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Tuesday 5
thJune 2018
The last two days of our very special two-month trip to England and Borneo were spent in London, staying at my cousin’s house, just three stops on the train to London Bridge. Last Friday 1
st June, we took the train there for a day’s sightseeing. Strange to think that I was at this same station almost a year ago on 3
rd June, the day of the terrorist attack (but fortunately a bit earlier in the day) with my friends Ann and Barbara, on our way to the Royal Opera House.
We got off the train at London Bridge and headed next door to The Shard. We had intended to go up to the viewing platform for the view over London, however, it was rather cloudy so we didn’t feel inclined to pay £30.95 each without the clarity needed to really appreciate the views. We shall save this experience for another day. So, instead, we headed along to Borough Market where we feasted on Hog’s Roast with very crispy gorgeous crackling! When one has spent several weeks in a predominantly Muslim country, pork is a real treat! So is beef (although we did have Beef Rendang a
few times) so when Sue served up melt-in-the-mouth Chateaubriand steak on Thursday night when we got to their house, that was a real treat too! Borough Market was heaving with lunchtime trade, a great atmosphere.
Leaving the market, we headed down to the river to walk along Queen’s Walk towards Tower Bridge. The juxtaposition of old and new architecture in London is so superb and probably unique in its diversity, from iconic modern structures like The Shard (2012), City Hall (2002) to the 17th century dome of Saint Paul’s (1675), the 11
th century Tower of London (1078) and the Victorian masterpiece that is Tower bridge; all can be viewed from just one spot along the south bank of the Thames on Queen’s Walk. Fabulous! John and I just love being tourists in London. “Maybe its because I’m a Londoner” and I haven’t lived there for forty-two years! John was actually born in Essex (due to the bombing in the East End in WW2) but the family moved back to London when he was just three weeks old, so I let him call himself a Londoner too! It’s all in the blood!
Before reaching Tower Bridge, we stopped off
The Spanish stall in Borough Market
Smells of chorizo, jamon and manchego made us feel at home!at one of the many riverside bars for a beer near to Hay’s Galleria. Hay’s Galleria was once Hay’s Wharf, an enclosed dock built in the 1850s, where once tea clippers from India and China moored up to unload, as well as ships from around the Empire. By the end of the 19
th century, 80%!o(MISSING)f dry produce imported into London passed through the Wharf. It became known as the “Larder of London”.
When we got to Tower Bridge, we joined the queue to visit the museums housed in the towers, the engine rooms on the south side and best of all, to walk across the top walkway. I didn’t do the canopy walk in Mount Kinabalu (although I did cross a few bamboo suspended bridges in Sarawak) so I was determined to brave the glass floor on the Tower walkways! It was brilliant and highly recommended. The River Thames is not just for tourists and it was great to see working barges cross under and beneath us. The two walkways between the two towers, one west and one east, are 100 feet above the road bridge so cars look small and people look miniscule. The exhibitions are well-presented
and the engine rooms are magnificent. What can be a better finale to a great trip than a day out in London?
Our journey home to Spain went smoothly, although the BA flight from Heathrow to Murcia was completely full so our seats were not together (everyone else had checked in online the day before but we were too busy enjoying London). It didn’t bother us, it is just over a two-hour flight. Our son Nick met us at the airport and our dogs, Mutley and Megan attacked us when we got home!
We have now been home a couple of days, done the washing, some shopping and little else! We have just totted up our “Journey Summary”. The financial summary was already done as we went along on Excel, so it was just a case of counting up things like the different means of transport as we always do. We don’t include food in our costings because we eat at home as well! The costings are for the whole two months, Including UK expenses, as follows…
Costs in sterling:
Transport (detailed below) £2,338.44. Lodging(apart from on overnight excursions) £1085.91. Excursions, entrance fees etc (including lodging
were included) £1027.90.
Insurance (travel and car in UK) £406.67. Car hire UK £147.00. Tourist tax (10 MYR per room per night) £65.28.
TOTAL £5,071.20
Counting up the modes of transport was fun, easy to remember the ones we paid for because they were all on the Excel spreadsheet, but a little harder to remember included things like trucks and canoes! We think this list is correct, it certainly included a lot of hoisting rucksacks onto backs, as follows…
FOOTSTEPS 1,000s and 1,000s, CARS, TRUCKS &TAXIS 30, COACHES & BUSES 14, BOATS 13, TRAINS & TRANSITS 11, AEROPLANES 9
….and we slept in twenty different beds!
Borneo was a truly inspiring trip and one which shall live on in our memories for ever. It is hard to single out highlights from so many distinct “once-in-a-lifetime” experiences, however, we think that there are two iconic memories; one must be the bat exodus from the caves in Mulu, when thousands of bats staged an aerial display like none other in the world and the other, probably the best, was watching through our binoculars in a torrential tropical downpour, as a huge male Orang-utan made himself a
rainhat!
If you haven’t done so already, try to watch on catch-up TV if you have it, or clips online, a documentary we watched last week with Eric and Sue in London, “Red Ape: Saving the Orangutan”, a BBC 2 Natural World series episode first shown recently on 10
th May. Have some tissues ready to hand!
“People don’t take trips. Trips take people”
John Steinbeck
Borneo certainly took us! A part of both of us will always stay there, watching the wonderful Man of the Forest making his hat! This wonderful animal lives in a protected area, so whilst remembering him we shall also be praying for the survival of his relatives out there in the threatened jungle.
We would like to thank all of you who have followed our blog and we are so glad that people enjoyed tracing our footsteps. “Hasta la proxima” Until the next time!
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ALAN.
non-member comment
FINAL COMMENT..OR IS IT?
A SPLENDID FINALE...I WAS THERE JUST A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO,TOWER BRIDGE IS ICONIC ALBEIT I DIDNT DO THE WALK WAY AS I HAVE PREVIOUSLY DONE THIS...INCREDIBLE EXPERIENCE... LONDON IS THE BEST WITH SYDNEY FOR ME A CLOSE SECOND ALTHOUGH WITHOUT OUR HISTORY.......''UNTIL THE NEXT TIME...SEE YOU NEXT TIME''.