City Plaza 7 Chandigarh

I keep on travelling to different states in India. Nah, not for me to stay in hotels and burn my fingers aand pocket. Here's a nice site www.payinguests.com . Whenever I need to get hold of an aaccommodation in any city I just search. If it is urgent then I give my own SOS advt. , which aagain is free of cost. A convenient way, hats off to the concept.

Headed out of Delhi on the fast train to Kalka - in class AC Seater 2nd (Indian railways have numerous, complicated classes). Neatly uniformed staff bringing a seemingly endless number of things a newspaper, bottles of water, tea (naturally), food. All very comfortable and efficient, whizzing across the plains of Northern India. You do however see some horrible shanty towns clustered by ...

... to stop off in Chandigarh. Nek Chand had been building this secret garden made of recycled items for something like 30 years. He didnt tell friends or family as he thought they would think that he was mad for doing it. The place is fantastic. Every area has different themes and uses diffeent items - electrical sockets, plugs made into walls and features, china making mosiacs, people made up of all sorts of things - some ladies made up of bangles. I had seen and heard ...

Early 6.30 am start as this is a full days ride, although this section is mostly good, (by mountain road standard), it is also in a more heavily populated area, which means there is a lot more traffic on the roads to contend with many turns and switchbacks, and the corners mostly dirt and wet or muddy.

The biggest danger though comes from the overtaking vehicles, faster cars going in ...

... my some of his food, but I just had to joke that as an American I have a sensitive stomach, not wanting to say the food could potentially throw me into the hospital. We stopped at several more roadside places - myself getting random laughs, waves, and smiles from small children. I knew we were almost to Mcleod Ganj when I had my first glimpse of the snow peaked mountains. These mountains seemed to rise out of the land like nothing I have seen ...

... post-British leader. Construction of the ground-breaking experiment in town planning began in 1952, but the city, comprising of over 60 orderly spaced grids, or sectors, wasn't completed until the 1960's. Wide, tree lined, & cow-free (again un-Indian) streets separate the sectors and with roadside signs spaced every few hundred metres identifying the different sectors one could surely be excused for believing they were in a military compound or on ...

... called Nek Chand who was a road inspector. He collected broken bits of porcelain, brick a brack, broken bangles etc to create statues of various people and animals. This was done illegally at first but when uncovered it was considered a work of art and he was given a salary and helpers to expand the site. I loved it as it is really quirky and only 10 rupees entrance. http://www.nekchand.com Please check out the website

... road. One soldier stood by a gate and spoke with all the drivers passing through; sometimes they just waived cars along, sometimes they wanted to talk. I started watching the kilometer markers. 15...13...10...9...8...7... Seven kilometers out of town the driver pulled off into an empty lot, that was as far as he planned to go. An uproar burst from the passengers and a five minute argument ensued. When the argument quieted, a man walked ...

... with Nagpur after the madness of Pakistan , Chandigarh took it to another level. It's a planned city (very rare in India ). It has rubbish bins in the street (also very rare). People actually use the bins (even rarer).  And beggars & cows are conspicuous by their absence. In addition, it has some of the most chilled out locals we've ever come across in the sub-continent. Here in the Punjab , the majority religion is Sikhism, and its followers seem to ...

... me with a half smile of disbelief that said, we've got 8 hours of this! We found solace in the assunmtion that many of the passengers were just making local journeys within the town and as we travelled further things would 'ease off'....we couldn't have been more wrong! For every 5 passengers that got off 7 got on and so it continued for the next 4 hours. I eventually nodded off into a sort of half sleep my head bouncing on the buttocks of the man stood at my shoulder in the aisle ...