Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Leeds Trip

So what is the difference between me and other tourists, well when all the others are out and touring in a beautiful English summer ,I sat out in my dungeon where I would always wonder where had the Saturday gone for all that I remembered during the English summer was what comes after Friday night is Sunday morning. So now back to the difference, last week end when cold winds were trying to chew of what ever flesh I had put on to my cheeks, we set out for a trip to Leeds castle.
The plan was to drive to the castle and come back by the evening, so what did we do we woke up on a morning that was entirely alien for us for months together, oh Saturday is a beautiful day, after our regular activities we started round 10:30 on our way, with ATLAS in hand and a driver who was on the trip only for one sake that is to be behind the steering wheel.

The map was pretty clear but the mind of the navigator was simply on the other end, we got on to the wrong side of the highway and the roads we took were all extraordinarily beautiful except for the fact that they would not lead us to the destination we set out, but who did really care, with the fuel tank full and windows tightly shut, flying at 70 miles per hour was always a good feeling. Finally after few lucky calculations we a hit the highway A12 towards Leeds ,but this was just not the day for me ,with a very weak direction sense ,I am sure I would have not identified west by looking at the setting sun ,We missed every exit we had to take went in search of the round-abouts,finally it was time I relinquished the seat to Vijesh and what did he do, every five minutes he wanted out driver Vivek to take a U-turn and get back to the other side of the road. Between all there was one soul (Shijo) which was not disturbed by all this hallah-bullah, He was in his own world gulping juice and asking for inns. After missing three exits we got out at a service station and took in to a pizza centre as usual we are out to take photos only to be questioned by a location officer, why did you want to take pictures here? Hmm that was an interesting question but the answer I had would have made him faint, what we take photos for…….We set out after accepting hi apologies for questioning us we set out on the hunt of correct way again.

Finally we got to reach M20 and it was back to me to take up navigator and we reached the Castle at around 4:00PM.It was an achievement in itself ,we felt elated hugged each other; we had finally done the 90 mile distance in about 190 miles and got down the vehicle to be greeted by a


LEEDS CASTLE AND GROUNDS CLOSED
OCT31 – MARCH 31
OPENING TIMES 10 AM to 3 PM

Perfect ending to a fitting journey, but then there is always a camera and we had a photo shoot with out car and got back behind the steering wheel, and back on way to room. We stopped for a dinner in a mallu restaurant at Colchester. The day had not been kind on us; it did not matter to us that the city did not have any boards posted showing where we are where we were heading to, for we were already blind and groping in dark or light was not actually going to make a damn difference. All said by the time we reached home it was with a great sense of satisfaction and pleasure we had done it at last; we at least went out together and that was a dream since my landing in UK.

I am still looking for the speed tickets we would get by the today.

1 comment:

MS Vivek Chaitanya said...

share any pics dude.