Travel Diaries

"Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” – Ibn Battuta

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Day #1 of UK trip in Manchester with chithi, Madhu and chitya :)

I'm going to copy paste chithi's account of the day as she does such a good job of explaining things and events of the day :)

Day 12 : 27th June 2019, match day, girls day-out day and Dishoom day*

Appu and Niveditha arrived. 910am? Hot breakfast of rava upma and apple, ID filter coffee.

The men headed out to Old Trafford and the girls arattaied, and then headed to Altrincham - market town in West Manchester. Trams full day ticket. Very useful.

Arattai continues. Explored the small market with kiosks full of wonderfully smelling food. Thursday is trinkets and antiques day in Altrincham - interesting to see shop selling only dog leashes, dog sweaters, dog coats etc. Remarkable 😜.

We spotted an old Indian rupee in an antique shop. Also saw what is called a eudimonium.

Lunch in a vegetarian kiosk - tried polenta fries with mayo, Jamaican jack wrap and banana +peanut butter smoothie. Great food 😊

Macchiato at Caffe Nero for Niveditha. Pen pencil purchased at a quaint Japanese shop. Walked around the shopping high street of Altrincham. Decided to visit the IWM, North again.

Tram station. Passed Old Trafford exactly when Dhoni hit a six in the last over. Crowd was cheering rapturously - cdnt resist the temptation to get down and go to the stadium. Also possible to meet the match goers - innings break coming up soon. Got down quickly, met the threesome, selfies, chatted excitedly - the atmosphere was electric in the last over, what with chants of Dhoni, Dhoni...

Sea of blue in the stands, hundreds of Indians

After the brief meeting with Appu, Madhu and Sampath walk to IWM. Passed thru the Manchester United stadium, which is very close to the cricket stadium also. Less than 10mins.

The stadium is huuuuge. More after the stadium tour tomorrow 😎. The ManU Enterprise is very impressive and amazing. It is on a scale that was much more than what I had imagined.

IWM after a longish walk. Hot sun. Niveditha was very impressed. We had about 90mins to tour the museum today.

Today we watched a 5min documentary abt Al-mutanabi street bombing in Iraq. Also a huge exhibit from the World Trade Center air crash of 2001. A mangled piece of steel which formed part of the structural columns of one of the skyscrapers. Tragic memories.

Left the museum around 5, went to Media City tram station and took a tram back home.

The junta came home around 730? Brought victory back home. And then we all set out to Dishoom for dinner.

Appu had painstakingly studied their menu online, talked to many people who recommended it. Brilliant choice 👌.

The place has got a few more things out of the ordinary, other than of course the food. For one, no reservations - once we get in and book a table, we are handed a pager which is expected to buzz when a table has freed up and has been allocated to us. We also got instructions that at least one person of the group should wait at the restaurant and we need to be in the signalling radius of the paging system.

But all this hanky panky was justified by the food. Well worth the wait!

The waiter attending to us explained the menu, various sections of the menu, the recommended dishes in the small plates (pav Bhaji is classified in small plates here, BTW), main course, dessert and drinks sections of the menu. Have never seen this before in a restaurant. In fact he took the trouble to repeat everything twice at 2 ends of the table for us, since there was so much noise around us 😅

Dinner was a sema jolly affair with pav Bhaji, chilly cheese toast, grilled paneer and pineapple Tikka, chole batura and sheera, lassis, tulsi-sour, masala chai, jackfruit biriyani with raita, wonderfully creamy dal makhni, roomali roti, kulfis, kala-khatta gola ice.

Podhuma 😜🤗😜🤗.

Deserving special mention is their toilet. With "souchalay", "mahilayen" and "purush" written in Gujarati Each WC has a wash basin inside with brass fittings and not to mention the rosewood toilet seats 😅😅. Niveditha's recommendation to please visit the toilet. 😃😃.

Walked back home. Piccadilly arcades, Market square and then via northern quarter. Deserted alleys. Bought onions for hot breakfast tomorrow at a 24hr SPAR outlet. Home at about 12am.

Sema fun. US junta had Airbnb cancel their stay for some power failure problem. So innum super and we all stayed together.

Retired for the day. The boys in eager anticipation of the next day's stadium tour.

Good night 😘

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Indian Omelette in Dishoom (more on this restaurant later). After ages, I had Omelette with manja podi and kara podi and it reminded me of this fluffy Omelette that my mama used to make.

Having worked in Air force for a long time, he is all strong and military trained. We used to race each other (he won Everytime) and he would keep encouraging me to play sports and be strong etc.

Happy memories and good omelette :D

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The best thing about Edinburgh (true in so many European cities) that not everything is just big brand name shops and restaurants.

There is plenty of local cafes, stationery stores, grocery store etc that for the millennials like us, who are always in the lookout for this, are just perfect :)

A small bakery near our Airbnb called Twelve triangles.

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Tired me arrives at Philly by overnight bus from Boston after a lovely after graduation trip to Acadia :) A week long conference on micro pattern gas detectors, the knowledge I gain here would be useful in my research in from September onwards where we will start talking about Electronics of the end cap . I'm presenting a poster at this conference based on all the work I've done so far. It's shocking that last 1.5 years of work can be fit into 1 poster but oh well :) it's humbling to be surrounded by physicist who are AA-MAZING! And ofc, the view from my room (which is surprisingly a bad resident hall) is great :)

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Tired me arrives at Philly by overnight bus from Boston after a lovely after graduation trip to Acadia :) A week long conference on micro pattern gas detectors, the knowledge I gain here would be useful in my research in from September onwards where we will start talking about Electronics of the end cap . I'm presenting a poster at this conference based on all the work I've done so far. It's shocking that last 1.5 years of work can be fit into 1 poster but oh well :) it's humbling to be surrounded by physicist who are AA-MAZING! And ofc, the view from my room (which is surprisingly a bad resident hall) is great :)

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Trip to Acadia starts with long long drive to Dover. Stop one at Sanju's place :) Music and pothi! I'm covered for this road trip :) #SummerTravel :) This summer is going to see a lot of traveling and hopefully that means lot of blogging :)

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Leather Market near Duomo.

I hate painting a group of people with one brush, but the bangladeshi’s in Florence make me so strongly want to do that. 

They are SO rude and they don’t even talk to customers properly. They seem so high and mighty and completely disinterested in customers. When we asked for a price of a bag, he gave us the number. When we asked if that is the best price, the guy literally threw the bag into a pile and said to his partner “Go do some other work”. 

It so happened that we met a bangladeshi women in a bus to trevi fountain and we got to talking to her. Casually we asked her, “it is nice that you have quite a few bangladeshi’s right” and she actually said, “that is excatly the problem. 90% of them are thieves and ‘harami’ and because of that we carry the burden of their actions” 

Also, 1) Oman has stopped issuing visas to bangladeshi’s. 

2) When they apply for a Schengen visa, it gets 45 days to get approved as every member country  of Europe has to approve their visas. 

Anyway, all said, if you are a person who likes leather, one must do some leather shopping in Florence. 

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River ARNO, which separates the city of Florence into old and new settlements. It was once upon a time used for navigation, but not anymore. Although it looks very clean in this photo, it isn’t that clean. 

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Piazzale Michelangelo

It is THE place in Florence to get a panoramic view of the red-roofed city and ofc course the Duomo which stands out as a giant monument. The view from the top of Duomo is second best view only because you can’t see the duomo the way you see from here :)

This place is situated uphill and it is the first place we stopped at Florence. We took a 48hrs sightseeing hop in hop off ticket and it was a good way to see the full city. It comes with an audio guide which talks about the history of Florence and various buildings and churches as we pass it. 

We went to see this piazalle in the morning and again at night the the next day. Both of them have a different charm and so beautiful :)

This square was dedicated to the famous sculptor and painter of Florence - Michelangelo. And that is why a bronze statue of David stands in all its mighty at the centre of the square. Surrounding this statue are 4 statues indicating - Morning, Night, dawn and dusk. 

Like every place in Florence, this square has tasty Geleto parlours and small shops which sells souvenirs. Don’t be surprised (shocked) to see T-shirts and Apron selling with a picture of David showing off his nudity. 

When we went, there was a young married couple in their marriage costume taking photographs. They also had a cute son :)

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Italy Trip - 2015

A long pending post about my trip to Italy for Eid holidays in 2015.

It requires that i am stuck overnight in an airport for me to develop the motivation to write all those I have been meaning to for a very long time. 

Rough Itinerary 

Milan - Florence - Rome - Venice - Milan.

PLANNING

It is SO easy to plan a trip to Italy, or maybe any popular destination in the world considering the wealth of knowledge that is available online. There are so many blogs, so many website for traveler’s and ofc goofle which helps in every stage of the planning. 

I did the planning for this trip in layers.

Layer 1: Booking flight tickets - You need to check the cost of flight ticket to all cities that you plan to visit. And obviously take the cheapest and make your trip accordingly. 

Layer 2: Making a rough itinerary of what all cities that you plan on visiting and how many days would you need in each city. Depending on your totally travel days, you can make the plan and there are lots of help on trip advisor to help you decide. It also helps to know roughly what all one MUST see in a place so that you can plan accordingly.  

Layer 3: Booking train tickets. trenitalia.com is a one stop solution for all train requirements. In Italy, trains are excellent and best way to travel. Unless ofcourse, you want to drive through the countries. The cost of train tickets aren’t fixed and earlier you book the cheaper they are. Sometime there are also some flash offers for certain weekends. The difference between booking before a month to the trip and booking the previous week could be as high as 100$ per person.

Layer 4: I booked all my places through Airbnb. It is a very cost effective option. Things to be noted:

1) Do look up reviews and ratings. Pictures can most of the time be misleading. 

2) Look at the distance of the place from city centre and railway station.

3) Ask the host which floor the apartment is in, and check if they have lifts in the apartment. Most places in Italy don’t have lifts and this makes it highly inconvenient to carry luggage.

4) If you are travelling in the summer, look for places with Air Conditioner. 

5) It always helps to go with a host who is more responsive and replies to your messages. 

6) If you are going with family, book an entire apartment. 

Layer 5: Planning each day in a city. The best way to do that is to look up popular destination, read about ti, see if it interests you, then look for timings and cost. If all works for you, then add it to your schedule. and slowly build your schedule and make sure you set realistic expectations. And, do look at how far the place is from where you are staying and different connectivity.  

Layer 6: MOST IMPORTANT. Book museum tickets wherever applicable. It cost a little extra, like 2$ per person. The queues are LONG and your day would get ruined if you stand in queues. And take a printout of all the bookings. 

FOOD

The advantage of booking a place through airbnb is that, most of them come with a kitchen and you can thus make simple meals at home. This saves cost significantly. We had taken some teplas, some pastes to mix with rice etc. This is especially helpful if you are strict restrictions about the kind of food you eat.

Ofc, do eat out a couple of times because it is part of the experience :) 

Wine and beer are cheap :D

Water is free in most places. There are lot of fountains and pumps and they have extremely pure water.

 OTHERS

1) Travel light! Cannot stress this enough. Each person should be able to lift and walk with their own luggage for minimum 10 mins. 

2) Read a little bit about each place, it lets you have more appreciation for the places. 

3) Download Rick Steeves’s Europe audio guide (available in iOS and Android). It is brilliant and it is a very nice guided tour through various places. It is infact better than the audio guides that they rent at every place. Or ofc, you can take a guided tour. But be doubly sure before you this. I personally enjoy visiting places at my own places and stopping to read wherever I go. 

4) be prepared to walk A LOT. again, A LOT!!

5″) Talk to people around, they are generally very nice and they have so much of experiences to share :) 

Most importantly,  HAVE LOADS OF FUN :D:D

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St. Peter’s Basilica

 In our trip to Italy, along with being marveled by so many things, there was a constant thought in my mind about how we should develop tourism in India. One constant monument which filled my thoughts was the big temple at thanjavur. I thought of a museum that should be set up beside it, I thought of tour guides who speak passionately about our history and the architecture, and the many stories that stands out in every pillar. 

All these thoughts came to an end at St. Peter’s Basilica. This church situated in Vatican city is probably like the mecca for all Catholics. Its magnificence, the way the pillar stands, the paintings, a ceiling among the sky, the light that can be traced from the dome to the spot on the floor... Anyone would stand there speechless by its beauty and grandeur.  But such beauty and the development of tourism attracts all sorts of people - those who would fight with the guards to be let them inside even though they are wearing clothes that stop above the knee (it is rule that one needs to be dressed conservatively before entering the church), large groups who walk around with a selfie stick, even larger group who have made a picnic in the church etc. 

I walked around the church to look for that catholic who sat there and prayed, I did find them. But clearly a minority. The annoyance in their face when they see all these tourists, the noise and the flashlights were obvious. And then I thought, thank god thanjavur temple isnt this famous. I would hate to go there to find the place hijacked of its purpose and not able to find a calm spot where I can sit and meditate. And then I remembered mecca, the TV channels which shows the millions of people in white walking in circles and almost no one talking. I believe in the power of prayer, in the power of meditation and the fact that its effect increases exponentially when done in groups. And I do wish, that they restrict the number of tourists visiting St. Peter’s Basilica or atleast have more strict rules that would help maintain the sanctity of this religious place.  

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Today is Leon Foucault's birthday :) I remember my visit to the London Science museum where there was a Foucault's pendulum :) the string hangs from 4 floors above.

Leon Foucault, a french scientist, noticed that the direction of swing of a pendulum appeared to move in a circle. He realized that pendulum could be used to show the earth's spinning, and set up the first Foucault pendulum  in his cellar in 1851. Later that year a very large one was set up in Paris. 

In the North Pole, the direction of the swing of the pendulum does not change in space, so the pendulum shows the earth turning beneath it in 24 hours. Here in London, it's not so simple, the direction of the pendulum's swing moved around a circle in about 30.5 hrs. As we travel towards the Equator, the direction of the swing moves more slowly and at the Equator, no movement is seen. In the southern hemisphere, the direction of swing moves in the opposite direction.

This pendulum at the museum, is 22.4 meters long. It is kept in motion against damping (air damping) by an electrical impulse system.

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Heart of Midlothain.

On the Royal mile in Edinburgh, you will notice a heart shaped stone formation near the parliament house. This place was initially a tollbooth and also an execution centre. This heart marked the doorway to the centre. People generally spit on this heart to show disdain to those executed.

Even today people spit on the heart to show disdain to those who were so brutal to the people of Edinburgh. I followed suit and spit on it myself.

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"Working the graveyard shift"

This iron mortsafe was placed over the grave to prevent grave-robbers from digging up the body for sale to the anatomy classes in the medical school. The poorer people used to take turns to guard the grave for about two weeks till the body has decomposed significantly and thus cannot be used for anatomy studies anymore. From here came the English phrase, "Working the graveyard shift" which today means to work overnight. 

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In honor of Mark Shelley, they have a Frankenstein bar :) It's a theme bar and you don't need to be a genius to guess the theme. Every night at 12, "Frankenstein comes back in search of love" in this bar :) 

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Where it all began :)

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NOR LOCH.

It literally means North Lake. But where is the Lake in the above picture? Well, here is the story.

During the middle age, Edinburgh was just the Royal Mile and the buildings around it. The Royal mile was built from the castle and on either side land was sold to local people at extremely cheap price. The castle of Edinburgh was built on a hill and this road goes does hill from the castle. In the North was the North Lake which marked the boundaries of Edinburgh.

“Gardyloo”- It is French for “Watch out for water”. Edinburgh back then had no sewage or drainage system. At particular time of the day, everyone opened their window and screamed “Gardyloo” and threw out all domestic waste and sewages. As it rained almost every day, this got washed away downhill and into North Lake. This went on for years till the upper class people decided to move away. They moved to the other side of the lake and built themselves an “Elite” place which the poor people weren’t allowed into.

In the 19th century, this lake was drained into the sea and converted to what we today call “Princess garden” The above picture is of exactly the same place where the Nor Loch flowed.

When I was listening to the guide telling us about this, I was only thinking of Adayar and koovam. I do wish that someday soon the place will become just as beautiful. We deserve to live in a better society!