Why take the Buddha Bus?

by Abha Malpani on

I don’t understand why the OzBus is popular. Why would you want to spend 13-weeks on a bus, traveling with a rigid itinerary and a bunch of people you don’t know?

People say: it’s the most environmentally friendly way to travel, it’s the hippy way to travel (?), it’s a different experience. To me, just the thought is excruciating and exhausting. That’s just me though, no strings independent travel is more my thing and I can travel in an environmentally friendly way without being handcuffed to a bus.

Anyway, I bring this up as I read news of the launch of the Buddha Bus: a bus that will take you from London to China in 16-days. The first “Zen bus” will depart from London on September 6.

“To broaden the mind, to stimulate the senses; the perfect antidote to the stresses of the modern world,” is it’s philosophy. It plans to average about 800km a day (with the occasional rest days inserted here and there) — that’s at least 8-hours of daily bus journey. To me that translates to: a sore bum from bumpy roads, waste of time because of numerous bathroom breaks, 60-odd chattering strangers, traffic jams coming into and leaving the city, occasional overnight travel, departures at dawn — urrmm — how exactly is it an antidote to stress?

The longest time I have spent being on a road at a stretch is 4-days/3-nights on a train in India. It was air-conditioned, I was only with my family, the train had sleeper-bunks; it was a typically smooth ride, I can’t complain but I wanted to strangle my parents at the end of it, and other than green fields and a few dirty bathrooms at the train stations, I saw nothing.

I have not been on the OzBus, or any such journey — so it’s really not my place to rant. I’d love to think that the “environmental-friendly experience” is the whole and sole reason why people choose to take such long and organized road trips, but I have my doubts about that.

Have any of you been on a similar journey? Was it worth it?

To summarize getting to and from London…

by Iva Skoch on

…I would default to the much overused Mastercard lingo:

Airticket from London to Prague: $100

Taxi to the airport: $250

Leaving for the airport early enough to take the train next time: priceless. (Well, not completely priceless, but about $230 cheaper than taking a cab.)

The good part is that I actually made the flight with two minutes to spare. The bad part is that it would have been cheaper to just miss the flight and buy an new air ticket.

Can you believe it actually costs twice as much to fly internationally as it does to take a cab from the center of London to Stansted airport?

Love from London: Tensions between Britons and Russians continue

by Iva Skoch on

Let’s face it. the relations between Britons and Russian have always been complicated to say the least. Olga Freer’s new book is apparently not helping.

Freer, the 23-year-old Russian author, who lives in London, has published a book called The UK for Beginners. Among other things, she describes Britons as a bunch of people who scratch their bottoms in public, don’t iron their clothes and are obsessed with television shows about buying and selling houses.

In an article entitled: From Russia with bile – you British are drunken oafs, the Sunday Times called the book the latest outbreak of Russian hostility. Freer apparently declares the Buckingham Palace “uninteresting”, British women fat yet confident enough to wear short skirts, and the conversations generally shallow. In Russia, even taxi drivers apparently talk about literature; in the UK here all people talk about is football.

It is the last point that particularly struck me. Isn’t it a little sad that all those educated (or at least well-read) people can hope to achieve in Russia is driving a cab?

Love from London: Why pubs still close at 11pm

by Iva Skoch on

Last year was supposed to reverse the long British tradition of closing all pubs at 11pm. This decision created a lot of controversy. Supporters claimed that allowing people to drink longer would prevent them from binge-drinking, while others claimed that people would drink even more.

I, personally, was psyched to hear that pubs would get all-night liquor licenses because there is almost nothing sadder than hearing the sound of that damn bell announcing last drink order when you are just starting to have a good time.

Since I am in London this week, I was curious to see how the 24-hour drinking laws changed the nightlife dynamic in London. I am here to report that virtually nothing has changed. Most pubs still close at 11pm. I asked a friend who lives here and she said that pubs must pay more money and benefits to their employees if they stay open past 11pm. That’s why most of them still close at 11pm.

At the same time, today’s Times had an article about alcohol consumption. It turns out that Britons are heavier drinkers than even the Russians, according to official data from the World Health Organization. These kinds of statistics are apparently making people review the 24-hour drinking laws.

Looks like that bell is not going away anytime soon.

Love from London: $200 million penthouse, anyone?

by Iva Skoch on

Don’t worry, I am not going to turn this into a real estate blog. I realize I recently blogged about the real estate prices in London, but I just couldn’t NOT tell you that in London, somebody actually bought a new development condo for £100 million ($200 million), which is incidentally the most expensive apartment ever sold, anywhere. That is the kind of town London is these days.

The development, One Hyde Park, is located–you guessed it–right by Hyde Park in Knightsbridge opposite the Mandarin Oriental hotel and not far from the department store Harrods.

According to SkyscraperNews, the somebody was Sheikh Hamad, the foreign minister of Qatar and the owner of Al Jazeera, whose £100 million offer last year exceeded the £82 million the flat was originally said to be on sale for suggesting that a bidding war went on between potential purchasers eager to snap it up. The facilities apparently include everything a billionaire could ask for: a private lift, bullet proof glass windows, and an underground passage linking it into the Mandarin Oriental Hotel to save him ever having to walk down the street with the great unwashed.

By the way, the great unwashed would be us, folks.