Sh-Sh-Shimla!

Another 9 hour bus ride from Amritsar and were in Shimla, favourite hilll station of the British. I like the mountains. I especially like walking uphill. My mother hates it. She was cussing like a sailor all the way up. Swearing at the poor guy showing us to the hotel Ashoka with its great unobstructed view over the valley. He didn't understand the words she was speaking (in Pashtu) but I'm sure he got the jist. Everyone was a son of a bitch. At one point she refused to walk any further.

We did get to the hotel. It was cheap and clean...ish. The view of the school yard behind was mind blowing. ;) So, we awoke the next morning to drum rolls and children singing the national anthem. We heard the couple next door coughing through the walls, the monkeys on the roof doing god knows what. We walked a bit uphill and then some downhill. There was a man carrying a full sized fridge on his back, another man with a red baby carriage. We saw that baby carriage at least twelve times throughout the day. Why? I don't know what in the world they were doing with the baby carriages. It got cold. It thundered, there was lightening, there was rain. Lots and lots of rain. The power went out in the restaurant so we ate by candle light in the small shack of a restaurant. The food was lovely. Grape curry, vegie biryani, salad, chai, cumin fried potatoes. Mmmh.

The temperature in our room was 10 degrees over night. I watched the news for the first time in months. The violence in Kashmir was rising. They showed images of a man with the lower part of his face shot off. The violence and protests in Nepal were on a rise as well. The Maoists in the south of India just killed a few hundred people. I turned off the TV and snuggled up to my mom.

We're back in Delhi now. Aisha arrives tomorrow. This is my last week in India. Next week Wednesday we leave for Kabul.