Even if I have nothing slated for
the early morning I get out of bed by habit. When I did this morning I wanted
cause as little disturbance to Lal as was possible. I picked up my laptop and
tiptoed out of the room with the intention of working on the blog in the
reception area. When I got there I found that all the chairs and tables had
been moved to the restaurant and locked. When I was pondering the next step I
found an elderly gentleman standing outside cursing the afterhours check in
machine. It was raining and I saw there were more people in a van. I opened the
door for him and disappointed him, I think, when I told him that I do not work
at the hotel. He got on the phone and woke up the receptionist, who came out
and checked the group of 8 in and handed over the room keys. She refused me a
chair till the reception was officially opened by 6 am. I sat on the steps of
the stairway and completed my work, reflecting on the journey thus far across
25 countries spanning nearly 22,650 kms in 67 days. And I had successfully
negotiated driving the right hand drive car on the right side of the road for
57 days – since leaving Nepal on 27th June.
I had been a student at the
London School of Economics in 1995-96. During summer vacation in 1996 I
backpacked for a month in Europe travelling to Belgium, France, Germany and The
Netherlands. The low cost journey was facilitated by Sister Gilda, my aunt and
a nun with a Belgian order who was then stationed in Brussels, and Kamalamma
Chechi and Bernie Chettan who were in Hengelo. I travelled by the Eurolines bus
service with student concession and trains that offered hospitality arrangement
for railway officers from other countries. The first leg of the journey then
was the trip from London to Brussels. I was astonished to see, as I am even
today, the big ferry that consumed the large bus I had taken from London. The
45 minute experience was wholly new and not for a minute did I sit down in the
floating Palace on Water. The most unforgettable experience aboard the P&O
ferry in 1996 was capturing on film a seagull picking a peanut from my
outstretched hand. What was I going to experience today?
We were booked for the 9.50 am
ferry and hence, left for the Terminal by 8 am after a decent breakfast. The queue
was fairly long for the immigration at the port of Calais. Fortunately, a new
lane opened up and I benefitted from it. Dating the Schengen visa exit was done
quickly. However, the official at the UK Border Agency gate was intrigued by
the ‘multi-coloured’ car, as he put it to one of his colleagues and asked us to
pull into a parking lot to complete the formalities in the office rather than
at the gate. In light rain we ran to the office and got the matter done soon –
we were technically admitted into the 26th country of our journey. Since
it was only 8.30 am I hoped to get on to the 8.40 ferry. However, at the check
in gate I was told that the gate was closed for the 8.40 and hence, had to wait
almost an hour in the designated lane to be boarded for the 9.50 am crossing.
The service left Calais Port
almost on time. The views of the receding Port brought thoughts of the
wonderful time I had on that side of the Continent. The sun deck offered good
views but it was windy and cold to stay there for long. I completed a few tasks
of updating information on my phone and wandered around to check prices to
compare them with what the Euro Zone offered. Prices for breakfast, coffee and
drinks in GBP were the same as that in Euro – Euro 1 was GBP 1. Therefore, I found
items costlier in UK. The price of fuel is another case in point – in France a
litre of diesel oil was Euro 1.35 whereas in York, UK it was GBP 1.36. While
Euro is approximately INR 81, GBP is INR 101 – thus, on an anecdotal
calculation, costs are almost 25% higher in the UK. It takes time to get used
to the costs and comparison against Indian currency. I decided on tap water to
bottled water based on such a comparison.
The Dover Strait crossing was scheduled
to be completed in 90 minutes and we were almost bang on target. By 11 am, when
I was up on the deck for a change of scenery, the White Cliffs of Dover came
into clear view. The cliff faces are fairly steep in some places, rising to
almost 350 feet. It is said that the Cliffs can be seen from the shores of
France on a clear day due to its peculiar façade that is composed of chalk
enhanced by streaks of black flint. The Cliffs have romantic and poetic
significance as they face Continental Europe at the narrowest part of the English
Channel, due to which they have been threatened by invasions and against which
the Cliffs have stood guard over centuries. The sight of the approaching Cliffs
have provided hope to travellers in the days of the glory of the Empire.
While disembarking from the Pride
of Canterbury I was slightly apprehensive about ‘switching sides’ on the road. Lal
comforted me by saying that the deep ‘DNA’ imprint would help acclimatise
quickly. However, I took to the road gingerly and after driving on the right
side for 57 days I did adapt soon to the new conditions. Moreover, at regular intervals
there were warnings on the road to drive on the left. The maximum speed was 110
kmph and the road conditions were not a patch on what I experienced in the
Schengen States. To me the road infrastructure was below par and the congestion
unacceptable. For instance, ahead of the Dartford crossing the queue of
vehicles was nearly 3 miles long. At this point the operation of the toll gate
is reminiscent of the unscientific manner in which it is done in India. I wondered
why the ‘sticker’ option was not adopted for UK so that the traffic could move
smoothly. Additionally, at every major point on the route like Canterbury,
Cambridge, Stamford (just to name a few) congestion was endemic. Traffic stops,
crawls and then trickles. It took me more than 7 hours to get to York from
Dover, a distance of 450 kms that should have been covered in about 4 hours as
per European standards. The creaking road infrastructure, its maintenance and
operation made me put the Indian experience in its proper perspective – after all,
we learnt from the Babus of the Empire!
Mirus, my travel agent in Delhi,
had booked us into the Holiday Inn Express in York. The information I keyed
into the Navigator took me about 15 kms away from the location of the hotel. However,
we considered it a heaven sent that we missed the route. We drove through the
premises of Castle Howard to Slingsby. When I reached that village I knew I was
in the wrong place. I stopped when I saw a car turning on to the main road from
a bylane. I sought the young man’s attention and asked if I was anywhere near
the hotel. He parked the car and I walked across to him. He explained with the help
of a map that I was at the very least 20 minutes away from the correct location
of the hotel. He was certainly placed there for us to get the correct
information for there was no one in sight for miles; a Guardian Angel, surely. We
retraced the path that we had travelled to Slingsby. En route we once again
enjoyed the fabulous blind summit drive which gives a feeling of a roller
coaster. The Castle Howard is the 300 year old stately home of the Howard
family, the Earls of Carlisle. The castle has featured in television serials
and films. The massive estate of the 7th Earl covered over 13,000
acres across 5 large villages – there is a monument to the 7th Earl
in one of the villages. The estate was also served by its own railway station
till the 1950s. it is on the drive back that we appreciated the North frontage
of the castle across a large lake populated by ducks. The summit drives took us
through the narrow Carrmire Gate and Pyramid Gate. There is also an Obelisk
near the entrance to the castle.
On the way back from Slingsby I spoke
to the hotel reception and got an address that the Navigator understood better.
Without any further misses we reached the hotel and realised that we had
overshot it on the way to Slingsby. While planning the halt in York I had in
mind visits to the Cathedral and the Railway Museum. However, late arrival into
York, thanks to the road condition and congestion we could not make the visits.
Lal and I took it that we lost our way a bit in York to appreciate something typically
Yorkshire, the blind summit drive and the Castle as also to meet a Guardian
Angel in Slingsby.
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