Disclaimer: This is a narration of my perspective and may not be subscribed by the others who traveled with me.


The plant looks more green and is now really colorful with the buds having blossomed into beautiful looking flowers. Looking upto the sunshine and revelling in it, swaying to the wind and dancing to the wind’s tunes. Oh, what a beautiful sight to see!!!


The sharp cheek-boned travel guide gave descriptive announcements as we traveled thru the country side. Yes, she may have been doing this job everyday and may hence come as no surprise that she was able to share so much, with fluency and ease. Wonder if she tries to say something different every few days (relevant of course) or say what she is saying differently!! Loved the way she spoke about High Grove, the estate that belongs to Prince Charles. There is apparently so much demand to visit the gardens there that one has to book two years in advance, to visit it. This sounded like wanting to have a specific seva done for Lord Venkateswara at Tirupathi. 


Her body language both times that we were delayed, did show an unhappiness but she managed to smile thru it all. Her professional requirements, I presume. What according to me was amazing was the way, she came across to us and asked us where we wanted to go and gave us various options to reach there.


And where did we go? We took a nice 40 minute walk to Westminster Abbey and saw the exterior architecture there, walked a bit more to Trafalgar square and it was still bright daylight at 8. It was nice to see children and adults climbing on to the lions, at the 4 corners of Trafalgar square. I actually would have loved to do that too but somehow did not muster enough courage to do that.

Hunger pangs started to strike us and we walked trying to find a restaurant that also served vegetarian food, for some of us in the group are vegetarians. We could not find many and when we chanced upon one and walked inside, there were some tables that were occupied and some tables that were empty. The person there told us that they can give us tables only after 30 – 45 minutes. When so many tables are empty, it would take that much time? and there were no reserved signs on the tables? That is when the aspect of racism struck us. We have heard about people from India facing it, but this was the first time we had encountered it (of course we heard the person who makes the omelette at the breakfast counter telling one of us that he hated Indians. Whew!! That is a strong word – hate!!). For some vague reason, the way we were turned away made us more cautious and left us wondering, if we were going to be turned away at some other restaurants too. Finally we managed to find a McDonald’s and finished our dinner there. Not a satisfactory one but something that fed the stomach. Then back to the hotel after changing tubes at different stations.


Coming to think of it, in all the days that we were in the UK, we would perhaps return back only by 10.30 or 11 in the night. On a couple of days, even later than that. There was no fear in walking so late in the night on the road. Why was there no fear? Was it because we were in a group? Was it because we felt that we were safe enough? I can now understand what is meant by the mob mentality. When you are in a group, you become brave enough to challenge yourself and act like you otherwise possibly don’t and won’t.


The next day was a little more relaxed as we were were taking a hop off hop on bus to tour London. Though we had got the vouchers for the London Pass while we were in India (we were lucky to have someone in our group who did all the planning for the weekend at London), we still had to get the actual tickets here in London. Running around to find the place where we could get the tickets and getting lost in the meanwhile – this was taking more time than we thought. We finally found the place, took the tickets and went to the bus stand to board the bus.


This bus takes us on a tour thru different spots in London. One can hop off and hop on at any spot. The entry to some places including the cruise on River Thames comes free with this London Pass. We were fortunate to get seats on the upper deck of the bus. Since it was late to get off to see the Change of Guards at Buckingham Palace, we decided to skip it. We did see a couple of guards on their horses at the entrance of the Palace.


The audio commentary that one can listen to, using the headphones provided, gave a detailed description about every place. The description was so informative that with the wind on our faces and the sun shining down on us, we went for one complete trip in the bus, getting down nowhere. I looked up to see the blue skies and the clouds and could not help but take a picture of it. Looks like cotton, doesn’t it?


Madame Tussauds was a place that I personally wanted to see. It was not a part of the London Pass that we had taken and to spend 30 pounds to see wax statues was not really appealing. Incidentally a friend of mine who was at London a few days before us, had been to Madame Tussauds. She showed some pictures of the wax statues, when I met her after I returned from my trip to the UK.  After seeing them, was I glad that I did not go!!! The statues of Amitabh Bacchan, Salman Khan, Shahrukh Khan, Madhuri Dixit, Aishwarya Rai were not looking so good. The one statue that looked like the real person, was that of Princess Diana. I recall my friend saying, “Maybe it is difficult for them to sculpt the Asian faces and easier to sculpt people who are from the West”. Interesting statement!!


I was told that seeing Harrods and taking a walk down Oxford street would be good. Quite unfortunately the three places that we wanted to see – St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey and Oxford street we were told were closed on that day. However we came to know that evening that St Paul’s Cathedral was actually open. We had heard that the architecture inside the Cathedral was supposed to be beautiful. Sad that we missed it.


On the way to Harrods, I saw a gentleman making a figurine of a dog using some material. It looked like fine saw dust, though I am not sure of it. The folds on the dog were so well done that it would perhaps look really natural when he finished his work.



One step into Harrods and there were two words that came to my mind – opulence and ostentatious – gold and glitter and frill and fancy. Their Jewellery section had counters of the who’s who of brands in the industry – Tiffany’s, Dior, Yves Saint Laurent etc and I found barely a customer or two in all the counters put together. Expensive?


The chocolate and the perfumery sections were the ones that had many people. One look at the chocolate section and the thought that went in me was “My heart is full”. I just did not feel like looking at any other section. When anyone says that their heart is full looking at something, I used to look at them with skepticism. How can that be even possible? Now I know 🙂 It was so full that I did not even think of buying chocolates, which is strange, considering that I love them.


After a quick lunch, it was time to see the Tower of London. This was a beautiful sight from outside. We wanted to visit two rooms that were here. One was the room that contained the Crown Jewels and the other was the ‘Torture chamber’  The room that contained the Crown Jewels was a trifle disappointing at first as we could see only pictures of the Jewels and we were wondering if that was all that was there to see. As we were wondering, we entered the room that had the jewels. Gosh!! All that glitter and that gold and the precious stones. The ornaments worn by the queen when she was anointed. The jewels worn by the Princes when they were crowned. Quite some sparkling pieces from India that we saw. For a moment I was left thinking “For all that they have taken from here, we Indians need to be treated with respect and royalty”. And my mind went back to the way we were turned away the previous day, at the restaurant. What an irony!!


The torture chamber was musty and macabre. The instruments used to torture people gave the goose bumps. I wanted to step out of the chamber as fast as I could. Guess as much as it is a challenge to be a leader, it is equally a challenge to be a follower.. Sometimes a follower also wants to lead and then starts the conflicts 🙂 


We reached our final tourist destination – A cruise on River Thames. After standing in the queue for quite sometime and waiting for a ship to disembark the tourists, we boarded and headed straight to the upper deck. It took a while for the ship to be set in motion and once it was, it was a memorable half hour journey. Standing next to me was this lady who was visiting UK with her students. Native of UK, she had moved to the U.S many years back. This perhaps explained why she was able to give details of every building around to us. It was wonderful listening to the information she gave all thru the half hour. 



The tour guide on the ship was also giving his commentary over a mike but we could only hear a muffled voice. This tour guide as he was standing with the bucket where people drop their tips looks like someone. Would you know who?




We had come to know that if one buys the London Pass, one is entitled to shop free for 5 pounds at specific shops. So it was back to Trafalgar square to redeem that coupon. Right next to this shop was an Italian restaurant and the menu that they had kept outside, had some vegetarian items. Much to our delight, one of the people working at this restaurant came out and invited us to have dinner in their restaurant. The first thought was “These guys are not racist”. It is interesting how one incident can be so powerful to leave such a mark in us.


It was time to head back to the hotel. Walking back again by around 10, I know I felt a shade of sadness at this memorable trip coming to an end. The exposure that this trip gave to another country, the people living here and a different culture from what we are used to, is one that I will always cherish.


Before I sign off this traveblogue, want to share a few incidents that were indeed a learning and fun to go thru:


– Saw this running information in the train that said ‘the train has been reburbished’ (instead of saying it is refurbished) and a friend sitting next to me said ‘Looks like they have a confusion in the ‘f’ and the ‘b’ of the english language:-)


– At the billing counter in one of the shops I asked them for the bill. The lady looked puzzled and asked “Bill?”. When I repeated it, she suddenly realised that I was asking for a receipt. “Oh, you want a receipt?”


– I asked someone I met “Where do you stay?”. He asked me to repeat the sentence. I repeated it and then he asked “You mean, where do I live?” Whew!!! American English, British English – which one are we actually following?


– In a tube station, there was this lady who was holding her dog with the leash in one hand and pulling her luggage trolley on the other. The dog suddenly halted and held its ground using its hind legs. She tried pulling the leash. It moved a little and halted and resisted again. As she was trying to pull the leash with force, it just excreted right there. I am not sure how she cleaned it as we had walked past her just then. She looked as though she was about to lose her cool. As the owner of a dog, shouldn’t she have known that the dog was trying to convey something by resisting her pull and that too, more than once? Our children do this too, don’t they? Especially when they are uncomfortable while traveling, they do communicate in the way they know – by resisting what we want them to do. I guess just like the owner of the dog, we too as parents don’t pay enough attention to the communication that the children make, in the hurry of completing our own tasks!!


While the blossoms start withering after blooming fully, the fragrance remains. The slender plant with the colorful blossoms, remain etched in my mind. A memorable journey comes to an end. Oh wait. but why do I feel that this is the start of something new?