Road Trip To Solan via Chandigarh

A long weekend is always an opportunity to take a break from regular life and explore new places or revisit the old ones. The holiday of Good Friday provided the same opportunity. We had three days of vacation. On Thursday, my brother called and asked about my plans for the weekend. More than asking he called to tell that he already decided to visit Chandigarh and he want me to join. It was a short notice like always for me and like always I agreed. I can’t leave any opportunity of roaming and visiting places specifically when it is a road trip by car.

Friday early morning we leave for Chandigarh. The weather was pleasant and there was forecast of rain. We took NH-24. We are not only to plan the trip, there was many more. The road was full of cars. The morning breeze was providing comfort to the body. The drive was smooth till we reach NH-1. Few minutes went by and a truck suddenly came in front of our car forced us to apply sudden breaks, it was a narrow escape. Going further we saw a car, not so lucky, got hit by another truck. Well, we proceeded on NH-1. The weather was changing with our move. As per the forecast, it starts raining.

After couple of hours driving, we took our first stop at Sukhdev Dhaba, Murthal for breakfast. In few minutes we realized it was not a good idea to stop at this place. The place was overcrowded, may be due to the long weekend. It took us half an hour to search a place to settle down and order the breakfast. After more than one hour, we proceeded our journey again on NH-1 towards Chandigarh. Rest of the journey was uneventful but due to the construction of new roads and bridges, our calculations of the travel duration was changed. It took us a couple of extra hours to reach Chandigarh. The very first thing which draw your attention in Chandigarh is the traffic discipline. The people followed the traffic rules religiously and police is attentive to not let rule breaker go without paying the fine. The second thing is cleanliness of the city. Chandigarh is one to the cleanest city in India and other cities should take a cue from it on how to manage the traffic and keep the city clean.

We checked-in the hotel Le Crowne at sector 35C. The booking was made in advance, courtesy my friend who was in Chandigarh on an official trip. We rested for few hours in our rooms and in the evening we left to visit Sukhna lake. Sukhna Lake is a reservoir at the foothills of the Himalayas, the Shivalik hills. This 3 km² rainfed lake was created in 1958 by damming the Sukhna Choe, a seasonal stream coming down from the Shivalik Hills. One can enjoy boating, rowing, sculling, sailing, kayaking and water skiing throughout the year. The lake, which was the venue for the Asian Rowing Championships, has the longest channel for rowing and yachting events in Asia. It also has facilities for other water sports like water surfing, skiing and sculling. We went back to hotel for dinner after spending few hours at Sukhna lake to re-energize us for the next day.

Next morning, we checked out from the hotel after breakfast and went to visit Rock Garden. The Rock Garden or Rock Garden of Chandigarh is a sculpture garden, one of its kind and unique in itself, also known as Nek Chand’s Rock Garden after its founder Nek Chand, a government official who started the garden secretly in his spare time in 1957. It is an example of sheer talent and creativity. Today it is spread over an area of forty-acres (160,000 m²), it is completely built of industrial & home waste and thrown-away items. It is situated near Sukhna Lake. It consists of man-made interlinked waterfalls and many other sculptures that have been made of scrap & other kinds of wastes (bottles, glasses, bangles, tiles, ceramic pots, sinks, electrical waste, etc.) which are placed in walled paths. After Rock garden, we went to sector-22 market for some shopping before starting our journey to Solan.

We were driving on NH-22 towards Solan. The weather was changing  its mood after every few kilometers. Sometime past The mountains of Himachal was visible. Himachal welcomes us with hailstorm and the mist covered the windows of car which makes it hard for us to see outside. The rain was heavy with hailstones. A time arrived when we were forced to stop the car due to the heavy rain as the road was invisible. But for our rescue, a truck overtook us and we resumed our journey following the truck. The truck was our guide till we reached to the mall road of Solan. Our relative came to receive us. After parking the car and settling at our relative’s home, I called my friend who too was in Solan. I was not sure where to go to meet her but luckily she was at mall road with her friend doing some shopping. We spent fun time there and talk on various topics most of them are about life style of the Solan. The good thing is that in Solan too the police is quite attentive and people followed rules.

Next morning I went to explore Solan on bike. The morning breeze was pleasant, air was clean and grass were green. The life is peaceful and far from hustle bustle of big cities. I did not have enough time to explore the city completely due to unplanned tour. In the afternoon, we started the return journey to Delhi after this refreshing trip with a promise to come back.