December 29, 2011 - Chandigahr

Today Bob, Lindy and I check out of our hotel.  We are to meet at 8:00 in the morning at the Jains' home to begin a drive to Chandigarh and then to New Delhi.  However, the check-out process is rather complicated.  Arun has put deposits down on our rooms and on another couple's room, from some of the money we sent him earlier, and it takes a while to figure out who owes what.  The hotel folk call Arun and we examine a few versions of revised billing, eliminating two charges for laundry belonging to other hotel guests, before we are ready to check out.  We leave in our chauffeured transport around 9:00 which delays the departure for the whole party, mostly in bus, to Chandigarh.

Chandigarh is an engineered city, designed by architect Le Corbusier who also designed several of the government buildings.  The city has broad tree-lined roads meeting at right angles.  Most intersections are traffic circles.  The roads are named, and each of the rectangles created by the main avenues has a sector number.  When the city was laid out, many of the rectangles were not yet developed.  Nek Chand decided to use the empty space in one of them to house his rock collection.  He loved unusually shaped rocks.  He also created a multitude of sculptures created out of scraps from the city's construction - creatures made of broken pottery shards, left-over electric wiring, burnt remnants of rock from manufacturing.  The city officials finally got around to his sector and found his (illegally) placed treasures.  Rather than demand their removal or plow them over, they hired Nek to develop the sector into a fantasy sculpture park and gave him fifty employees to help him.  Arun knows Nek Chand and has arranged to have us all meet him after we tour the grounds of the Nek Chand Fantasy Rock Garden.

Ankita, Nek Chand, J.D.

Bob petting camel in Rock Garden

Stuart in Fantasy land

From there we head to Arun's sister's house for some quick snacks.  After saying our goodbyes to our India friends, we are off to New Delhi.  Lindy and I have one more night to spend in India before leaving for Bangkok.  Bob will be hanging out at the airport until his 4:00 am flight home.  We give a lift to Nada and her daughter Serena who are also flying out of the airport late tonight.  Daniel, who shares an apartment with J.D. and Ankita in San Francisco, rides with us as well.  He is eager to see the Taj Mahal before meeting up with Andrew for further travels.

Our driver was trained in Great Britain as a chauffeur and it shows.  Rather than subjecting us to rabbit starts and quick stops to grab the smallest space to more forward, he negotiates at a somewhat slower but much smoother pace through the peculiar traffic conditions of India.

Despite the seemingly chaotic (but in some strange way efficient) traffic, we have seen no accidents more serious than scratched cars while here.  Tonight, however, we observe an older gentleman who has fallen off the back of a motorcycle.  He wears no helmet, and is lying in the middle of the highway with a bloody head wound.  Several people run over to help and phone calls are made while we cautiously cruise on by. 

Lindy and I are the first to be dropped off and we are glad to reach the hotel after about eight hours of driving.