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Published: February 10th 2010
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Driving excitment 26 secs
1 additional video(s) currently being processed Patiala is a small city in northern India of about 500 000 people. It is quite small, somewhat disorganized, extremely busy and always full of people and traffic. There is not much to the town here. There is a hospital, the college, a jail, a few temples and a couple markets. The students at Thapar do not like Patiala at all and constantly ask us why we bothered to come to the middle of nowhere. The main attraction here is the market (that I have yet to visit) which is apparently rather small. There is no mall, no movie theatres and according to the students, nowhere to have fun. So, this past weekend, we went on our first adventure, to the city all the students love: Chandigarh.
The trip We got up early on Saturday morning to hop on a Thapar bus and sit for the hour and a half to two hours it takes to get to Chandigarh, which is 60km away. This is the same bus we rode in on from Delhi, when we came from the airport. But this time, everyone is awake and alert and actually able to see our surroundings. The trip starts out
slow because of all the city traffic and after a while picks up some speed. And what did we do to entertain ourselves? Well, we didn't need to bring anything. All the entertainment we need comes from watching the bus driver skillfully maneuver around other trucks, cars and buses. First things first: they drive on the left here. Everyone keeps forgetting and freaking out. To add to that, I'd stay that only 3/4 of the trip was actually spent on the left side of the road. With everyone going everywhere and the lines painted along the middle of the road seeming more and more like a waste of money, we finally figure out the driving rules in India. There are as follows:
1. If I am bigger and honk longer and louder, I get the right of way.
2. If I am bigger, I can go where ever I want to on the road, and the oncoming traffic has to drive on the shoulder (usually dirt or into a field)
3. The only time I can't pass is when there is a bigger vehicle already passing someone in the opposite direction.
4. Don't run over the people on bicycles.
That's just rude.
5. Pedestrians fend for themselves, or stop traffic if there are enough of them.
The hotel We stayed at a relatively nice hotel, at a reasonable price (in India) which was about 1500 rupees for a four person room. It ended up being about 10$ per person. The hotel wasn't fantastic or anything. The only reason I am memtioning it is because of the events that were taking place while we were there. Two marriages were happening at the hotel. One on the left side and one on the right. And Indian weddings are extravagant, big, loud, musical and carry on late into the night. So, naturally we were all very curious and decided to go see what was happening. About half of our group went to the main floor to observe the groom riding in on a horse and being surrounded by family that proceeded to dance all around him, accompanied by eight men, six playing bagpipes and two on large drums.
I'll skip most of the details because I'm not even entirely sure what happened, but in the end, about 15 of us were invited to the wedding. The people there were
very curious about us and thought it was fantastic to have more people celebrate with them. We ended up meeting the bride and groom (who were extremely nice) and got our photo taken with them (unfortunately on another girl's camera, so I don't have the picture right now). After that we mingled some more with the guests and eventually got kicked out by some of the over-protective aunts and uncles. It was a fun night.
Shopping We spent most of Saturday shopping. We went to a market and then to an enormous outdoor mall, with name brand clothing. I loved the market. It was vibrant, bustling with people and stuffed to the breaking point with every kind of thing imaginable. The boys all walked around a few times and got bored. The girls had all decided we wanted to buy Indian suits (like a long dress-like top with either tight or baggy pants and a scarf - called a chunni). We pretty much took up most of the time and made everyone wait for us. But in the end everyone was happy with their purchases. Six of the eight girls bought suits (which were tailored for our specific
measurements) and everyone looked beautiful.
The rock garden We visted the sights in Chandigarh, which were the lake (there are very few lakes in India), the rose garden and the rock garden. The lake was nice, and we all went paddle boating. The rose garden would have been nice, but since it is winter in India very few roses are in bloom, so it ended up being a very large park full of almost green grass and one or two flowers. The rock garden, however, was spectacular. I will let the pictures explain for themselves.
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Rob F.
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The clothes makes the engineer
Wow. What a lovely outfit. I can just imagine Elise in a chunni and a hard hat now. Too bad it takes so long to get anywhere in India, otherwise you could do twice as much. It sounds like your excursions will be the highlight of your trip, along with the heavy equipment in tool shop of course. Take care Dad