Monday in Chandigarh: A cautionary tale of lost and found.

This is a wordy blog today due to the internet being a bit flakey and so pics will come later.

So where do I begin

To tell the story of how great a day can be....

Started off with a lovely breakfast of omelets on toast, with poha, a rice with stir fried peanuts flavoured with cardamon. 

Followed by apple, grapefruit and pear slices.

The we (Chris, Anamika and I)headed off to the big city for some shopping and a bit of sightseeing with a somewhat vague plan. We were able to ride into town with Anya one of the daughters of the owner of Aura Pottery. 

My lovely friend Amritpal had told me that I must see the Rock Garden in Chandigarh so that was on the list for today. 

We started off in the Rose Garden which was a bit of a disappointment as it is totally the wrong season as the bushes are just starting their growth, There were a number with a few blooms but mostly    bare bushes.

 

But a fascinating place as it is the largest rose garden in Asia covering 40.25 acres with 825 varieties but with over 32,500 plants.

Saw some more of those lovely cute squirrels, boy are they fast.

There were some lovely trees in bloom

and an interesting fountain

and the rubbish bins were quite cute, though not used often.

We then headed across the road to the ‘Adventure Park’ where I was accosted by a young lad aged about 8 or so who wanted to shine my shoes. I was wearing my canvas shoes and luckily Anamika was able to translate and tell him I didn’t have leather shoes but he wanted to clean the soles and edgings. We managed to dissuade him and moved on. The Leisure Park was a bit of a washout but there was an interesting replica of the Eiffel Tower off to one side

and then we were distracted by a man riding a camel.

This was obviously a tourist attraction. We wandered over the road to the Natural History Museum but it being Monday it was closed. While we were outside the gate the camel, handler and rider came over and paused by the low wall. The rider then stepped off the camel onto the wall and then stepped down off the wall. Very clever. Using the wall rather then have the camel kneel on the road. 

So then we decided to walk to the Rock Garden but realized it was a bit far so we caught an ‘auto’.

Autos are essentially tuktuks the 3 wheeled transports often seen in Bali and Indonesia. They are everywhere here and a very common mode of transport. In Chandigarh the majority are green and yellow. 

So we haggled our price and got in. We learned to stay in the background while Anamika discussed the price as when they saw us foreigners the price rose considerably. 

Now traveling by road is a very interesting experience especially in an auto.....

road rules are fluid, give way when all other options have been tried, honk your horn to let people know you are here, travel in the opposite lane until you pass 15 vehicles or another vehicle comes head on towards you, head around the corner almost on two wheels and when pulling out into traffic just GO!

We managed to get to the Rock Garden in one piece, heaved a sigh of relief, paid our ₹30 entry fee each and headed in through a small door in a wall. 

!!WELL!!
What an amazing place. It was started in 1958 by a man who took rocks and waste ceramic materials home and started building a fantasy place where “Gods, Man and Beast could live together in harmony”.

The government found it in 1973 after he had built around 500 sculptures. They decided that instead of destroying it as it was illegally on government land, they gave him some workers and what an amazing place it is.
I will post up an album later so you can see.

2 hours later I got a phone call while we were heading out. It was Tavleen wanting to talk to Anamika. It tuns out that she had left her cell phone in the auto and her mother had rung and some strange man had answered her phone. So after some mixed messages we ended up heading out in our next auto to the closest Airtel shop where she cancelled her phones SIM card and then purchased a new SIM and transferred her phone number to put in another phone she has. She thought that as she couldn’t call the phone due to flat battery the phone was lost. So after we sorted out the new SIM and then headed off into Sector 17 to find me some clothes. As it is heading to winter all we could find were winter clothes and they were far too hot for me, we then managed to get another auto and headed off to Elante Mall where we went clothes shopping in The Big Bizzare.

Security here is very high and our bags had to be scanned and we were subject to wanding  going into the mall. This is a metal and explosives check. Terrorism is still very much alive here.
Luckily between Anamika and a great sales guy, I managed to purchase 2 collared shits, 2 polo shirts and 4 pairs of trousers (2 track pants and 2 cotton trousers) for ₹5000, this equates to $NZ110. Quite impressed as the quality was great.

So in the midst of trying on these clothes another phone call from Tavleen, telling me that Anamika’s phone had been found but we needed to get across town to pick it up before 4:30, so into another auto and off we went. It cost Anamika only ₹250 to get it back which was a lot less than she thought it would cost her. 

So by this time we decided that food would be a good thing so we headed back across town (each of these trips cost approx ₹100 for the 4 of us ($NZ2.20). Now these trips were around 20 mins plus in duration. 

Chandigarh has a population of 1,130,000 people and covers around 114 square km around the same size as Hamilton. A lot of people in a small area.

Map of Chandigarh

So back to Elante Mall and food!  We went into a South India restaurant for some food. 
We had dosa with idli and sambar.

Was  a lovely tasty meal. I must say I am getting the hang of eating one handed using the roti, dosa or whatever as a spoon. 
The back in the auto to meet up with Anya for our trip home at 6:30pm through the peak hour traffic in darkness.
It is dark around 5:30pm with twilight lasting around 30 mins. 
So a full on day and so I was quite exhausted so didn’t get this finished last night what with trying to upload pics and the like so up early this morning. Managed to get them into the cloud but with the internet playing up..... will get there eventually!

Safe travels everyone.

ਸੁਰੱਖਿਅਤ ਯਾਤਰਾ

Surakhi'ata yātarā