I enjoy traveling for two reasons – for seeing places and meeting people through which one tends to learn a lot. At the same time, call it an idiosyncrasy or foolishness, I am against visiting the same place, be it in India or abroad, twice. In spite of my resolve, I found myself along with my husband jetting to London during June-end. The vegetarian lunch served onboard was quite good except for the parathas which required an extra effort to chew. The evening snack, which looked like a stuffed dosa with a liberal paneer and salad filling, was piping hot and as I found it too tempting to resist, dug into it straightaway, but soon realized I was eating only the stuffing because the outer covering was stuck to the foil and refused to yield either to the fork or my fingers!

Landing at Heathrow at 6 p.m. (London time) after a journey of eight-and-a-half hours, we made our way towards immigration and were shocked to see the place jam-packed, comprising mostly Asians, a majority of whom were Indians (I remember there wasn’t half the number when we visited London 10 years ago). We learnt it was a familiar scene on Friday evening as it was the weekend. It took us nearly two hours to get through immigration. It was amusing to hear a young schoolgirl, who seemed to be getting impatient and restless, say to her mother, “Mummy, if you were the Prime Minister, they would have let us go without all this waiting.”

Once we were through the process and emerged after collecting our baggage,(I wonder why the board pointing to the direction of baggage claim reads ‘baggage reclaim’) the sight of my gleaming niece waving to us came as a great relief.(Let me add, it’s always nice to be received at the airport by your hosts).

We reached Reading, a county in London, in a little more than an hour and found bright sunlight flooding into the house even though it was nearly 10 in the night, a time when most Chennaivasis would have had dinner and been ready to hit the bed.

Swaminarayan Temple—concept to Reality

The next morning, we drove to the Swaminarayan temple in Neasden which is a must-see for all those who visit London. Its sheer magnificence from outside takes your breath away and this marble and stone structure is equally awesome once you enter the spacious complex.

We found the shrines consisted of idols of Lord Ganesha and Lord Hanuman, Lord Rama and Sita, Shiva and Parvathi, Radha and Krishna, besides that of Swaminarayan. The idols are beautifully decked in shining milky white clothes with embellishments lending to their richness. I noticed the faces of Sita and Parvathi looked identical. The deities in the mandir remind one of the Swaminarayan temple in Ahmedabad. Absolute silence is maintained inside the temple. A short video presentation takes you on a journey commencing from the time the idea of building this temple was conceived to the time of completion of the project.

To our pleasant surprise we found table fans in all the shrines, unlike in London homes which didn’t have either a ceiling fan or a table fan. I wondered how people could manage to stay indoors during peak summer!

We drove to Oxford University from there but were disappointed to find the last park-and-see bus whizzing past us.

As we were on our way to the British Museum in Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, we noticed milling crowds were gathering at the Buckingham Palace grounds and the cabbie said they were all waiting to watch the changing of guards. Since we too did not wish to miss the spectacle we terminated the cab at this point and rushed to take a place in the crowd to watch the detachment of the Queen's foot guards march to appropriate martial music (I managed to click a photo or two to capture the ceremony in progress).

The British Museum

We visited The British Museum, established in 1753, which is now home to over six million artifacts, ranging from small archeological to massive objects from past and contemporary cultures. It has some 80 galleries which are organized by geography, history and theme and we realized a single visit was not sufficient to cover all of them.

As we entered the complex, we found the Tree of Life from Africa with a monkey climbing on it (it is the second season of Africa at the British Museum) facing us and a cute marble statue of a youth on horseback on the right with a caption - from Rome, perhaps 1st century AD.

After watching the show ‘Mummy: The inside story in 3D’ (with special glasses given to view it) we were tempted to view mummy displays in the Roxie Walker Galleries of Egyptian funerary archeology on one of the upper floors of the museum. There were several mummies exhibited from different countries. Room 61 gives an introduction to ancient Egypt. We were fascinated by the naturally preserved body of a man in a reconstructed grave pit placed in a glass case along with a selection of typical grave goods of the time. Our heart missed a beat when we read what was written at the bottom of the small board - Late Predynastic, Naqada 11 about 3400 BC.

Asian Gallery

The Asian gallery in the British Museum has the richest collections of Chinese antiquities in Europe with a display of Chinese jade in 33b.The Chinese collections range from the 4th century BC to the 19th century AD.

The large intricately carved wooden panels from Amaravathi in Andhra and a black Ganesha with spouse,(I thought it was a rare piece) are special attractions besides the beautiful icons of Buddha from Nepal. For a moment we felt we were in THE Land of Buddha and not in London. Equally attractive was the shapely gilded bronze figure of Tara, a Buddhist goddess.

Money and Medals: The Indian connection

The gallery consisting of money and medals has a magnificent collection of over 750,000 coins covering the history of coinage from its origins to the present-day. The HSBC Money Gallery offers changing displays and handling sessions in addition to its permanent exhibits. The currency that caught my eye was the gold mohur of Moghul Emperor Jahangir, the paper currency of the Portuguese which contained Kannada script on it and the three-colored Great Ming circulating treasure note of China.

Windsor Castle

The following day we made it to Windsor Castle in Berkshire, again a must-see for a tourist to London. The imposing statue of Queen Victoria at the approach to the castle appeared as regal and imposing as the palace in the background. Standing on chalk bluffs overlooking the Thames, Windsor Castle is the largest and oldest occupied castle in the world. In 1992, a fire destroyed more than 100 rooms in the castle but restoration was completed in five years and there is little to indicate the fire had ever started.

A tour of the castle is an experience by itself. The State Apartments are a combination of museum-style exhibits and formal rooms. The furniture is just fabulous and the treasures are a feast to the eye. You find time standing still watching the collection of works of art by Van Dyke, Rubens and Rembrandt.

Enamored by Queen’s Dolls House

The piece de resistance, however, is Queen Mary’s Dolls House. The work of architect Sir Edwin Lutyens was built in 1923 on a 1:12 scale with the aim of raising money for children’s charities. It is an exact replica of a grand home down to tiny books in its library handwritten by their original authors. (The castle guide directing the queue warns, "If you take pictures of the Dolls House, your head will be cut off.").

The architect of this marvelous piece should be greatly admired for his ingenuity and skill for not leaving out a single detail in its conception and design. It consists of everything in miniature befitting the lifestyle of royalty - exquisitely furnished drawing, dining, bedrooms, sit-outs, kitchen, pantry, a garden and what not.

We head to Edinburgh

We left for Edinburgh by the Virgin train, reaching our destination in six hours. You don't get to see much greenery or the meadows enroute as you do if you travel by road through the Lake District. We took a cab to Allison House in Mayfield Garden for our three days stay. It is a short distance from the station. Expecting it to be a hotel with a suit of rooms, we were surprised to find the building looked more like one of the Scottish town houses we see in pictures with potted plants at the entrance. A closed door greeted us and when we rang the call bell, a middle-aged woman emerged ,opened the door and invited us in.

After allotting a room on suite, she handed over two keys saying one was the room key and another for the main entrance and disappeared with the words, "Breakfast is at 7.30." Only later were we informed by the present owner that Mayfield Garden was originally a horse track and Allison House, which looked identical like other guesthouses situated in a row on this main road, was originally a town house which was converted into a guesthouse when it changed hands.

The three-level dwelling consisting of six large rooms and a basement where the servants lived, when sold away by the original owner, was remodeled into a guesthouse with 11 rooms on suite.

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