A useful detour

Day 2

Man, did I sleep well! I went to sleep on one side and woke up exactly that way. No dreams, no tossing and turning. Just a clean uninterrupted sleep...after soooooo many days. I woke up completely refreshed and charged up. Praveen had been up a lot earlier (he had trouble sleeping) and so was the first to head for the shower while I talked to his aunt and cousin. Like every other place on earth, the early morning TV programs were dominated by the Home Shopping Network. We spent quite a bit of time bitching about the programming.

Shower and thermals later, I had a "Dutch" breakfast of round toast sprinkled with De Reitjer, a dutch speciality which comes in quite a few flavors and varieties. It was so nice, I thought my daughter would love it and so was keen on picking it up at some supermarket before I left Amsterdam.

In last night's dinner table conversation, a few very interesting places had come up, especially one called "Panorama Mesdag" where the elders in the house were of the opinion that it was a fantastic thing to see and the younger ladies in the house thought that it BLOWS! We wanted to see which side we would fall on and so this one was first on the list. As we drove towards it, Uncle realized that today might be the day of the big Marathon and that a few roads might get closed for it. Turned out that it was going to be on another day, so we would have a pretty easy ride.

We parked around the corner from Panorama Mesdag and the first thing one would notice was these lovely flowers growing in random places on the grass. They all looked so gorgeous and made for some great shots. I think I clicked at least 20 just standing there :) Here's a sample:

Panorama Mesdag turned out to be quite a revelation! After walking into what looked like a museum, we walked up a narrow staircase and were stunned. We were standing on a platform which overlooked the ocean on one side and a city landscape on the other. It took us a while to realize that it was a painting! As we walked up the stairs, the landscape walked toward us, just like it would in a real setting. The effect was mesmerizing. To further enhance the effect, the platform built in the center had real sand around it that sloped down towards the painting and the colour of the sand was matched to the colour of the sand in the painting. There were ambient sounds that made me feel like I was near the ocean, what with the sound of waves crashing on the beach and the calls of the sea gulls.

The painting is 10m high and 120m in width, mounted in a perfect circle to give the illusion of watching the actual scene. What was amazing was that Herr Mesdag and his team took a mere 4 months to paint the whole thing. What's also amazing is that this work of art took 10 years to restore and come to it's current state. I would definitely recommend anyone visiting The Hague to have a look at this place. It was a truly absorbing experience.

From here, we walked to the UN International Court of justice. It was of course closed and therefore we could not have a look inside at the places where international disputes are settled. The building itself looked like an old church, but for the weather wane on top instead of a cross.

Near the entrance is the World Peace Flame. Surrounding it are rocks that have come from more than 150 countries. It was nice to see that the Indian representative (something that looks like a Shiv Ling) was front and center in the arrangement.

From here, we headed to Madurodam, a place for all things miniature. I marveled at the attention to detail in each building and structure built there, but that sort of gets old and we quickly tired of that place. We could have lived without having seen this.

What was coming next was exciting. We wanted to see the tulip fields and, while we were told that we were a couple of weeks too early, we wanted to try our luck and see if we could spot the things that inspired Van Gogh. We drove beyond Lisse and a few other place to see if we could catch a glimpse. It turned out to be a wild tulip chase and we had to eventually give up. At this point, we decided we should get some peptone in our bodies and stopped at a McD on the way.

What this little tulip chase had done for us was that it ensured we would be reaching our next destination, Kinderdijk, just around sunset. This was working out perfectly for us. Apart from the little episode of Praveen leaving his phone at the McD but realizing it before we left, we were headed for Kinderdijk (pronounced Kin-durh-da-eek) and on reaching that place, it did not disappoint!

The Dutch have preserved this little patch to showcase the old way of moving water between canals. The area had more than 10 windmills which presented a perfect place to take pictures with the sun setting behind them. This is where Praveen and I went shutter crazy! I can't even remember how many images I have taken at this spot. If only the skies were a bit clearer, we would have had some postcard variety shots. But I'm not complaining. I still got some great shots!

What was interesting to know was that the position of the blades of the windmill signaled from afar important events like the birth or death concerning the owners of the mill. You could also see if a mill was operational or not from afar. That was quite farsighted and a novel idea, I thought.

We were lucky enough to be at Kinderdijk the day they had opened for the season, but were late by 5 minutes to see the insides of a wind mill. When we arrived, one mill was clearly operational, but by the time we got to it, it had stopped moving it's blades. Damn you, punctual Europeans! Only then did we realize that we were 5 minutes past the 5:30pm closing time. Oh well! At least we had photos!

After a full day of taking some great shots, Praveen and I were quite happy on the journey back. We also saw an overhead bridge built specifically for cycles so that they could cross the busy crisscross of highways. This was definitely a country obsessed with bicycles. And it showed in the shapes of the legs of most women there :)

Back home, a quick dinner and a family photo and we were off to our next destination. Uncle was kind enough to drop us to the train station despite being tired from chaperoning us all day. Thanx to him, we had a great day! Now we were on the train heading towards Amsterdam, one of my favorite places in the world. My last vacation there (with Shesh) was still vivid in my mind. We landed at Centraal Station (pronounced Stah-soon) and took Tram #2 to Westlandgracht and a short walk later, we were at HEM Hotel. It was quite late in the night, but we had crossed Leidseplien, my favorite place in Amsterdam, on our way to the hotel and we had seen the throngs having fun on a saturday night. We hadn't landed into Amsterdam to sit in a hotel room. Leidseplien was just a few tram stops away and the cold was not going to stop us getting there.

People having a ball, drinking lots of alcohol and then passing out, either thro over consumption of alcohol or drugs looked like the norm at Leidseplien. We had landed late in the night, so no food was being served, so we topped up calories by consuming copious amounts of beer. Watching people around was the fun part. What was great was to see the Amsterdam police putting people into cabs so that they reached home safely after a night of debauchery. That was a nice gesture and only cemented my view of Amsterdam being the best place in world to have a good time.

We dragged our butts back to the hotel around 3am and, thanx to the beer consumed, dropped into the lap of slumber.

Today had been a good day!