SHIMLA
45-49km/~2.5hrs from Shimla. The cricket ground sits at 2,444m — a genuine Guinness World Record, built by the Maharaja of Patiala after he was barred from Shimla for a scandal with a British officer's daughter. You can't walk on the pitch, only view it from the boundary.
After Maharaja Bhupinder Singh of Patiala was banished from Shimla around 1891-92 by the British over social conduct that offended Lord Kitchener, he built Chail as a rival summer capital on a hilltop actually higher than British Shimla. The adjoining cricket ground, begun under his father Rajinder Singh and completed under Bhupinder Singh in the 1890s, required flattening an entire hilltop and today stands at 2,444 m, recognized as the highest cricket ground in the world. Chail Palace itself, completed in 1911, later became a luxury heritage hotel while the ground continues to serve the Chail Military School.
