Chandigarh - Our Indian Grandfather

The end of Jaipur:
Seeing the Amber Fort from the outside wasn't enough, so Alice and I decided to go back the next day to have a better look. The same small child selling postcards noticed Alice and tried for the second day in a row to move his product, but to no avail. The Fort was the old capital of Rajastan before it was moved to Jaipur, and was home to a succession of Maharajas, each of whom added on to the palace. The Fort itself was beautiful, and the views were spectacular. The hills around the area looked a bit like Kamloops with little scrubby trees and dry dusty ground. The buildings themselves looked Middle Eastern.


The Amber Fort


The next day, after another 'friend' didn't show up to meet us at the appointed time, we went to the to see the Hawa Mahal - palace of winds - located in the old city of Jaipur built as accomadation for the women of the court, so that they had someone safe from public view to observe the preceedings of the streets.


Hawa Mahal

Saying farewell to Jaipur, we took a night train to Chandigarh. Laying in bed reading on the train, I was handed a cellphone by a man who had texted "which country". I said, "Canada." He said, "text." I did, with some difficulty, and managed to text out "CANADAD". We went through the same process with my name, and then he invited me to come sit on his bunk with his friends. They couldn't really speak English but were really keen on trying. They were trying to teach me Hindi, but when I came back to my bunk an Indian man told me they were just making fun of me. I didn't mind though. I had a good laugh too. Alice however, was not laughing as they stared at her the whole trip (10 hours). Alice had even taken the precaution of covering hereself head to toe in scarfs and sarongs. The same men earned Alice's disfavour (again) at 4:30 in the morning when they engaged in a very loud jovial conversation.

We got to Chandigarh, met a nice French Canadian couple at breakfast, and then checked into a hotel. We spent the morning sleeping off the train trip, and in the afternoon took a bus to see the Nek Chand Fantasy Rock Garden (a trip into the labyrinth of one man's mind). "It was the craziest thing ever," Alice Muirhead, "it was unlike anything I have ever seen in my whole life." Maybe that's because she's never been in a man's mind before...

Nek Chand created the Rock Garden with the garbage left behind from clearing villages in order to have space to build Chandigarh - a city planned completely by one architext, the famous Le Corbiseur (or something). We were suprised by the garden because we were expecting rocks...but it was like walking into Willy Wonka's chocolate factory except the oompa loopas were made out of garbage.


Some of the crazy china figures


Alice on a swing at the Rock Garden

That night, after another delicious dinner, we were walking along contemplating time and space, when we were approached by an old beared man missing most of his teeth. "I am Mr. Narinder Singh" he declared, "and I would like to meet you! Would you like to have a cup of tea?" Over a cup of tea Narinder, "almost finished with 74 and getting ready for 75", showed us some of the contents of the two shopping bags he carries. They were full of souvenirs, momentos, and photographs that he has collected from tourists over the years. "My hobby is meeting tourists", he said, "I have knowledge and I must give it. The prime minister has told us that we must welcome tourists as they are good friends." Over the last 20 years he has walked the streets of Chandigarh, meeting tourists, and showing them his city. He had several newspaper clippings with headlines championing him as the "the guardian angel of tourists". He proved to be exactly that.

We made arrangements to meet him in the morning so that he could show us around. For the first time, out of three attempts, our 'friend' actually showed up. It was a good sign. After helping us book our bus, leaving for Manali in the evening, he took us up to the top of a government building so that we could begin our tour with a view of the city. Narinder is a retired government clerk and was able to get us in even though non-employees weren't allowed. From there we engaged in a speed tour of the city, stopping to have tea several times along the way with the who's who of Chandigarh big wigs (politicians and real estate salesmen). We had lunch at the Sikh Temple and Alice was taught how to make chappati. We were also given scarves to cover our hair which we were told to keep for the next time.


Eating lunch at the temple

In the afternoon we were shown the capital complex, where the legislative assembly, high court and government offices are located. We gained access to the legislative assembly room because Narinder sneakly told the guards and site managers that we were architects and travelled all the way from Canada just to see the building. Inside the hall was really strange. It was very industrial in style, like being inside a giant smoke stack with weird geometric painted shapes. We weren't allowed to take photos.

Throughout the entire 9 hour walking tour, Navinder kept refering to Alice as "my good Alice." I laughed to myself everytime because that is the opposite of her usual nickname.

Narinder had us adopt him as our Indian Grandfather (dada), and that he cared for us very much with good intention. We got a good number of hugs throughout the day, each one accompanied by a wet kiss on the cheek. He presented his "good Alice" with as Sikh comb saying "you make me very very happy. I am so glad to have met you. And my good David, you also make me very very happy." He was overflowing with joy and energy insisting that we ask him anything we want to know because part of his hobby is sharing his knowledge. He gave us note paper and had us write down words and sentences in Hindi. We learned an impressive amount!

At the end of the day we boarded a night bus to Manali and experienced life as a rock in a tin can. The ride was so rough that bags couldn't find the strength to hold themselves in the above head storage space, windows couldn't stop themselves from rattling open, and if you weren't holding on to your seat, at any moment you could have been ejected from it. Needless to say we slept very little.

Th bus ride was really strange in that it was unexpectedly empty. We were two of only seven people on the bus, not including the driver and entourage. We had the bus to ourselves for the last two hours (50k) of the trip. Hard to imagine how it could have been a profitable drive because the ticket was only about 6 bucks each.

As soon as we got into our hotel in Manali we fell asleep...four hours later we emerged at the crack of 2pm to greet the day. We found a little restaurant by the river and had curry, coffee and cake and then went for a walk up to the Hindu temple checking out the city along the way. In search of yoga we followed a mysterious set of signs up the hill which led to a house in the woods. Inside the house we found a man sitting smoking, and a Finish woman who seemed to be his partner. The house was really rustic, but the couple were sitting watching Spy Kids 3 on sattelite TV. We sat and were then grilled on our yoga preferences, the positions we knew, and what we wanted to work on. The man was really intense, insisting that yoga is a very serious thing and he is a strict man. However, we agreed to meet him at 9am tomorrow to have a 'serious' session.

To see more pictures of our adventures...

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=242730&id=511324453&l=1d578616f3