My Trip to Shimla; India

As I went to open my window to breathe in Shimla's cedar-scented air, a rhesus macaque monkey appeared, pressing its hairy, knowing face against the glass. Hotel staff had warned me to keep windows shut to avoid unwelcome raiders but, as my room was three floors up, I hadn't taken them seriously. Over the next few days, the monkeys would be my constant companions. 

Shimla straddles an eight-mile long ridge, buildings clinging to the green hillsides. The British began coming here in the 1820s as a refuge from the summer heat. By 1864 Shimla, nicknamed The Queen of Hills, was the British Raj's official summer capital. 

It also became a place of eccentric grandeur. A stroll along the largely pedestrianised Mall takes you past some fine examples of British whimsy. The General Post Office is mock-Tudor with Gothic twiddles. Gorton Castle, built by a British official, is dour Scottish baronial enlivened by Saracenic arches. The Town Hall looks ramblingly medieval. The effect is of a film set where the director is unsure whether his subject is Merrie England, Brigadoon or Arabian Nights. 

Shimla's current municipal authorities value the town's past – the entrance to a green-roofed pavilion in The Mall is inscribed "Our Built Heritage Is Our Identity, Let's Preserve It" and a new heritage museum has recently opened. Photos show British children on ponies, accompanied by their amahs, on the evening promenade along The Mall; officers recuperating from "Victoria's Little Wars"; carriages conveying suited men and hatted women to Sunday service at Christchurch, where a well-polished brass plaque still marks the pew of the Viceroy – the British monarch's representative in India; and people gossiping at Scandal Point, the town's main meeting point. 

The Mall remains a beguiling place to sit and observe the passing world. Now there are Sikh women up from the Punjab parading in sparkling holiday best with their husbands and children, Hindu holymen with ash-daubed foreheads and orange robes as well as some of the town's sizeable population of Tibetan refugees, and Gurkha solders in their wide hats with turned up brims (there are still large army cantonments in Shimla).