Himalayas... Has a Nice Ring to It

From Jaisalmer, we took yet another train on-route to Shimla, stopping over in Delhi, the capital of India. Here we got a rickshaw to transport us from the train station to the hotel were we crashed for the day. Then it was off for Kalka, a small town at the foot at the of the Himalayas. We arrived there at about three or four O'clock in the morning, tragically interrupting the beautiful sleep we'd been having on the plastic covered pullout beds that the train offered. After that we tried to sleep for the half an hour before the"Toy Train" arrived. The "Toy Train", could not be christened better, the tracks it requires being less than two feet wide, and the cabs small. Dawn was just beginning to break when we borded, and the crisp night air, instead of warming with the coming of the sun, grew colder as we threaded our way up the worlds tallest range of mountains. Also as we climbed, the scenery became more beautiful, green, and lush. During our ascent, we passed under over a hundred tunnels! Of course, Shimla is still the foot hill of the Himalayas, for-despite an impressive altitude of 2,200 meters- it pales in comparison to Mount Everest's 8,000 meters. Still, during our entire stay there we rarely took of our jackets, whereas we would never have dreamed of wearing long clothes (if we could help it) in Delhi. Shimla is not too warm for snow either, we saw pictures of the "Toy Train" with a good foot of snow on it's roof, giving a sharp contrast to lower India. Our hotel there was decent, and there wasn't much to complain about, accept that we were all more or less sick. The food was pretty good, and their were an abundance of fast food restaurants. Shimla was one of the neatest places I've ever been, and the most fascinating place in India I visited, with perhaps the exception of our camel tour. For more on our Shimla experience, click on the following links:
A Walk In The Jungle
Of Monkeys, Monkey Thieves, And Monkey Deities