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After Dave's fateful uttering of the phrase 'neither of us have got ill yet' I promptly got ill so we spent an extra day in Chandigarh. Warned of the awesome yet mysterious power of the jinx (which Dave still doesn't believe in) we set off for Shimla early on Monday morning??Tasha
We filled up with fuel at 7am, hoping to cover the 110km in about 3 or 4 hours; arriving in Shimla for lunch. This was not to be!
We first encountered troubles after a mere 20km, in the form of torrential rain. Unfortunately, unbeknown to us the same rain which started falling much earlier higher up the foothills caused a series of landslides, completely cutting off the Chandigarh - Shimla road in 5 places. We worked our way to the front of the queue with skill and finesse, where we waited for the digger to clear the path. This took anything from 30 mins, to 3 of hours. Luckily a digger was also working from the Shimla side. We finally cleared the last landslide at around 4:30, having covered a mere 40km. Things then brightened up and we made good ground for an hour or so before stopping for lunch. After lunch the rains came back with a vengeance. We limped the remaining 25km to Shimla through the downpour and sometimes dense fog, finally arriving at 6:30. It took us 11 and a half hours to cover the 110km!!
This morning (Tuesday) we treated ourselves to breakfast in the Oberoi Cecil (Shimla's finest hotel) agreeing to eat nothing but street food for the remainder of the trip!
We shall probably leave Shimla tomorrow, in the direction of Kalpa and the start of the Hindustan - Tibet highway?..landslides permitting!
Tasha and David
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