London

We arrived in london on a wet monday, typical london weather. From Heathrow airport, it took us roughly half an hour to get to Earl's Court station, the closest one to the hotel. The surprise about the hotel rooms in London and Paris are that they are very very small compared to economy sized rooms in the US. In both the places, a continental breakfast was provided as part of the room tariff. Breakfast consisted of cereal, fruit, bread, croissants, cheese, yoghurt, tea and coffee. More than enough for us.

We left the hotel around 10AM and took the bus to hyde park which was the closest stop to our hop on hop off tour of london. the tour was on a nice open top red bus, but alas, the rain proved a spoiler and we had to take cover in the covered portion. Still we did get our first glimpse of London. We got off at Picadilly Circus and started walking our way bach towards Regents Street, London's primary shopping locality. It looked a very familiar sight seen in many movies.

We saw Veerasamy's, London oldest south Indian restaurant (it was closed for renovation), and Broadcasting House (BBC broadcasting center). WE had a nice coffee at Cafe Nero's coffee shop and then took the bus to Westminster Abbey. Westminste4 Abbey was really something. It is a cathedral still in use. It is the burial place for England's greatest monarchs and warriors from all the back to the 11th century until Queen Victoria.

There was an interesting marble plaque commemorating the British victory in Trichnopoly (Trichy) and the Rock Fort has been shown as the backdrop. From there we went saw the Big Ben and the Thames and parliament house. We did not go inside as it was getting late. We started walking towards Downing Street, saw the street from behind barricades and then walked towards Trafalgan Square. the very tall Nelson's column is a very beautiful
structure commemorating Nelson's victory over Napolean's fleet. We got back to our hotel around 9PM and were dead tired.



By the way for lunch we walked into a Mcdonalds and there we managed to get a nice grilled vegatebale sandwich, something that is not available in the US. They also sell a chicken tikka sandwich. Surprise, surprise!!!

The amazing fact about London and Paris is their vast metro system. Getting from one place to another however close or far is such an easy task. Their ticketing is also very easy to understand. As long as you are in one particular zone, the ticket price remains the same even if it is the next station or 10 stations away. A single whole day pass costed us only 4 pounds 50 pence compared to paying 1 pound 40 pence for a single one way trip. The pass could be used in both trains and buses.

The second day was bright and sunny luckily for us and we decided to go and see the change of guards at Buckingham Palace. the cermony started at 11AM, but we had to be there much earlier. The change of guard itself was very interesting with a large band performance. After that we decded to fo into Buckingham Palace. The one thing tourists have to be prepared for is the cost involved in getting into all these attractions. For instance, the ticket for the palace cost 13 pounds a person. That is a lot of money. One will easily end up spending 100 pounds or more everyday for two people in London or Paris. In any case, the Palace itself was very interesting. Lots of rare paintings, works of art and so well maintained. After all the Queen still lives there. The history that has been created in London is just breath taking. Every stone and building in London had a story behind it.

We met Rishi in the evening at Liverpool Station and went on a cruise on the Thames river. We also walked around the financial district of London. Rishi was was glad to see us. Rishi is pursuing a Ph.D in international trade from Middlesex Unix. He lives in a suburb of London called Waltham Court. We had food at an Indian restaurant for dinner and we returned to our hotel around 9:30.



The next day was Wednesday and the day started bright, but it started to rain soon after. We went to Lords cricket ground. What an experience it was. Like a pligrimage, to the Mecca of cricket. It is in a locality called Marlybourne (MCC stands for Marlybourne Cricket Club), a very high class neighbourhood. The stadium is right in the middle of a residential area. We took a guided tour of the stadium, the pavilion, the famous long room, players dregging rooms and the media center. It was fascinating. We finally went to the Lords museum where there are such priceless artifacts as the original Ashes, Ranji's bat, all the actual World Cups and lots of memorablia. All in all, it is a worthwhile visit.



We next went to Madame Tussaud's was museum and it was real fun. I have to admit those people are real artists. The wax figures are so realistic. We took pictures with many of them, incl. Amitabh Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai. Close to the wax museum is the famous home of Sherlock Holmes, 221B Baker St. We saw that place from outside.

In the evening, we went to the SwamiNarayan Temple in a suburb of London called Neasden. It is a very beautiful temple made of marble and more marble. We met a very interesting gentleman by the name of Shanmugam Pillai who has with the Swami Narayan oroganisation since 1967. A Tamilian speaking fluent Gujarati. A former DMK athiest, now a total beliver. He had moved from Madras to Nairobi and then to the UK. He would not let us go without having dinner at the temple that evening. It was very enjoyable and we reached our hotel only by around 10PM.

Security was very highly visible throughout London, both on the roads and in the subway system. The authorities have removed all dust bins from the subway system to prevent someone from dropping a bomb into the dust bin. So commuters are forced to carry the trash with them outside the station.

I forgot to mention something else on Day.3. We went to visit the Houses of Parliament. The Tour was very informative and included a guided tour of both the House of Lords and House of Commons. Unfortunately, Parliament was not in session and we could not see any activity. Unlike in India, anyone can go see a debate and does not need any special pass to get in. One just has to stand in line and get in early.

By the way we have carefully preserved all the tickets that we bought to all these places. They all have been printed with nice designs and Meenu is planning to make a nice collage of them.

We got up and bright and early on Thursday and went to the Tower of London. The Tower of London is one of the oldest forts in England, dating back to the 11^th century. It is famous now for housing the Queen’s jewels and imperial crowns. At one point it was infamous as the last prison for many condemned people including royalty before they were executed. The Queen’s jewels are an amazing collection. We finally had a look at the Kohinoor diamond. By the way that diamond is not in the crown worn by Queen Elizabeth II. Queen Victoria was the first person to wear that crown and the last person to wear that was Queen Elizabeth’s mother, the wife of King George VI, who died 3 yrs ago. We were not allowed to take any pictures of the collection, but there is a very good web site with all pictures and other details.



After that we went to the British Museum. By the way entrance to all museums in London was free. This was the not the case in Paris where we had to pay to get into every museum. The British museum possibly houses the most amazing collection of Ancient Indian, Egyptian and Mesopotamian antiques. It was indeed a humbling experience to see those civilizations having been so advanced 5000 yrs ago. We saw many perfectly preserved mummies. I am pretty sure that the Egyptians were much more advanced than the Indus valley and Mesopotamian civilizations. The museum’s Indian collection includes many bronze statues of our gods and goddesses. By the way there was a special exhibit to house artifacts found in the Buddha stupa at Amaravati in guntur Dist. Do you remember we have gone there by boat from Vijayawada. Even at that time I was very impressed by the stupa. I was even more surprised to see the collection in London. In a way it a good thing that these are being exhibited and well taken care of in Britain. They would most probably fall into a state of neglect in India. What do you think?



Next we went to the Victoria and Albert Museum. This is a different kind of museum. It houses much of personal collection of Queen Victoria. By the way Albert is Queen Victoria’s husband (also called Prince consort). The only pieces that we were interested in were the throne of Ranjit Singh, the sword of Tipu Sultan and a special mechanical toy belonging to Tipu Sultan that shows a tiger attacking a British soldier.

Later in the evening, we walked into the famous Harrods store. It is a massive shop, something like Mustafa in Singapore, but larger. There were so many people from the Middle East shopping there as if they were buying fruits and vegetables. Everything is dreadfully expensive and we eventually ended up buying 2 samosas and 2 batata vadas!!! And even those cost 1pound each. There is a very nice memorial to Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed. After all, Harrods is owned by Dodi’s father, Mohamed Al Fayed.

That night we had dinner at a Lebanese restaurant. We got back to the hotel around 10PM.

Friday morning we got up much earlier as we had to catch our train at 8:10AM from London’s Waterloo station to go to Paris. We did not have breakfast at the hotel. Instead, they gave us a packed breakfast to go and we left the hotel at around 6:40AM. We reached Waterloo 30 min later. Both British immigration and French immigration have counters at the Waterloo station and our visas were checked by the French authorities at the station itself. The Eurostar train left promptly at 8:10.