Awoken by the pretty thin walls of our place as well as a kind telephone reminder by the hotel to not miss breakfast

We jump on some clothes and grab an assortment of food – they even have baked beans and potato wedges

Back up to the room and we leisurely get ready and head out to explore

First stop, a proper coffee!

We wonder down The Mall and reach the cable car/ropeway

Little pricey but worth it to reach Shimla’s highest point (8200 ft / 2500 m)

Monkeys, monkeys everywhere – we put away anything that can be grabbed and wonder round

The Jakhu park is small but well maintained and has lots of Indian tourists having a nose around, just like us

Seems we’re popular – everyone wants a photo with Davesy

We’re explained that the groups of kids around are enjoying the sights of this elevated Hindu temple but that it’s rare to come across tourists (and some have never seen white people before)

The star of the show though up here: Shri Hanuman Mandir Jakhoo

We manage to cover all the area up here – successfully without getting robbed by a monkey, mind you – and head back to the ropeway station

We come across an Indian couple from West of here, on holiday themselves, and they’re very interested in us and speak very good English

We go down the ropeway together and exchange numbers as they want to meet up later – very sweet!

We stroll down to The Mall again and spy a sweet treat to keep us going

Daisy has her heart set on a shall and we get a good deal – nice little souvenir

Pop back into Costa for an iced drink each and chill for a little

Time to head to Bantony Mansion – this is now a museum and lays out the important historical moments for Shimla

This includes information about British rule and why The Mall seems so familiar to us – it’s pedestrialised (with the odd ambulance about) and coated with shops selling local crafts and wares

The city was visited ten times by Mahatma Ghandi

Furthermore, we learn about an American who immigrated here in the 1900s and helped the region through philanthropy and educational experiments – allowing the students to run the orchards and the orchards to run the school (a student-led system)

Very beautiful building too – baroque style architecture and good they use it for public availability now

We go back into the main area and enjoy the Christmas-y feeling of the lit town hall

Grab a chai tea to keep our fingers warm

Head back to Bantony Mansion as they’re hosting a light and sound show

It was a lot better than we’d anticipated – very neatly done against the building and went through the detailed history of Shimla

Glad we’d visited the museum, also, during the day as it covered a lot of what we read through

The British weren’t painted in the best light but that makes sense with the difficult past we’d made India endure

Starving, we head back to 45 The Central – a highly rated classic Northern Indian restaurant

We also get a hot spiced apple cider (non-alcoholic) and a berry smoothie

After, we catch up with the couple we’d met earlier on Jakhu Hill

We stroll a little behind as they pop into a shop and grab some beers we’ll have together, just because whenever shops see international tourists they double the price!

They take us to their car and we venture through the tourist attraction of “the lift” – how people get from the lower bazaar to The Ridge (literally two elevators)

Their hotel is similar to ours and we pop outside where there’s a little bonfire and crack open our beers

It’s getting late so they offer to drive us home where we get dropped off and head straight to bed – more travelling tomorrow!