Walking through the London streets

I had the whole afternoon free. The flight to London was half empty.

It was a little strange. Before, there were five flights daily from Bologna to London and now there are just two, and yet there were so many unoccupied seats on the plane. Perhaps it had some thing to do with the cost of the British Pound in comparison to the Euro? Or, since the US dollar is now so cheap, perhaps all those who were going to UK now prefer to go to USA?

Any way, I was in London so let me just talk about that rather than make gloomy predictions about apparent decline of the British economy!

I had a whole afternoon and I decided to walk, starting from the Victoria station and taking Buckingham Palace road that goes behind the palace. It was probably the time of the daily exercise for Her Royal Majesty's horses and ponies, since horse driven carriages were coming out of a side gate, going around the palace and then going back inside from the side gate on the Buckingham Palace road. May be it is someone from the royal family dressing up as Her Majesty's staff and going out in incognito? Knowing the scoop hungry British tabloids, I don't think the British Royalty would try that, but just in case, I decided to click a few pictures.

The guards outside the Buckingham palace, no longer carry those big furry caps made of bear fur. I agree completely that you can't kill and clean the earth of the poor bears just for those caps, but with all the punks and other creative talents in UK, couldn't they design some nice but unusual new cap for these guards? The ones they have now suck big time. Perhaps Her Majesty would read these lines and find a way out?

The park with the small artificial lake outside the Buckingham palace was full of water birds. Most of the time I can hardly tell the difference between ducks, swans, canadian goose, graynecks, etc. but there were some boards there showing the different species with their names. Like the ones in the picture below are called Coots.

As I walked around the Horse Parade ground, it had started to rain. Actually I had checked the "weather in London for next five days" that morning on the BBC meteo site, it had shown a warm sunny day and thus being trusty and gullible, I had not taken any umbrella with me. (Do you think that they would do it deliberately, just to boost the sales of umbrellas? And so, when they are sure that it is not going to rain, they predict heavy rains and thus you go out all covered with umbrellas under your arms and under the sun, feel hot and bothered, and thus boost the sales of London pubs?)

So when it started to rain, I gave up my plans for going towards Downing street, and instead, hurried towards Waterloo place, finding these nursery teachers (?) with all the small kids in triplet prams. Probably they had also checked the weather at the BBC meteo site for planning their picnic?

In the Waterloo place, there was this statue of the Lord John Lawrence, "Governor of Punjab during the sepoy mutiny of 1857" and there are some other statues of the valiant soldiers of Her Majesty's army who had brought the civilization to our poor natives of India and other corners of uncivilized and unknown world. Anyway, there was no time to stop and thank them for their spirit of generosity, brotherhood and unselfish kindness towards mankind and instead, I rushed towards Trafalgar square.

In Trafalgar square, the statue of disabled pregnant woman is gone. In its place is a strange sculpture that made me think of Jewish Hanukkah rising up from an Egyptian pyramid. Perhaps it is the British way of assuring the multi-culturism for the non Christians, who are "offended" by the christmas tree there? Or it is just me feeling cynical?

Anyway, I did not dwell on my nasty thoughts and found refuse from the rain in the Gallery of Modern Art (lovely website they have for exploring their masterpieces through web).

Renoir, Van Gogh, Pierro della Francesca, Seurat, Monet, Cèzanne, Caravaggio, Rubens, ... by the time, I came out the art museum my head was exploding with the beauty of art and my feet were killing me, but it was not raining any more.

It was already dark. I sat down in a bar to drink some beer and then off I was in the underground to Westminister for the second part of the walk. Riverside by the night, that was my objective. The projector above the street outside the acquarium next to Dali museum was projecting pictures from the acquarium in the street. It was strange to stand on the picture and to feel the fishes moving around on my body.

The riverside with the British Airways' London Eye, British Petroleum's Big Ben, MacDonald's British National Theatre, (ok, I am making some of these up but it gives you an idea) etc. were full of twinkling lights dancing in the reflections on the Thames waters (all these sponsorships must have inspired the Indian politicians! I had thought that Medha Patakar was exagerating but according to Outlook, Maharashtra Government is considering "selling" 200 plus km stretch of a river and dam to a private company and Chattisgarh Government has already sold 23 km of another river. I am waiting for the discount sale of parliament seats now.)

Anyway, sorry for the digression, enjoy the pictures of London including some images of the south bank of Thames in the night.

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Note: This post was originally written in 2007

Raiders of the lost Poppies - Notes from a nature walk

Mariangela lives in Rimini. A couple of weeks ago she was travelling to Asti and passed thorugh Bologna. "There are poppies in Bologna", she sent me an email. I was in a conference in Genova. Shit, this year I had forgotten all about poppies! There used to be this old field near our house that would get full of red poppy flowers in April-May. I had been there with Mariangela. They mowed that field down two years ago and since then I hadn't ever seen large expanses of poppy flowers.

Poppy or the Pappaverum Somniferum is supposed to be that plant that can be used to make opium. For getting opium you you need the milk of the ripe dry fruit. That is the reason, why you need a special permission to grow poppy plants in Italy. Some people say that to get opium you need another variety of poppy and perhaps you also need the hotter sun of equator. I am not sure about that but you can usually see the bright red poppy flowers along railway tracks and highways, where it grows as a weed.

The black poppy seeds are used commonly as decoration on bread and give off a lovely aroma. I am going to look for poppy flowers one of these days, I had told myself. Today was the the day of operation poppy.

I decided to go out towards the countryside for the morning walk of our dog, Brando. He is getting old, our Brando, and likes to go over his usual walking routes and usually if I try to pull him in some new directions, he usually does his Angad ji show, pointing his feet and refusing to move. However, today I was in no mood to give him and kept on pulling him till he gave in.

And no Ipod, no music to distract today, I decided. Nature demands proper attention or so, I thought. And so off we were.

The world of seeds

Just out of the house, and I got distracted by the maple seeds. There were so many of them hanging from the tree like plastic butterflies. So I started looking around clicked the pictures of different looking seeds. Here are some examples.

The maple seeds had wings like butterflies flying with acute angles.

Later I saw another variety of Maple, where the seed wings were in straight lines, at 180° angles.

In the next picture is what they call "albero falso di Giuda" or the false Jude's tree, with dried beans like seeds. In autumn, these trees without any green leaves and only these dark brown seeds look slightly sinister, and make me think of Dracula myths. I also don't know why they call them false Jude and if there is a real Jude's tree as well?

I like the seeds of Lime trees with the strange wing that is pierced by the flowers. I have read of the subtle perfume of Lime but to me the flowers seem scentless.

Then I saw the Elm tree with round penny like wings holding a small seed in the middle, in the next picture. Though on the tree the seeds are bunched together like piles of pennies and it is not easy to make out the form of individual seed.

And Finally these rounded beans like seeds that look like jhumkas, women's ear-rings. I don't know the name of this tree.

The world of roses

Then it was the turn of the roses. There were so many of them in the garden that we passed. Some of the housewives, going about their daily business of dusting and beating the carpets with sticks, looked at me with a suspicion as I tried to get a good angle to click their roses, but they were quickly mollified by the sight of Brando, who can look nice, cuddly and angelic when he is not busy barking at any rival dogs. So here are some of the roses I saw this morning.

Other flowers

However there were some other flowers as well that asked to be clicked, even if I didn't know their names, except for the tulips.

Tulip flowers have such zig-zaggy edges? To me they had always seemed smooth so I am not sure if this tulip is some special variety or do all tulips have these kind of edges?

Finally the poppy flowers

I did find the poppy flowers finally just a little outside, on the road that goes along the wheat fields. There were not too many of them but enough for taking some pictures.

A disgusted dog

It was a lovely morning and our morning walk lasted almost one and half an hour. Unfortunately Brando didn't appreciate it and seemed a bit annoyed at loosing his rhythm as I forced him to hold still while I clicked pictures of plants and flowers from different angles.

In this picture Brando is with Marco during holidays at the seaside some years ago

The return back to home after the poppy flowers was quick as Brando almost ran, understanding that I had completed my mission, pulling me along! If you think that he is too sweet or cute or small to pull people, you don't know him yet!

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Note: This post was originally written in 2008

Strange London In My Head

I don't remember how many times I have been to London. I think that over the past twenty years, I usually have two or three visits every year, though for a few years, I was going there even more frequently. I also used to think that I knew the city very well. Then a couple of years ago I realised that I knew a kind of virtual London, a London that exists only in the tube maps. For a long long time, travel for work meant just work and I didn't even think of going out to see any thing. For the last few years that I have started to go around and see the places that I visit for work, in London this means travelling by the tube.

So the city I know is the one shown on the tube map. The first time that I tried going out and walking a bit, I was surprised that the city was different from the imagined city in my head. Like the time I walked from Shepherd Bush to Hyde park.

So now every time that I have the opportunity, I want to walk around and discover new areas of London.

This time, I knew that going around was going to be difficult as most of the time was going to busy for work. But my first evening was free. I was on the 12th floor of the hotel and the view outside was wonderful. That showed me that the river Thames was very close. So, even if the sky was overcast with thick dark clouds, I hurriedly left the suitcase in the room and walked towards the Thames.

Unfortunately, as I reached near the river, it strated raining. I just had enough time to take a hurried picture of the river and run back towards hotel!

Below is a view of Ravenscourt metro station from the hotel.

So even if the view from the hotel was wonderful, there was no time to go out and discover the city. And I was forced to stay in the room and watch TV.

It was the time of terminal 5, the new terminal at Heathrow airport. First there was the inauguration. And then there were endless documentaries about the new airport, how big it is, what a wonderful fully automated computer directed bagage handling system it has, etc. There was one show where they explained how increadibly big steel beams weighing hundred of tons were hauled up over a period of 11 months to make the largest free hanging roof in the world. That really made me afraid. I would prefer not to know about hundred tons of steeel haning freely above my head, thankyou. And all those endless details about automated computerised handling systems stressed me know end, making me think of lost bagages and endless hours on telephone trying to dialogue with a machine, like it happens with most of call centres when you want to complain about problem in your telephone or electricity bill.

No thanks again, given a choice, I would prefer to pass thourgh a small airport, where human beings deal with me and my luggage.

I also came accross a TV serial called Torchwood on BBC 2 that surprised me with a gay nude scene. Though the scene probably lasted a couple of seconds only, it did feel a little strange. Our favourite detectives in the TV serials can kiss or make love, if they are a man and a woman but if they are both men, perhaps it would mean that they are not good in their jobs? Actually the sexual preference of a detective doesn't have anything to do with his capacity to kill or fight or whatever, but perhaps it is all the stereotyping that is embeded in our heads that made me feel a little strange. Anyway, I think that it is great that BBC can dare to take such risks and change these stupid stereotypes in our heads and hopefully, also the public attitudes.

One evening we all went out to dinner at Sagar, the south Indian restaurant that makes such wonderful dosas in many cities in India. We went to Sagar on King's road and I was a little disappointed. The aloo papri was bad, paneer dosa was not very good and the dessert too.

However, I did a find a way to explore some new areas of London. On my last day, I did manage to wake up very early in the morning and went out to explore, walking from King's road in Hammersmith to Gunnersbury park metro station, passing through Chiswick.

It was strange to walk through empty streets. It almost didn't look like London without the traffic. Here are a few pictures from that walk.

Finally it was time to leave and the sky at Gatwick airport was wonderfully blue with the airport lights, reflected in the glass windows. And while waiting for my flight, on the TV I saw news about hundreds of persons in the newly inaugurated terminal 5 of Heathrow stuck there, complaining about the fully automated system of bagage that had not functioned properly and they were advising passengers about long delays!

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This post was originally written in 2008

Land of Never Ending Sky - Mongolia diary

As the plane circled for landing, I was surprised by the way the whole landscape had changed. I had come back to Mongolia after more than 10 years and in those ten years, Ulaan Baatar (UB) had grown into a sprawling metropolis with some sky scrappers. However, more than the sky scrappers, it was the spread of Ger-townships on the hills surrounding the capital, that hit me. I remembered those hills completely bare, those gers were not there during my last visit. Mongolia is a huge and almost empty country except for UB and some small centres. (Pic. one of the ever-expanding ger districts of UB)

“Gers” are the round and white Mongolian tent-houses for the nomadic communities, that you can roll up and carry away to the next pastureland. With about 2 million humans and 32 million animals, pastures for animals are an important consideration for building your gers. You need plenty of space around your gers, so that your animals (twin humped camels, horses, goats, sheep, yaks, cows and a few raindeers) get plenty of grass for grazing. Thus your next door neighbours may be 10 or even 20 miles away, for not stepping on your toes. (Pic. Tourist gers are usually whiter, cleaner, and always in groups, and of course they are near panoramic places)

During winters, Mongolians may shift their gers closer to the cities and during summer, people move away for setting up their place near lakes and mountains. The word “city” is used here with lot of imagination since most “big cities” have only a motley group of government buildings and a few houses. Most of the time you just see empty spaces, rolling gentle hills and an occasional man on a horse looking after his animals. (Pic. a Mongolian man on a horse)

To me, Ulaan Baatar seems to be a very long name and I prefer calling it UB. Tuki my Mongolian host says that only foreigners call it UB, Mongolians prefer the full name of their city that literally means Red Hero, a memory from the socialist days. Mongolians had an ancient script that came from Tibetan but socialist era changed that, when monasteries were closed and ransacked, while use of Cyrilic (Russian) alphabet came into practice. UB has more than 50% of the national population and is always growing due to migrants from the countryside. (pic. Parliament house in Sukhbaatar Square of UB)

UB seemed to have changed a lot in these 10 years. The parliament house in Sukhbaatar square had a new facade with an imposing statue of the national hero, Changez Khan. I am never sure how to write his name. Some call him the famous Gengis Khan or we in India had called him in India, Changez Khan. Mongolians call him Changgis Khan and have him every where, from coffee shops to restaurants to beer and vodka bottles. They are building a huge statue of him on the lines of statue of Liberty in NY, just outside UB, looking on from his horse to a sea of rolling never-ending hills. He is responsible for the glory of Mongolia as his empire had stretched from Korakoram right up to Europe. (Pic. the giant Chenggis Khan statue just outside UB)

The choice of eating places in UB, that was extremely limited in the past, had been gradually improving. During my first visit almost twenty years ago, the only edible things I could find were dry meat and potatoes. This time the choice of eating joints seemed endless with a few wonderful Korean places and even two Indian restaurants. BTW, I loved Korean spicy food and insisted on going there every time we had that choice. But if you are a vegetarian and you are invited hom by some Mongolians for lunch or dinner, beware, you may not find much to eat. The Mongolian food is mainly lot of meat from all kinds of animals, often just boiled, along with light salty tea like those used by Tibetans. (Pic. A lunch invitation at a nurse's house in the countryside)

One of the most beautiful places in UB continues to be Gandam Buddhist temple and monastery. Its giant Buddha statue had been broken and thrown away in socialist times, but now a new copy of that statue is back. The stupas are again covered with colourful designs and gold filigree, and hordes of monks walk busily from one end to another. It is difficult to remember its desolate look in the early nineties and Buddhist revival is in full swing. At the end of socialist period, India had helped in this reincarnation of Gandam by nominating a Buddhist monk as its ambassador in UB. Tibetan Buddhism and Dalai Lama are very strong in Mongolia even if Buddhism reached here only 4-5 centuries ago. (Pic. Stupas at Gandam monastery)

During my visit, I kept on passing through UB, but it was outside in the open spaces of Mongolian countryside, away from crowds of UB, that I fell in love with the gently rolling hills on which clouds made lazy designs and the sky seemed never ending. My hands itched constantly to click pictures. “Nothing could be so beautiful”, I kept on repeating, risking a clickitis in my index finger (I swear that it was the first time in my life that my finger hurt from too-much clicking on the camera!). The subtle shades of the earth on those hills were magical. At times hordes of sheep or horses would suddenly appear, sometimes followed by a lonely figure of a shepherd on a horse or a motorcycle, other times we could go on for an hour without seeing anyone. (Pic. clouds making patterns on gently rolling hills in Bayan Ulgii province in the west)

Some times we came across lakes with Turkish blue, dark green, sky blue and other shades of waters, surrounded by craggy mountains of breathtaking beauty without a single soul to look at the view and admire it. The views often remind me of the pictures of Leh and Ladakh that I have seen even if here the altitude is lower, between 1.5 to 3 thousand meters. (Pic. Sezdhan lake in Bayan Ulgii province)

One of the most beautiful panoramas of the entire journey was from Omnogobi to Tarailan, when we had crossed a highland at 3000 meters. It was lovely to see fearless wild rabbits staring back at you, and take their pictures. However, I couldn’t take picture of any marmots, they were very shy and quickly dove away back to their holes as we passed. During that journey thick dark clouds had come out and the whole panorama had become magical, dark and sinister. (Pic. Highlands near Tarailan)

Another view that would remain with me forever is that near Ulaangom, where it had rained and the green grass was like shining emerald. A group of twin humped camels and hundreds of white sheep with black spots lit by the evening sun seemed painted by some magical realism style painter. No picture can ever catch the beauty of that scene. (Pic. After the rains near Ulaangom; a group of camels)

In Sagsai village near the western border of Mongolia, we had visited Kazak houses where they kept pet eagles for traditional hunting. I was mesmerised by the eagle’s eyes as it sat chained down to the ground like a dog, it was so huge and powerful and its eyes seemed to stare into my soul, sending a chill deep inside me. Only female eagles can be kept as pets and in Sagsai every year they have an eagle hunting festival. (Pic. a pet eagle in a village near Sagsai)

Another memory is that of seagulls and other water birds along the hundreds of kilometers long Uvs salt water lake next to the Russian border in the north. Our hosts from the local health department, Dorj and Ebe had sung traditional Mongolian songs. Their rough male voices, vibrating with the Mongolian sounds that are supposed to come from the stomach, in that windswept place with so many seagulls following us hoping to catch some meat or bones, was a unique experience. Try listening to some Mongolian traditional male singing if you have never heard it before, and you will never forget it. It can be rough vibrations kind sound, or even a combination of a shrill whistle and a rough, thick bass, both coming out at the same time, that hums and vibrates in your head. For example listen to the sounds of this video on Youtube, it is not very good quality recording but can give you a glimpse of what I mean. If you have heard Tibetan prayers from Buddhist temples in Ladhakh, these songs are very similar to those sounds. (Pic. the seagulls on Uvs lake)

In Ulaangom we also attended a Buddhist prayer meeting where a delegate of Dalai Lama had come from India. The prayer meeting was held in a stadium, where the green grass, bright orange of the stage and the dark browns of the monks' clothes had made a wonderful colourful combination. It was another occasion for my clickitis. Talking to my Mongolian friends, while I noted reverence towards Tibetan monks and the delegate Rimpoche who has come from Dalai Lama, at the same time, I noticed a bit of problem with all the Buddhist prayers being in Tibetan and not in Mongolian. Thus Mongolians reciting the prayers do not know the meanings of the words of their prayers. I think that some kind of language reform in this sense would be very useful. Monk Rimpoche, delegate of Dalai Lama lives in Dharamsala and he stayed in the same hotel where I was staying and then we travelled together back to UB, so I had the opportunity to say a hello to him. (Pic. A monk at Buddhist prayer meeting in Ulaangom)

Lot of Mongolians believe in Shamanism, defined also a cult of the sky. One of the most visible signs of these beliefs are the "ovoo", heaps of stones with blue and white clothes and motley offerings, especially at the crossings of paths (sometimes you have to imagine those paths rather than actually see them), where travellers stop to go around clockwise and in the end, add a few stones to the heap. There are some times very strong beliefs that picking up and taking away anything from a place, including stones, disturbs its nature spirit and brings misfortune, so remember not to pick any stones for taking back home, as it might make your plane crash. (Pic. An ovoo prayer)

A special high point of this visit was receiving the honorary Uvs province citizenship from the Governor, along with the highest civil honour medal. My hosts had not warned me about it and when it had happened, it was so unexpected. That day as I had walked around showing off my medal in the city square where they were having some kind of military "open-day" celebrations, people had looked at me and smiled, coming to shake hands or just nodding at me. (Pic. Military boys showing off their different kinds of uniforms at the open-day celebrations)

There were some adventures like getting stuck in floods in the eastern Hentii province, difficulties of landing in UB due to strong winds and adventure of going to a toilet in a small village. That toilet was basically a deep hole in the ground, surrounded by some wooden planks and it was in the middle of an empty ground, about 300 meters from the hospital where we were staying. On the morning when I had to use it, there was so much wind that I was afraid of being swept away and when I reached the toilet, the gusts of wind coming from all sides through the wooden planks were so strong that I was afraid of falling down in the shit-pit (it was deep and we were so far away that I was afraid no one would hear my cries for help). I had some bad diarrhoea that morning and it didn’t help when my wad of toilet paper slipped from hands and was blown away. You can imagine my walk back to the hospital after that ordeal. In any case, Mongolia forces you to review your notions about privacy and body functions because of cramped living place inside the gers, lack of toilets in the countryside and lack of hiding places like dunes or plants for relieving your body needs. (Pic. reviewing your notions about privacy and body functions)

However, apart from such small problems including the never ending lunches and dinner with different kinds of meats, meats and meats, it has been an unforgettable journey, especially because of the warm hearted and hospitable Mongolians, forever ready to offer a swig of vodka on every occasion or even without any occasion! To them I would like to say San Beno (hello), Za Bayerla (thanks), Za Bayesta (good bye). (Pic. With some Mongolian friends near Uvs lake)

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This post was originally written in 2008