My Irish Interlude

'Well you all know that Irish people can drink, but now according to a research we are also world's best lovers!', that's our tour guide, who talked incessantly for i don't know how many hours and mind you along with driving the bus which took 50 odd people in it. This was my life's first tour experience, i have never taken a tour before this while travelling. And there was a reason why I took this one – no money! 

I am sure most of you would find it strange, but when you are a 28 year old student in London (with no monthly salary) you hunt like crazy on the internet and sometimes the virtual gods bless you with the right deal at the right time. And that's our story of finding Paddy's Palace, Belfast. Bunk- beded, mixed dorms- aka small, tiny, dingy, occasionally claustrophobic and CHEAP. We started this trip on a high of finding something as cheap as that – 6.5 pounds /per night (close to 550 INR), and if we come on weekdays and stay for atleast two days we get a free tour to the Causeways, Rope Bridge, Derry, Bushmills. Well they thought they had enough caveats to cover them, but for broke students who have just finished exams weekdays is not a problem, so off we went in the middle of the week!

Another interesting deal was the decision to take the bus, though if one has the ability to plan and is blessed with the wonderful gift of foresight, you could afford a flight too. But we are lazy, spontaneous and fun people so we decide last minute and its at these moments of sheer adventure that the road is the only friend we can usually afford. But this time it was a little different, owing to our moronic, frankensteinian state of mind (please remember we are graduate exam survivors) we didn't realize we are going to an island. Assuming its a 15 hour long bus ride, we equipped ourselves with lots of food shopping at Pound Land and some now famous in London, aloo sandwiches by yours truly. After sleeping through the night and early morning, the bus suddenly stopped and the bus driver yelled – Get up and we now hop on the ferry! I literally thought it was a part of a dream and that how can one get to ferry the Atlantic and ride a bus, both at freaking 28 pounds. Gradually my grey cells charged up to remind me – idiot how else do you plan to get to a fucking island???

So in complete haze we get off the bus and enter the waiting lounge of our beautiful Stena Ship. In that moment of sheer lavishness and luxury we empathized with our dear Jack and me and Jonita in our hearts decided to tell the world – Stena was a ship of dreams! And it still is, because we didnt meet an iceberg on our way, thank god for that. It was the same feeling which one economy passenger gets on suddenly being upgraded to business class. We were business class and we decided to behave like one. While looking for some coffee we gathered that they offer bottomless (aka you can refill it as many times as you like) cup for 2.5 quid,  and we decided not to be cheap and buy two of those, rather than one (though the thought did cross our minds, but we resisted)

This was followed by a photo shoot at the dock and inside the ship. On arriving we realized that we had booked the tickets only till the docks which were still 15 miles away from the Belfast city, while we were just brooding over our stupidity and feeling clinically depressed over spending another 2 quid for getting to the city, the nice old Irish bus driver winked and said- why dont you get on the bus aye! This was my first ever free bus ride in this continent – and i loved it! 

Paddy's Palace

On our arrival at the Europa Bus Terminal, we decided to look for Paddy's Palace and park our stuff, like seasoned backpackers (its nice to refer oneself like that) we grabbed the map and started looking for the place, a few failed attempts and we found it in a while. We entered it with extreme low expectations and were not surprised much, it was just as bad as we thought it would be. We were given a 6 bed mixed dorm, where i was sure that if all six people came to the room at the same time and would stand, we will end up touching each other rather uncomfortably. That's precisely the reason that during the two days, each one of us would just walk in only to get into the bed and sleep.

So day one of the exploration involved a stupid bus tour of the city (again something that i regret spending money on!). But there is always a silver lining, i heard the best joke ever on the tour. So Belfast city hospital is a rather odd looking building, and i was wondering the reason why it was even a part of the tour. The reason was fairly simple, it had a great story behind it ! So when we crossed the building our republican tour guide announced on his microphone, “on your right is the Belfast city hospital, which was inaugurated by Prince Charles, and he did the mistake of calling it the ugliest building that he has ever seen, the locals have now nicknamed it Camilla!”- I think this was worth the 8 pounds i spent on this tour!

Post the tour, we decided to be a little low key as we were fairly tired after a 15 hours of journey and some 3-4 hours of extensive walking, so we picked up cheap and meaty burgers and fries and decided to head back and be the early to bed and early to rise kinds. Back in paddy's no one was back in our dorm, so after a nice hot shower we decided to call it a night. Now yours truly has a problem with the linen, i can never sleep in new linen (even if its 5 star quality) it itches the hell out of me! So i was wide awake and decided to wait and see who all were our room partners. It was amazing on how everyone would tip toe inside, slide into something comfortable and just get into the bed, no conversations, no eye contact except for the Polish boy who was insistent that Jonita eats an apple that he was eating and he stank like no body's business. After some time, suddenly i found myself in the middle of a multicultural snoring environment, there were polish, Nigerian and German snores... i am sure in a while i gave some Indian classical touch to the symphony as well.


Morning was early and we got ready to get on to the Paddy's wagon to take us around (for FREE!!!)

Our first spot was Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge. Now this is a rickety rope bridge near the Ballintoy in Antrim county, Northern Ireland. The bridge links the mainland to the tiny island of Carrickarede. It is believed that the bridge was built by fishermen to help them catch salmon and get it to mainland with ease. The bridge is approximately 98ft above the rocks. The area around is very scenic and one can see Scotland as well from there. There are caves underneath which at one point of time served as places of shelter for boat builders during stormy weather. It was beautiful, and very windy, and scary to walk that bridge with that wind... with a smile on my face posing for the camera and reciting hanuman chalisa in my heart i crossed it and got a great picture too! 

Caves, Carrick-a-Rede Bridge

Carrick-a-Rede Bridge 

Next on our agenda was Giants Causeways, which is a natural creation of a disaster. Its an area filled with basalt columns as a result of an ancient volcanic eruption. It was declared a world heritage site by UNESCO in 1986 and is also called the fourth greatest natural wonder in the United Kingdom. Legend has it that the Irish warrior Finn McCool built the causeway to walk to Scotland to fight his Scottish counterpart Bennandonner. One version of the legend tells that Fionn fell asleep before he got to Scotland. When he did not arrive, the much larger Benandonner crossed the bridge looking for him. To protect Fionn, his wife Oonagh laid a blanket over him so he could pretend that he was actually their baby son. In a variation, Fionn fled after seeing Benandonner's great bulk, and asked his wife to disguise him as the baby. In both versions, when Benandonner saw the size of the 'infant', he assumed the alleged father, Fionn, must be gigantic indeed. Therefore, Benandonner fled home in terror, ripping up the Causeway in case he was followed by Fionn. I thought the stones/ columns were an excellent spot for a fashion shoot, when they could make someone as average as me look great , the rest i leave for your imagination. It was a sight that was so breathtaking and i loved how our guide Troy described the way to us, he said, “keep walking and climbing the stones and well then as soon as they vanish start swimming!

Giants Causeways

We then had much to my dismay a very hurried visit to Derry, the walled city. The story goes that the people in Derry wanted to build a wall which would separate the British from the Irish, the British agreed to do so and give them the money for it, only if they change their name to Londonderry- well the Brits were clever, history is the witness to it. I wonder what happened now? Well this was the time when i had completely started hating the idea of a timed tour, he only gave us 50 minutes to cover the historical walled city- Jonita reminded me beggars can't be choosers and we picked up the maps and ran! The entire city is built around these walls, and the walls form the walkways for people to move around in the inner part of the city. I really wished that i had atleast a day more to see the Derry city.

Derry Walls

Crown Bar

It was time for us to get back to Belfast and indulge ourselves in some serious pub crawling. I would say you have not seen Ireland until you have visited atleast 3-4 pubs. We started with the legendary Crown Bar, which is an excellent exmple of a Victorian liquor saloon. Its exquisite in it's interiors with some complex mosaic tiles. The bar has private booths with bells to alert the staff, characteristic of the austere Victorian period. After all this description it's anyone's guess that the bar was really expensive so we smiled sheepishly took some pictures and ran out and went next door to the cheaper Robinson Saloon. With some drinks down and tapping to some rather average Irish music, we noticed the sheer craziness, that is the Irish. Whisky drinking, swearing, occassionaly foot tapping they are a crazy lot for sure.

Ireland is not just about hail and hearty, there is a lot that they have suffered and gone through. While walking down the streets, neighborhood, a camera in your hand will help you to capture a lot of struggle and political sensibilities that are characteristic to the Irish. While walking the famous Great Victoria Street, one could find a fine luxury hotel, Europa, with a bloody and disastrous history. The hotel is famous for all the wrong reasons, it was the most bombed hotel in the world, bombed to close to 30 times during the troubles. The more recent trouble came in the monetary front, when the biggest bank robbery in the UK and Irish history was successfully carried out at The Northern Bank in 2004. The robbery was of close to 26.5 million pounds sterling, and the investigation is still on and the case remains unsolved. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) was blamed for it by the government but it could not be proved.

Walking in the neighborhoods could also be very enlightening. I learnt that in Ireland one needs to be extremely particular about the neighborhood they buy their houses. One needs to be first sure of their political stance i.e. whether they are a loyalist or a republican and then get a house in the locality which matches their political sensibilities. Both the neighborhoods are extremely vocal about their ideology and they are mostly visible and communicated through mural arts that are all over the Belfast city.

Loyalists Neighborhood, Sandy Row

Republican Murals, Shankal Road

Republican Murals 

Republican Murals 

It wont be an exaggeration to say that if the walls of this city were to speak they would tell the visitors stories of uncertainty, blood, voilence, turmoil. Educating the world with the Irish history and culture along with political propaganda, these murals are a must for anyone who visits Ireland. Keep at least a day to walk around and explore these neighborhoods. They could also seen as Irish symbols that would often appear in newspapers, news, magazines, reminding the people and tourists of what Ireland stands for.

With the mural magic, our trip came to an end with ferrying back to our bus which got us back to London. An enriching and a must do trip – Do not miss Northern Ireland, if you are in the UK or visitng. While i sat in my regular C10 which got me from Victoria Coach Station to Borough, and i tried to replay the trip in my head, smiling to myself i encapsulated:


4 days, two bus rides, two ferry rides across the Atlantic, dingy backpacking, charity shopping, ale drinking, meat eating, walk in the rains, 2 leprechauns, all in 137 GBP - unleashing the Irish. I guess i would do it again, in a heartbeat!