Shimla

We arrived in Shimla early in the morning and checked into the Quality Inn. When we had all checked in at the front desk, a few workers took our bags up to our rooms. We had three rooms for eight people. The men who took our bags up for us unlocked the doors and let us in the rooms. The very first thing I noticed was the smell. It smelled like rotten eggs. It was utterly disgusting! We decided to rename it the Not-So Quailty Inn.

Each room could only fit two people so we knew that we would have to get two more beds to put into the rooms. I went into the room that smelled the best. All of us were dead tired. We watched a bit of the Masters on TV, and then quickly dozed off to sleep.

When I woke up everyone was awake and ready to go eat lunch. I was confused because I though I had slept through the night. When I got down to the lobby I looked up at a clock and saw it was 2:30 P.M. I said to my sister Grace, "This can't be right. It's the morning." Finally I realized that it was the afternoon. The rest of the day we spent at an outdoor mall with small shops in every vacant spot. My mom had to stay home because she was still feeling sick. When we got back we had dinner and then went to sleep.

The next day, I was feeling very ill. I couldn't go eat breakfast because of my stomach ache. The rest of the family went to the Viceregal Lodge while my dad and I stayed back. I was very glad to see the Yankees game. I saw all of it except the top of the 1st inning. When the rest of the family returned they told me about the lodge that they visited. The British made it in 1888 as a summer residence for the British viceroys of India. Inside they saw the table where the partition of India was formalized.

They also stopped at the Jakhu Hill Temple which is dedicated to the monkey god, Hanuman. Appropriately, monkeys were everywhere and they rented a walking stick to scare them away. Monkeys are so common in Shimla that one on them almost came into our room because the window was open with no screen. My mom and her sister screamed and ran out of the room.

The next day we drove to a place called Naldehra where we had lunch and rode horses. We saw the road that leads all the way to China. They also had a golf course that was built by one of the viceroys. On the way back, we stopped at the Wildflower Hall, a very fancy hotel--so fancy in fact that children under twelve are not allowed. Then we headed back to the hotel which was about an hour away.

The following day we said goodbye to my mom's parents and her sister and they flew back to Delhi. We were fortunate enough to move to a nicer place called the Springfield. From there we could walk to the mall in about thirty minutes. We did a little shopping and were even able to have a Domino's pizza. We spent a lot of time at the Springfield playing chess and carrom. Carrom is a game that a few kids taught me at school. You try to hit poker chips into pockets like in pool. It was much cooler in Shimla and we had to use heaters.

The last night we went to a banquet in honor of Professor C.N.R Rao, one of India's most famous scientists. He was the founder of JNCASR, the institute where my dad works.