While we were in Shimla, we traveled to Kufri one day. This city is 20km from Shimla, with an elevation of 2,720 meters (8,920 feet) above sea level. We weren’t really sure what we were in for when we went there as it was recommended by the tour company that I booked the trip with. We were told that we could take ‘a nice pony ride’ up the summit. Once we arrived, it was quite chaotic. Horses and people everywhere. We didn’t want to ride a horse – I was honestly shocked and saddened by the way these horses were treated. It was awful. Dylan and I chose to walk up the summit. People in charge of the horses kept telling us that we weren’t allowed to walk, we could only ride the horses however, other people were walking so we declined the horse rides several times. Halfway up to the summit, I was not able to handle seeing the treatment of the horses. Did I say how awful it was? I won’t go into details, but it was brutal. As tears filled my eyes, my son put his arm around me and said ‘let’s just turn around and go back, mom’. I guess I am super-sensitive, but no animal should ever endure this kind of treatment. On the way back down the summit, we spotted a hill that didn’t have many people on it so we chose to walk here and take beautiful photos of the Himalayan Mountains.

Interesting fact about Kufri: this region was once part of Nepal.