Roman Baths

Saturday, 24th Jan 2009

Bath-the town where Romans had their public baths is a pretty and lively town situated within an hour's drive from Reading. It was a nice outing for A, K, Sum and myself. We spent lot of time walking around the crowded pretty town, watching street plays, going around in the tourist bus tour, etc before visiting the Roman baths which have been preserved well.
I was impressed to see hot water springs and how they are generated below the earth's surface at 90 deg celsius. By the time this water reaches the surface, it cools down to 46 deg celsius, but still hot enough to stay steamy and boiling. Millions of tons of hot water is generated naturally. Romans have sanctified and built temples around here and the water was supposedly used to cure many diseases.
From here, we drove to Bristol suspension bridge...looks pretty during the night, but of course couldnt see the beautiful scenery around.
10pm-back home

Scotland trip

22nd Aug 08 - 27th Aug 08

A bank holiday again on 25th Aug! Btw i wonder why on earth was the name 'bank' holiday coined! Too lazy as of now to hit google for that info. Anyways, our Scotland trip was for 5 days..quite a long holiday
Left Reading at 9 pm on 22nd Friday by National express bus. Comfortable jouney to London in an hour. From London, we had to change another bus for Edinburgh.
London bus stand as we saw, was no better than Bengaluru's city market bus stand, in the sense that people were pushing, shoving, breathing over each other's neck to get into the bus! And yes, most of the population there was our desis :)

Day1: Reached Edinburgh in the morning at 7:30, after a tough overnight journey from London. We regretted not sticking to our initial plans of renting a car on our own. But now, after the trip, I know that we made a right decision to go by the conducted tour, rather than car hire. That way, we got to know many interesting facts on the history of Scotland and England. Each person on the trip was given a headphone through which there was almost a continuous narration of the places/castles, etc that we passed by and visited. This was even more interesting since I had watched Braveheart movie recently and have become a fan of William Wallace - hero of Scotland!
Edinburgh is a lovely city and I liked the town centre instantly..it is very lively, also due to the ongoing Fringe festival. Took a city-sight seeing bus tour till the noon. Then for lunch, had my present favourite dish-Ricotta an Italian restaurant.
Checked into our B&B (Bread and breakfast) at 2 pm, had a wonderful sleep till 6 pm. Edinburgh is beautiful by night and I clicked photos crazily. There were road plays, music and dance on street, most of them as part of the Fringe festival.

Day2:
Checked out of B&B and started our conducted trip at 8:30 am. We passed thorugh lovely landscapes and reached Glencoe, our first destination. It is also called weeping valley as one clan was massacred here.
Looks like I have developed a sudden interest in history and I was listening to the recorded/live narration with great enthu and interest! In the process, I now know a few Gaelic words - Gaelic is the traditional Scottish language, hardly anyone speak now
Glen => valley (as in Glencoe)
Ben => mountain
Inver => at the mouth of (as in Inverness)
Aber => at the mouth of (as in Aberdeen)
Loch => lake
Next destination - Urquhart castle. This castle is situated on the banks of Lochness (Lake Ness) and has an attractive scenery and I was instantly involved in photo shoots and Patel-shots :). Then took a motor boat ride to another bank of Lochness. Ness is a mythological dragon, which is believed to be living in the lake ( it still is!) . It is one of the silliest stories heard..Seems this is a friendly female dragon, first spotted when it was about to take away a monk who was with Columbus.yawn..boring, but Nessie is a great hit among kids and adults alike!
Btw, this lake is 33 km long!
Finally, we arrived at Inverness town, where we were to spend the next 2 nights. Due to it's proximity to the sea, the town is flooded with sea gulls...there are as many sea gulls there as the number of crows in Blore. Wandered about in Inverness for the rest of the evening at the town centre, by the river side.

Day 3:
Had Scottish bf again today. the vegetarian part comprises of the following:
Hashbrowns (mashed aloos- shallow fried)
Baked beans with bread (baked beans are immersed in tomato sause)
egg- poached/boiled/scrambled
tea/coffee
cornflakes
Not bad at all...but eating it continuously for days together-nauseating!
A new vehicle came to our doorstep to take us to Isle of Skye. Amazing landscape flew by as we listened to historical narration. Since it is summer now, purple coloured flowers grow densely and uniformly on the mountains. Hence the landscape comprises of purple mountains, green lawns (many shades of green).
Isle of skye is a huge island on atlantic ocean. It was very exciting when we passed through the bridge which connects Scotland and the Isle with atlantic ocean running below. The view of the atlantic ocean is really exciting!
The experienced bus driver knew all the picturesque spots and drove us there. Our new camera was totally tired with either scenery or Patel shots or pics of flowers :) Flowers are really strange but nevertheless, very beautiful..not the familiar roses/mallige/kanakaambra/shaavanthige :) I failed to name atleast even one.
Well bred healthy and attrative horses,cows, yaks and sheep are found in plenty. Btw, the cows have lottts of hair on them! how strange and ugly! Hairy hairy cows..ew!
Had dinner in an Indian restaurant...rice and dal..ah heaven!

Day4:
Again scottish bf! I longed for yummy upma that my granny prepares..
Destination for the day: Culloden Moor -this is the battlefield on which the last battle of Scots v/s English was fought.
I should say this was indeed an exciting experince. We were given a GPS and a headset and we were let loose inside the battlefield, free to roam around anywhere. The GPS tracks our position on ground and through the headphone, we get to hear facts and info about the particular spot of battlefield where we stand. Very impressive and convenient tech tour guide! Standing on the battlefield and hearing the narration, the experience is very good.
We had the rest of the day to ourselves in Inverness, wandering through the town centre and old shopping complexes. Boarded our bus back to Edinburgh.

Day5:
We had this day to explore Edinburgh. Visited Dynamic earth, where there were simulations of earthquakes,volcanoes and all about earth and life formation. Was interesting to an extent.
Later went to Ocean Terminal, saw huge impressive ships parked on the North sea. Edinburgh is on the banks of North sea. There was an Asian festival nearby, which was yet to start. Spotted a Dosa hut! Binged on masala dosas and vada before heading back to home sweet home in Reading

Lake District

May 23rd -26th

I was looking forward to this trip right from the start of this week since this was our first long trip after coming to UK. Since there was a bank holiday on 26th May(Monday), we had planned to take a leave on 23rd (Friday) too. Though Sumanth was hooked up with his project deadlines at office in the last week, the trip was meticulously planned right from the beginning, thanks to Arun! We were quite a big group of 7.

Thursday eve, the day before our trip was a festive day..I came back soon from office and started preparing puliogre for our 6-hour long journey the next day. Each one of us, Savitha, Maya and myself had planned for a kind of potluck coz of our cooking enthu.
It was almost 1:00 am when we slept after packing stuff for the next 4 days. Got up at 5, prepared channa masala, went with Arun to get the 7-seater rental car. This was Sumanth's first time driving experience in UK. But driving here is no issue, unlike France/Dubai where it is a right hand drive.

The roads were blocked with huge traffic jams on MotorWays since every other person was getting out of the city for the long weekend! We could see cycles/boats on the top of cars...huge holiday spirit everywhere!Enjoying the spring weather and view and the typical English country side, the journey was very pleasant. Took a break for lunch and binged on batata vadas, pullav, etc. Not to forget my channa masala and puliogre..

We reached Windermere in Lake district where we were to stay for the next 3 nights at 8 pm, much later than what we expected, due to the 'bank holiday weekend traffic' and also our innumerable breaks on the way.

Next morning, rented a motor boat in which we cruised for 4 hours, and passed another town called Ambleside. After a mammoth task of anchoring the boat, we spent quite some time walking in the town and park. Got back to our B&B (Bread and Breakfast) for a quick refresh, then drove amidst wonderful lush green landscape to Conestan Pass and had hot cup of coffee along one of the quiet lakesides. Came across a sports complex nearby and spent a long time playing football, foosball and snooker. The sports cmompelx was located amidst beautiful landscape and we could spot couple of people camping in their tents in a distance.

Next morning, drove to Ulswater lake waterfalls. While walking up the hill to the waterfalls, the narrow path and surroundings somehow reminded me of Pearl valley in B'lore, though the only thing in common is the narrow path. The place was refreshing, clean and fresh. Spent considerable time there, before heading to 'The stone henge'. This is the most stupid tourist attraction. I wonder why it has been a tourist spot in the first place! All you can find there are couple of small rocks placed here and there. No one knows of any significance too! Nevertheless, clicked couple of snaps there too in the hope of somehow compensating for the long drive till there :)

By then our stomachs started growling and we had had enough of the *famous* stone henge. Drove into the nearest town -Kendal. On our hunt to find something edible, we walked all though the beautiful lively town centre where an interesting road play was being staged. Watching the skillful road play made us forget the time..later,finally with great luck, found a french restaurant and had the yummiest margherita pizza ever! Kendal town centre is pretty, much like a studio-setup. I could spot huge flower vases (taller than me) kept decoratively in the midst of the roads..

Crashed on bed in our B&B after a long day and it was time for us to leave to Birmingham the next day, on our way back to Reading. Birmingham's attraction is the huge Venkateshwara temple and the Bull ring mall. The temple is huge and beautiful and we were provided with a real yum lunch as prasadam.

Reached Reading in the eve after a nice long trip with enjoyable company.

Southall

5th May 2008
This is the place desis would definitely want to go if they are missing desi atmosphere in UK. The Southall train station greets us with a board written in Punjabi!! Check that out!
Walking down the street, we watched with amazement as every single shopkeeper was conversing in hindi! Typical indian-style garment shops, bangle shops, kurta, chudidar..etc. Where else in UK can we find a marriage bureau or horoscope shops?? :)
As we shoved our way on the pavement through loads of ppl bustling around, the scene reminded me of Avenue road in Bangalore. Also, we could hardly spot British people anywhere!

Seems the first group of South Asians arrived in Southall in 1950 and settled here due to the closeness of Heathrow Airport, and has since been increasing with many South Asians. We had lunch in a Pakistani restaurant - samosas, veg biryani, chicken tikka, mango lassi..yum. Then continued roaming around the streets after eating 'cup corn' to our heart's content.
Southall is also the location of the "Glassy Junction", which serves several Indian draught beers and was the first pub in the UK to accept payment in Indian rupees :)). Also the film Dhan Dhana Dhan Goal starring John Abraham and Bipasha Basu was filmed in Glassy junction

Check out this bus decorated fully in typical Punjabi style :)
You can also see a shop named after the famous Palika Bazaar of Delhi
We came across McDonald's and noticed that it has changed certain food items on the menu to halal and certified halal!!

Later, we visited the Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha, which is the largest Sikh temple outside of India. It has beautiful interiors and prayer area. There is a large golden coloured dome on the temple which captures our attention even from a long distance.
Stuffing our bags with loads of Indian/Asian stuff, we returned back to home sweet home -Reading.

Snow fall

6th April, 7:45 am
After an exhaustive day at Bristol yday, I woke up reluctantly today morning to prepare coffee and sleepily started lifting up the kitchen's window blinds. Saw a hazy white something, and my immediate thought was that it could have rained the prev night, so bent closer, lifted the blinds fully in the hope of clearing the mist off the glass. It was then that I saw for the first time, a grand thick layer of snow, evenly spread around on every object like a very thick carpet. As an immediate reflex, I let out a loud shriek in excitement. Sumanth, who was till then snoring happily, woke up with a thunderous start :)
We put on our jackets and started walking out and everywhere, basking in the absolutely amazing snow, which we were experiencing for the first time. Roads, pavements, lawn...couldn't differentiate between any of those...it was just a huge white thick carpet everywhere!

Bristol

5th April
We reached Bristol parkway station, where my friend Rekha's hubby and kid greeted us. When we drove into Bristol city, we changed our impression of Bristol as a small town. It is quite huge with broad roads. Reached Rekha's house, relaxed, chatted and after a grand heavy meal, all of us visited Bristol Suspension bridge. The Clifton Suspension Bridge, Bristol’s famous landmark, spans the 250 foot high beautiful Avon Gorge. With bright and sunny weather assisting us, we spent a good amount of time walking around the picturesque area ,walking on the bridge, gazing at the river below and cars zooming on the roads below, looking like small toy cars from above.

Daylight savings

30th March, 12:45 pm
We bid good bye to our friends who had accompanied us to a late night movie and dropped us back home. Later, logged onto the net just before winding off for the day. The time on the laptop which was just then showing 1:00 am suddenly changed to 2:00 am! Daylight savings!

I like this concept, though initially we have to get used to setting all our activities one hour in advance. Having bf, lunch, dinner when u r not feeling hungry yet!
But now a days sun rises sooner, yday's 6 am is today's 7 am, so we get to see more daylight and sunshine. Similarly, it would be bright and sunny outside even at 8 pm, and techies reach home from office when there is sunlight still! :) What a rare thing! People are seen sweating out jogging on the road during late evenings.

Weather is warmer now, just like B'lore weather. Sweaters and thermals stuffed tight in the wardrobe. What a bliss! Spring is arriving and beautiful flowers and leaves blooming slowly everywhere!