London was a trip that Geeta and I were wanting to make since quite a while now. It was the reason we cut our honeymoon short and save those holidays for this trip. But there were so many problems before we finally managed to make the journey, like my passport not being accepted, and then going through all that trouble to re-apply for it and then apply for the visa - it was quite an ordeal. Finally when we reached the airport at about mid-night, we had another scare there coz Geeta's tickets were not available. I had a tough time making the flight bookings as Cleartrip was not able to process online and I was talking to them over phone while traveling between places to get this done - so suddenly, I was worried whether something went wrong with the ticketing process.
We breathed again after the guy at the Air India counter gave us the ticket print. Then we checked in through the long snaking lines of the international airport and finally sat near our gate. Geeta resumed her work that she couldn't complete during the day. We both worked from home this day, but worked like crazy coz there was just too much to finish. So much so that we started packing only at 9p.m when the cab was to come by 10. It was one mad rush.
Then the flight itself was another mess. Air India as usual had to screw up someplace and our entertainment systems were the only ones not working on the flight. I tried changing our seats, but Geeta didn't want to move and so I stuck to reading Arvind Adiga.
Air India really is all that people claim it to be - one terrible flight. Its partly because only Indians fly it and like typical Indians, we make a total mess of the flight. While we were walking out, there were bottles, blankets, all sorts of things strewn around the flight. But the crew don't make things any easier either. Some of the food comes serves real cold. And since we were sitting on the last seats, they ran out of non-veg food for us. And of course, the biggest crib would be the way the crew treats us - absolutely nonchalant.
Anyway, we just tried to catch up on some sleep and get through the journey.
Saturday:
Naan was there to pick us up at the airport when we landed at 8a.m UK time. We had a SIM card that G's parents used during their trip 2 months back and coordinated with Naan through this. We walked to his car - Vauxhall Astra, which was quite a neat looking hatchback. I had a feeling that this was a GM car (equivalent to the Opel in India because of the similar name) and some googling on Naan's iPhone and this was confirmed.
The journey from the airport to Naan's house in Tooting Bec was awesome. As usual the first things you notice are the super clean and wide roads, the neat cars that never repeat, and a voice that directs you at every turn. Then there are sights typical only of London - the bulb shaped London Taxi's, the double decker red buses, and loads of people on cycles. During the days that followed, sights of people in tubes wearing a corporate dress with trainers became banal. There seem to be a lot of people cycling or walking to work here, and dressing up for it the right way.
Upon reaching Naan's house, we were super impressed with the big clean apartment he and his malu roommate (who was from Kottayam!) stayed - it was way too neat for 2 guys to be living in! The biggest surprise of all was the food Naan had cooked for us. He actually made Chicken curry and Prawn Fry for us - and it almost tasted as good as what mom makes in Bombay!
We quickly washed up and sat down with Carlsberg for brunch and planned out our next few days. We decided to go travel to Cranfield - Naan's college on Sunday, do some local sightseeing on Monday and Tuesday, meet Shalini on Tuesday evening, go to the theatre on Wednesday evening, Scotland on Thursday and Friday, and finally, for Saturday, our last day in London, and my Birthday, we couldn't make any plans yet, so decided to play it by the ear.
After the scrumptious meal, we grabbed some sleep, woke up and got ready to go out for dinner. We went to a place called Kenza in Central London, which was a Lebanese restaurant that had belly dancers performing. Naan had called some of his friends, his roommate AJ, Munna Sunna who was AJ's girlfriend (or not - nobody was sure!) from Jordan, and another couple that we hardly got to talk to. I called Praty who came with his girlfriend Urvashi, and 9 of us sat to have a very nice meal - the Ramadan feast, as Ramadan was on and the Muslims - AJ from our table, were on fast during the day. For lack of any clues on what I wanted for a drink - I ordered a regular Jack and Coke. This became my fall-back drink during most of the trip. But as soon as I ordered it, Praty asks me to order the most expensive drink on the menu as it would be his gift for the wedding. I ordered a whiskey called Glenmorangie, and had it on the rocks. We had a good time chatting about school and did a lot of catching up with Praty. Geeta and Urvashi seemed a bit bugged as we went on and on about it. The meal was really good too - proper 3 course, starting with Hummus and Pita and Falafal, on to Biryani, which Munna insisted was not Biryani, but meat skewers just laced with rice. Well there was definitely more meat that rice on the plate, but looked very much like Biryani to me. Then finally came the deserts. Somewhere in the middle of all this, the belly dancers came on. I was hardly through my first drink when this happened and was definitely not high enough to join them in the dance. But one of the dancers pretty much pulled me out to the dance, and I began to shake it just like her. I called Geeta up too and asked her to learn some moves for later on. Then another dancer began dancing with Naan on the other side of the table. This was even more hilarious, as Naan was showing of his moves and actually teaching her to dance!
All in all, really good evening and amazing way to start the London trip.
Sunday:
After the big party the previous night, it took a while before all of us woke up and got ready for the long drive that was planned for today. We were to drive to Naan's college, Cranfield, and then head to Cambridge, both about 60 miles from South London where we were. We began at 11, after G and I made quite a mess of the kitchen that we weren't too familiar handling, yet attempted to prepare breakfast in. But somehow the final product - plain omlettes, toast and coffee seemed to impress Naan.
We began our journey in the Vauxhall, after setting the GPS and choosing a nice female voice to guide us. But 5 mins into it, and we were stuck in a crazy traffic jam. Naan almost gave up on the trip and said we'd rather just check something in London out. But G egged him to carry on, and the journey turned out to be truly worth it.
Cranfield was a neat looking college. We took some pictures there, met one of Naan's batchmates, Budhi, who still stays there and had lunch at his place - good old Daal and Rice. Then went to Cambridge, which was really stunning - seemed right out of the Harry Potter Novels. There is an activity here called punting, which Naan kept insisting we must do - and that was the absolute highlight of the day. It was a row boat where there is one guy at the end rowing with a long oar that reaches the bottom of the river bed - sort of looks like the Kerala boats coupled with the setting of Venice. We had the option of doing this on our own for £60 or going on a share boat for £45 (15 per person). We chose the share, which is actually much better, coz a professional punter comes along with us, and narrates the stories of all the colleges of Cambridge as we pass them by. On our own, it seemed fun in the beginning, maybe even chances of falling over if we weren't too careful, but definitely looked tiring to do.
We got to hear about the various colleges - Trinity, Josephs, many others, and took tons of photos.
The punting ended with our punter crashing in between 2 boats to park his boat, and the guy on shore who was mooring our boat tells the punter "TT doesn't look for a place to park the boat, TT makes the place. I would love to see what you do with the car". Man, these English do have a witty sense of humour.
Once we got out, we took a walk to a place where we decided to chill and have a beer. We ordered Becks this time, and I wanted to try out the national dish here - fish and chips. Soon we were sitting by the riverlet, sipping our beer and having the fish which was quite different from what we normally have, but tasty in a certain way nevertheless. The fish by itself was bland, and the accompaniments were honey and ketchup and avocado. Somehow made a delectable combination, and we were quite enjoying it. Naan not being too big a fan of fish ordered crab cakes, which were quite delicious too.
We then walked around, tried to find the Botanical garden where the apple tree that Newton sat under still stands, but couldn't find the place and we too tired to continue walking, so bid adieu to Cambridge.
On the way back, G just crashed out and Naan and I were having a nice long chat about life in general till we hit the London bridge. It was a really nice feeling to be crossing the famous bridge that we sang about as kids.
We got home by 10p.m after stopping over at a Tesco - my first visit into this big retailer, and picked up some drinks and munchies. I was so thrilled that a bottle of JD, on conversion was just 800 bucks! That is just so stunning when the damn thing is so expensive in India with all the import tax and things. Came home, finished the leftover of Naan's food with the drinks and hit the sack by mid-night.
Monday:
Naan took us to Wimbledon today, which was fairly close to his place, and a really posh area in London, as this is where many of the tennis players stay and even own houses - with Wimbledon being one of the best tennis grand slams and all. We had brunch here at a place called Dog and Fox. It was quite empty when we were there, but apparently the place is one of the 'it' places during matches at Wimbledon. I ordered a Guiness here which came freshly brewed. Quite a different taste this beer and Naan and G didn't like it too much - so we never ordered this again the rest of the trip.
After a good Enlish breakfast - full with bacon and eggs and toast, we drove to Windsor castle. Went on the audio guided tour here, around the high walled brown castle, peppered with the English guards with their big hats, that people came and stood next to to take photos and they just wouldn't budge. We even got to see a small change of guard show when they marched past us which was really interesting. After a bit of English history, through all the kings and queens chambers et al, we headed back to London. Stopped at a park on the way at a place near Putney - another posh part of London, and took some more photos as this park that oversaw a lake.
Then as we drove, we took an impromptu call to head to a famous burger joint called GBK - Gourmet Burger King and had a famous dish here called Habonera which was one heck of a spicy burger - and this is for 3 Indians to say coz I believe we have some of the most spiciest foods. This burger was drenched in a red chilly sauce that began burning my lips by the second bite. But it was still somewhat tasty, and we gobbled it all up. People here were having the burgers with fork and knife - again very neatly English. But I was having it the way I think a burger was made to be had - all messy and falling all over the place.
Downed the burgers with a beer called Steinlager beer that was from New Zealand! And really needed it to pipe down the burning skin on my face.
Once we got back home, we were too tired and crashed fairly early.
Tuesday:
G and I originally planned to wake up early and prepare breakfast for Naan who was going to work on this day after spending the last 3 days with us. But we were just so lazy, that by the time we got out - 8a.m, Naan was almost on his way out. G was quite upset that we couldn't prepare anything for him, and this mood got worse when we removed the clothes from the washer to find that they had all turned pink because one of G's new shirts ran colour. 2 of my nice shirts were now pink and totally un-wearable. Then we got ready to go out and in the hassle of trying to lock the door, I dropped Naan's key which had a glass keychain, and that broke. Then when we were on our way to see some places of London, we realized that the camera was out of charge in spite of me putting it for a few hours in the morning. Basically, it was one terrible start to the day. Now we were at the Victorias Square outside Buckhingham palace, and had an option to either head to Hard Rock which was fairly close by and charge the camera, or head back home and charge it and also take Naan's camera to be on the safe side. G insisted we go back and try and re-start the day. So we got back, finished all of Naan's food from Saturday, I had JD from the bottle we bought from Tesco, charged the cameras and began London once again. The rest of the day went quite fast. We saw Trafalgar Square, went into the Tower Hill near the London Bridge where the Kohinoor was kept, went to Westminister to see the Big Ben, Westminister Abbey and the original 10 Downing Street (and not the club that we've frequented the last 2 years in Chennai) and finally got into the London Eye across the River Thames where even Naan joined us. So quite a bit of London covered on a day, that was really quite eventful. We then had strawberry toppled waffles across the River Thames and got back to Tooting Bec where Shalini was waiting for us at the station.
Shalini was looking fairly English - with a skirt, black stockings and heels. Seemed like London grew on her, especially since she already has a UK passport. We went home with her, got ready and headed out to a club in Wimbledon where Naan used to go occasionally to salsa. It was competition night, and everybody there, except Shalini, G and me were not dancing. Naan went about dancing with lots of girls there. But the overall experience was really amazing. Shalini left shortly as she had a long way to go back. Three of us hung out for a while having beer and more JD and coke. Then headed back home, stopping a place where we bought Pakistani Biryani (really tasty) along with some chicken starter.
Wednesday:
Second day in London when G and I were on our own. As usual we hit the station, charged our travel cards with the day pass and headed out to Central London. Today's agenda was to shop. We went to H&M, M&S and lots of other stores, where G kept seeing stuff she liked, but refused to buy any. Finally she bought 2 shoes from an Indian store there as they were reasonably cheap. London is nowhere close to being a frugal city to stay in. Everything here is expensive, and the shopping followed suit. So we were still converting while looking at stuff and just didn't feel like picking up anything. We spent some money on gifts for people back in India, but that was all we bought, apart from the shoes G picked up. We then went to a steakhouse called Angus and we only ordered one Chicken dish and a Stella Artois beer here, as I was still converting, and this was more expensive that a top class hotel for me, and we were only at a way-side hotel just now. So I didn't want to order too much and the waiter made a bit of an issue with only one dish being ordered. But we were prepared to tell him thanks and leave in case there was a problem, but he said its fine and "allowed" us to order just the one dish. Man, here was some of that snooty English behaviour that you hear about!
After the meal, we met Naan at the Victoria station where we went to the Apollo theatre to catch the very famous show - Wicked (not yet made into a movie, and hence still a little less known outside of UK) and thoroughly enjoyed the spectacle. It was a proper English musical theatre with loads of effects and quick changing props. Was a real treat to watch this. I was very tired and sleepy and found it difficult to stay awake the entire time. But loved the bits I managed to see.
Way back we bought some dinner from a place near the Tootic Bec station itself and headed back home.
Thursday:
It was time to head outside of London today, and we flew to Aberdeen in Scotland to meet Harsh. Now Aberdeen is just a commercial city with a lot of oil mining companies. There is pretty much nothing for a tourist to see here apart from the grey coloured and uniformly shaped buildings. Naan, G and I reached Harsh's house by about 9a.m, after driving to the Luton airport in London (really far from Naan's place) and taking an Easy Jet flight (equivalent to the Spicejets of India). Harsh played some songs for us on his electric guitar and we started off on our rented Vauxhall (again, but this time it was a black beauty of a sedan called Insignia). We stopped at a place called Marshals farm which was a country side barn house that served some English breakfast. We had the usual bacon and eggs and toast here. G ordered pancakes as this was too much meat for her to digest (literally) and began our journey to the West Coast. The idea was to reach a place called Gairloch which was completely on the other coast (Aberdeen being on the East) and pass some highlight points on the way - the first of which was the Glenfiddich distillery. This was a really nice experience. It was stunning to know that all of Glenfiddich around the world is prepared right here. The commercially available ones are 12, 15 and 18 year olds. But only at this place, there is a 14 and a 19year old available. So I bought the 14year old and Naan and Harsh picked some bottles of their choice. We watched a film about the distillery and also had a bit of whiskey tasting which was served and explained to us by a Scottish lady in a proper Scot accent.
Our next stop was to be the Loch Ness near the city Inverness. The Loch Ness is now a lake, and the monster we are familiar with is just an Urban Legend. Well, cant say anything more coz we didn't really visit the place as we were running out of time, stopping at a lot of places and clicking photos amidst the absolute beauty of the Scottish highlands. We finally made it to the west coast and hit a place called the Kyle of Lochalsh where we grabbed a bite. From this point, things started going awry. Naan and G were not happy with the way Harsh was driving. He was actually a bit too fast on absolute blind turns in these parts. He slowed down a bit after I spoke to him, but then he insisted on going through a different route, which not only made the journey longer, but more precarious because the roads got thinner and more circuitous. Also, we reached a place called Applecross which was a really nice place that we should have ideally come straight to for lunch rather than stopping at Kyle of Lochalsh. We couldn't really enjoy this place much as we had to get on with the journey as the sun was setting and we didn't have a place to stay. At Applecross we made a few calls from the Inn there to all the neighbourhood Bed and Breakfast places, and they were all booked out. Now I had asked Harsh to make reservations for us, but he insisted that it would be easily available. Now this was not the case as it was season time and all places were booked out.
We continued on the journey and passed quite a few B&B's, and although people were really helpful, it was of no use, as we just weren't finding the place. The sun had almost set and we didn't even have water to drink with us. Things were getting quite tense till we finally found a place called Keissimull in a town called Sheldaig, which was still an hour away from Gairloch where we initially planned to go, and decided to book the place there. That's when we realized we didn't have money either and these places only take cash. So we had to go to a pub where they were sweet enough to let us swipe our card for a few drinks and return some extra money. We managed to pay the B&B caretaker with this and found us a place to spend the night. By this time, Naan and G were totally out of it and just wanted to crash. I was quite upset that the trip turned sour towards the end, but anyways decided to head out to the pub with Harsh where we made some friends and Harsh played some songs with a violin player there and the two of them sounded really good together. We had a combination of drinks - Glenmorangie, McCullum and Tenets beer. Finally called it a night well past mid night.
Friday:
The day began with Breakfast at Keissimul - more bacon and eggs and toast, and we headed to Gairloch - our original destination. Took photos here, bought Tenets beer from a local shop and continued our journey. There was a really nice spot in Gairloch where we stopped and spent quite a bit of time. Because of this, we had to give Lock Ness a skip on the way back too. However, we kept stopping at places where we could take good photos and when we were about 3 hours from Aberdeen, G suddenly cries out saying her ring is missing. We stopped and searched the whole car, but couldn't find it. So we carried on our journey, and nobody spoke till we reached a place called Aberlour 2 hours away from Aberdeen where we decided to lunch. As soon as we stopped, we started looking for her ring again. Harsh and Naan yanked the back seat out and Naan found the ring below the seat there. Everyone heaved a sigh of relief after it was found. We could finally resume enjoying the Scottish drive. At Aberlour I had a sirloin steak, my first steak in UK, along with a whiskey called Aberlour, the local brew, which was really tasty. We carried on till we reached Aberdeen airport well in time for the flight and checked in and waited to take off.
We landed at 11p.m and were home before mid-night. I was to turn 29 in a few minutes, and all of us quickly changed and went to the kitchen to cut a tiramisu cake that was there in Naan's fridge, along with a candle and Gentleman Jack that we bought from the Aberdeen duty free. We started of being a bit tired with the entire journey, but Gentleman Jack got us back in good spirits and we had quite a few swigs while watching Beerfest on TV and finally burned out the lights at 2a.m.
Saturday:
So it was birthday number 29 and I was in London. Just back from a trip to the Scottish hinterlands and having seen a fair amount of London. Only thing left to do today was shop! We had initially planned on catching the cricket match at Oval on this day or the Arsenal Liverpool match which was happening in the city. But decided against both of them as it was a bit pricey. So we went out and spend this money on shopping, and I must say, this was the most expensive shopping I have ever been part of. So we only spent about 4 hours and bought a few clothes, but it all still cost a whopping 280 pounds! The shopping experience was however pretty good. Like in the Armani store, there was a DJ playing music, a really hot chick tending to us, and a ton of awesome cool clothes to try out. Bought a few clothes here that just about fit the wallet and felt pretty good about it. Zara, Gap and few others covered the remainder of the shopping.
After the shopping, we decided to go to Hard Rock, which was the only thing left on my list of things to do in London, but there was actually a queue outside the pub - and they were all tourists. Guess HRC No. 1 really is as famous as its touted to be. We checked the waiting time and it was about 1 hour and that was really a bit much given how tired we were with all the shopping. So we decided to go to a place called Gaucho which was on Naan's list of things to show us in London. It was an Argentinian Steakhouse and the place was really one awesome experience. The entire place had real dim lighting, and the walls were covered with what looked like the outside of a cow. This place was really going all out with the steak concept. The food didn't disappoint either. I ordered the rib-eye steak this time as I already tried out the sirloin steak in Aberlour and thoroughly enjoyed that, and I must say, the rib-eye totally beat the pants (or maybe the coat, the fur coat, in this case) of the sirloin steak. Naan ordered the sirloin, and the rib-eye was better than this as well. Now I have a fave steak anytime I go out. We also ordered drinks and I asked for the JW Gold Label as Naan kept saying it was a good drink, but thankfully checked out the price for it and it was actually 75pounds! I cant imagine a single drink costing that much! So I switched to Famous Grouse which was on the other end - at 7 pounds the cheapest drink on the house and ordered 2 of that.
After a really enjoyable meal, we walked towards our tube station - Oxford Circus, and this was absolutely the central of central London, and right outside the station, all sort of things were happening. People playing music, dancing, and tons of chicks dressed super hot walking all around. G had a hard time keeping my eyes on the ground ahead, and after clicking a few photos of our last memories of London, we bid farewell to the UK.
That brought us to the end of a neat UK experience. Until the next time your majesty..
