Hotel South End 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.

... rail-tracks.

In Kalka we changed trains for a very different, but very pleasurable, rail experience. The "toy train" up to Shimla. This is something of a colonial relic, a narrow gauge railway that winds its way from the plains into the Himalayan foothills up to 2,150 metres above sea level. Crammed in tiny carriages for 6 hours, through spectacular scenery, an ancient ...

... open so we could peer in through the window in the door - didn't really want to go through into the court as we wouldnt be there that long! Each court has a tapestry hanging up behind the judge - each is different and has symbols defining the two states that thee courts cover. In the last court there was o case being heard so the people inside beckoned us in, guy who was sitting under where the judge sat, said come in, sit down. We walked in a bit further but he then ...

... i have no idea, everyone in this country is a chancer!!

oh and this is the start of our last trip in india, which is gonna take us up to the himalayas and to lots of places. we have two new drivers, neither can speak much english so we're content to take the mick out of them all day.

a further note. stay away from the sunstar hotel if ya make it here, there isn't a shower in the entire hotel!! brid was mingin!

... Mumbai airport is massive, and is built like American airports, with jetways and everything. There is another story, as always. The terminal we arrived at was not the terminal that we were to leave from (Mumbai), so we had to walk to another terminal, but there was no way to do that without going back through security. Luckily, there was no line at the security, which was upstairs. We had ...

... about the bus stands and train stations than I do of the actual city. What I can say about it is that it is Indias most 'conceptual' city, and it was designed to be a new 'modern' Indian city. All it really is is a big grid where each square is named sector 1, sector 2, etc. Each sector is 1 km long and it is a very strange mix of western and Indian culture. There are carpet and sari stores next to McDonalds and Subway in sector 42. Strange.

... both laugh everytime). We'll be shaken out of this oh so Un-Indian bubble when we leave here for the return to Delhi in a few hours. At least we know what to expect in Delhi. This Chandigarh un-Indianness is, in a very unexpectant way, unnerving. Is someone playing a trick on us? We need the old reliables of anarchy, noise, dirt, sweat, pollution, touts offering us stuff we don't need/want... and I need to get this song out of my head. Day 223 & 224 ...

we also had solang valley as a tourist attraction one more money extracting point.. but it was worth it! only little reasonable it should be. there was paragliding and ball-rolling. for parag. we had to climb steep heights for an hour and while descending in the parachute it was beautiful to see the valley from top. there was a huge ball ...

... camp we heard the deer giving alarm calls. We waited and a deer shot out across the track. Then suddenly as we looked up, a tiger was nonchantly standing there in between our jeep and another jeep. It stoped, looked both ways and disapeared into the bush. It was so exciting and everyone on the camp was buzzing about it. Definitely the highlight of our trip so far. On the night, after discussing our sightings with everyone, we were ...

... after 6 weeks of it we were desperate for some kind of respite from it! Hopefully the high Himalaya would provide it. The following day we made an early morning trip to the bus station.We had been told by our guesthouse that regular buses ran to our destination but we didnt know from which stand, we received contradictory advice from everyone we questioned in the various cues that had formed so we approached a window that claimed to offer 'Travel Information'. We were confronted by a ...