Shimla

Shimla is great. Its the old British summer capital, 2.5km up in the Himalayan foothills. A tiny railway crawls for hours up through valleys and switchbacks to get up here. Very clean, fresh, lots of treks, great views, I love it here.

There's a monkey temple on a big hill a few miles east. Millions of really crafty, cheeky monkeys. One of them did a commando raid swinging through the door to the temple (over my head), snuck into the alcove, into a chest containing a packet of nuts and out again before anyone could blink. (No one minded - in a temple dedicated to Jaakhu you let the monkeys do as they want).
The main street here - the Mall - is straight out of Brighton seaside. One huge church, big promenade with ice cream stands and donkey rides, mock tudor state buildings, hundreds of Delhites showing off their English. And the himalayas in the background.

Breaking Indian news:
The biggest story here (forget Ulrika!) is the lynch mob that killed 5 dalites who were suspected of killing a cow. The general consensus is that they were taking justice a bit too far into their own hands. Aparantely a post mortem on the cow revealed it had died naturally. Don't mess with cows in a predominently Hindu country.