To say the roads in India aren’t bad, presupposes you’ve travelled overland in Eastern Africa (which we have). In parts of Tanzania for instance a decent pothole can swallow a Mini. But if your only claim to fame is ‘At least our roads are better than Africa’, well, you’re coming off a very low bar.

Today’s journey started with a quick 200 kms from Amritsar to Chandigarh... a couple of hours anywhere in the world with real roads, but on the Indian highways, at least 4 was predicted and allowing for the all important tea, lunch and toilet stop(s) then it pushed out to close on 6 hours. And that was after we left 15 minutes late because someone had ‘lost’ their passport by hiding it particularly securely under the knick-knack tray in their safe.

Chandigarh. Right. Well if, like us, you’ve never heard of it, here’s the brief. Chandigarh is the epitome of a modern Indian city. Apparently. Designed by the French architect Le Corbusier it has clean lines and is world famous in India for its Rose Garden containing 1500 different rose species, give or take. Chandigarh is also famous for its Rock Garden sculpture park. We didn’t expect much from it however and 2000 odd sculptures sounded like an awful lot to be traipsing around after ‘forever’ on the coach.

It turns out the highlight of the day was actually getting to Chandigarh in one piece. Given the potholes, honking and swerving (us) and swerving, honking and sheer lunacy (oncoming traffic), diversions and roadworks (perhaps aiming to beat Africa’s roads?) we were amazed neither we nor the coach fell apart.

Safe in Chandigarh a ‘local guide’ joined our merry crew and it was obvious from the git-go he was a lazy so-and-so. He started the day’s activities (Rose Garden/Rock Garden and Lake visit), by taking us to a government run museum that was also designed by Le Corbusier... and we were disliking that bloke more by the minute. Might have had something to do with about 10% of the museum’s lights being switched on. The museum’s claim to fame is some of the first actual images of Buddha in the Hellenic sculpture style. (PS - We didn’t really get any understanding of why that was even remotely interesting until we were on our tour in Sri Lanka almost 2 weeks later!)

The local guide (and we use the word ‘guide’ very loosely) obviously had a hot date elsewhere and didn’t want to go to the Rose Garden. We forced the point both with him and our group’s actual guide and it was very nice - green grass and flowers are vital for taking the edge off India’s authenticity and it had been a long, coach-bound day. The Rock Garden was in fact pretty fascinating. A roads department worker went rogue and starting making sculptures out of dumped landfill and it took 20 odd years before his secret was out. Incredible spot and truly inspiring for anyone with old sanitary-ware sitting in their backyard and a bent for mosaics. (Pictured are some of the Rock Garden’s residents - here made from broken bangles... and there are whole shops devoted to these colourful bangles in India.) Having suffered through the museum and enjoyed the rose and rock gardens, we were ready for a scenic walk along the shores of Chandigarh’s artificial lake, only to be told how much other international visitors enjoy it... just not us, as it turned out.

The hotel for the evening (we’re looking at you Red Fox Chandigarh) left a lot to be desired and between the tour company and the general manager of the hotel, a couple of rockets were dispatched prior to beddy-byes. Things could only get better.