LashWorldTour at Rock GArden - chandigarh india

Here I am at Chandigarh’s famous & quirky Rock Garden – made entirely of recycled materials

Chandigarh, India: The Strangest City I’ve Ever Visited

Chandigarh was not part of my original travel plans for India. In fact, I knew nothing about it except that it was a large Indian city on the hot plains just south of the Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh. ‘Big city in India’ was enough to put me off even reading about it. However, one month into my travels across mountainous Himachal Pradesh I landed in Shimla, the state capital and a former British hill station. It’s situated on a high exposed ridge-line at 2200 M / 7230 ft above sea level.

lovely colonial British buildings in Shimla – India

Although Shimla proved to be a lovely British hill station town full of brilliant colonial architecture and amazing Himalayan views, in mid-November Shimla was entirely too cold for me. So cold that a respiratory infection started creeping into my sinuses and bronchials within two days of arriving. I needed to make an alternative last minute travel plan to escape the misery-inducing cold and illness. Very luckily for me, I met an Irish couple freezing in Shimla along with the rest of us, who told us all about Chandigarh. They informed us that it’s a planned city, known as the ‘Garden City’ of India. Chandigarh was designed and built by the French architect Le Corbusier in the 1950s. He laid the city out on a grid with wide, tree-lined boulevards and containing many large parks, gardens and a lake. The city was only four hours by bus from Shimla, making it the closest place to escape the cold mountains. That all sounded wonderful to me. So off I went to Chandigarh on the spur of the moment.

down the mountain roads near Shimla – notice high snow-capped Himalayan peaks in distance

The bus went winding, twisting and curving down the mountain roads for 3 ½ hours, crossed the Himachal Pradesh state line into Haryana state, and headed out across flat plains. Soon we passed a sign announcing, “Welcome to Chandigarh.” We immediately proceeded driving along exceedingly long wide boulevards lined by big fluffy trees. It looked promising. I prepared myself to arrive at the bus station. However, I’d jumped the gun. To my amazement, we drove for 40 more minutes along one long tree-lined boulevard after another. Great roads and trees, but I wondered where the city itself was. Where were buildings? Shops? Houses? Temples? Anything? On and on for miles and miles we drove. And during the entire 40 minutes I never saw one building. No houses or shops or temples or government buildings. Just big fluffy trees and highways with moderate traffic.

Well, where was the city?

Finally we pulled into Interstate Bus Station 43. That’s in sector 43 on the city grid. Unfortunately, that proved to be very far from Local Bus Station 17, where I’d expected to land. So I boarded a local city bus (exceedingly clean and modern, I must add) which proceeded to sector 17. I assumed that area must be closer to the heart of the city. Surely I’d finally start seeing some buildings? But, no. Once again, I scarcely saw a single building on that trip across four more city sectors and into the center of town. From Bus Station 17 I caught a quick tuk-tuk to a nearby hotel recommended in my guidebook. The book described it as a family-run guest house. I pictured a lovely family house set along a leafy tree-lined street, with the family mother greeting me at her door and whisking me into my own cozy bedroom.

strip mall where my hotel was located in Chandigarh

Instead the tuk-tuk driver delivered me to a strip mall! A hideously ugly line of concrete wall-to-wall shops set behind a wide, litter-strewn parking lot. My ‘guest house’ and several other small hotels were each located on top of one shop or the other, accessed by sets of steep stairs. That’s not what I had visualized at all. I stood there, my mouth agape, thinking, “Are you F-ing kidding me?! I’m going to stay at a strip mall?! I came to India’s ‘Garden City’ and I’m going to stay in this ugly mess of shops?” I’ve hated strip malls my entire life. I avoid them like the plague and consider them one of most horrid inventions of the modern world. And there I was delivered to stay at one? Holy horrors.

silver sheets at one of my inexpensive 350 rp rooms in HImachal Pradesh – NOT included in my 900 rp room in Chandigarh!

I visited all the hotels on the strip, up and down a dozen stairways with all my luggage. The cheapest hotel cost more than 4 times my usual room rate in Himachal Pradesh and nearly 3 times what I’d paid for the most expensive room in India to date! I was stunned. Once I got over my disgust, shock and anger, I resigned myself to my plight and booked myself into one of Chandigarh’s cheapest rooms, the most expensive room I’d ever had in India, by far. To my amazement, it proved to be the cheapest hotel in the entire city (I checked out others over the next few days). That pricey room, although nice and clean, was also the noisiest room I’d stayed in during one month of Indian travels, mostly due to the excessively noisy staff. On other counts I wouldn’t rate it much better than the other rooms I’d paid 1/3 – ¼ the price for.

my 250 rp room at Rewalsar – basic but clean, safe and roomy

All the rooms I’d stayed at in Himachal Pradesh’s mountain towns had been super clean, safe, free of bedbugs and had included hot showers and plenty of blankets. My Chandigarh room, at four times my usual cost, didn’t have anything over the others. It was just a lot noisier and more expensive. Fortunately, I quickly discovered that that hideous strip mall did conveniently have absolutely everything I needed. I found tandoori chicken restaurants, the very first modern convenience-type-store I’d ever seen in India (none exist in Himachal) and my internet provider store (I needed to top up my credit soon).

tandoori restaurants at my strip mall in Chandigarh

Even more delightful, lo and behold, I stumbled upon the first real espresso coffee shop I’d ever seen in India. Amazingly, it was Coffee Bean, my absolute favorite espresso coffee shop in all of Asia. Aside from the expense and the ugly mall, I’d hit the jack pot! I sucked up the expense, ignored the ugliness and stayed three nights / 2 ½ days in Chandigarh.

Chandigarh’s famous Rose Garden – 32,500 rose bushes, but none in bloom when I was there!

Aside from the expensive, noisy room and ugly mall, I did have a wonderful time in India’s ‘Garden City’. I walked for hours through several city sectors, including shopping plazas, gardens and parks. I explored Chandigarh Art Museum and strolled through its famous Rose Garden (no roses in bloom). I enjoyed delicious tandoori chicken, naan bread and palak paneer every day. In mornings, since the only place I could find eggs for breakfast was at nearby upscale hotels, I was ‘forced’ to dine at their breakfast buffets. Since I had to pay so much for those I stuffed myself silly, eating two or three times my usual portions. At least that kept me full much longer than usual.

palak paneer & naan

And last but not least, I thoroughly enjoyed espresso coffees at Coffee Bean while working online in the afternoons. I had to admit it was wonderful being based in a modern city for a change. For my last day in Chandigarh, I took the day off work to explore. I rented a bicycle (which was a wacky ordeal itself) and explored the city by bike, pedaling through more gardens & parks and along pretty Sukhna Lake. I was escorted all day by a high school student I’d met at a bike shop. With school closed for a Muslim holiday, he had nothing better to do than hang out with a blonde American woman who shared his love of cycling.

LashWorldTour riding camel in CHandigarh

riding a camel in Chandigarh with my local escort

We had a grand time pedaling the city. He showed off some of his bike stunts, though he had no ramp park to demonstrate his best skills. We rode a camel in Chandigarh’s famous rock garden, built entirely of recycled materials. We raced each other along Sukhna Lake promenade and back, where we were finally informed, after the fact, that cyclists were not allowed. Oops. We’d broken the rules! Finally, after lunch I excused myself to go work a bit then returned my rental bike, pedaling solo through more city sectors and parks en route. Then I enjoyed a 45-minute walk back to my hotel through the Rose Garden (I finally saw a few roses.) another park and past the large cricket stadium. All told, via buses, bicycle and foot, I passed through 1/3 – ½ of Chandigarh’s 65 large sectors. Every time I traveled along the roads in the city, I rarely saw any buildings. One can literally drive for hours through Chandigarh without ever seeing anything city-like.

one of many spacious parks & gardens in Chandigarh

The buildings are all ‘hidden’ behind big fluffy trees. None of them: houses or shops or government buildings or hotels or museums are higher than the city’s big fluffy trees. As a result, they’re completely obscured by greenery. Driving through that city amounts to nothing but miles of highways and trees. Until now, I’ve never been one to complain about lovely tree-lined roads or cities full of gardens & parks. In fact one of the very things I love so much about my favorite city in the world, Singapore, is its tree-lined roads, parks & gardens. However, I found Chandigarh extremely odd. It really pushed my definition of what a city is. I did see many buildings on foot. I saw several strip malls, a few upscale hotels, three museums and a massive cement plaza, lined on its distant sides by rows of shops. That rather deserted, broken down, dirty and empty plaza occupied most of sector 17. It had several incomplete construction zones, broken up sidewalks, bumpy dirt paths and some huge, square cement buildings. I later learned that it’s considered Chandigarh’s main shopping plaza, claimed on the official city map to have, ‘glitzy stores, posh crowds, trendy eateries…and lounges.’ Wow, it looked to me like it had been deserted several decades ago.

National Art Museum – typical architecture in Chandigarh – plain, boxy, unadorned buildings set on large cement plazas

During three days of exploring Chandigarh, I did not see one attractive building. That includes shopping plazas and strip malls, government buildings, museums, upscale hotels, large private houses and shops. As far as I observed, all of the city’s buildings, regardless of their use, are exceedingly minimalist in design: square, unadorned cement or brick ‘boxes’. Every shop is part of long cement strip mall. Simply put, Chandigarh’s buildings are ugly. So Chandigarh was a mixed bag for me. I did greatly enjoy walking & cycling through its large parks and gardens. I ate a lot of delicious food and I indulged in my favorite espresso coffees. However, it was very expensive (three to four times more expensive than all the towns I’d visited in Himachal Pradesh), the buildings were exceedingly unattractive and its miles & miles of tree-lined roads left me feeling perplexed. Still, I’m glad I made a last minute travel plan to side track to India’s ‘Garden City’. Although it dented my pocket, I got to see an entirely different face of India and I came to appreciate even more the low costs and ease of traveling in Himachal Pradesh state. I also avoided a respiratory infection as my system gratefully inhaled warm air once again. QUESTIONS: Do you ever make last minute travel plan changes? If so, what is the usual result – good or bad? If you’ve visited Chandigarh, what are your impressions of the city? ——————————————————————————————————————————- You might also enjoy: For an Easy Trip Through India, Start in Dharamsala Accommodation Options at Delhi Airport ——————————————————————————————————————————-