Good-bye to Shimla

On my last day in Shimla, I got climbed on by a female monkey trying to eat pieces of apple off of my head and also had a huge male monkey eat hazelnuts out of my hand with his mouth. Danny and I said good-bye to all the people we knew at the temple, including the temple dogs (Sheru, Lusi, Dreadlock Dog, Dusseri Lusi, and Spot). We had dinner at my favorite restaurant and ate way too much. And soon, we'll be headed back to the hotel to pack up all our stuff.

It’s time to say good-bye to Shimla and its monkeys. Tomorrow we leave for Delhi, where the macaques are fewer and far between. We’ll spend the next seven weeks splitting our time between living in Delhi  and traveling to a few other cities, including Agra and Vrindavan in Uttar Pradesh, Jaipur and Bikaner in Rajasthan, and Kolkata in West Bengal. In Delhi, Danny will continue with his research, and I’m hoping to volunteer with Mother Teresa’s Missions of Charity, helping to take care of orphaned babies.

It’s not the end of our animal adventures, though: there are bears in Agra, more macaques and langurs in Vrindavan and Jaipur, camels and sacred rats in Bikaner, and monkeys, elephants, rhinos, and tigers in Kolkata. Add the famous sights we’ll see (the Taj Mahal, Fatehpur Sikri, Raj Ghat, the Karni Mata temple), as well as all the foods we’ll be eating (Gujarati thalis, Mughali koftas, freshly-caught fish curries, camel-milk lassis!) – and suffice to say, there will be much to report on this second leg of the journey.

I will definitely miss the monkeys (even the ones who stole my glasses!), the cows who roam the streets and moo insistently for snacks at shop doors, and the friendly stray dogs. I’ll miss being able to walk down the street without worrying about being run over by a car and having everything from restaurants to chemists within easy walking distance. I’ll miss the chow mein at China Town, all the fabulous dishes at Nalini and Fascination (we had the most amazing fish tikka there last night), and even the dal makhani and naan “mini-meal” at Himani (where the table linens look like they’ve been washed with coal). I’ll miss hiking up Jakhu hill to the mandir, partly because it’s been my only form of exercise since I got here!

I won’t miss how cold it’s gotten here, though I don’t think I’ll like the 30°C weather in Delhi any better. I definitely won’t miss our mildew-covered, cramped hotel room, nor will I miss the smell of our bathroom, which actually lets in some of the sewage smells through the toilet, particularly at night.

Danny pointed out to me that there will be things I miss about Shimla once I’m actually in Delhi. The quiet, for instance. Compared to the constant din of Delhi, Shimla’s nights are calm, interrupted only occasionally by the distant bark of a dog, an ambulance siren, or music from a late-night wedding. The air here, despite being thin due to the high altitude, is fresh, unlike the brown, polluted smog of Delhi. (Danny told me that he’d heard breathing Delhi’s air is like smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. In fact, on the news this past weekend, they reported that Delhi’s air pollution levels are dangerously high right now.) Also, the people here are generally friendly and no one is trying too hard to cheat me out of my money, unlike in Delhi, where touts, rickshaw drivers, beggar children, and shop-wallahs will try to squeeze every last rupee out of me.

So it’s off to the craziness of Delhi. Good-bye, Shimla. Perhaps I’ll be back someday.