plan offices; everyone had to pass through there. So I bumped into him pretty much every morning. I told him I was going on a trip somewhere in Uttarakhand and it wasn’t planned and I didn’t really know what we were going to do and I didn’t care. He smiled and said: "India is starting to have an effect on you, Lucie". He knew I had always been very much into my planning and perfectionism.

We took a cab to Delhi ISBT (interstate bus terminal) after work. Of course it turns out the ISBT is really far from Gurgaon, somewhere near the Red Fort in Old Delhi. The traffic was bad, as usual, and we missed the bus. So where does the next bus go? Shimla. OK, then let’s go to Shimla. Does anyone know where Shimla is? Somebody hand me the Lonely Planet, please.

Shimla – according to the Lonely Planet

“Once a part of the Nepali kingdom and called Shyamala (another word for goddess Kali), Shimla received few visitors until it was ‘discovered’ by the British in 1819. Initially a summer resort, its popularity led to the adoption of Shimla as the summer capital of the Raj in 1864. Until 1939 the entire government of India would pack its bags and migrate from the sweltering hear of Kolkata (Calcutta) or Delhi to Shimla’s cool heights. The construction of the Kalka-Shimla railway line in 1903 allowed easy access for Raj families and many built opulent mansions here. Following independence Shimla was initially the capital of Punjab, then the capital of Himachal after 1966.”

There was some guy at the ISBT who was overly helpful with sorting out our bus tickets. He wanted us to take the luxury bus and we grew all suspicious that he was trying to get commission or play some other kind of scam on us. Actually, he was just a good guy who worked at Cyberpark, the same business park as us, and he was trying to make sure we don’t end up on a shitty government bus. Well, we decided, through collective wisdom, that we didn’t care how, but we wanted to go now. Luxury bus wasn’t leaving for another half an hour, and so we went to Shimla on the shitty government bus. It was cheap. Dirt cheap. Ten hours of hell, also known as “the most fun I have had in years”, except for the last two hours when our bus started to climb up the serpentines and my head

SATURDAY

Matthias got harassed by an Indian prostitute on the bus, and Maria was feeling sick the whole time and not having any fun at all. We stopped along the way at the roadside dhabba for chai and Lay’s crisps and biscuits. The landscape was becoming more and more beautiful. We arrived in Shimla the next morning looking like we had spent ten hours on a shitty government bus. My sound advice: "Don't listen to the touts, let's find a hotel ourselves." was promptly ignored by the boys and before I knew it we were being dragged up a long steep hill to a stinking hotel where the toilets didn't flush and the bed sheets had not been washed since the British left India. Well, that's what happens when you listen to the men who are supposed to look after you and protect you in the wilderness! I remember Matthias uttering something along the lines of: "I don't want to spend more than one hundred rupees on the hotel." We didn't exactly have an argument about it … it was more a war of looks.

I joined the side with the sad-looking eyes that beg for clean sheets and hot water. We win and end up in a semi-decent place, which is still, by the way, miles up a steep hill. Maria and Matthias share a room upstairs while Alessandro, me, Luisiana and Burkhard camp out in a two-bedroom unit a floor below. We sit down, order the hotel manager to send someone to scrub the bathroom clean and to start making breakfast. This is what I call the "big chill". Burkhard is still wearing his Evalueserve ID card and work clothes and we make fun of him. Alessandro did not bring a copy of his visa with him, and the hotel boss is not happy about that. There's a fair bit of procrastinating going on and I go downstairs where I chat to one of these strange characters that you only find in India – a Westerner turned religious guru dressed in a weird-looking tunic. The only question I want to ask these people is: "What the hell is wrong with you?" But of course, that is the only question you can't ask, so I pretend that there is nothing out of the ordinary with his looks, and go along with typical English small talk – where are you from, chilly weather, isn’t the scenery great and the like. Alessandro is still trying to work out what to do with his dodgy immigration status. After attempts to call Paula back in Gurgaon and get all the visa details, we shut the hotel manager up with a made-up police registration number. I'm not exactly a fan of breaking the rules, but sometimes you don't have a choice.

The bathroom got a thorough make-over with a brush and some soap and we take turns in the shower. Although it's only October, it's freezing cold here in the mountains so I am really grateful for the bit of hot water that I can get. After shower, our glorious breakfast of egg omelettes, toast and coffee arrives. This is the moment I love most about weekend trips – when you have just arrived, you settle down in a chair and the breakfast comes. I don't feel so good about the fact that our breakfast is served by a boy who looks about ten years old. Child labour is officially prohibited in India and you will not see children working out in the open in big cities like Delhi. Instead, when the new legislation came in, the working kids went into hiding. Child labour flourishes in places like this, high up in the mountains, away from the eyes of the Indian police.

After a bit of a rest, we start making plans for the day – starting with a visit to "Scandal Point" in the town centre. Luisiana and I decide to go upstairs to see if Matthias and Maria are going to join us. When we knock on the door, Matthias is acting all funny and talks to us through the closed door. German hospitality never fails to impress. In the end, we set off, just the four of us, enjoying the wonderful mountain views along the way. We have a brief look inside the colonial church, laugh at the monkeys, stroll around Scandal Point (no idea why it's called that – really it's just an open piazza). There is no traffic up here, just a pedestrian zone and the people are very pleasant. They look more like Nepalese / Tibetan than Indian. I am never too keen on touts, but somehow we end up following a guy into his travel agency. He offers us a tour of the mountains, we agree on price and before I know it, we are walking down towards the road to meet his car. If it was up to me, I would probably ignore anyone offering me anything on the street. But this time, I just go with the flow. We jump in the car and the guide starts telling us lots of information about the region. It looks like we are in good hands. Our first stop is a view of a dense forest in the mountains. The deep green is never-ending. Later on, the guide shows us where the road leads towards the Chinese border. Officially, India has no border crossings with China but the locals don't seem to care much about that. If you are a foreigner, your only option is to go via Nepal.

Our second stop is a viewing point with never-ending mountains on the horizon. There are also a few vendors selling hot-pink sugar candy. Apparently, Shimla is a popular honeymoon destination. Just what I bloody need after a break-up. Bloody honeymooners. The guide says something about politicians who land here in their helicopters to look at the mountains. So that would explain why we are standing in a giant "car park" in the middle of nowhere. There's only us and a few yaks in the background, it's all very peaceful. Our next stop looks like a pony car park – there are hundreds and hundreds of ponies. The area we are in now is called Kufri and the guide tells us there is some hill we should go to; we can either take a pony or walk. In the meantime, he's going to wait for us in the car. We have spent at least a good hour driving from Shimla, so the place it's quite far from civilization and it feels very peaceful.

It's low season, so the ponies are not getting much business. We agree on a reasonable price to be taken up the hill. It's a pretty scary drive, I must say. The slope is rather steep and the ponies are walking on sharp rocks. It would certainly not be advisable to fall off the pony, unless you're one of those types who have always been wondering what's inside their scull. I am being a total girl and I scream here and there, especially when the guides try to make the ponies run. In the end, we all make it up the hill in one piece and go for a little stroll. Alessandro can't believe his eyes when we stumble upon "Kufri Fun World". "I don't get it. There are so many ways to invest in India. Why would you build a go-karting place in the middle of fucking nowhere on a mountain that you can only get to on a pony?!" We skip the go-karting and go for a walk to take in the magnificent views. There's quite a few cabbage fields around us. We end up sitting down near a farm with a breath-taking view of the mountains, with the Himalayas just about visible in the background.

Alessandro and Burkhard get into a deeply intelligent conversation about the leisure time activities of a Himalayan farmer. "Man, if I was a farmer here that would be sooo boring. I would just sit here on the grass all day, look at the mountains and smoke pot." Next thing we know, Burkhard has managed to step into cow shit and is trying to clean his trainers on the grass. Pretty hilarious. We hear someone laugh hysterically in the background – it's the farmer. Humour does not always translate across cultures, but there are certain things, like stepping into cow shit, that everyone can relate to. The farmer offers Burkhard some water to clean his shoes and they instantly make friends. The farmer's brother-in-law makes an appearance and we have a little chat as far as his English and our Hindi allows. "Beautiful mountains." "Yes, beautiful." The boys decide to smoke a cigarette. They offer one to the farmer. He searches in his pocket and to our astonishment, he produces a finger-sized piece of hashish. My Hindi is put to good use while negotiating the price. It doesn't look like this is the farmer's main line of business, so we get a pretty good deal. He shows us where he grows the cannabis plants behind the house and how the hashish is made. "You enjoy a lot?" "Yes, and my wife also." So he's doing exactly what the boys said they would do here – sit on the grass, watch the mountains, smoke pot. I laugh so hard I nearly piss my pants. Seems like smoking pot is another thing that translates well across cultural and social barriers. Himachal Pradesh is where the bulk of India's cannabis is produced, as the mountains provide a natural way to hide the plantations. I must say that this is the last place on Earth I would expect to find drugs - here in the middle of nowhere, among all that innocent-looking cabbage. India never ceases to surprise.

The boys smoke up on a slope behind the farm and afterwards Alessandro manages to lose most of the charas somewhere, so the good deal has turned into not such a good deal. We start making our way back, stopping at a dhabba along the way for some water and biscuits. Riding downhill on a pony while stoned doesn't seem like such a good idea, so we leg it. The driver is already waiting and wants to take us to some other place; we are pretty tired after all that walking, so we ask him to take us back to Shimla. Back in town, we try to find a place to eat and in the end we decide to get some take away Domino's pizza. Then a trip to the daru shop (Hindi for "off-licence") and we add a bottle of Bacardi and some coke to our treasure chest. It's been a long day, so we really relax in our room back at the hotel, munching on pizza and getting pissed. Matthias and Maria make an appearance but somehow they are not sharing our cheerful mood and don't seem too keen to join in with our little house party. They had spent the whole day inside the hotel, sleeping. Tomorrow we are going home and they haven't seen anything of Shimla yet.

The party goes on till the wee hours and in the morning, I am surprised to wake up next to Alessandro. I was supposed to share the room with Luisiana and the two boys were supposed to sleep next door. Luisiana explains that she didn't want to sleep in the room with me as it was stinking so much from all that booze and cigarettes. A few weeks later we find out that her and Burkhard started dating. I had no suspicions at the time as they seemed like the most unlikely couple – a frugal German guy and a crazy, loud Mexican girl.

SUNDAY

Day number two. We go to town early to buy tickets for the bus to Chandigarh. The ticket office is closed so we go searching for breakfast, first trying the Indian Coffee House, which is recommended in the guidebook. It turns out "too shit to be true" and I beg for us to escape. Smelly, dirty, dark, awful. We end up in some place where Alessandro gets served decaff coffee and is not at all happy about it. He's one of those Italians who cannot function without caffeine and a cigarette in the morning. We spend some time sitting on a sunny bench in the centre of Shimla and get hassled by guys who want to take a picture with white girls. It's too hot and I am not at all in the mood for being photographed by horny peasants. Luisiana and I go to sit in the shade, sharing stories of our love lives. She had also just broken up with her boyfriend at home. He also cheated on her. I instantly feel closer to the girl. I'm not alone in this world!

Matthias and Maria are getting frustrated with our lack of activity, so we let them go off in their own direction. They are off to see the monkey temple, where lots of monkeys piss around. We agree to meet at the bus station to go to Chandigarh together later. The rest of us go to Barista, a chain coffee house which serves decent coffee, sandwiches and chocolate brownies at ridiculously inflated prices. But at least it's clean. I read the Sunday edition of the Hindustan Times, especially focusing on its matrimonial ads section. It makes me laugh so hard I decide to steal the page and take it with me. It's time to go to the bus station and there is no sign of Matthias or Maria anywhere so we decide to leave them up to their own fate.

When we get to the bus station and ask for the bus to Chandigarh, we are told it leaves from a completely different place, somewhere down in the village. We start running down the road, our pace punctuated by the rhythmical repetition of the f-word. Somehow somewhere we manage to stop a local bus and jump on. I am more or less hanging outside the door but you can't expect much comfort for two rupees. We get to the bus station and I spot the Chandigarh bus just as it's leaving. We all jump in onto the moving bus, only to find out that there are no free seats. Four hours on the floor of a bus. On the floor of a shitty government bus, to be precise. We are laughing our asses off … the other Indians on the buses are laughing their asses off, too. They can't believe how stupid we are, I think. Luisiana, Alessandro, Burkhard and me are becoming real friends now. Only real friends will sit with you on the floor of a shitty Indian government bus for four hours. We chat with the locals in our crap Hindi and their crap English and we are having the time of our lives. Well, for a few hours anyway … I suppose I don't have to mention that the excitement does not last the whole journey and we arrive in Chandigarh feeling like … like we had just spent four hours on the floor of a shitty government bus.

Chandigarh is the capital of two Indian states – Haryana and Punjab. The real capital of Punjab is Amritsar but as it is located so close to the hot India-Pakistan border, the official capital has been moved here. Chandigarh is also supposed to be the cleanest city in India, which frankly sounds like an oxymoron to me. Once there, we roll off the bus and start "negotiating" with the autorikshaw drivers to take us somewhere to eat. We pay 40 rupees (£0.50!) to be taken around the corner - but that's what happens when you ask a riksha wallah for restaurant recommendations. We walk into some decent-looking restaurant and after one glance at the menu, Burkhard proclaims, in his typically frugal German manner: "This is too expensive for me!" A meal in this place would cost approximately Rs. 200 (£2.50). "If this is what he's like in India, then what does he do in Germany?", we wonder. In the end, we decide to go to Subway across the road, which is probably safer for our poor stomachs anyway. Alessandro had never been to Subway before and he is fascinated by the concept. He can't believe you can decide what will go into your sandwich. The expression on his face is a bit like Christopher Columbus when he discovered America. I suppose that's what happens when you send an Italian abroad. After our delightful meal, we find a means of conveyance (read: autorikshaw) and we set off to see the famous Nek Chand's Rock Garden. The whole place is quite impressive – a massive garden with fences, animals, human figures, little houses and waterfalls all made of rocks, broken plates, old broken electrical sockets and broken tiles. We joke that Nek Chand and his wife must have had a pretty turbulent marriage with so much destroyed crockery. The whole place looks like it was inspired by Gaudi's architecture. It's pretty peaceful, too.

Soon it's getting dark and we hop onto another motorized tin can to go to Sukhna Lake. The road is blocked off just before the entrance to the lake and we pose for pictures with a funny traffic sign – "Obey traffic rules. Krishna Jewellers". I'm not sure if the jewellers are so concerned about public safety or if the Chandigarh police sells advertising space on their traffic signage but it's pretty hilarious. There seems to be some kind of an event going on around the lake and there are lots of people everywhere, dancing to the loud music. We walk around for a bit and then sit down on the edge of the lake, watching some kind of a light show that's going on in the middle. After a bit of pointless chatting, meeting some locals from Ludhiana and suffering many many mosquito bites, we decide it's time to go to the pub.

We walk into the nearest drinking / eating establishment and we cannot believe our eyes. At one of the tables, there is Maria and Matthias having dinner! We lost them back in Shimla and we had no idea how they managed to get to Chandigarh. It turns out they took the luxury bus from the bus station in Shimla. Remember how I said the locals made us run to a bus station a few kilometres down the road? Well, as it turns out, the locals have no idea about the schedule of luxury buses, since they don't take them and so they sent us where the shitty government bus leaves from! However, Matthias had his own share of bad luck to make up for the comfy trip in the luxury bus. While taking pictures of one of the little monkeys in Shimla, he got attacked by big mamma monkey. There is nothing funnier than other people's misfortune, is there? This weekend is turning out to be way too bizarre for me. I can't believe we bumped into Maria and Matthias just like this, in a random pub in Chandigarh. We all laugh, have a few beers and afterwards make our way to the bus station to take the luxury bus back to Delhi.

On the way to the bus station, while sitting in the autorikshaw, I am fighting a strange urge to jump out onto the road at full speed. I imagine myself flying through the air and it all feels quite exciting. Amazing what a pint of Indian beer can do to a European girl. The rest of the group think I've gone mad and keep persuading me not to jump out. At the bus station, Alessandro, the old addict, tries to get hold of some cigarettes. Unfortunately, Chandigarh is not only the cleanest city in India, it is also a non-smoking city. The guys standing at the usual corner shop explain to us that the government banned smoking in public places. I tell them the only thing in Hindi that I can think of: "Government bohot burra hai." (The government is very bad.) We instantly become friends and one of the guys offers Alessandro a cigarette from his own pack. We go to the edge of the station, the guys smoke and we have another one of those chats permitted by my smallest Hindi vocabulary and the guy's smallest English vocabulary. It turns out he works for the government, which does not, by the way, stop me from telling him: "Mujhe government nahi pasand hai." (I don't like the government.)

Time for a last visit to the rat-infested bus station toilets, where I beg Alessandro to stand outside and wait for me in case I get raped / killed / eaten by rodents. We board the luxury bus, which is true to its name – it's better than most buses I have seen in Europe. It's not crowded, the seats are comfortable and there is air-conditioning. We start playing some card game but I refuse to learn the rules and eventually we all fall asleep.

MONDAY

In the early hours of the morning we are standing at the interstate bus terminal back in Delhi. One of the guys forgot his stuff on the bus and there is manic panic when they try to track down the bus after getting off . What can I say? Men! The ISBT is not exactly a pleasant place to be at this hour and I am keen to get back to Gurgaon ASAP. We all squeeze into one of the old-fashioned, incredibly slow, incredibly small taxis and after a rather loud exchange of opinions with the driver, we agree to pay a ridiculous price just to get our asses home. Sometimes, just sometimes, at stupid hours in the morning, cab drivers rule the world. Back at home, I feel tired but happy. This was truly the most amazing weekend of my life. At the footsteps of the Himalayas, I was, literally, on top of the world.