this morning a driver picked us up at 8 o'clock before official breakfast but they opened it for us and we travelled back down the mountain sometimes above and sometime below the railway. we did see 2 trains on their way up but it was very cloudy so they wouldn't have a great view. As we got nearer the plain we started to see more rubbish which was a shame as Simla was amazingly clean. Monkeys were happily wandering about as were Indian cows. people took their life in their hands as they overtook on blind bends.thankfully our driver stopped to take a call from our guide round chandergarh to confirm the time of our tour. Chandergarh is a major army and Punjab government town and getting into the hotel involved having the underside checked like in the old days in Belfast.Next to our hotel is the reserve bank of India and opposite is the Canadian embassy.
The city was conceived after partition in 1947 because Lahore the original capital of Punjab was now in Pakistan .A complete city in a modern grid fashion was decided upon and built entirely on virgin territory(apart from a couple of villages who were relocated). Corbusier was a major contributor to the design and several tell tale ideas are on display.All the housing and offices are confined to individual sectors,all numbered apart from no13!. Each sector had all the shops it needed for daily life and no one needs to go further than 500 metres by foot. All the streets are wide avenues and the city has a definite European feel to it. Most of the workers are government workers or in IT so a highly educated workforce and very little litter,beggar or hawkers around. The architecture is entirely brutalist but the more affluent housing is very modern and pleasing to the eye. No home is above 3 storeys and commercial and government buildings are 5 high. We first visited the government area and it was deserted. A giant open hand,the symbol of the city,designed by Corbusier sits on a grassy mound. It is made of brass,weighs 15 tons but moves in the wind like a giant weather vane .It stands between the supreme court and the legislative offices.It was surprising to find none of the traffic chaos of delhi and we drove around and parked without any problem under shady trees.
Our second port of call was one of the most amazing gardens we have ever seen,the rock garden. It was a mixture of portmeirion,Petra,the coral garden in Miami a maze and ""it's a small world".All was the work of one man who after working on the construction of the city went back into the jungle as it was then and started building this extraordinary garden with all the broken bits he found,a giant recycling project. He is over 90 and still building although he now receives funding etc. A truly WOW moment each time you bend over to go through small arches into the next scene. In contrast we visited the rose garden a park with the largest collection of roses in Asia and they were all coming into flower,a very English park. We stopped off at a giant man made lake where boats can be hired and is a popular place for kids. the island in the middle has the open hand motif too. We actually saw 2 Europeans,the fist we have seen since leaving Mauritius.Next on the tour was an art museum containing a large collection of ancient Buddhas,artwork and tapestries from around the region all contained in a typical brutalist corbusier building. To finish off we went to the main shopping mall which has all the designer shops and specialist stores not found in the city's sectors. A vast piazza where everyone converges on a weekend evening as their really isn't any where else.On our walk to the car I spied a little tented area so the real India is never far away.