Tag Archives: edinburgh

A Tour of Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

Leave a reply
Bhaskar Adhikari who works at the Royal Botanical Gardens as a researcher gave me a near-detailed tour of the beautiful Gardens.

Bhaskar Adhikari who works at the Royal Botanical Gardens as a researcher gave me a near-detailed tour of the beautiful Gardens. Pic by Amit Gautam.

Here’s my Edinburgh entry (now with photos).

It was Amit’s idea. He knew someone who worked there. That someone, I later came to know, was Bhaskar Adhikari (PhD from University of Edinburgh). Bhaskar worked as a researcher at the “Flora of Nepal” section of the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh. He had agreed to give us a tour of the Gardens. Fantastic. Thank you Bhaskar ji. Continue reading →

British Train: First Class Journey

2 Replies

Things that you didn’t see or experience while growing up often generate curiosity in you whenever you come across them. The level of curiosity increases if such things are not yet part of your daily routine. They invoke a desire in you. The desire to own, control or use them. Rail network is one such thing that we don’t have in Nepal. Many in Nepal want to see a functioning railway network in their country. They want to travel in trains.

Many of us get our first rail experience in India because of the country’s geographical proximity and other socio-economic reasons. My first real train journey (not counting the metro rail commutes in DC and NYC) was in India in 2008 when I traveled to Trivendram in south from Gorakhpur. It was a long and tiring journey that also gave me a story to write for my paper at the time. More than anything else, that particular journey provided me an important glimpse of the wonder that the Indian railway network is. Continue reading →

Edinburgh

4 Replies

This text has been updated. See below for photos and additional text.

Amit the photographer..takes a photo of a tourst at the Edinburgh Castle at the latter's request.

Amit the photographer..takes a photo of a tourst at the Edinburgh Castle at the latter’s request.

People had told me two things about Edinburgh: 1) The place is very beautiful. 2) It is very very cold up there. If you think London is too cold, take a lot of clothes with you if you are going to Edinburgh.

The first piece of information is correct. I admit that the hills are not as tall or big as I had imagined them to be but this place is beautiful and it feels nice to walk around. If these small hills (thumkas not dandas) look bigger than they actually are it could be because they are so close to the sea. Who has seen their reflection on sea water? I think I took more photos here than I took in London.

On second point: weather has been so very kind to me. I arrived here on Wednesday afternoon. Beautiful day, clear skies, great view and it’s so warm yesterday and today that, for the first time since I arrived in the UK, I took my jacket off. I couldn’t have imagined walking on streets of London and York without wearing a jacket. Continue reading →