it is pronounced ‘greenich’, my dear

Posted on June 28, 2009 by Rama Arya

Greenwich has always been inexorably bound to the sea and all things maritime; right from King Henry VIII’s time when he lived in the Royal Palace of Placentia that used to stand here and oversaw his naval fleet from it. Came the 18th Century, and along with it Queen Mary and Christopher Wren. The Queen decided to build a naval almshouse at the site of the Old Palace. Known as the Royal Naval Hospital (1752), it provided lodging and meals to the disabled and retired seamen of the Napoleonic Wars. Wren’s grand edifices later became the Royal Naval College in 1873 and were finally leased to the University of Greenwich, in 1999, and the Trinity College of Music.

The connection with the sea doesn’t end there. Greenwich is home to the National Maritime Museum which pulsates with the trade, exploration and colonization ties that the seas have had with England. And then there’s what everyone comes to look at. The Royal Observatory where John Harrison invented his famous sea clocks, and THE Greenwich Meridian Line, Longitude 0 degrees 0’ 0”, home of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). Continue reading →

oxford, city of dreaming spires

Posted on June 25, 2009 by Rama Arya

On the steps of the Sheldonian Theatre where Oxford’s graduation ceremonies are to date conducted in Latin!

First let’s get the bigger picture in place. 🙂 Oxford University is not one campus. It is made of 38 independently founded colleges, each with its own history and administration. Originally there were no buildings as such. The university consisted of a group of students gathered around individual masters. And when did it all begin? The oldest college dates to the 13th Century. The university as a seat of learning goes back to the 10th Century. Continue reading →

cotswolds—minster lovell and burford

Posted on June 24, 2009 by Rama Arya

Today I hiked through a different part of the Cotswolds. In a village called Minster Lovell in Oxfordshire with its stone ruins of the manor house Minster Lovell Hall standing sentinel, three storeys high, amidst emerald-green fields, tumbling brooks and whispering trees. Built by Lord William Lovell in the 1430s and extended by his son Francis, the edifice is monumental.

I ended my day with Burford, at the 12th Century parish church of St. John. Restful graves and vivid stained glass windows greeted me as I wandered in with my camera. I will always be grateful that I can travel. Continue reading →

cotswolds—a sheep’s pen in the hill

Posted on June 21, 2009 by Rama Arya

At times words are just not needed … I went to the Cotswolds in Gloucestershire today. Visited little villages which were as old-world as their names: Chipping Campden, Upper Slaughter, Lower Slaughter, and did some hiking. It was beautiful. I’ll let the pictures do the talking. 🙂 Continue reading →

bloomsbury, fitzrovia, and my favourite place in london

Posted on June 19, 2009 by Rama Arya

My favourite place in London has got to be the BM—read British Museum. I know, I’m a nerd. 😀 But see it from my eyes and the BM is all of life under one roof.

I’ve been here 10 months and soon I’ll be gone. I figure it is time to unravel the traveller within me and start exploring, both London and England. And how better else to start than with the vicinity around the institution that echoes all I hold dear—Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia. The weather is beautiful. The days long and lazy. Tough to resist so many temptations!

One of London’s most attractive charms is undoubtedly its little nooks and corners which somehow seem to get completely sidelined by tourists. My walk today started with the Sicilian Avenue which dates back to 1905. It has to be the quaintest pedestrian walkway I have ever come across, hemmed in as it is with ionic columns topped with urns, brimming over with Roman ambience and street cafes.

And then starts Bloomsbury’s other prime attraction. Its squares. There’s Bloomsbury Square (the oldest square in London, 1661), Russell Square (centrepiece for London University’s various departments), Tavistock Square (with its effigy of Mahatma Gandhi) and Bedford Square with its picture perfect Georgian houses. Continue reading →

cambodia 3: phnom penh, “we don’t need to fight anymore”

Posted on December 28, 2006 by Rama Arya

Phnom Penh is where the Cambodians live, work, play and pray. Its attractions are low key, forming part of the fabric of local life. The city sits at the confluence of the three great rivers of Indochina—the Mekong, Tonle Sap and the Bassac—and is the country’s commercial and political capital. It is crowded, chaotic and most importantly necessary in order to understand the everyday real Cambodia.

Like Siem Reap and other towns in Cambodia, Phnom Penh too swarms with child beggars and amputated men and women trying to eek out a living from the country’s thriving tourism industry. After three decades of civil war, the country has only in the last 10 years opened its doors to the outside world with its sliver of calm and peace. All in all 539,000 tonnes of bombs have been dropped over the country and between four and six million land mines still dot the countryside. Huge billboards on the roads read, “Put down your weapons. We don’t need to fight anymore.” Continue reading →

cambodia 2: khmer rouge, hell on earth in the 20th century

Posted on December 27, 2006 by Rama Arya

To fully understand life one needs to understand the good, as well as the bad and the ugly. To fully comprehend the Cambodian psyche, one needs to walk the sacred walkways of Angkor Wat but also understand the Khmer Rouge, and the dent it has made on an entire nation and its people, still stark and painful 28 years after its demise. No Cambodian can be said to be yet entirely free of the madness and brutality of that era. Every single family has had one or more members that died in it. There is a vacantness in the Cambodian spirit which still rattles emptily the echoes of those years, making you doubt humanity itself. Continue reading →

cambodia 1: the splendours of angkor

Posted on December 26, 2006 by Rama Arya

I am finally in Cambodia. Every traveller’s utopia. Peace has come to this beautiful yet scarred land after three decades of war and suffering, and a journey to this small kingdom is truly one of Asia’s most genuine adventures.

Present day Cambodia is the successor state to the mighty Khmer empire which during the Angkor Period (9th to 15th Century AD) ruled much of what is now Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. No matter how much you read about Angkor or see pictures of its monuments, the actuality of the place still takes you by surprise. The scale alone of the site is impressive, the detailed stone carvings on its temples only further adding to its incredible beauty. Continue reading →

laos 4: phonsavan—dead cats, freezing nights and the plain of jars

Posted on December 23, 2006 by Rama Arya

I will never forget Phonsavan. It is a strange town—in the middle of absolutely nowhere an entire congregation of ugly cement and brick buildings flung far away from wide expanses of brown, barren, dusty roads.

It took me nine long gruelling hours to reach this remote outpost, driving endlessly through convoluted winding roads hugging blue-green hills high up in the skies till I could taste my breakfast in my mouth over and over again. Moral of the ride: Never have bacon and egg bagels before driving off to nowhere!

Phonsavan is the main town of Xieng Khouang province, one of the poorest provinces of an already poor country. The town was established in the 1970s and sprawls out from a meaningless centre with no plan or direction. Public transport is limited and sporadic. It is illegal to rent your own vehicle here. None of the streets are named or at least the names are not used. There are no public phones and the weather is bitingly, freezingly, heartlessly cold. Phonsavan is neither friendly nor unfriendly. It just doesn’t care at all. Continue reading →

laos 3: sacred chants and harmony in luang prabang

Posted on December 22, 2006 by Rama Arya

Luang Prabang resonates with sacred chants and harmony. The various layers of life in this charming, medieval, religious town blend seamlessly into each other to create a complete whole. From the saffron robed monks going about their daily tasks to the local Lao whose lives revolve around the wats; from the night market which sells indigenous handicrafts to the thronging tourists, to the tourists themselves, mature and sensitive to the spirit of Luang Prabang. Nothing jars here. Nothing irks. Every aspect of this palm fringed, sleepy, former royal capital by the Mekong is in peace with itself. Continue reading →