Day 11

We started the day with a hike up to the Hanuman Temple high above Shimla. Me, Arjan, and Swati walked the really steep route, while the rest of the crew took horses up a slightly easier route. Hanuman is the Monkey God, and the mountain is appropriately crawling with monkeys. Arjan rented a stick to ward off the monkeys, and it was actually quite effective.

The views from the peak were beautiful, with the snow-covered Himalayan range looming at the horizon. The temple was the usual Hindu mix of color, reverence, and goofiness. Inside you could find relief paintings depicting Hanuman's adventures, chasing Christmas lights, and even a phone booth right next to the priest. On the way back down, we spotted a couple of yaks sitting on the street, so not only did we get to knock another animal off our "seen" list, but Tony and Arjan got yak rides.

From there, it was on to shopping in Shmila's "mall", which is a car-free street that runs along the top of the ridge. More interesting to me was the "bazaar", which paralleled the mall just a few steps down the hill, and was a teeming mass of local activity in contrast to the tourist-focus of the mall. In addition to lots and lots of shopping, a few of us stopped at an Internet cafe and I was able to upload some photos and the journal entries I had written. Only one of the four computers there had a USB slot, but we finally found it and were able to transfer files over.

After shopping we had another chilly dinner at a restaurant near the mall, and then went back out to see if Dennis could go buy an item he'd had his eye on. Unfortunately all the shops were closing up then, so instead Dennis stopped in a barbershop in the bazaar for a quick haircut. Arjan joined him for a head massage, which appeared quite intense. Like many Indian shops, this place was about 4 feet wide and maybe 15 feet long, but it still had at least 4 chairs and nearly a dozen people in the shop. Finally, a place in Shimla that wasn't chilly!

We returned to a hotel and went down to a bonfire set up by the staff. The wood appeared to be random boards taken off of old buildings and ox-carts, and they used some pink goopy stuff to start the fire, but eventually it got going good. Unfortunately for me I started to feel a little ill, and the thousands of barking dogs weren't helping the atmosphere, so I turned in early.