(For Part 1 of this travelogue, click here).

On Day 3 of our Himachal trip, we left Kasauli and drove up (with an abortive detour at Arki, as described in Part 1) to Shimla. At Shimla, we were booked to stay at The Oberoi Cecil, a hotel with a history to it. The spot where the Cecil now stands was once a home (Tendril Cottage) where Rudyard Kipling stayed while visiting Shimla in 1885. Three years later that home was torn down and another building came up in its stead. In 1902, this building was expanded, refurbished, and turned into a hotel: The Cecil, which—in 1944—was acquired by the hotelier MS Oberoi.

The Cecil is gorgeous, all polished wood and colonial style art on the walls. The LO fell in love with it at first glance (as did we, to be honest), and soon made friends with several of the staff members.

Over the course of the next three days, she spent a good bit of time playing in the children’s recreation room, and charmed so many people around that she got a little surprise gift, too.

Among the other joys of The Oberoi Cecil is The Cedar Garden, a small paved yard shaded by towering deodar cedars, that stands on the other side of the road. Every evening, for guests staying at the hotel, there’s a bonfire here accompanied by a performance of traditional Himachali dances. We attended this one evening, while eating a Himachali dinner. The LO was okay with the food: what she really enjoyed was the dancing, done by a quintet of very graceful, very friendly men. She and two other girls in the audience in fact joined the dancers in what was explained to us is known as the ‘mala naati’: a circular dance that has got Himachal’s name into the Guinness Book of World Records.

But Shimla, with its long history as a colonial town (it remained, for many years, the summer capital) has more colonial buildings as its historical landmarks than it does ‘traditional Himachali’ ones. Many of these are ranged along the iconic Mall Road, a pedestrian-only zone that we were obliged to walk along for a distance of 2 km from The Cecil. “But why are we going to a mall?” the LO griped, when we first told her where we were bound. Malls, to our child, mean glitzy sprawls where you have lots of posh shops, food courts and restaurants, and play areas. Predictable stuff, not something you’d go all the way to Shimla to see.

We told her what the Mall was about, and then took her there. Fortunately, the LO is a sturdy child, so the walk didn’t knock her out completely. She enjoyed all the stunning heritage buildings along the route, from the Sanatorium just a little way away from The Cecil, to the impressive Railway Board Building (dating to 1896-97, and even today housing a plethora of government offices).

Just around the same place is the General Post Office of Shimla, where, because the door was open, passersby could peek in. And explain to curious offspring the intricacies of mail being sorted and sent its way.

The deodars along the road were a sight for sore eyes, as were the many tiny wildflowers sprouting from between the stones of the walls.

What made the LO nervous (and me, I must admit) were the many monkeys along the Mall. Dozens of rhesus macaques scamper about the road and swing through the trees; we tried, as far as we could, to give them a wide berth.

Sadly, with one lapse. Among the many vendors selling things on the Mall was a cotton candy man. The LO, eyes wide with glee, asked for one (she’s never had this before) and we, forgetting what we should have remembered, bought it for her. Initially, she didn’t like it (‘It’s too sweet!’) but then she settled in and was enjoying it as we walked along…

… until a large monkey came out of nowhere and snatched it from her. The LO needed a good deal of soothing and reassuring. Lesson learnt: do not walk down the Mall eating things or carrying edibles.

Anyway, we wandered on, to what is known as Scandal Point, the area behind the famous Gaiety Theatre (which has hosted, in the more than a century it’s been around, such greats as Prithviraj Kapoor and KL Saigal). Scandal Point is supposed to draw its name from a popular bit of gossip: the story goes that the Maharaja of Patiala, Bhupinder Singh, had an affair with the daughter of a British Viceroy, and the rendezvous they chose for their elopement was this point. Furthermore, goes the story, the British were so incensed, they banned Bhupinder Singh from entering Shimla thereafter, so he went on to build his own palace at Chail.

The story is probably bunkum (Bhupinder Singh was an infant when this is supposed to have happened), but Scandal Point is hugely popular as a photo backdrop.

Even the Police Assistance Room here dates back to the late 1800s, and has a kitschy gilded sculpture that appealed to the LO. She insisted she wanted a photo taken with her and her father here, mirroring the sculpture. Daddy’s girl, of course, has Daddy wrapped round her little finger, so (even though he was very embarrassed about this silly pose) my husband complied.

The Gaiety Theatre—rather, the Gaiety Heritage Cultural Complex, since it covers several buildings—has been recently restored, and beautifully. The buildings look wonderful, and the spaces have been put to good use: we visited some of the rooms here to see an exhibition on the preservation and conservation of traditional Himachali architecture.

One last little titbit about Scandal Point: among the landmarks here, though (as far as I could tell) not especially old, is the Shimla Fire Station. And, as would perhaps make sense in a hill town with narrow roads, a place with a red jeep standing outside.

(No, the jeep isn’t their only fire brigade. They have at least one regular-sized fire truck too, but I found the jeep, and the small, store-sized fire station, very appealing. Many of the neighbouring restaurants are larger than the Shimla Fire Station).

Further on from Scandal Point, there are other sights to see.

There’s the Band Stand, where once—obviously—bands would play. Today, after restoration work, it’s a Himachal Pradesh Tourism Development Corporation (HPTDC) restaurant called Goofa.

And the very prominent, impressive Christchurch, one of North India’s oldest and best-maintained churches. When my husband and I last visited Shimla in 2008, visitors were allowed to roam all across the church (which was built in 1857); now restrictions are in place, and you can go only up to the last two pews, not beyond.

This means you can’t get a really good view of the beautiful stained-glass windows that line the walls and form a backdrop to the altar. More, you can’t see the lovely old floor tiles (they’ve been covered by a thin carpet). Or, even, the polished brass plaque, screwed into the top of the first pew, that designates it as the pew reserved for the Viceroy.

We ventured into the bargain-hunting shopper’s go-to market, Lakka Bazaar, where the LO bought a little souvenir for a friend back home. We agreed that yes, Lakkar Bazaar was too crowded, and, at the end near Christ Church, too stinky (there are lots of horses lined up, waiting for tourists wanting rides).

We had dinner at what must be the tiniest restaurant of its kind I have ever been to: Himachali Rasoi, on the Middle Road below the Mall, which specializes in Himachali food. They offer a fixed menu plus a couple of side dishes, lassi and chai as à la carte, but that’s it. The food, all vegetarian and with all the ‘vegetable dishes’ actually being lentil- or chickpea-based, was delicious. Even the LO couldn’t stop raving about it.

My husband, doing some random surfing of the web, had found mentions of a heritage building named Bantony Castle, just above the Mall. This has been recently restored, and now hosts a sound-and-light show, so we decided to go see. It took a bit of doing, because nobody seemed to know where it was. We finally ran it to earth very close to the Kali Bari, on Kali Bari Road.

The ‘Bantony’ of Bantony Castle is a corruption of ‘Bentinck’: it’s situated on what was known as Bentinck Hill, named after the Governor General, Lord William Bentinck. There are two different buildings within this complex, Bantony Castle and Bantony Cottage, dating back to circa 1880, and once comprising the summer residence of the Maharajas of Sirmaur.

Unfortunately, that day, the sound and light show had been cancelled because of some technical glitch. Casual visitors, at least, aren’t allowed inside the buildings, so we couldn’t look about. Instead, we wandered around the grounds, admiring the beauty of the buildings.

That, then, was the Mall and the Ridge area. There was more to explore in Shimla, both some things we’d visited back in 2008 and wanted to show our child, as well as places that would be as new to us as they’d be for her.

(I had been meaning to put all of the Shimla trip into one travelogue, but it was getting too unwieldy; so I’ll stop here. The rest of it—Viceregal Lodge, the Himalayan Bird Park, the Himachal Pradesh State Museum, and Annadale—will appear in the third and final instalment of this set of travelogues).