If there were a list compiled exclusively for hopelessly boring trips taken around the world, my visit to Cardiff would easily top it.
It was April, 2012. I was desperately in love and I needed a grand gesture to show it. So I hopped, skipped and jumped – all the way from New Delhi to Cardiff, capital city of Wales.
Yes, one might well wonder why I would journey to Wales for any sort of a holiday, when the Scottish highlands and the Irish castles – even the English pubs – were all right next door.
I would only refer that person to my statement above (that ‘desperately in love’ bit) and let him know that when in love and struggling to win over an ex-girlfriend who lives halfway around the world, you need to sometimes take such trips to the surroundings of Cardiff University, where said ex is studying.
The initial plan – so well chalked out while in familiar Delhi – had been to visit London, parts of Middle England and Scotland. But in a 14-day trip, I ended up spending 8 days in Cardiff, the most boring city in the world.
But, people do all sorts of foolish things in love, as I had done. Instead of clicking a selfie at the top of Calton Hill in Edinburgh, therefore, or walking on The Giant’s Causeway’s polygonal basalt rock columns, I chose to spend those 8 days and my hard-earned £1,000 inside a narrow room in Cardiff.
To make matters worse, it was always raining. Always.
Cardiff’s Night Life
Let’s not kid ourselves. First, there is one decent club in the city and it’s called Buffalo. Ironically, they didn’t even serve buffalo wings. Second, they’d have done well to serve some buffalo wings – or any kind of bar food for that matter – it’s Britain, for crying out loud. But it proved to be the one beacon of hope in an otherwise quiet and unassuming city.
A Pub from the 1800s
There were a few nice pubs though. I tell you now, if you ever visit Cardiff (and ideally you shouldn’t), you must visit this pub called The City Arms – located near the Millennium Stadium. It’s a sports bar, built in the 1800s and the décor will totally take you back in time. They have a selection of self-brewed ales, all of which are served in rather oddly shaped glasses. But the best part is, the owner of the pub is quite the chatty Cathy. He’ll tell you funny stories about old English cricketers who once visited the pub.
Distinctly Welsh
Y Mochyn Du, Welsh for “The Black Pig” is another pub which is definitely worth a visit. Why they would give a pub such a hideous name is hard to tell. Nevertheles, this one’s easy to find – it’s right opposite the Swalec Cricket Stadium. And here’s the real beauty of the place: Welsh is a dying language, even the people of the country don’t care much for it anymore. Yet this was the only place I could find where people – mostly above the ages of 50 – would sit and chat for hours on end with each other in Welsh. There was something intrinsically comfortable about listening to that langauge, and I daresay I picked up a word or two.
Reading Alongside the Taff River
Remember that scene from DDLJ, where Shah Rukh Khan is dressed in a black tuxedo and Kajol in a flowing black dress, dancing on a bridge with a river flowing underneath? There’s a bridge exactly like it, on the Taff River that flows through the centre of Bute Park. Giant trees, bedecked in red and yellow leaves tower like a canopy over the bridge and twinkle back at you in rippling reflections in the Taff River below. There’s little here that doesn’t scream romantic paradise.
But I found peace here instead of romance. The wooden benches that lined the bridge were perfect spots to read, write, paint – or gather for a family picnic, should one seek such a pursuit. When my ex would leave for college in the morning, therefore, I would spend hours sitting on one of these benches, reading and at times looking over a page to simply observe Welsh life as it quietly passed me by.
The Bute Park too is incredibly beautiful. It often struck me how much it resembled the Keukenhof Tulip Gardens in Netherlands where the controversial Yash Chopra film, Silsila was shot. Of course, there weren’t very many tulips in Bute Park, but there were other flowers and it was mesmerising.
The Dr Who Experience
For those of you who are Dr Who fans, the British science-fiction TV series – parts of which are based and shot in Cardiff, there is a fun activity at the Gallifrey museum called the “Dr Who Experience”. For £15, I took a journey to the heart of TARDIS, came face-to-face with monsters threatening to destroy TARDIS and the Universe, with me as humanity’s only hope! I felt nothing short of a superhero.
The whole experience lasts approximately half an hour – after which you exit into the museum, a deflated human being again – to look at old props, sets and costumes from the show.
A Parting Note from One Last Page...
Of course there’s much else that I remember the trip for. There’s all the romance and the drama and the pain that typically punctuate a wild getaway such as the one I took, fuelled by a mid-twenties love affair! But what I really took away from Cardiff was the peace it gave me. The ability to simply sit and read at a riverside for hours on end. The ability to reconnect with myself, outside of a relationship. And the discovery that appearances, more often that not, are deceiving, Cardiff’s not so bad, after all.
(Shibaji Roychoudhury was named after someone who wanted to conquer and inspire. Unfortunately, he is far too ambitious for that. Based out of Delhi, he has travelled across the globe and has some pretty funny tales to tell. Watch out for his next one.)
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