McLeodganj
Mcleodganj nearly became the summer capital of the British Raj, rather than Shimla, and it has some very British features, such as the church of St John's in the Wilderness, set in a forest of conifers and pines. McLeodganj actually became the headquarters of the Dalai Llama, forming the Tibetan government in exile after the Chinese invasion on horseback in 1949. The original inhabitants were semi-nomadic villagers, whose menfolk followed their animals up into mountain pastures during the summer and to lowland valleys in the winter, whilst the women and children settled in villages between, growing crops on small terraced strips.
Slate could be quarried nearby, so most cottages were roofed with slate.
The father of our local guide had been a quarryman, married at the age of 14 to a wife aged 9. Our young guide himself, (on the left), called Hans, fluent in English and well-informed on many issues, had had an arranged marriage, and introduced us to relatives as we walked among quite primitive villages
Tibetan refugees continue to arrive, on foot, over mountain passes, and their arrival poses all the predictable problems. While we were at McLeodganj, an American lady had organised a group of recent new arrivals to give a concert of folk songs and dances. It was a concert like no other.
The venue was a bleak schoolroom, reached down a precipitous slope, across mud and slippery stones. The start was scheduled for 5pm, but was delayed. The star performer had failed to show up. This gave a chance to look at the audience. A more motley collection could not have been assembled by central casting. There were some aging western hippies, left over from the 1960s, a huge lady with a greying afro hairdo, several elderly ladies who would not have seemed out of place at the Grasmere Village Society, and some people who looked so villainous that one instinctively checked that one's wallet was still there. Eventually the programme commenced, introduced by a Tibetan who spoke fractured English into a dodgy P.A. system. The audience, basically sympathetic, clapped heartily. There followed an enjoyable session of folk songs, music on strange stringed instruments, and jolly dances performed with great gusto by five girls and five young men, interrupted occasionally by the kind of accidents that can happen in amateur dramatics; e.g the toddler of one of the dancers wanting mummy, a dog wandering across the stage. The end result was a significant sum of money raised, and a happy audience. There are few westerners in town. The only other guests at our hotel are a group of tourists from (yes really) Kazakhstan. They seem quite normal.
The following day was a Sunday. One cannot avoid religion in India, any day. Within the space of a few hours, we rotated Buddhist prayer wheels, witnessed a well attended Anglican church service at St John's in the Wilderness (in English, later that morning in Hindi) and saw a Hindu procession with a goat at its head, on the way to be sacrificed. We were assured that although the goat was to be an offering to a god, it would actually be eaten by the followers afterwards.
On our way south towards Shimla, we took a ride on the Kangra Valley railway, a branch line so obscure it does not feature on the Indian railways website. This is saying something, as the Indian railways website is otherwise extraordinarily comprehensive, making the British National Rail Enquiries site look like a first year undergraduate exercise. The line passes through dramatic mountain and gorge scenery, yet serves simply as a local transport route. The line is a narrow gauge route, over 100 miles long, built by the British in 1932, with little subsequent modernisation. The stations still issue Edmondson tickets (those small cardboard rectangles), and our fare, for an hour and a half journey, was 6 rupees (8 pence) each. We did not claim our 30% O.A.P. discount.
Point and Signal lever frame at Kangra.
At Guler station, the driver awaits the signal, lit by an oil lamp at night.
The train is not particularly overcrowded. Carriage doors open inwards, so it is quite convenient to sit on the steps or hang on the outside. The breeze is fresh and the views are better. A notice on the station warns against the danger of "roof riding". South from Guler we stayed overnight at Pragpur and Nalagarh. At Pragpur we stayed at an aristocrat's house, the Judges Court, in an aristocratic manner.
Anne on the veranda.
We dined, wined, and conversed with the owner, and the only other guests, cultured Indians who had a successful son who was an accountant living in Milton Keynes, if that constitutes success. The owner had been instrumental in getting the local village, full of delightful but mainly decaying medieval buildings, declared a conservation area, the first in India.
.
One of the small number of renovated houses in the Conservation village. From Pragpur, our next overnight stop was at the Nalagarh Fort hotel, a rambling converted fortress overlooking the town, and from there we went to Kalka to to take the famous Himalayan Queen to Shimla. This narrow gauge railway had been built in 1903 to enable the British government of India to make its annual migration from the capital Delhi up into the cooler hills. It is quite an engineering feat, rising some 5000 feet, passing through 103 tunnels, and built largely on steep mountainsides, at a gradient of up to 1 in 40.
We were a little disappointed not to have ridden on the railcar
