On last Monday of August month each year, UK enjoys a one-day summer holiday which indicates the end of the summer Terms. On 27th August, we'd this holiday and hence we'd planned a tour to Paris, the city of lights on this long weekend.
The first and foremost thing was getting a VISA. As for getting a VISA to Paris, we must have hotel bookings and travel arrangements ready a priori, we needed to book these things first. And boy, how convenient is the Internet. With just a few clicks, I could book both these things one month before !!
RC and myself went to French Embassy for stamping our VISA with 5 passports in our hand. (Dakshabhabhi and Priti didn't require VISA as they are British citizen.) A long queue at the embassy in South Kensington and 3 hours patience ultimately served to be fruitful. While RC and Aparna just got a single Entry VISA, the rest of us got Multiple entry VISA for 2 months.
Here, u get a type of VISA called Schengen VISA which is valid in a group of 15 odd countries like Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Austria, Luxembourg and many other countries. With application to French VISA, what we actually got is such a Schengen VISA and if possible, I'll try to cover more Schengen countries till the VISA is valid.
The only thing remaining was planning the tour itself and deciding what places to see and how.. Again a few hours on Internet and we'd all the information.
Now, we were all ready and excited to go to Paris on Friday, 24th, 2001.
| Day 1 | 25 th Aug. 2001 | Saturday | Disney Land, Paris |
| Day 2 | 26 th Aug. 2001 | Sunday | The Louvre, Orsay Museum, Eiffel Tower and Cruise in the river Seine. |
| Day 3 | 27 th Aug. 2001 | Monday | Rest of the places like La Defence, Arc de triomph, Champs Elysses, Montmartre, Luxembourg gardens |
This is the same English channel which our swimmers like Mihir Sen, Arti Pradhan had swum across and became famous. The wind wasn't too much and we hit the first road in France at about 2:30 AM in the night.
The funny thing was, all in UK, left hand side driving (keep left) is followed but in France as in US "Keep Right" system is followed. I took lots of time to get adjusted to this and just wondered how would the drivers be adjusting to these things !! As our coach was already late by 45 min., our driver sped it up like anything and made up for the last time just to reach Paris at 6:40 instead of 6:30 in the morning.
We decided at least to check in to our Hotel and hence went to get a Metro Ticket and saw another huge Queue over there. Advancing with Snail's pace, we reached at the start of the Queue, Got one day Railway pass as well as Disney pass and now we were prepared to go in search of our hotel.
Some thing about Metro. Metro, as I said, is underground system of Paris, just like Tube is for London. But, Metro is more closely knit and loosely organised! There are about 14 Metro Lines and 4 RER Lines !! In all may be 300 stations inside Paris !! But, even London has as many as 200 stations. While Metro lines look to be spread horizontally more than vertically, London lines are surely spaced vertically. For Example, Piccadilly line is the lower most line and another lines like Jubilee would be spaced above it.. The difference ? While in London Tube, we'd have to climb up and down to change lines, in Paris Metro, we'd need to walk a lot in one plane, of course underground. London Tube is nicely equipped with Escalators whereas the absence of such thing in Paris (Conveyer Belt ) exhausts you a lot !! And Tube is much cleaner than her French counterpart !!
Enough of the "Tale of two Underground Railways" !
So, our Hostel was booked at a place near Bastille. Those of u with good memory and study of history would recollect that this is the place where there was this famous Prison of Bastille stormed by 100s of people in 1789 and thus started the French Revolution. If u've the map of Metro (or Tube for that matter), u can't get lost anywhere even if u want to ! Clear and simple maps is a peculiarity of these advanced countries, I think.
We found the Hotel (with the help of Priti who could speak French!) and were disappointed to know that the check-in would be at 3:00 PM only ! We'd to use the common showers and bathrooms to do our daily chores but fortunately, we got a room for half an hour and at least the ladies were rest assured. Still, common showers was a problem for persons like us who were groomed in Indian environment.
When I was brushing, I saw a young girl wearing just a towel entering the shower cubicle and I decided not to get modest any more. Taking inspiration from her, I completed my showers in the next cubicle (!). After we were thr' this (unplanned) event, we headed straightaway to the Metro and then subsequently to the station called Marne-La-Vallee on RER...
French names are really difficult to pronounce. U spell it like one and pronounce like other !! Reminded me of P.L.Deshpande who once said about this language that it's like spelling "Joshi" and pronouncing "Albuquerque" !!
We came out of the station and were mesmerised by the first sight of this beautiful Disney Land !!
Beautiful landscapes, Vivid Colours and famous, familiar cartoon faces really took all the fatigue out of us and all of us were prepared for the rides ! Since Priti had been there 5 times earlier and according to her, a ride called "Space Mountain" was the deadliest, we stood in the Queue for that ride. The temp. of 32 Deg. Celsius and the scorching heat and inch-by-inch advancing Queue was taking all the better of us. At last, we could see the set up of this ride and boarded the train which would take us to the space mountain.
Ride 1 : Space Mountain (U can skip this section if u r bored of the details
of the ride!!)
It was the first ride in life for me (I am talking about Fun Rides only!!)
so far and was all excited. The ride started. It consisted of a fast train
taking us thr' all loops, dangerous bends and curves, ascents and descents
in a pitch-dark dome with supposedly some universe-scape like The Moon, the
stars around us. It was based on Jules Verne's Novel "A journey to the
moon". The train would stop abruptly and then start again like a charged
bull. The moment, I entered the pitch-dark dome, I could see nothing but
darkness and the train started speeding up so much, going over the curves
and other things, that I felt some monster is sitting above me chest and
bullying me... I wanted to scream and opened my mouth but it was devoid of
any sound !! I couldn't scream !! A long ascent and another horrible journey
th' more loops and I prayed to god, this horrible thing should get over as
fast as possible with eyes wide shut !! At last, it was all over, I tried to
come out of the train compartment and my legs were trembling, my heart
pounding like the train itself !!
Just thought for a second, what the hell is this ? You pay just to get scared to ur guts !! and I felt ashamed of myself for being such a chicken-hearted person !! Maybe it was the first time... I was not prepared for it all. Everybody and especially Aparna suggested that we'd go again for the second time and I just said "Yes, of course" since I didn't want to get humiliated by showing how scared I was !!
The heat had sapped all the vigour outta us and my health was not good either (thanks to hurriedly attended call of nature!) and may be it had it's own effect on the ride but I was surely scared to death in this ride! The feeling of weightlessness is eerie and those who have romantic notions about feeling as light as feather are liars !! Life is enjoyable because you have got weight !!
Oh, I forgot to give u the description of Disney Lands.. There are in all 4 Disneylands in the world. 2 in USA (Florida and California) and one each in Tokyo and Paris. Walt Disney the famous cartoonist is the master mind behind this. The Disney Land in Paris is largest in Area, I guess erected over 40,000 Acres of land.
Ride 2: Thunder Mountain. (U can skip this section if u r bored of the
details of the ride!!)
Disneyland Paris is divided into 5 major parts : Mainstreet USA, Frontier
Land, Adventure Land, Fantasy Land and Discovery Land. Mainstreet USA
divides the Frontier (south) and Adventure (north) lands from the Discovery
(South) and Fantasy (north) Lands. The Space Mountain was in Discovery land.
Next Destination was Thunder mountain in Frontier Land and hence we needed to Cross the Main Street, USA. The moment we reached Mainstreet USA, we were confronted by the Disney Parade !! It consisted of big Chariots (but electric carriages, not horse driven) with Famous Characters like Aladdin and his Princess with Genie, Goofy, Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Chip and Dale, Beauty and the Beast, Snow-white and 7 dwarfs etc. etc. aboard that chariot ! Accompanied by a catchy music, the entire parade was splendid !!
Thunder Mountain is an artificial Mountain created as is in Arizona or some arid land like that. and is on an island. Thunder Mountain Express is the train that would take us there ! Again, the same experience as Space-Mountain, the earlier ride but less scary since I was experienced by now ! The ride was on open ground in the sunshine of the day. The train would make horrible, screeching noises, stop abruptly and start running again with horrible speed thr' tunnels, steep ascents and descents... But this time it was all enjoyable suddenly , I don't know for what good reason. May be I got rid of my freight. It was an awesome ride!
Ride 3: Indian Jones : Temple of Peril. (U can skip this section if u r
bored of the details of the ride!!)
It looked more or less the same like earlier ride i.e. Thunder Mountain
since it too had a train. Only thing is that the structure was spanned more
in height than in length and breadth as in earlier ride. We went in with a
FastPass like earlier ride and the moment we saw the structure from close
quarters, I started trembling again... It had 360 Deg. loop !! And the train
was moving backwards !!
I seated myself in the first compartment at the very first seat so that I was the first person to go backwards and could see everybody else in front of me ! Less scary I thought. I was wrong !! When u r in ride like this, u don't look at ur partners and fellas around you anymore but u look at the sky (searching for some saviour God Perhaps !!) and the ground. This was even more horrible than space mountain and I felt like my heart has stopped at the loop... I could see the ground spinning down below me with my legs pointing towards the sky... but fortunately, this time I kept my cool and really enjoyed this ride too!! And I was the only person in our group who wanted to go for this ride the second time. Enough progress, right ?
It was 8.00 PM in the night now and dark everywhere. The crowd was subsiding. We'd seen a long Q at this show called "It's a small world" and that proved, it must b a good one. Indeed it proved out to be!
The show consisted of sitting in a boat which takes the passengers on tracks submerged in water to a huge palatial chamber. Two turns, the boat went inside and my first exclamation was "Aha!" The light inside was not white or Yellow in colour like tublights or bulbs would have but all shades of blue, green, red and all. A melodious music at the background and we entered the small world - miniature of the real world, but the puppets had replaced the people in real life. The puppets were so cute and geared in the traditional dress of the respective countries, that I envied them.
We went round this small world seeing Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, China, Our own India, Middle East, Africa, Mediterranean countries, Countries from Europe like Russia, Hungary, Austria, and North and South America. Each of the countries were represented by either people (puppets) or the animals found in that region with famous monuments and peculiarities. For Example, India was represented by Taj Mahal and Classical Music (Tanpura!!) and people in traditional dresses like Ghagaraa-Choli, Dhoti etc. !! Africa was represented by the Giraffes and the Tigers and the Elephants, Egypt with Pyramids, France with of course Eiffel Tower and England with Tower Bridge, US with the statue of Liberty.... and so on.
The tour around the small world ended with a special section called "Hollywood" where everything was silvery, bathing in colourful lights !! It was too good !! So much so that one of my friends exposed as many as 31 films !! I exposed 25 and my another friend, 21 !!
We could not see the show carefully since we were engaged in photographs and hence we went again for the second time !! It was like icing on the cake !! Unforgettable !! And the dolls were so cute !! How unfortunate, every thing in the world has an end to it.
The Disney Castle is Pink and violet in colour situated at the heart of Disney Land. At the stroke of 11.00 PM, all the lights went off and the castle was suddenly dyed with all vivid colours one after another and soon started the splendid fireworks ! It was just like our Diwali but on very large scale and that's how the day in Disney Land ended.
If Small world was the icing on the cake, then electric parade and fireworks were the cherries !! For almost 12 hours we were in another world, a colourful, glamorous world where there was no room for tension, agonies, worries or anything. Just fun and happiness...
Felt like the time should freeze there and then ! Thank God, He didn't listen to me. How else was I supposed to narrate all about it to u, my friends ?
Second and third days were spent in Paris, The Real Paris but I think it would take another week for me to write all about it. So, stay tuned !!