A magical 'hill station' in India most Western travellers haven't discovered ... yet

When you grow up in India, your summer hideaway is not a beach, but a place where you can beat the heat. For our family - Papa, Mama and my younger brother Ambar - that place was Shimla: a hill station, straight out of a storybook, perched on the foothills of the Himalayas.

Shimla was just a cluster of small villages before the British - in the early 19th century - turned it into their summer capital to escape the searing Delhi heat. In fact, it was the British who coined the word "hill station" and built the Kalka-Shimla Railway, which is so surreal, everyone calls it the Kalka-Shimla Toy Train nowadays.

I have high-res memories of arriving in the city of Kalka in the wee hours of the morning, where we would board this train, which - to this day - begins its ascent towards Shimla just as the sun starts to peep from behind the majestic mountains.

It climbs steep hills, passes through more than a hundred tunnels and crosses more than 800 bridges. Its gauge is so narrow, compartments so small and pace so slow that you can literally get off the train while it's moving, take pictures and hop back again. Ambar and I were never allowed to do that sort of thing, but I can only imagine what "influencers" must get up to these days on this six-hour journey.

At the end of the train trip, another adventure awaited our brood. There were no hotel-booking websites or apps in those days, so Papa would simply ask one of the coolies (a person who carries luggage in Indian English) to take us to the nearest hotel.

Of course, the nearest hotel was never up to scratch. So he would ask the coolie to take us to the next one, and the next one, and the next one ... until Mama was happy.

Once settled, we would explore all the highlights of Shimla. Head to the The Ridge lookout where sweeping mountain views await. Walk along the pedestrian-only The Mall road, which is always so beautifully lit, it feels like Christmas year-round. Go horse-riding in lush valleys dotted with houses that look like Swiss chalets. And head to the Jakhoo Temple, where there are so many monkeys, it's better known as the Monkey Temple.

But of all the memories, the most distinct is of my mother wearing the chuda - a set of red bangles new brides wear in India. She first came to Shimla with my dad just after their wedding, but on their way, her chuda broke and she could not wear it on her honeymoon. So she wore a new one on every trip to Shimla thereafter.

In 2003, I moved to Australia. Three years later, I took my Australian partner to India for the first time. Our itinerary featured all the highlights of the country, including - no surprises - Shimla.

I knew what to do ... we took the toy train, soaked up the views from The Ridge, walked down The Mall, went up the Monkey Temple and horse-rode through mist-shrouded valleys.

We even asked a coolie at the train station to help us find a nice hotel - even though we could have booked accommodation online.

As we walked into our room, a penny dropped. Two of the walls in the room had big glass windows, with heart-stopping views of Shimla. My eyes welled up ... not because of what I saw but because of what I remembered.

At some point in my childhood, I realised, my family had stayed in this very hotel, with this very view, and perhaps in this very room.

Knowingly or unknowingly, I had almost re-created the trip of my childhood ... just one piece was missing: the hotel. But the coolie took care of that.