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Tag: tourists

London For One: Traveling Solo Couldn’t Be Easier In This World-Class City

By Linda Bergstrom, Chicago Tribune (TNS)

Think about it. London, on your own. And you can do whatever you want to do. Fantastic!

And, yet: Wouldn’t it just be easier to book a tour?

Save that stiff single supplement. Being a solo traveler without a pre-planned itinerary — save hotel reservations — can be a pretty great thing in London. The culturally vibrant, diverse city has lots to offer beyond its many museums and fun shopping.

Here’s how to put the power of one into action:

Get your learn on: London Walks offers tours of many local favorites, from Harry Potter lore to the British Museum. One of the best features is that you don’t need reservations — just show up at the scheduled time and pay 10 British pounds. The Saturday morning tour of Notting Hill and Portobello Market balanced the old and the new. Our informative guide took the group of 20 tourists along the back roads of the now trendy Notting Hill neighborhood, pointing out features such as the kilns once used to bake bricks, the former paths of Roman horse races, and the homes of the famous (yes, Annie Lennox lived there). There might have been one or two fans of the Hugh Grant movie who were thrilled to see key film locations (The bookstore! The church!). The two-hour tour ended at the packed Portobello Market, which is not named after a mushroom after all but has Roman roots. Everyone can find something in this hodgepodge of local food and trinkets and interesting antiques. www.walks.com.

Brush up on Shakespeare: One of the tips gleaned from a local was a real gem: cheap shows at the Globe the theater rebuilt by the late American actor Sam Wanamaker to recreate Shakespeare’s original theater along the Thames. You can catch a play, performed outside in the round and with audience members standing, for only 5 pounds in the warmer months. But don’t pass up the sometimes quirky offerings in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. Although it is a new theater, the playhouse is lit by candlelight, and patrons sit (or stand) like the Bard’s fans did long ago. A song cycle reportedly from a list of Anne Boleyn offered an entertaining glimpse into the British fascination with all things royal. The songs were captivating, and the setting was truly magical. www.shakespearesglobe.com

See Hyde Park by bike: One of the best ways to experience the 350-acre Hyde Park is through the bike share system. You can rent a comfortable bike (2 pounds for up to 30 minutes at a time) and pedal along the many paths. The rental lasts all day, and there are lots of docking stations, so you can take things slow. You are likely to ride past horse riders on the adjacent track on your way to the picturesque Serpentine lake. At the south end is Kensington Gardens. Take a peek into the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Playground before heading off to Kensington Palace. A tour of the public part of the palace (it is also the official London residence of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, aka William and Kate) reveals much about Queen Victoria and her love for her husband, Prince Albert. You can take in the beautiful grounds or head over to the Orangery for its celebrated tea. www.royalparks.org.uk

Tea at the Ritz: You need to book ahead (and early) to secure a seat for afternoon tea in the Palm Court of the Ritz London. This iconic afternoon tea is worth the 61 British pounds. The opulent room is very, very pink, but somehow it works. It’s the kind of place where you want to wear your best — and, in fact, jackets are required for men. The tea service starts with savories, including an exquisite egg salad. Even a table of one gets the full complement of sweets, from fruit tart to macaroons. Then come the scones and clotted cream and a slice of specialty dessert. The Ritz works to make the single diner feel welcome, offering magazines and newspapers. During my visit, the reading materials remained untouched as I was too busy sampling the wonderful food and drinking in the scene. www.theritzlondon.com/palm-court

Experience the countryside: Some of the most beautiful English countryside is a short train ride away. The Cotswolds has many iconic postcard villages, which are easily accessible via the bus system. Plus, it is home to the Cotswold Way, more than 100 miles of walking trails. A hike up the hill in Broadway traveled through sheep fields on the way to the Broadway Tower. The views were spectacular, and it was just fun to unlock the gates and join the locals (and their dogs) on an afternoon stroll. www.nationaltrail.co.uk/cotswold-way

The logistics of solo in London

Solo travelers are becoming a travel force. According to the Visa Global Travel Intentions Study 2015 prepared by Millward Brown, 24 percent of travelers took an overseas vacation alone in 2015, up from 15 percent in 2013. And many were women.

There are certainly safety considerations: Share your itinerary and use caution in public places. Other tips:

Get your bearings early by booking a guided bus tour. It is the easiest way to note where you would like to return, and it will most likely take you to areas you may not be able to get back to. The hop-on, hop-off tour I did also included a fun boat tour on the Thames from Tower of London to Westminster. VisitLondon.com is a good place to explore the options.

Get a cellphone that has map and phone access: You will want to be able to use your phone to see where you are, look up information on the fly, and make calls. (And your mother will still worry about you and want you to check in.) Cellular providers offer international plans, but the data plans are wickedly expensive. Buy a cheap unlocked phone at home, and get a SIM card right near the baggage claim at Heathrow.

London’s Underground is safe and efficient, and there’s an entrance seemingly around every corner. If you want to get out of the city, skip the car and opt for the excellent train system. Booking on a service like Trainline (www.thetrainline.com) will save you some cash.

Dining for one? One London resident warned that it would be tough to get a table for one at a nice restaurant in London. “They want to serve two people, not one,” he warned. He was right. They can’t refuse you, but they can ignore you to the point of discomfort. One word: Pubs. The Scarsdale Tavern in Kensington is picturesque and welcoming and had a great lamb shank for 16 British pounds. The Churchill Arms not only has memorabilia from the noted prime minister but also serves cheap, tasty Thai food. Another great dining option is Harrods. The food emporium is famous for its fantastic selection, from homemade meat pies to caviar, and there are several themed mini-restaurants. It also has an impressive takeaway selection.

(Linda Bergstrom is a freelance reporter.)

©2016 Chicago Tribune. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Photo: In Hyde Park, bicyclists ride a path adjacent to horse trails. (Linda Bergstrom/Chicago Tribune/TNS)

Sri Lanka Road Trip Finds North And South Still Divided After Civil War

Sri Lanka Road Trip Finds North And South Still Divided After Civil War

By Shashank Bengali, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

ALONG THE A9 HIGHWAY, Sri Lanka — The road from Colombo, Sri Lanka’s graceful seaside capital in the south, to the northern town of Jaffna has rarely been a straight shot. Most of the 250-mile journey follows the A9 highway, which slices through palm groves and green carpets of farmland that were the main battlegrounds of the country’s three-decade civil war.

During the worst fighting between an army dominated by the Sinhalese ethnic majority and rebels from the mainly Tamil north, long stretches of A9 were closed to civilian traffic. As the main supply line for Tamil Tiger rebels fighting for an independent homeland, it held immense strategic value.

The highway was “the sole, fraying thread binding the north to the south, holding together the notion of an undivided Sri Lanka,” wrote journalist Samanth Subramanian in his 2014 book on the war, “This Divided Island.”

Since 2009, when the rebels finally succumbed to a ruthless army offensive, the highway has been refurbished by a government seeking to swiftly sew up the wounds of the conflict.

Sinhalese have begun to visit the Tamil region, their blue-striped tour buses visible at Buddhist shrines or hastily erected war memorials along the A9. Tamils observe the outsiders warily; relations between the two peoples, who share an island scarcely larger than West Virginia, are still marked by suspicion and mutual misunderstanding.

The authoritarian former President Mahinda Rajapaksa last year briefly barred foreigners from entering the north without permission, a panicky move before an election that he would eventually lose. With a new government having lifted the restriction, I set off recently along the A9 for the nine-hour ride from Colombo to the Jaffna peninsula, the Tamil’s historical heartland.

At the wheel was Nuwan, a young, solidly built Sinhalese whose slight mohawk gave his head the appearance of a bullet. Like most southerners who grew up in the war years, he had never been to the north.

We climbed above Colombo’s humid tropics into verdant hill country and then turned north onto the A9, which sloped gently into a flat, arid stretch of rice fields. Nuwan marveled at the smooth ribbon of road — I had to ask that he stop taking cellphone pictures of the landscape while driving — but then subtle markers of strife began to appear.

In the town of Tirappane, we were greeted by a giant election billboard showing a beaming Rajapaksa, clad as always in the gleaming white tunic that advertised him as a devout Sinhalese Buddhist.

The war had neatly cleaved Sri Lanka along confessional lines, between Sinhalese Buddhists and the multi-faith Tamils. In the south, the eggshell domes of Buddhist shrines seem to be the only religious sites, but now we began to see the trapezoidal towers of Hindu temples, studded with brightly painted gods, and more sober-looking mosques and churches.

We reached Omanthai, a dot on the map where government forces still maintain a checkpoint. During the war and for most of its aftermath, foreigners had to disembark here and duck into a shed to submit to army questioning. On this afternoon, bored-looking soldiers did not even look at me, and after Nuwan entered his license number in the army ledger we were back on our way.

Occasionally I would see the Sinhalese tour buses parked along the roadside, or Sinhalese families picnicking in the shade of a tree. In Kilinochchi, the Tigers’ former capital, several buses were stopped next to what looked like a giant funnel tipped onto its side.

It was a water tank that had been toppled during the fighting, the steel rebar reaching out from the concrete husk like tentacles. The government had turned it into a war memorial, planting a tidy garden with flowers and a large stone tablet declaring that the damage had been done by rebel “terrorists in the face of valiant troops.”

A few Sinhalese families milled about, staring gravely at the detritus. Some wandered into a gift shop where souvenir T-shirts and caps were for sale. I would later meet Tamils who deeply resented the monument, viewing it as a bid by Rajapaksa to rub their noses in the rebels’ defeat.

“They take pictures like they’ve never seen a water tank before,” said Christie Shanthni, an outspoken 50-year-old coordinator of a women’s cooperative in Kilinochchi. “We don’t mind if they come here, but I often wonder how they would feel if we went around in busloads celebrating the exploits of Tamil fighters.”

A few years after the fighting ended, with tens of thousands of war deaths, Shanthni visited the former bunker of the Tigers’ slain leader, Vellupillai Prabhakaran, which the government opened to visitors in the coastal area of Mullaitivu. She and her companion were the only Tamils there, she recalled, and they understood little because the tour guide spoke only Sinhalese.

The government reportedly destroyed the bunker in 2013, perhaps fearing that it would contribute to Prabhakaran’s cult-hero status.

Before I left Colombo, a friend advised me to visit a bank, saying, “You don’t want to get stuck in the north without cash.” That would have been difficult; every little town along A9 had multiple banks with ATMs, part of the economic development that Rajapaksa often boasted he brought to the north.

Yet Tamils saw that too in a darker light. The banks and lending companies offered easy financing for motorcycles, appliances, and other consumer goods that were suddenly available in this long-shuttered economy. Many families plunged into debt — another ploy by the south, in the eyes of some, to subjugate the Tamils.

The afternoon light melted into the horizon as we pulled into sleepy Jaffna and I alighted at my guesthouse. At breakfast, I met a Sinhalese man who had immigrated to Los Angeles and was visiting the north for the first time with his mother.

Jaffna was nice, he said, except he was surprised that almost no one spoke Sinhalese. I watched him struggle to communicate with the Tamil-speaking kitchen staff in English, just as I did. It suddenly struck me that he, a native Sri Lankan, and I, an American visiting for the first time, were almost equally foreign in this war-scarred place.

Photo: Shashank Bengali via Los Angeles Times/TNS