Chandigarh

Joe and I jumped on the 6.00 am Himalayan Queen this morning - destination Chandigarh.The city was designed by Le Corbusier and it's stylish and spacious - very easy on the senses after a week in Delhi's most frantic quarter. We've found a great budget hotel called Divyadeep. The room is 60s style - all high ceilings, panelled wood and patterned curtains. I keep on humming Mrs Robinson to myself! One door from our room opens on to a communal relaxation area and there's another place to chill on the rooftop. There's also room service and a TV am i really backpacking? The hotel is run by Sai Baba devotees and they're very kind and attentive - one walked me round to his friend's shop so I could use the phone. Joe and I won't be having any sneaky Kingfishers tonight though as it's strictly teetotal.

Friendly locals

Having avoided tourist offices like the plague in Delhi cos there are so many fake ones we were pleasantly surprised by the excellent official one in Chandigarh. Vinod welcomed us like old friends - we were given cups of chai and talked through the sites. We also received detailed help for our onward journey to Shimla tomorrow. It should be a very pretty train ride as it takes us through the Himalayan foothills.

Walking through the Rock Garden

We went to the Rock Garden in Chandigarh this afternoon. It's cool, really mysterious. It was built illegally by a retired Public Works department employee - Nek Chand Saini and was discovered in 1973. It's now a national treasure and is still expanding. My favourite bits were the waterfall and the monkey sculptures.

We also had gangs of schoolchildren asking to have their photos taken with us. It was lovely that people were so friendly in Delhi everyone's trying to sell you something here they are genuinely interested. We get asked our jobs a lot and when Joe says that he's a teacher people are genuinely impressed. It must be a higher status job here than in Britain where he mostly gets pitying looks! There does seem to be a very high value on learning in this culture - every bookseller I've been in has had a fantastic selection of paperbacks in English. So who knows what the choice would be like in Hindi.