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Published: April 15th 2012
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DRIVE DOWN FROM SHIMLA & CHANDIGARH. Monday 9 April, 2012.
We were collected at 9.00 am by our driver for the journey back down to the plains. In some respects the car journey down was more interesting than the Toy Train ride up as we were able to see the daily life of the people living on the mountains. There were children going to school in their smart, clean uniforms; stalls selling vegetables, holy cows again (there weren't any in Shimla). We stopped for a comfort break after about 2 hours at a really nice clean place. Two hours later and we were on the motorway heading towards Chandigarh.
Chandigarh is the state capital of both Punjab and Haryana, but part of neither. It is a Union Territory administered by the Federal Government. This slightly strange situation came about after Partition which placed the Punjab's main city of Lahore in Pakistan therefore leaving Punjab without a capital. President Nehru commissioned a 'city of the future' and the job of designing it went to the Swiss-French architect Charles Edouard Jeanneret aka Le Corbusier.
Construction of the new city started in 1952 and Chandigarh was to be a ground breaking
experiment in town planning. The city is made up of orderly grids with sweeping boulevards, divided into 29 sectors each measuring 800 by 1200 metres and interspersed with green spaces. A bit like a larger version of Welwyn Garden City in the UK.
The city has grown since the first phase and now has 61 sectors. Other satellite towns in the same grid style have sprung up on either side of the city. What struck us about the place more than anything was that there were more cars than two-wheelers. This had not been the case in any other city. Also, like Shimla and Delhi, no holy cows sleeping in the roads. The people living in this city are more affluent than other cities of a comparable size and earn nearly double the national average.
Our first stop was the Rock Garden which is said to be India's most visited tourist site after the Taj Mahal. This garden is the lifelong labour of retired Public Works Department Road Inspector Nek Chand. Inspired by a recurrent childhood dream, he began construction in 1965. Although it started out as a small garden, when it was discovered in 1973 it covered
12 acres.
The garden was completely illegal but the city council recognised it as a great artistic work and awarded Chand a salary to continue his work with a labour force of 50 to help him. The garden was opened to the public in 1976 and now covers 25 acres and has several thousand sculptures. Nek Chand is now 85 and continues to oversee the expansion of the site which is a labyrinth of more than a dozen different interconnecting enclosures with narrow passageways, arches, streams, bridges, waterfalls, battlements, turrets and more. Phase 3 is now well under construction and houses a magical children's playground with an outdoor auditorium.
The building of Chandigarh provided the site and the material for Nek Chand's creation. Without Chandigarh there would be no rock garden. However, there is a clear contrast between the city's orderly grid pattern and Chand's labyrinthine garden. Nek Chand uses many recycled materials in his garden including oil drums, tiles, bricks and brick dust, metal rods, foundary slag, bottles, pots, crockery, bangles, bicycle frames, exhaust pipes, wire, electrical fittings, tube lights, rags and human hair. The waterfalls use rainwater that is kept and recycled throughout the year.
After visiting the rock garden we went to the Rose Garden. This large green space in the middle of the city is planted with thousands of different species of roses and has a small stream running through it. We strolled around in the sunshine with the lovely colours and rose scent around us. There was a fantastic wind chime the size and shape of a weeping willow tree which made a lovely sound as the wind rattled its chimes. As we crossed the grounds an Indian girl came rushing over, tugged M's sleeve and said "one snap". We didn't understand what she wanted at first, but soon realised that she wanted her husband to take a picture of her with us - they obviously don't see many white faces and we were a bit of a novelty. As we continued across the park it happened again "please just one snap" this time it was two youths. We smiled as they took the photos and then settled down on a bench under a tree before returning to the car.
We were by now a little peckish. While we were in Mumbai our Mrs Unknown guide had suggested that we should
visit an Indian McDonald's restaurant as the menu would be very different from what we are used to in the West. The driver took us to McDonalds where we had a drink and a portion of fries. "Large or Small, Spicy or Regular?" was the question here. We went for regular and they came, not with ketchup, but with Piri Piri sauces. If we had been a bit more adventurous we could have had a Mc Aloo, a McSpicy Paneer, a McVeggie or a Chicken Maharaja Mac. No beefburgers though as cows are holy!
We returned to the driver who took us to the airport. We had to wait for about 15 minutes before we could check in and the flight to Delhi was an hour late. We were met and taken back to The Residence Hotel, where we had been upgraded to a suite. On the way M had arranged to meet or agent, Ashicur at 9.00 am tomorrow morning. We had a good dinner and then went to bed.
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