London: Where there is much life underground
Bame Piet | Friday February 21, 2014 15:59
As if an 11-hour flight from Johannesburg to London was not enough, landing at Heathrow International Airport proved to be a tough exercise.
This is the world’s third busiest airport, according to rediff.com. For more than 30 minutes, we were hovering over London, until the captain announced, “Finally we are landing at Heathrow Airport.”
Terminal Three of the airport is a small town on its own, and it takes more than 20 minutes walk before you finally arrive at the “UK Border” (Immigration).
I had expected to be interrogated, thrown into a solitary confinement for hours, and/or my blood samples taken to some forensic laboratory for testing for something.
That’s the picture I got from some colleagues here, and the security woman at OR Tambo International who came short of counting my teeth.
I furnished her with all the documentation required for a Botswana citizen to travel to the UK, but she insisted I should give more. She even warned me: “Sir, if you don’t have all your documents, they are going to turn you back.”
Of course, some police officer dropped from nowhere, stopped me and asked why I was in the UK. I wasn’t very surprised though, the colour of my skin subjects me to all that kinds of questioning once I cross any ocean.
“Sir, I’m on a temporary visit here under the sponsorship of Thomson Reuters Foundation, and I’m going back next Saturday,” I said, feeling as though the whole world was watching our ‘conference’.
“Okay,” he responds without demanding any documents and lets me go.
It wasn’t a hustle finding my taxi driver, a 48 year-old man of Indian origin who came to London as a stranger thousands of miles away from home? The time is 7.30am, two hours behind my ‘home time’.
“Good morning Sir. You are going to Britannia in the Marsh, our trip to your hotel will take us one hour and 10 minutes,” he says before we head straight to the taxi on the fourth or fifth floor.
For a man from the Third World, London may seem a deserted town. The cabbie is kind enough to explain the important buildings we pass on our way to the hotel, among them the National Museum, the National Science Museum and Harrods.
“London is an international city of about eight million inhabitants,” says my cabbie. The majority are Indians, Chinese, Asians, Africans and so on. Infact, white people are a minority here.”
I’m baffled that after driving for more than 40 minutes, we have seen only a few people on the streets. The cabby continues: “It’s winter here, so the city will get busy at around 11 when shops open.
There are many places you can visit if you acquire a seven-pound Oyster card. It will take you anywhere and back to your hotel.”
I’m not bothered as I am soaking this beauty that I find myself passing through.
“You see, there are no high rise buildings on this side of the city because the government has barred construction of such. The reason? There is shortage of sunshine here. High-rise buildings block the sunshine.”
We arrive at the hotel, and the weather outside is a chilly light wind and a drizzle. The woman at the front desk welcomes me but says there are no rooms until 4pm because it is a Sunday and people will check out quite late.
“In the meantime, you can walk around,” the woman says.
“But, Madam, I just got off an 11-hour flight, and this is my first time here,” I protest, but all in vain.
Two hours later, I try again but she won’t budge. I was fortunate because a colleague of hers who had been following our conversation came to my rescue.
Enter the Borough Market: where fish and beef swim together
Travelling around London is easy via the underground trains that are commonly referred to as the subway or the tube.
This is where a man from Africa met thousands of commuters in the city that seemed deserted just a couple of days ago. In our Motherland of Africa, everything is on the surface, except for presidents bunkers and methods of amassing wealth.
Think of any cuisine and if you want to quench your thirst but your pocket is not bulging, the Borough Market on Southwark Street (Central London) is the place to be any time of day. You can find just about anything imaginable - cheese, traditional Spanish, Roman, English cuisine and a variety of wines. Fresh meat of any animal, domestic or wild, is here.
Getting to the Borough Market via the subway is just 25 minutes from the city’s bubbly, upmarket Canary Wharf where men and women in suits are the main feature.
Canary Wharf is London’s financial hub that is home to major banks like Barclays, HSBC, JP Morgan and KPMG.
But in the Borough Market, everybody is casual, friendly and willing to assist any lost stranger looking for directions.
Infact, the store assistants are even friendlier and prepared to explain what the meals and their origins are and how they ended up at the Borough Market.
There are 70 stalls in this market that was built in 1851 to create business space for the informal sector. The market is more or less like ours in Botswana, but here there is order and organisation.
“This is a market created for the informal sector nearly three centuries ago,” said one store operator whose name was difficult to grasp. “What we know is that the leadership felt the need to organise the informal sector to promote self reliance.”
Our colleague from London, Mathieu Robbins, explains further that the place attracts people from all walks of life and all races. I order a plate piled high with rice, vegetables, oysters, beef stew and shrimps. The name is difficult, but the taste not disagreeable at all.
“It carries the life and breath of the city and makes London unique. Foreigners just can’t travel to London without passing through the Borough Market,” said Londoner Mark Therris. He arrived in London 12 years ago from Sierra Leone and he fell in love with the Borough Market.
“You can find just about everything here - food, wines, raw vegetables from all over the world, cheese and even men and women skinning animals. It is a good place for some of us who cannot afford the high prices of meals in the city centre”
Exit Borough Market
With the help of Londoner John Tharnes, we head to what is probably London’s oldest pub, The George. We hear it was built in the 18th Century and today serves as the place where the Who’s Who of London quench their thirst. But it also looks deserted, perhaps because it’s a Wednesday afternoon. We enjoy a few glasses of beer that Tharnes says is brewed right inside the bar.
Our mission it to go to some place in Olympia, wherever that may be. Into the tube we go and Tharnes is the man on whom we rely for a guide.
After about three stations, he gestures that we alight from the train. The London public transport system is so well organised that the Oyster card can put you on the train or the metro bus.
Tharnes takes us up a number of floors before we find ourselves standing right opposite the British Parliament. Why not a few pictures? The famous River Thames that flows across London has not spared this side either as it stretches as far as the eye can see.
I ask: “So how far is No 10 Downing Street?”
“Right over there. We can go there if you want,” Tharnes offers.
The five of us - Catherine from Hong Kong, Jehart from Egypt, Najtila from Saudi Arabia, John the Londoner and myself - head straight to No. 10. Massive gates manned by huge police officers who seem not bothered by members of the public who pose for pictures here greet our arrival.
“This is the residence of the Prime Minister, his office is over there. There is an underground road for him to the Parliament,” Tharnes explains.
Walking past Trafalgar Square, just over 100 metres from No. 10, also makes visiting London worthwhile. From Trafalgar we head to Buckingham Palace, just under a kilometre from No. 10 Downing Street.
Back in the tube, fatigue sets in after walking for more than three kilometres. At the Olympia, Najtila offers to pay our bills for meals and drinks and orders Arabic cuisine of beef and rice. Tea and beer are galore.
Najtila is a 39 year-old divorcee with grown up children, the oldest aged 22. She stays in London on self -mposed exile since she could not cope with the rejection she was subjected to back home in Saudi Arabia. “This is where I chill out everyday, it’s a cool place”.
“As a woman back home, I am required to be accompanied by a male relative wherever I go. I could not cope with it, and it got worse when we divorced with my husband,” she says as she churns out a cloud of smoke from a Shisha pipe. Tired of the humiliation, she left to work for an Arabic newspaper in London and is now at peace with herself. Her daughter is also studying in London. “If we were back home, she would be required to go with a male companion wherever she went,” she says matter-of-factly.
For Jehart, life was unbearable under the barque (the Islamic headgear for women) which she was required to wear all the time. She rebelled and fell out with her father, and there has not been reconciliation yet.
A debate ensues between Jehart and a Moroccan man that we found enjoying Shisha. They both agree that there are some elements of extremism in Islam but differ on Jehart’s not obeying her father’s instructions. I keep a distance from the debate.
And why not head back to the hotel? An hour later, at around 10pm, I find myself walking alone in the darkness, the cold and the rain whipping me. London, I say, is a city worth visiting as many times as one can afford.