My London trip

London is only my second foreign trip, the first one being a 2-day trip to Bahrain. My sister was onsite for her Genpact (an outsourcing company) project for about 6 months, and although she was totally tied up with her work there, it was her initiative to make us (my parents and me) stay with her and sight see London for 2 weeks. Bless her heart! I couldn't have afforded a London trip on my own.

There were snowstorms the week before we arrived, and frankly we weren't sure if how much we could cover. Thankfully, although it was near freezing while we were there, the sun was shining and there wasn't one cloud in the sky.

The nearest place was Kew Botanical Gardens, with an admission fee of £13 per person (about Rs. 1000. the entire period we were there, we couldn't help converting everything to Rupees in our head) It is spread over 300 acres, and was once a picnic and hunting ground of the Kings of the yore, along the banks of Thames. I found the Charlotte cottage right in the middle of the woods quite charming. We walked for 6 hours, interspersed with only slight amount of rest. In fact, we walked a lot during the trip. I was amazed how my mother at her age had the energy to come home and do household chores after all that walking.

The next visit was the Natural History Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum at South Kensington (London is the city of Museums. I must've visited more museums in 2 weeks than I did the entire life) The best things in London are free. Museums are one of the few things in this world that cannot be digitized (Can you imagine a three dimensional experience of exhibits in the internet?) Victoria and Albert Museums have the best collection of Jewellery in the world. My parents and I initially searched for the Kohinoor, not realizing it is in the Tower of London.

The National Maritime Museum and the Royal observatory at Greenwich (where the famous Prime Meridian runs) is perhaps the most interesting part of my visit. The Royal observatory have the following story:

In the olden days, the sea travel was considered dangerous, because the sailors lacked navigational tools. The latitude, how far north or south of the equator one is, is relatively easy to find by the height of the Sun at midday or (in the northern hemisphere) by the height of the pole star; sailors had been finding their latitude at sea for centuries. The longitude is a measure of how far around the world one has come from home and has no naturally occurring base line like the equator (Imagine a sphere, you can always draw the equator, but can you say which one is the central meridian unless explicitly defined?). The crew of a given ship was naturally only concerned with how far round they were from their own particular home base.

In theory, two approaches are possible- either find the time accurately at sea; Knowing the time at Prime Meridian, and knowing 4 mins correspond to 1 degree helps fix the longitude. The other approach is this. If an accurate catalogue of the positions of the stars could be made, and the position of the Moon then measured accurately relative to the stars, the Moon's motion could be used as a natural clock to calculate Greenwich Time. Sailors at sea could measure the Moon's position relative to bright stars and use tables of the Moon's position, compiled at the Royal Observatory, to calculate the time at Greenwich, by which they know how far East or West they are from it. This means of finding Longitude was known as the 'Lunar Distance Method'.

Pendulum clocks which measures time accurately on Earth fares dreadfully under unstable conditions at sea. So Harrison worked on the most accurate clock at sea, while Flamsteed worked on the Mapping of the stars. Both approaches were eventually successful.

A few things an Indian would notice about London. Its public transport system is great. Not only are they well networked, but also the directions are so clear a child would find its way around. The credit crunch is visible in atleast one way- On the last day, we were shopping at Hounslow. Most of the shops were displaying 'Credit crunch prices!!!'. A couple of things were really cheap- Chocklates and Shirts. We hoarded them. People everywhere were precise and helpful with directions, not the usual take the right and go straight and ask someone there. I didnt find any signs of racism, although it could be because I'm just dumb to take note of any. Anyway, Indians are racist when it comes to Black people. Ask any African tourist who has visited India.

My mom was clad in Silk sarees and Golden ornaments and attracted attention everywhere. In Windsor castle, my mother and I had an argument over how to use the audioguide. I asked the lady at the counter to arbitrate. She smiled and said, Mother is always right. Mother is king!! (No. She did not say Queen) Oh boy! I think my mother would mimic the line if I argue with her over anything, ever.

London pictures here.