Chandigarh (NH1 Circuit)

Get. Set. Go.

We set foot on the journey of our dreams and our first destination was Chandigarh. We pledged not to drive in the dark and try to limit our drives to 5 hours a day. Chandigarh fit quite well in these bounds. Just about 300 kms from home (Gurgaon) and with the amazing roads that led us to the destination, it took us less than 5 hours to reach. Once we left Delhi, it was a breeze to reach Chandigarh with the speedometer never touching anything below 80kmph.

​When in Chandigarh, we could not afford to miss one of the most beautiful gardens out there – the Rock Garden. A garden which has no flowers but was made out of all the trash in the city at one point of time and now is a beauty in itself. Don’t be misguided by the name, it has amazing man-made waterfalls and landscapes along with some rock art we really admired.  

​Inside the rock garden is a Doll house which houses some great piece of art as well. The Doll house was an AC hall which gave us some respite from the scorching heat outside.  

Whenever we visit a place, one thing we like to do is explore the cafes in town. And that is exactly what we did in Chandigarh. TripAdvisor and LonelyPlanet are our two best friends when it comes to recommendations and that’s who we turn to when there are a zillion options available in a city like Chandigarh. Cafe JCs is one of the best cafes around. The coffee, the eggs, the smoothies – all of them were to die for. Another good cafe that we tried was Cafe Hedgehog. Trust me, you won’t get a better Mushroom Burger anywhere else, if you are a fan of the shrooms.  

We are a fan of ‘Social’ and once we aspired to visit all the ‘Social’ outlets in all cities they are present in. They expanded faster than we expected them to and we could not keep up to their pace. There are currently more than 20 outlets and we have been to more than 10. Chandigarh houses one of them, so it was a no brainer to party at ‘Sector 7 Social’. We couldn’t complain spending our evening there. The decibel level of the music there was beyond we could sustain for a long time though – Chandigarh, keeping true to it’s name.

The Juice:
1. This was not the first time we visited Chandigarh, but I cannot reiterate more how well planned the city is. The cleanliness, the greenery and how smoothly the traffic flows here is absolutely commendable.
2. Don’t forget to walk by Lake Sukhna when in Chandigarh, it is one of the cleanest lakes where you can hire a boat as well to spend some leisure time.
3. You will find women decked up in their most flashy clothes and make-up any time of the day or night.