Did I bump into James May in Naples?

(For the uninitiated, James May is one of the presenters on the motoring show Top Gear – famous for getting lost, being nicknamed ‘Captain Slow’ and his dry, almost-sincere humour)

 

I stayed at Hostel Mancini in Naples (a good hostel by the way) and met this interesting gentleman who was one of the hosts at the hostel:

Almost James May

The real James May

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, whenever I talked to him, I couldn’t help but smile, expecting one of those funny resigned things only James May would say. And he must have been thinking – Why does this moron keep smiling, when with a lot of sincere effort in my broken-English, I have just told him about the rife pickpocketing that happens in Napoli? And about the fact that he’s planning to go to top of Vesuvio in a t-shirt and he should be taking a fleece jacket instead? Ah, these tourists – morons! Can’t do anything about it.

😀

Oh, well, honest answer is no. But, almost.

Best of Travel 2011: Because it’s never too late!

One of my favourite travel bloggers, Angela, of Chasing the Unexpected, tagged me on this a couple of weeks back. Of course, I’ve been a bit lazy in completing it – The Best of travel 2011 rules indicate that the series ran through till Jan 16. But, bah, I still want to write this – reminisce in some of my favourite memories of 2011, and plan ahead for 2012.

2011 has been a pretty good year of travel for me – starting from the fact that the definition of ‘home’ changed right on January 1 on the midnight hour (well, not exactly, but sometime during my 10 hour long flight from Bangalore to London) as I moved to work in Nottingham, UK.

You might see a lot of destinations here that I haven’t written much about. Hopefully, this year, I’ll be documenting a lot more of my trips in both 2011 and 2012.

So, I’ll jump right in..

Best Domestic Travel Destination

Giant's Causeway, Northern Ireland

It’s a surprisingly forgotten domestic travel destination, considering that very few Britons had even heard about it when I told them about my plans to go to see this Natural Wonder of the World. Giant’s Causeway, a naturally-formed collection of thousands of hexagonal shaped rocks, is located on northern edge of Northern Ireland, about 60-70 miles away from Belfast. Not only is the location itself very beautiful, it is also accompanied by a picturesque rope bridge a few miles of cliff-walks away.

Best Travel Experience

Paragliding in the Alps

When I signed up for the Contiki Eurotrip in early summers, this was one of the optional activities I was dead certain that I’d be signing up for – Paragliding. An unmissable opportunity – the feeling of flying, that too in the middle of the Alps – turned out to be as good as I had expected it to be. The wind fluttering against your face, the icecaps on the peaks of Alps shining on the horizon and the greenery and streams of water below – it was a very beautiful experience.

Also, got the opportunity to take some really nice photographs! 🙂

Paraglider at Hopfgarten

Best International Destination

La Pedrara (The Quarry), Barcelona

A 10-day trip to Barcelona turned out to be one of my best experiences in terms of solo-travel and immersing into the culture of a place. I was fortunate to have timed the trip to happen at the same time as La Merce, the annual festival of the city. So, not only did I get to see the architectural gems by Gaudi but also felt the real vibe of the city through the evening jaunts to cultural performances and carnivals, amidst visiting some classical pieces of art by masters like Picasso and Gaudi.

Watching Messi-magic at Camp Nou

Worst Travel Experience

This was the closest I got to the Colosseum - photo from a taxi rushing me back to our campsite

Although I haven’t had too many bad travel experiences (thank god!), falling ill with fever and unforgiving cough and cold in Rome, during my Eurotrip, was a very tough one to deal with. I didn’t want to miss any of the travelling, but did not want to fall ill further. I completely lost my voice and felt like I had zero stamina to walk. Thankfully, some rest and a cancelled visit to Colosseum helped me recuperate and enjoy the rest of the trip.

Most Embarrassing Travel Moment

Another one from the Eurotrip. Our tour bus made a surprise stop in Verona – the home to the legend of Romeo and Juliet. At the mansion claimed to Juliet’s house, there is a statue of Julietta. You aur supposed to cup her breast for good luck – every tourist does it. So did I. And it was very embarrassing.

I did manage to force through a very sheepish smile.

Best Local Destination

Alley Cafe, image courtesy http://www.alleycafe.co.uk/

Not sure how different this is from the first category, so I chose to talk about a local Nottingham treasure. Alley Cafe is a vegan cafe bar, tucked into an alley right next to the city centre , has an atmosphere right from Paris of 1920s with quirky music and artwork. I have found the place to be absolutely delightful every time I’ve been there. Make sure you visit it if you ever visit Nottingham.

Best Travel Lesson

The travel lesson from 2011 for me is to live life to the fullest, without regrets. And  that there is absolutely no harm in trying out something offbeat, something different. For example, I went to the Toone Theatre in Brussels (actually, stumbled on to it quiet accidentally) on my recent trip around Christmas time. Although I didn’t understand a single word of it, it was all in French, I still found it very funny and a very amusing experience.

Toone theatre in Brussels

So, here we go, that was the best of 2011 from my trips! And I have already planned a couple of interesting trips to Rome, Paris and India! 🙂

Keep watching this space!

Utopia? No, no.. it’s poo-topia!

Okay, I know, that doesn’t sound like a very inviting title for  blogpost! But after 2 days at a music festival, a clean toilet can become one of the most inviting and attractive object around.

This August, I went to the V-festival, held near Chelmsford, UK. Since this was my first festival in UK, everything around was a new experience to me. From watching Rihanna and Eminem on stage, to the world of thousands of tents, to portable toilets. These portable toilets became disgusting within one and a half days and many of them had characteristic rolls of half-wet toilet paper flowing out. Yet, queues were unending, courtesy the free-flowing (note: free-flowing here means abundant and not actually free) supply of beer. In that world of smelly porta-loos and general lack of hygiene, I was almost taken aback when I came across this..

Yes, they were actually charging  £2 to use their (supposedly) clean loo, and some (probably not enough) people were actually using it! Wonders of the world! Note their cheekily-names website called ‘naturalevent.co.uk’!

Barcelona!

Hola! It’s 22nd of September!

Finally, the day has arrived! I am going to Barcelona today!! Yayy! And that too for a 10 day trip, and a solo trip at that too! So, am looking forward to a lot of adevntures, new friends and a lot of fun! 🙂

In the meanwhile, as I feel guilty about not posting on the blog often enough, I have prepared blog posts – 1 for every 2 days I am away, and have scheduled them to be published over next 10 days! So, have fun reading the blog.. please do comment, I’ll try to reply if I get a chance to come online!

Hasta luego! 🙂

V is for VIP @ V-festival.

‘Look out for the VIP signs‘ – Mike’s dad had said. As we drove onwards towards the car-parking fields, to every fluorescent-coloured jacket wearing steward, we claimed – ‘VIP, VIP‘. ‘Which way to the VIP car park please?‘ With out wristbands and invitation letter in top pocket of our bags, ready to be taken out , we were ready to be checked, verified and plunged into the world of VIP festivalling. But noone asked for any proofs. They just directed us through. We were VIP, of course! – how could we be troubled with such trifle details as proofs of age and entry passes.

So, we walked on. Feeling special. The special few.

Until we reached the camping area. Hundreds and hundreds of tents pitched all over, sitting silently in the dark like brooding gorillas. And this was the state of guest and VIP camping! We didn’t even want to think about the ‘massive brothel’ (in Mike’s words) that was the other ‘Yellow’ camping area, which from miles away, reeked of liquor, hooliganism and absence of clothes, common sense and hygiene. 

I couldn’t help but feel out of place, walking through the narrow path between those uncountable number of tents – which were mostly silent, but some suddenly erupting with loud clamour from campers who had reached a bit before we did and had had the time to gulp down a couple of pints, I’d guess.

As I kept walking with measured slow steps through this sea of tents, Mike noticed the mixture of apprehension, surprise and excitement on my face and joked – ‘Are you feeling like you’ve reached a surreal place?‘. 

‘Not surreal. Just strange. Very strange.‘ 

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I went to V-festival at Chelmsford last weekend with my friends Mike, Ivan and Maryse. This was my first experience of a music festival in England. Oh, by the way, we later found out – we were not really VIP. We were really just ‘Red Camping’. But somehow, by chance and overlooked by the stewards, we had managed to park in VIP carpark and pitched tents in the VIP camping. Oh, well. 🙂

Ivan, Maryse, me and Mike at V-festival. p.s. Thanks for inviting me guys! 🙂