I am walking through the red light district! I think, may be, it is the first time in my life I am doing this. Time is around 4PM on a Saturday. It is canal on my one side(snap), and the street consists of ‘tools’ shops, ‘CD’ shops, houses and hotels on the other side.I had one instance of a little difference – one middle aged female chasing another one, both nude except for the ornaments pierced all over the body; all I had to do was to just ignore them.
Otherwise, most of the people walking with me are tourists; just finishing their city visits with the red light district walk. As for the part of the ‘red’, all I could see now will be the old or outdated ones; the main characters will be sleeping after their regular night shifts. So it is much safer and better to walk through these streets in the early evenings. But it may be a little tough if you are unaware where you are, and take a room in one of the small hotels here. Prostitution is legal here and so you may not end up in Police station, but you may have to see a lot of sights in your life, which you are not used to and not sure how to react to.
I am in a city, which is represented by black ‘xxx’ in red background in its flag – the boats with ‘xxx’ flag, the bridge having embossed-shield written ‘xxx’ on it (snap) (I think the x ratings got termed from here)! A city, where the visit is incomplete unless you get the ‘feel’ walking through the red light district! The red light district is, just opposite to the Central railway station!
The city otherwise, is known as the capital of the country of the Tulips and Windmills, I am in Amsterdam!
I am very sure that this city of canals and museums will never be known to many of us by its famous (or we say infamous) reddish tint.
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Once Paris was done, Amsterdam was the next most accessible destination in terms of another European capital, which needs no reservation, and close enough to be reached in 3 hours (actually it is closer than Paris, but as there is no high speed lane, the train can’t go faster than 150kmph. Again the slowing down for stops, picking up, all kills time. So it takes 3 hours to cover the 230kms.
I was of two minds, whether to plan a stay or not. Due to budgetary constraints, I decided that unless I am too much impressed with the city, I would not stay back. Now, if I start early I will get a full day there. There lies the problem. I didn’t have the thrill of going to Paris and so have to negotiate with my Saturday sleep.
And as always, the sleep won. I got up around 8:30. The only way I can make it up is by skipping the breakfast. That gave me enough time to take a shower and take the 66 bus to the city, at 9:01. There is one train per hour, at all 39 minutes of the hour.
The bus takes 30 minutes during a weekend to the city. I got down at Central Metro stop at 9:30. It was a dash then, thru the tunnel to the Central station. It was 9:34 when I reached the International tickets queue. I was at the counter in another two minutes. The lady at the desk realised the moment I told ‘Amsterdam weekend return’ that I am rushing for the 9:39 train. She quickly finished filling the details and it was 9:37 when I got the ticket. Ran piercing the crowd, down the steps, I was inside the train at 9:39. The doors just closed behind me!
It was settling down, the train was not crowded though not empty either. Through Antwerpes, it was crossed the Dutch border, stopped at Rotterdam (after Antwerpes), it reached Amsterdam by 12:30. Except the bottle opening incident (see the tailpiece), it was a pleasant journey : ).
It was bad news immediately, the sky is fully cloudy and it started raining too! It was pretty cold compared to Brussels, and I had to take my sweater out.
Half the day is lost in sleep and travel, and the rain seems to spoil the rest! At least, why to keep hungry :)! Looked for food inside the Central station food court, and found a New York Pizza shop, which had a couple of veggie pizzas and one ‘tandoori pizza’ also, to my surprise! I quickly realised that English works well in Holland than Belgium; I mean it works well in Amsterdam better than Brussels : ).
Things were better once I finished the brunch and came out. It was still cloudy and dark, little bit of drizzle too. The first thing I noticed was the cycles; the three-floor parking lot for cycles, packed with cycles was a real surprise (snap)! The next thing was, as I expected, there was a canal just in front. I spotted one office, which offers a hop-on-hop -off boat service and it costs some 18 € per day. I took a day ticket, which is valid till next day noon. That means, even if I chose to stay I can use the boat tomorrow also.Here also, there were three routes defined for the boat –red line, green line and blue line. They are start from almost the same area, the first available was the green line. The frequency is less, once in 20-30 minutes and they take 90 minutes to complete the loop. So I was sure that I would have to skip one route.
Greenline started at 1:50. It went under a couple of small arch bridges and it wa
s the outer harbour area. It moved in to the canals again. The buildings on both sides, a narrow road on both sides separating the houses from the canal, and there was one more important thing – the boathouses(snap)! I could call them houseboats too, but feared it may convey a different meaning. These are boats turned in to houses, and registered to the local municipality paying tax for mooring. So the place for a given boat is stationary, they are all homes floating on water. It is estimated that there are 2500 boathouses in Amsterdam across all the canals, and the government has stopped giving permission to ‘park’ any more ‘houses’. Imagine, people living their whole life with all their assets floating on water!
I got down at one stop after the Museum stop, to see it later. A little walk around taking pictures, the most surprising ones were seeing the same sight as in Chennai – husband and wife going in a cycle (snap)!
Back in to catching the next Green line boat and got down at the Town Hall stop and walked through a flea market to only realise that the souvenirs are much costly than I could ever imagine. I just made sure I am not overspending, and took the next Greenline to Central to finish the red light district walk.
It was 5:25 when I took the redline boat, which also goes to the Museum. It reached the same by 6, by which they had closed down. Anyway, roaming around in a museum was not in my plan, including the Van Gogh museum. I walked around the area taking pictures of the buildings, and had a snap done with myself in front of Van Gogh museum (snap).
It was another Aussie surprise while I was taking pictures in front of the Museum; this time it was a familiar face coming towards me smiling! It was Chris Nicoles, a business analyst in Woolworths! He had left the firm before I left Sydney.
I got the 6:30 Greenline to reach the Central by 7:20. It was another run to cross the road and run to the station. Got the 7:29 train to be back in Brussels by 10:30. It was mere coincidence that while nearing the Brussels Nord station, the red streets of Brussels was to my right. I could see a lot of houses having glass walls, lighted inside with neon lamps where 'Live' models were trying to tempt the 'window-shopping' customers. Later only I knew that prostitution is legal in Belgium as well. Anyway, I got down at Brussels Central, and took a bus to Evere, reaching home by 11:25.
Tailpiece: (1) You know the difference between ‘Eau de source Bronwater (plat)’ and ‘Eau de source Bronwater (Bruis)’. If you are planning to come to this part of the World, better you should know. The first is mineral water, and the second is soda! Both look the same. Imagine you picking up soda for mineral water from a vending machine during run for the train, and opening the bottle after your run sitting in the train! I don’t have to imagine, it took two hours for my dress to dry from the mess!
(2) You want to know about the auctioning of bicycles and boats sunk in the canals. You know what an owner or a boat did when he found that his boat is sunk and someone else have moored his boat in that place. Check out this site: http://gezonken.wordpress.com/ . I was looking for some information in google and bumped in to this site. I have to really appreciate this guy for picking the lighter side of Amsterdam so sensibly.
