Dear All,

As some of you know already, last weekend (6th and 7th Jan) I had been to Scotland, one of the main parts that makes the United Kingdom. The trip was huge success and words fail me when it comes to describing it. Nevertheless I will try to jot down a highlights of the trip.

Scotland is located on north side of UK. Obviously, the weather is very cold out there. Since it had snowed on 28th of December in London too, we were expecting lots of snowfall and bad weather, showers in Scotland. Fortunately, the weather was at its best! Very little or no showers at all and sun was shining beautifully. There were three of us. Me and my two friends, Ravi Sawant and Anand Chahande.
We went to Edinburgh, the capital and very historic city of Scotland. It's about 600 miles away from London but we reached there in flat 8 hours.

We travelled on the motorway. something parallel to what we call highways in India but having very little similarity. We had already booked a tour called Rabbies Trail Burners from Edinburgh and it was to pick up at 9:30AM. We had reached Edinburgh at 6:30AM, so we killed 3 hours loitering on almost empty streets and were just in time for the tour.

The vehicle was a 16-sitter Mercedes-Benz Station Wagon but we were only 12 person from 6 countries: 3 from India (us), 2 from Australia, 1 from China, 2 girls from Norway, a couple from Singapore and another from USA. Our driver-cum-guide - Jim - gave a briefing on how would we be travelling. The path was something like travelling to extreme north end of Scotland called Inverness via Fort Williams and returning via another path through Fort Augustus. On the way, we would see various places, he informed. A complete account is too exhaustive to be put into a single email due to scarcity of time. Therefore, I will just write about the places and some speciality of Scotland

Many of you would know some famous things about Scotland already. Sir Walter Scot, McBeth, Sir William Wallace, Scotch Whisky, Movies like "Braveheart", "Rob Roy" and "Loch Ness", Highlands and the bagpipers for instance.
We got a chance to see many a things that had reference to all of these.

Scotland is divided into two distinct geographical sections: The Highlands and the Lowlands with the two-thirds of the population concentration located in the former section. When you start seeing less people and more sheep you can rest assured you are in the Highlands, Jum told us. Jim is a graduate in Scottish History and on the way, while driving adroitly through the Highlands, he was also giving us a commentary on the history and geography of Scotland and the culture, the weather, the life in Scotland etc. In the Highlands, you can surely see bagpipers in the summer time, piping that peculiar instrument and grazing their sheep. But this is winter and hence we didn't see any of them in the Highlands. However, at a particular point on the road, near the parking lot in the mountains, there was that bagpiper playing his instrument, wearing that chequered skirt. Needless to say, we stood beside him and got ourselves framed in the cameras.

Scotland is rough. Rough in weather and the terrain. There are Glens (meaning Valleys), Straffes (bigger valleys), Lochs (meaning Creeks or Rivers) and Munroes (mountains above 3000 Ft. in height) and Corbetts (mountains above 2000 Ft. in height). Of which, Ben Nevis - the highest mountain in the UK - and Loch Ness - the long river, Glen Coe - the beautiful valley and Great Glenn - the common valley of 3 Lochs - Loch Ness, Loch Oich and Loch Lochy which is stretched to about 100 miles are very famous.
These three Lochs are joined to each other by a canal called Caledonian Canal. Caledonia - Romans gave this name to Scotland. Loch Ness - if any of you have seen the movie the same name (I had already seen that movie) would know - has a myth associated with it. It is said that a monster of the size of a dinosaur resides in the water of Loch Ness and this makes the beautiful Loch Ness a bit dangerous as well. People have spent many pounds than they ought to have in digging the truth out but there is not any noteworthy evidence excepting few documents and some photographs taken.

Braveheart - a movie directed by Australian Actor-turned-Director Mel Gibson - is based on the life of Sir William Wallace, the Scottish Hero who rebelled and free the land of Scotland from the English. Not a wonder, the movie got 4 Oscars and established Mel Gibson as director, the history created by Sir Wallace is really full of inspirations. He can be compared to Chhatrapati Shivaji from Maharashtra.

McBeth, the main character from the eponymous play written by The Bard - William Shakespear, considered to be the greatest Play-Write in the world, was a normal person until three witches told him about 3 different fortunes. That he would be king of Scotland, that none of his daughters or sons would be queens or kings and that he would be the king until Bernam - the village having his castle - would go to another village (I forgot the name). McBeth was happy about the 1st fortune, sad about 2nd and happy again about the last one since the two villages in question were 18 miles apart. And a village travelling towards another was unheard of. The play then goes and describes many interesting things - how McBeth kills King Duncan and becomes king himself (Lady McBeth plays a major role in this proceeding) and how th son of Duncan - Malcom eventually defeats McBeth and kills him. McBeth was from the village of Bernam, which we saw on the route.

Rob Roy is yet another living legend in the history of Scotland. Born a poor man, the life story of him, how he went on to be a merchant trading cattle, how he was deceived, how did he take revenge, how he took his revenge, how he was caught by the mighty King of Muntrose, how he managed to escape - not once but 3 times - from the vigilance of the mighty king... all was narrated by Jim. We could not see Rob Roy's tomb due to scarcity of time. (It gets dark at 3:30PM here!).

We took a night's halt at Inverness the northmost city of Scotland and then started our journey back to Edinburgh and onwards to London. In spite of the not-so-enthusiastic company of people, our guide was witty and energetic person and it was all a trip to be cherished forever.

I've just jotted down the highlights of the trip. Surely many of you would want to know more about some things. Do write back to me if you do and I would elaborate. I don't want to squeez details into this emails which has alredy grown out of its size. The pictures - we took almost 3 rolls full of pictures - are on their way to development. We intend to cut a CD with images directly on it. Should be ready in about 15 days. I have planned to upload them to my homepage so that everybody would be able to see them (and in the process visit my homepage too!).

That's the long and the short (or High and Low?) of it. Actually, just the short as the long would be on demand.