We booked a taxi to take us from Rishikesh to Chandigarh using the hotel as a broker and had high hopes for some trouble free taxiing. Having agreed a flat 65,000 rupees (about 5 hours travel) it was a little disappointing for the hotel to ring us up on the room phone and ask for 2500 in advance for petrol etc. This we did. The taxi turned up on time and wanted to put our luggage on the roof. We looked in his boot only to find a large LPG tank and his own luggage! Eventually we got all our stuff in the car and we set off. About half way there we got a phone call from a mysterious man asking if we could give the driver another 2000 rupees for petrol. We refused. He rang 2 more times to the same effect. We arrived in Chandigarh on time and on budget and we just had time to visit its number one tourist attraction -The Rock Garden. It was 30p each to get in and I can’t say it was bad value. There’s only 1 route through this complex of strangeness, a bit like IKEA or a Dutch garden centre (no escape routes). In the end I would have willingly paid 50p
