"It is not about the destination, it is about the journey" - Ralph Waldo Emerson
It was a pleasant evening in Chandigrah, a nice hotel as I recall and another curry. This morning our luggage was loaded onto two jeeps and after they had driven us to the railway station at Kalka they went on ahead because today we were taking the 'Toy Train' to Shimla in the foothills of the Himalayas.
At Kalka station we passed a small group of women labourers with picks and shovels and this brought to mind all of the other women workers that we had seen over this past two weeks.
Just an observation here but it seems to me that women get to do all the crappy jobs in India whilst the men sit around and watch. Nearly sixty-five percent of agricultural labourers are women, at Jaipur we had seen women carrying heavy brick loads on their heads whilst men supervised, along the railway tracks women were digging trenches whilst men waited to drop the cables in, what little street cleaning is done is performed by women whilst others work the refuse sights for pickings. Women in India do tough jobs without any of the employment protection rights that are enjoyed in the West. And another thing, it is rare to see a woman driver because less than fifteen percent of drivers in India are women.
So we waited for the 'Toy Train' and I was expecting something like one of the little trains of Wales...
... but approaching the platform was a powerful diesel beast about half the size of the express trains that we had become used to with eight carriages. This was the 'Himalayan Queen'. Small yes, but a proper train nevertheless.
We watched enviously as the first class carriages that we wouldn't be using passed us by because SAGA had cut a few corners here and only purchased second class tickets.
My research tells me that there are six trains that use the Kalka to Shimla line and if there was a league table then the 'Himalayan Queen' would be at the bottom. The carriage was small and cramped with hard wooden benches which were not really wide enough to comfortably accommodate two people sitting side by side. There was a toilet facility but you really wouldn't want to use it and strict bladder control was going to be not just advisable but absolutely essential.
We departed Kalka station about twenty minutes late and the train meandered through the outskirts of the town before quickly entering the forested foothills of the Himalayas. Immediately the train climbed steadily, the tracks constantly twisting and turning, clinging to the side of the mountains like velcro, with few straight stretches of track even as long as the train.
The train line had been constructed at the turn of the twentieth century as a means of getting British officials and administrators away for the summer. They didn't enjoy the heat of Calcutta or Delhi and so made their way to the town of Shimla high in the mountains where the weather was far more to their liking
The sixty mile long line is two foot six gauge (regular lines are five foot six), has one hundred and two tunnels and eight hundred and sixty-four bridges. The constant curves and grades are very tight which means that trains take around five hours to complete the journey with an average speed of a very sedate fifteen miles an hour.
An advantage of the 'Himalayan Queen' second class was that the carriage doors were left open even while the train was moving so it was possible now and again to take the risk and lean out to take pictures. As we passed slowly through stations vendors jumped on and off the moving train like acrobats and walked through the carriages selling food and snacks.
The train made a couple of stops at the larger stations on route and at about half way pulled into Barog. Barog is the place where the longest tunnel of the line is situated. In times past trains used to stop here for a considerable time so that passengers could have their breakfast here and today there were vendors on the platform selling street food (well, platform food) and selling tea and coffee.
I nearly had a bit of bother here. We were told that we could get off here and stretch our legs and I assumed that this would be for twenty minutes or so and went for a stroll along the platform. I was at the back of the train when there was a shrill blast of the whistle to announce departure, Kim was shouting at me to tell me the train was leaving already and I had to sprint the length of the train to return to our carriage near the front. That was a near miss I can tell you.
As we climbed through the clouds and the occasional wisps of mist there were intermittent grand views and I say intermittent because for much of the journey the track side vegetation was thick and impenetrable. The train persevered through sun-dappled glades at the pace of a woodland walk and the occasional break through the trees into areas of bright green terraces and a village here and there with brightly coloured houses tumbling down the precipitous hillsides.
Despite the discomfort we enjoyed the five hour ride but we were all relieved (some of us needed relief) when the engine brought the train to a stop at Shimla station.
It was much busier than I was anticipating and the traffic was slow and queuing, sometimes not so patiently. And guess what…
We were reunited with the drivers and the jeeps and then made very slow progress through the cramped and narrow streets until we arrived at our hotel, set in an elevated position overlooking a valley and the brightly coloured city and in the distance we could see the snow capped Himalayas soaring into the sky.
This was a good spot. I liked Shimla already.
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