HOLD UP! NOW, BOROUGH..... 

The London visit started with a somewhat darker touch. After landing from Dublin and checking into the hotel at Bolsover Street, Central London, we decided to walk to nearby Soho for dinner as it was nearly 9pm. Meanwhile the daughter had just realised that she had left her toothbrush behind and needed one. Close to Soho we saw this store and walked in and guess what, the proprietor was Mohan Patel and too eager to make conversation. He had been in London for over 30 years and still hadn't lost his Gujju accent.  So while the spouse and Mohanbhai continued with endless chit chat, breaking off only when he needed to take payments from other clients, we looked around the store picking fruits, water etc. Then two guys walked in, one was black and the other I initially mistook for another Indian but later found that he was from Pakistan. They were thin and looked more than grungy and obviously high on some substance. They were all smiles and throwing hellos around. After greeting Mohanbhai in a rather exaggerated manner, they headed for the salesman, who we later learned was Filipino. Clasping him in a tight embrace and literally lifting him up, they kept saying 'Leo Bhai you still working here,' while poor Leo was trying his utmost to wriggle out of the tight embrace. Though the duo were smiling and made it seem like they were bum chums of the proprietor, the edgy chill and the sudden sense of foreboding was palpable. It was then Mohanbhai literally whispered to us to leave pronto especially since we had bitiya with us. Even while the spouse asked if he should stay back for any help needed, Mohanbhai almost shooed us out. We left all right but we knew something bad was going to happen. On the way back after a Vietnamese dinner, we saw the store still open and crossed the road to check out. Mohanbhai was at his counter but there was no sign of Leo.The two - one originally from Pakistan and the other from Somalia - were apparently old hands at extorting money from Asian store owners. Leo, Mohanbhai told us, was fine and had gone home while he would be closing shop soon too. And the damage - 60 pounds. It was hard to believe Mohanbhai when he said that he got off cheaper that day as usually not only do they extort more money, pick up stuff randomly but damage some too just for the heck of it and that's why he hadn't called in the police! It was sickening and I hope the two get their much deserved comeuppance very soon.

With Mohanbhai with his typical Gujju grit smiling and carrying on business as usual, the sad cloud that seemed to have descended thankfully vanished. Now that there were no more demands to visit London Dungeon (get out and line up again to get in, yep did that too!) and such with the daughter leaving all that behind, it meant we could check out the markets, go to the theatres without anyone whining. Naturally, top of the market list was Borough Market. What made it better was that it was a Saturday and our old friends from Birmingham and the city itself could join us. I don't what it is about markets and the display of products that is so irresistible to me despite knowing that one is in foreign land and with  no kitchen to cook or experiment. Walking around Borough Market I begun to make a mental list of what I would have loved to take back home from there - no fresh products but only stuff like cheese, bottled produce and the like - and I had to give up almost instantly because not only did I seem to want everything but the mental list would have paved kilometres! And I did want everything but the game meat burgers. Barring pork, wild boar and occasional chicken cooked the way I like, I've accepted that I'm basically a sea food person and the idea of eating game meat in any form was enough to get me running to the furthest corner from it. The spouse I know is game for any meat (pun fully intended) but to see the daughter joining up and later relating with relish the varieties she ate almost made me feel cheated! For the record the stuff consumed included zebra, kangaroo, crocodile and ostrich. Thank god they left out camel, horse, python, alpaca and such.    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What to eat was turning out to be quite a trying matter because what you had passed by and what was on sale two counters away seemed to be drawing us in all directions. But it felt so good to see a huge empty karhai of samosas! If that doesn't make sense hold on, the samosas were all sold out. Khatam! Only the small label describing the samosas was left behind. And as we watched the vegetarian bhaji seem to be flying off equally fast. We looked at each other gleefully as if to say, see Indian dishes are so much in demand and then, promptly went to look for something non-Indian to eat!

Lets own up - aren't there moments when you dine abroad when you would give anything for a bottle of some spicy sauce to add a little zing and if nothing else settle for a bottle of Tabasco? After getting a trifle tipsy ( I think I've said this before and I will again, why is it called tipsy, try telling someone a wee high to pronounce it and what you get is a smiling tispy!) on rounds and rounds of sangria on a sunny day - I wanted that zing factor in my meal. I refused to believe our friends when they said all they wanted to eat was steamed chicken momos (dumplings) with the hottest sauce this side of the Suez. Hot as in chili hot, I kept asking quite unable to believe it. And boy was it hot! Just loved the momos and more than that the sauce with its perfect hot factor, enough to sweat out the Sangria haze- and loved hanging out with friends at Borough Market, felt like heaven.      

After some other dishes we somehow kept going back to the momos and when the friends said the best way to end the meal would be with the lemon cheese cake, one had no questions to ask but just wait for the treat and slurrp was it one.

Covent Garden Market had a snazzy surprise in store; it was celebrating August in Africa Summer Festival presented by the Africa Centre. As we walked in, the hypnotic music naturally pulled us towards it and yes, it was impossible to stop the feet from keeping rhythm, the hips from swaying and the hands.....simply dancing. More drinks, more eating, more checking out stores and more just feeling good about life. Okay there was just one tiny itchy issue - there are always these human statues dressed up in different attires getting tourists especially kids all curious. That's fine, I quite enjoy them but what is it now with these gravity defying postures and that too for hours, how the hell do they do it? I might sound like the biggest moron and dud but the golden man and the silver man had me foxed. I remember in Madrid there were these levitating human statues dressed like Indian swamis and one could finally figure out how they had cleverly concealed a tiny seat, just big enough to sit their bums, with a thin but sturdy support fixed to the platform on the ground. But this time.......

 

 

 

 

I don't know why but some sections of Camden Market reminds me of Indian markets - the hustle bustle, the thronging crowd, the colours, the noise and everything on a loud note. The spouse had some work in another part of London, so there we were, the two of us checking out whatever stores we wanted to at leisure.  For me there were hits and misses - I loved the old man in just his shorts, cap and shoes and socks jiving away to taped music, it really was a hoot. I totally disliked the two guys, one of whom had done beautiful black and white portraits on the pavement including one of Gandhi, who were almost ferocious at insisting that anyone who took a photograph pay up.  It gives me great pleasure to say I simply walked off; if they had behaved otherwise one would have happily tipped but being forced to and that too so rudely, not my  kind. I loved the Madder Hatter's (Alice in Wonderland) tea party tableau and I absolutely flipped over the t-shirts with hilarious slogans for tots. The food section of course as usual was the best. Once again preened with pride at seeing an Indian food stall called Roti House complete with a live tandoor and stuffed naans doing brisk business. For once I wanted to get a plate of stuffed naan too but the long queue put one off. The disappointment at not been able to have a stuffed naan was more then compensated by the the melt-in-the-mouth pulled pork burger with an Asian twist with spicy additions that one could throw in. That with long tall glasses of fresh juice and the final round of sinful churros dipped in luscious chocolate sauce we felt was a better deal. Strangely for a couple turning out such yummy churros I don't know why they had such a dour demeanour that was quite off-putting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As we leftCamden Market and walked ahead quite a bit, we came upon a poster in one of those oriental medicine clinic and this was a real poser - which tongue are you? The poster had pictures of several tongues, or rather half tongues, in different colours each listing the symptoms the particular shade indicated. I'm still trying to figure out what category my tongue belongs to because for some strange reason I feel  I have a bit of every symptom!

LIFFEY! ITS HA'PENNY AGAIN

When you see the world around from a height, its a different perspective altogether. And I don't mean literal physical height but an elevated platform! After all one has gone through life being asked how's the weather down there. The point one is making is that there can be no better raised perch than the upper floor of a hop-on hop-off tourist bus - so pedestrian, so infra dig, so whatever it may sound to some - to see a new city. This family always keeps a day set aside for a hop-on hop-off trip around a new city and even old ones we visit, it makes it easier to take in the layout of the city and then decide on the areas, places, museums etc to be checked out at leisure later. So there we were in Dublin and whatever hop-off hop-off buses we took and whatever lines we took, red, yellow, green and whatever colour, the Ha' Penny bridge seemed to pop up one way or the other.  

Somehow it seemed that you could not step out in Dublin without saying hello to the Ha'Penny Bridge several times and cross over it several times too. It's a lovely white arched bridge that flows over the River Liffey and with Dublin being another old and beautiful European city, the banks on the sides have much view to offer. Of course every guide on the hop-on hop-off had his/her own say on the Ha' Penny Bridge, some very funny, some very boring and some very intriguing, but all would claim that more than 30,000 people crossed the bridge everyday. And that got me first amused and later intrigued. Let me explain the amusement bit first before it gets mistaken for a sneering snort. When you live in New Delhi, you don't need a pretty bridge, you just need a major road near your house to see humanity whizz by, those in vehicles included too. There's just so many of us!  

My interest piqued, I decided to check what Ha'Penny Bridge was all about and the story is quite interesting. The bridge came up in May 1816, one more year and it will be 200 years old. Before that apparently ferries carried both goods and passengers across the River Liffey. So when the bridge came up there was much jubilation but before the Irish could set foot on the bridge, they had to pay a price - half a penny! That was the cost of a ferry ride then and since the ferry owner, one William Walsh lost his earnings, thanks to the bridge, the half penny would go to him. William also happened to be an alderman of the city and so it must have been easy for him to convince the concerned authorities that he should not be deprived of his monies just because one bridge had come up. Ah! to be a politician...........

Amazingly from the 1816s till 1999 Ha'Penny Bridge was the only pedestrian bridge in Dublin until the opening of the Millennium Bridge. It is still going strong, painted all white, which was its original colour. In early 2000s extensive restoration work was done and it was then it seems that the authorities took the decision to paint the bridge in the original all white because prior to that, the bridge was not just painted black and silver at varying times but also stuck with advertising boards. 

If the Ha'Penny Bridge is right there and simply unavoidable, Dublin also seems to having barber shops on virtually every street. After a point I gave up trying to count how many barber shops one would come across within a kilometre range while walking. What is it about Irish men and barber shops? And some of the barber shops have the strangest names. Do guys actually go the The Butcher Barber? Please I didn't cook that up. Look it up and you will find that it is on 12 Johnson's Ct, Dublin 2. Then there is Sweeney Todd Barbers (Main Street). You still think I'm spinning it out of thin (h)air. Hah!

 

The best barber shop I saw will have to remain photograph-less because I saw it early morning while driving out of Dublin to Kilkenny. The shutters were down and what was painted on it in big bold letters had me cackling loudly for quite sometime, it barked a directive - 'C'here, Hippie' and that too below a picture of a half opened old fashioned shaving razor. I tried taking out the camera but it was too late, we had whizzed past. Of course I had to ask around if such a barber shop existed, yep they do in the plural and the shop is called simply The Barbers Room. I tried locating one but for some reason couldn't, could be because I guess I had just one day to do that before leaving Dublin. It therefore goes without saying that I appealed to Google God and guess what, several photographs turned up.So I downloaded one (http://www.pikore.com/tag/thebarbersroom. It was uploaded by lololovestravel) I would also love to know if the Hippies have any reply to that.

In Dublin everyone will tell you to visit Trinity College, besides Guinness and Old Jameson Distillery - very spiritual the Irish! It could have  been easy to brush off Trinity saying if you have seen one centuries old University in Europe you have seen them all but Trinity is home to the Book of Kells. It is indeed a work of art, imagine more than 800 years ago the Monks stooped over their desks turning out that stunning calligraphy and those Celtic knots (fantastic graphics). Just remember that there is a long,  loooong line to get to see it. There are castles and there are bars, then there are museums (especially the Little Museum of Dublin) and there are bars, then there is the awesome Iveagh Gardens and there are bars.....enough to make you call the city Publin.

If one has read a bit of literature and has some little literary inclinations, pretentious or otherwise, it can be a bit of a and-so-whom-shall-we-check out in a city that boasts of literary stalwarts. Not literally of course but their legacy, heritage and so forth. Lets say everyone was not happy in the family (in a family of 3!) but The Dublin Writer's Museum was on my to-do list and it was finally done. Can't help pointing out that the beautiful Georgian building in which the museum is housed was once owned by George Jameson of the Old Jameson Distillery - so spiritual again! There are two floors and a treasure trove of priceless literature which unfortunately cannot be photographed and not without reason too considering their fragile state. It's a very informative walk through the works and part of lives of Irish writing giants through their books, letters etc including a signed copy of Ulysses. Above all, it has the first edition of Dracula and if you are wondering why because the author Bram Stoker was Irish! Ghoulish too the Irish.

 

From the sublime to the subterranean. What else can one say about the Leprechaun Museum, just that its high time I finally grew up? All pun intended. The Irish they say have the gift of the gab, they do and they don't need to kiss the Blarney stone for it. And since we couldn't go to say hello to the Blarney stone, I in all my lilliputian wisdom decided The Leprechaun Museum was a must. For 10 Euros per head, the Museum touted as the first and the only one of its kind dedicated to Irish mythology, teaches you a lot - the most crucial being let myths remain myths. I should have known better majority of the audience wee below ten years, accompanied by their parents. So, you are first given an introduction to what Leprechauns are all about and then you are taken through rooms with giant furniture that make you feel like dwarfs with more stories and it goes on till you finally get to see the pot of gold or rather something made to look like a pot of gold. It is all about story telling and despite the feeling of having been taken for a total ride, one couldn't help but acknowledge that the story teller, Shannon, did a fantastic job. If it wasn't she and her dramatic. fantastic narration and her amazing ability to involve everyone, I sure I would have demanded a refund!

   

 

 

 

Ahem! That's the pot of gold

A day tour can be both exciting and exhaustive but thankfully the one to Kilkenny and Glendalough that included the Wicklow Mountains was fun. If you saw P S I love You and got excited at the idea of Wicklow Mountains National Park please chill, because that's what it is about, bone chilling with a fierce icy wind almost blowing you off your feet. There's no denying that it is beautiful, miles and miles of low vegetation all around and gently rolling hills, but all your focus will be on pulling your woollies closer, trying to rein your flying hair and stop your teeth from chattering. Incidentally before you go there, you cross Hollywood! Not the LA one for sure but the original one. Apparently it was from Hollywood, Ireland that two brothers went to the US to make  their fortune and boy did they strike gold. It was therefore given that  they couldn't forget their hometown and just Hollywood sprung up in the US. Yes there is an exact Hollywood cut out up on a field.

 

 

But before that there was Kilkenny, a small city with beautiful old buildings, majestic castles, abbeys and cathedrals, winding narrow roads, some cobbled and shops all around selling artistic stuff from pottery, woollens, woodwork and more. Not surprising considering that it has the well known Kilkenny Design and  Craft Centre. The Kilkenny Castle is stunning, all aged bricks and regal but its the Castle Gardens that steal the show. Almost opposite it is the Kilkenny Design and Craft Centre with floors of impressive crafts and arts for sell and a restaurant and cafe. It wasn't lunch time but the cafe was really inviting and especially the room at the back with quite amusing art works on the walls and elegantly trying to drink tea was naturally called for. The walk through the main hub of  Kilkenny throws up some delightful vignettes like a bicycle parked right beneath a sign that said 'no bicycles allowed'. There is an elderly man with flowing beard busking and the gravel richness of his deep voice is magnetic.

On way to and getting into Kilkenny

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

Kilkenny is also home to Smithwick's the 300 years old ale maker offering an experience but we skip that. There was a dark Gothic structure up on a small hill and I wanted to check that out. It turned out to be St Canice's Cathedral and Round Tower (said to be the oldest standing structure in Kilkenny), an institution over 800 years old and where regular services are held even today.There are tombstones all around and even though there's bit of sunshine and a group of teenagers, clearly on a school visit, milling around boisterously and lining up to get into the Round Tower, I feel a sense of desolateness when I go to the back of the Cathedral and see a couple of tombstones in a corner. I wouldn't want to go there at night. I rather go down and check out the lanes and by lanes again, we do and they have much to offer including some vistas that one thought would be limited to movie sets and story books.

 

 

 

 

Finally on way to Glendalough. The tourist brochures etc will tell you that Glendalough is a monastic city since this is where the early Christian monastic settlement was established in the 6th century by St Kevin and that is also a valley between two lakes. Incidentally, our guide for the day kept reiterating that Kevin, who came from an affluent family and all that, came to Glendalough or rather escaped to Glendalough because he didn't like humans! St Kevin so insisted the guide wanted to stay far far away from humans and what living as human beings entailed but the very same humans he wanted to escape would somehow manage to get to his hideouts so finally he gave up and decided to set up the monastery in Glendalough. Myth or fact, don't know but this much I know that standing among the ruins of the monastery he set up surrounded by the verdant mountains all around, the stream passing nearby, in the later part of the afternoon  there was a feeling of surrealism - the cynic in you saying pure touristy drivel and yet not able to shake the feeling of wonder at what driven souls could do and how peaceful it must have been to live among nature and with just nature.There is also an impressive round tower here and again tombstones some centuries old.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Glendalough we are told in Irish is Gleann dá Locha which means valley of two lakes, the Upper lake and the Lower lake and on a rocky spur  near the Upper lake is where remnants of St Kevin's cell is to be found. From the Glendalough visitor centre the walk to the  lower lake is a lovely walk through serene forests. The sky is grey again when we reach the lakes but the dull silver glean is obvious and in the distance a waterfall can be seen winding its way down the hills to the lake. As the water gently ripples and the faint sun rays weave a hazy tapestry the moment is magical. St Kevin certainly knew the best getaway!