Day 3
August 21st
Picture this: You are in the middle of the jungle in a forest lodge, the South African veldt is all around you, it is the middle of the night, you can hear the quiet noise of the wild outside, the whisper of the wind, the distant growl of the lion, you are preparing to retire for the night in your comfy cottage, as the rest of your group tiredly trudges to their respective ones. And then a female voice says to you, "I can't sleep alone at night!"
Banish all prurient thoughts from your head right now. This was serious. This grown up woman of ... well whatever age, had lived all her life in a big joint family, and would always be surrounded by lots of people, boisterous kids running underfoot, and generally be surrounded by a lot of noise. When she found herself in silent surroundings in a cottage all to herself in the middle of the African jungle, she obviously got the jitters very badly. Hmmmm.
We had to come up with a serious solution to this seemingly frivolous probem, since this woman was very much part of our group and we were responsible for their welfare.
The 2 other women in our group immediately whispered urgently into my unoccupied ear that they would *not* share their cottages with anyone. Mind you, one of these women was our event organiser and the other was a colleague from my company! But compulsions of privacy ranked way beyond the call of duty, and I couldn't really blame them for that.
Finally, after a lot of options had been examined and discarded, a solution was proposed by our little tale's protagonist herself. It was bizarre and yet it worked for her.
She spent the night on the sofa in the reception of our jungle lodge. All through the night, people kept coming on to rearrange the furniture, sweep the floor or to check out of the lodge. All that noise was enough for her to drift off into a peaceful sleep.
OK, apart from the fact that I had referred to this episode casually in my last blog entry, what does this have to do with our current Scotland trip, ? Well, nothing as yet. But will any member of our current group come up with some request like this? Keep reading.
Edinburgh is not a very large spreadout city. We could see the ramparts of the Edinburgh Castle from our hotel. The bus journey took not more than 15 minutes, through narrow uphill streets. The bus parked on what I later discovered was the Esplanade. Unfortunately the Edinburgh Military Tattoo had finished just the previous day, so the entire area was rather desolate and forelorn. The sky was grey and overcast, which gave the castle a very Scottish look.
The Esplanade area is surrounded on all sides by stadium-style seatings. I don't know whether this is a permanent arrangement or was rigged especially for the Tattoo. A quick explanation of what the Tattoo is. It is a kind of annual military parade given by British Armed Forces, Commonwealth and International military bands and display teams in Edinburgh every August as part of the Edinburgh Festival. So why is it called a tattoo, if there is no tattooing to be done?
The word "tattoo" originally dates from the eighteenth century, when British Army units were stationed in Flanders. Drummers from the garrison were sent out into the towns each evening to Beat Retreat, summoning the soldiers to return to barracks for the night. The process was known as "tap toe" and encouraged the inn keepers to stop serving beer and send the soldiers back for the night. That devolved into the word tattoo. So now you know!
As we trooped over the drawbridge into the castle, we noticed a dry moat below us, and statues of Robert the Bruce and William "Braveheart" Wallace on either side of the main gate. By the time we had crossed inside, it had started to drizzle. Most of our own brave hearts had obviously come without any umbrella or cover. So we were scrambling over stoney cobbled paths to reach the nearest stone building. The castle itself is arranged more or less like the Tower of London; there is a large vacant square in the middle, surrounded by stone structures on all sides. These structures house various rooms or chambers, including the royalty's rooms, the throne room, the Crown Jewels collection etc. Then there are steps leading underground to dungeons, to chambers where World War 1 prisoners were kept etc.
The very first structure we entered had a tourist shop, which stocked blue colored ponchos. When I pointed this out to a few of my semi-soaked group members, there was a rush on them, and soon after I could see the entire group wearing them. As for me, I was prepared for the inclement weather with an all-purpose rainproof & windproof jacket. I always carry such a raiment whenever I travel abroad to colder climes. It has proven to be a great all-in-one jacket that has kept me warm and (mostly) dry in places like Jo'burg (in August), Switzerland (in December), St. Petersburg (in March) and numerous trips in Germany in the winters.
The tourist shop also gave me the opportunity to buy a few knick knacks for the family. That serious business conducted, I settled down to take in the rest of the tour. We ambled through the various structures that included these:
- The Royal Palace (apartments of the royalty dating from the 15th century, including Mary Queen of Scots. She gave birth here to King James VI of Scotland, later James I of England)
- The Crown Room: This houses the Scottish Crown Jewels and Regalia. They include the Crown of Scotland, sceptre and sword of state. The crown dates from 1540, is made of Scottish gold and is set with pearls, diamonds and other gemstones. The Sceptre is also made of gold, and topped with a large quartz crystal. The most treasured possession of Scotland is the Stone of Destiny, upon which the monarchs of Scotland are traditionally crowned.
- St. Margaret's Chapel: It's the oldest surviving building in Edinburgh Castle and the oldest building in Edinburgh. Legend had it that St. Margaret worshipped in this small chapel, but research indicates that it was built at the beginning of the 12th century by her fourth son who became King David. This is a small irregular stone building. The rectangular structure with an internal width of about 10 ft has an entrance door at one side near the back of the nave which is about 16 ft long, then there's a round arch on columns leading into a sanctuary. A very quaint peaceful place despite the hordes of tourists pouring in through the narrow entrance. Since there was room for one person to either enter or exit through the only entrance, and since everyone stood aside in deference to the other tourists in typically polite British style, there was a gaggle of people inside and a long queue of people outside just dying to rush in.
By the time I came out of the chapel onto the upper ramparts of the castle where the cannons were kept, the sun had come out and there were large crowds of families with children enjoying the view of Edinburgh city spread out far below us. It was almost time to return to the bus.
Our lunch venue was The Dome on St. George's Street. This restaurant used to be a bank earlier, which is pretty apparent once you stand in front of its imposing facade of huge Roman-style pillars. The main doors lead to a plush lobby which wouldn't be out of place in any grand clubs or colonial buildings frequenting Bombay or Calcutta. This lobby in turn opens into a huge dining area completely overwhelmed by a huge glass-covered dome (what else?). There are ceiling-length pillars and potted plants scattered throughout the Grill Room. Overall impression? Elegant and cool.
During lunch, we had the same old problems about individual persons' dietary requirements. Some people didn't want to have meat because of halal issues, some wanted seafood, some had requested for just vegetarian cuisine and one person wanted raw fruits and vegetables, in other words, a Jain meal. To each his own.
Once lunch was finished, our group had free time to itself. People were told to make their own way on foot back to the hotel, if they so pleased. Else they could just wander about and discover the city, so to say. St. George's Street is not too far from the hotel, and the weather was pleasant too. So our group of 4-5 persons decided to stroll back to the hotel, taking in the sights.
The Edinburgh Fringe Festival had taken over the city and High Street, right next to our hotel, was jammed with street performers as well as the crowds thronging around them. The pavements were packed tight, and it really was some effort to actually move through the crowd, since the street sloped gently uphill. In addition to the interesting performers, who apart from being skilled at their art were glib talkers as well, I was drawn to the couple of specialist whisky shops on the street. The more authentic looking one was Royal Mile Whiskeys, at the junction of High Street and St. Giles Street. I ventured in with my troop of curious onlookers. The entire shop was crammed with single malt whiskeys, not surprisingly. The bottles were neatly standing against wall cabinets, clearly labelled and marked with prices, ranging from 20 pounds to 300 pounds. On the shop floor were cane baskets filled with miniature whiskey bottles for a pound to 5 pounds each. There was a shelf in the middle of the shop that had confectionary made from malt whiskey. Something for everyone. More importantly, the sales persons were very knowledgeable and happy to help. I caught snatches of conversation between some of them and the customers who were animatedly discussed obscure varieties of whiskey. It was a lovely atmosphere to absorb in. I didn't buy anything right then, but returned later on another day and bought a bottle each of 16 yo Lagavulin, 10 yo Tamdhu and 12 yo Glendronach, and also an assortment of miniatures to gift friends. Oh, and I couldn't resist getting a small box of whiskey fudge for my family! It was back to the hotel after the long walk, and get some rest for the evening ahead.
In the evening, we all trooped back to High Street where we were met by a theatrical guy dressed all in black, either a clergyman or a judge. He led us through back alleys and pathways all the while talking about various dark episodes in the city's history that had happened there. I thought the entire walking tour could have been much better, but then maybe he didn't talk about the best bits. We ended up at an entrance to an underground tunnel, in a light drizzle. The tunnel smelt rather musty, and was the start of an entire mesh of interconnecting rooms and passages under the city, dated back to 1540, as we were told. These underground cellars had a bloodthirsty history which I won't go into details here, but all this can be read on their website.
Finally, we ended up in a large cavern where we were served dinner. It was a weird feeling, having dinner underground beneath a bridge.
When we came out of the cavern, it was in the foyer of a nice modern restaurant! The drizzle outside had turned into full fledged rain, and I was thankful I had on my trusted all-in-one wind- and rain-proof jacket. The hotel was within walking distance (of course!) and we proceeded towards it.
When we reached there and tried to get in, we were met by a couple of firemen who told us not to enter, and to stay out on the main street. A couple of hotel guests were being shepherded out as well. One elderly woman was clad in just a bathrobe and hotel slippers, having been hurriedly summoned out of her room, and was shivering at just the thought of going out in the rain. But the firemen were adamant, and had been joined by the hotel staff. The explanation for this was that there was a fire alarm and they were checking out the entire hotel.
So then our entire group members trudged out slowly on the street, where a fire brigade truck had arrived. Soon, two other trucks joined it and the entire hotel area was cordoned off. A long-legged blonde rushed out of the hotel and identifying herself as a hotel employee, asked us all to go off to the Carlton Hotel across the street rather than stand on the road. It took a lot of imploring the entire contingent to actually accomplish this, because by then the guests were feeling the effect of the late night and the tiredness of a full day. Shortly thereafter, the other hotel's lobby was completely taken over by tired sleepy guests sprawled all over every available seat in the vast lobby. The helpful staff of the Carlton even arranged for some refreshments for the hungry ones. It was past 1 am already with no further news from the firemen.
I kept going out into the street and standing across from the Scotsman to check out what was happening. It was almost fun to be out there in the rain. About 2am, we were finally told that there had been a fire alarm in one of the guest bathrooms due to some "malfunction", and now it was safe to again go in.
The bed was lovely, soft and deep, and I had just seconds to ponder before I slept.
