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11th April 2006 - Day 11
Early start today caught the 7:40 train from Delhi to Chandigarh which was 3 & 1/2 hours. The journey was quite pleasant a bit rocky but ok. Very surprisingly we were given a free newspaper, water (bottled) a breakfast - tea and biscuits bread and jam (and vegetable fingers) if only the British train service were so hospitable it may make me use the train more!!! (And all for 450 rupees - thats £6.00). Arrived at Chandigarh station and quite easily got a prepid taxi to a hotel recommended by the Lonely planet / rough guide - one of them). Arrived at the hotel and managed to book a room for 650 rupees - £8.67 what a bargain, room is pretty good, clean and has its own shower bathroom and most importantly a/c!!!! Decided to visit the rock garden's today which were amazing - similar to Gaudi in Barcelona. Pretty cool stuff considering its all made out of scrap rubbish. Scultures and amazing walls and steps covered in broken plates - multicoloured cups. Took a rickshaw back to the bus station - which was nice and the evening seemed breezy and quite cool. Chandigarh is very quiet, very different to Dehli, very few cars and traffic, lots of green space and big houses along wide streets - very American suburbs.
12th April 2006 - Day 12
Spent a relaxing day walking around Chandigarh, walking in the rose garden, which were very nice. Booked our train ticket to Shimla today - queuing for a train ticket is mad, people just tend to push in at the front of the queue - So you have to be quite assertive about your place in the queue otherwise you'll be wating all day!!!
13th April 2007 - Day 13
Another day in Chandigarh - spent the day lazing around the rose gardens again, which was lovely and peaceful. Spent the afternoon strolling around "Le Corbusier" capital complex, took a tour around the assembly building - into the congress hall which was pretty nice stuff!!! We've met an Indian man who invited us to his families house to have lunch with them - we did initially agree but thinking about it. We do not know anything about this man and his family house is 5km away!!! So going to try and get out of it - politely.
14th April 2006 - Day 14
Well bit of a strange day it did not turn out as we expected. Spent the morning finally downloading some of our many pics to the website - Hooray!!! Arrive back at our hotel to a phone call from Sam - the young Indian guy we had met the day before, he was suggesting that we met him and his family and go to his house for a meal. We were a little apprehensive and so we asked if we could meet at a nearby cafe firstly. We met Sam and his father ("Ravinder" i think) for a tea and a chat. We chatted about our lives and about England, they then suggested that we go back to their house for a meal which Ravinder's wife had already prepared for us. So we decided to go and met his family and to experience a real Indian (Punjabi / Sikh) families life! We arrived at the family house and were greeted by Sam's mother, younger brother and 2 cousins. We were welcomed and shown a slideshow of pictures Ravinder had collected from his trip when he was a small child of England (London). (Ravinder was actually born in England and his father was posted back to Indian when he was still small). The family were lovely and very enthusiastic to find out about our lives back home and our families. This was a good experience if not a little unusual compared to Western ways of meeting people!!!
15th April 2006 - Day 15
Well what a day!!! What a long and tiring day!!! We left the hotel to catch a bus from Chandigarh to Kalka, which was quite a bumpy journey. Then caught the Toy train to Shimla which was a 5 and 1/2 hour journey - it was well worth it as scenery was amazing, the train slowly steamed its way up through mountains and green lush valleys, which had numerous little villages, with house built on rock faces - quite precarious!!! Arrived at Shimla - experiencing slight altitude sickness (as Shimla is 2100 meters above sea level). We were hassled by many porters in the train station and on the way to find a hotel. Some porters were very insistent and proceeded to follows us hoping we would change our minds. It was a very steep climb to the main part of Shimla from the train station and carrying out big rucksacks was a struggle!!!
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