It sounds like it should be made of colourful plastic and last for 20 minutes but that was not the case at all. The 120k journey climbed from 700 to over 2000m and took 7 hours (3 more than it should have). It was great. Each carriage held 30 people, we were sat with 3 families who were good fun, we screamed our way through the 103 tunnels and round the bendy tracks enjoying the stunning mountain scenery all the way.
Shimla is a lovely place with old British style buildings with wooden beams in a tudor style, we could almost be in Shaftesbury (but the roads are even steeper!). Since arriving we have climbed a hill to Jakoo temple, taking 21 minutes (according to the sign at the bottom this means we are super fit). The temple is a shrine to the monkey god and appropriately there were monkeys on the path all the way up, people carry sticks to beat them away but they didn't give us any problems and it was nice to be walking amongst them. The views from the top were extremely impressive looking out over the Himalayas with their snow covered caps poking out through the clouds and eagles circling below us.
"one snap please" we hear wherever we go, with people wanting their photos taken with us, unfortunately it is never just 'one snap' and at one point we were stuck for 30 minutes with a queue waiting in line! On the train a baby was thrust into our arms for the proud parents to take a picture, we wonder how many family albums we may be appearing in.
For New Year we wrapped up warm (6/7 layers) for the below 0 temperatures and had a curry before joining the crowds on the streets with music and dancing inbetween the photocalls.
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