A travelogue capturing the experiences of Amsterdam – delays, canals, Red Light district, and fries.
DAY 1
Having explored Brussels and Bruges, we set out early for Netherlands. It was to be a 3-hour journey so we were confident of making it there by noon and were already planning what all we could cover within the day. But if there’s anything we learnt in these 100 days, it’s that plans go down the drain quicker than gelato down our throats. Due to some construction work, all trains to Netherlands were delayed indefinitely. We sat on the station for close to 90 mins as train after train got delayed and/or cancelled. Finally, frustrated, we jumped on a random train to Antwerp just to go somewhere.
The Antwerp Station is an Architectural Beauty
We ended up reaching Amsterdam nearly 7 hours later. We put our luggage in the station’s lockers* and stood at the exit gate figuring out how to leave since it required a bar-code scanner. An officer helped us use our Eurail Pass to exit and we finally entered the city of bikes, canals, and delayed trains. I kid you not when I say that even the air in Amsterdam smells of a certain plant. The minute you step out, it hits your olfactory nerves. I’ll come to that later. Seeing as though time was running out, we hurriedly went for a cruise within the city, which covered the basic checkpoints – swaying boats, labyrinthine canals, drunk and/or high civilians, pretty buildings etc.
Starving, we went to Belushi’s Café because I had read it was a cool spot where you could play games with strangers. Google lied. We ate and left in search of the mythical, green, but most importantly, legal(like that ever stopped anyone) plant. Being novices, we sought the shop with the most weed memorabilia and iconography on its windows and walked in, only to be told they don’t sell it. Fortunately, a woman in the store, clearly used to tourists like us, explained the difference between CBD and THC products and how THC was what we wanted and, drawing the route on a piece of paper, guided us to the café that sold it*. Following the path like our private Da Vinci Code, we made it to a tiny shop, crowded to the brim with people. We bought edibles(chocolates) and went to see the notorious Red Light District.
Spotted at the Red Light Secrets Museum
To those titillated by the idea of it, it was not that type of an experience at all. Narrow, dingy lanes. Semi-clothed women behind glasses winking and nudging. Drunk/stoned people walking so close to each other that you kept bumping into someone. Police and bouncers stationed every few footsteps. Neon coloured invitations to shady clubs. The promise of pleasure every few metres. Mildly dystopic. I was taking it all in when someone bumped into me and apologized. He was clearly drunk but proceeded to put his arm around my shoulder and we walked for a while as he asked me about my country and told me about his(he was American). It was an unexpected but pleasant conversation, even if, judging by the smell of alcohol on him, he was unlikely to remember it the next day. His friends took him away to some club and we walked back to the train station because our luggage lockers were timed.
We found out quite late that the Amsterdam Music Festival was going on. Thus, prices were through the roof. The only decent accommodation we could find was in Delft, an hour away. The apartment was a studio with three double-beds placed apart. The windows were massive, human-sized, and opened onto the street. So you could literally walk through the window and step out on the road. Anyhow, we started off with the chocolates and watching The Terminal but no one made it to the end. The next few hours went by in a haze of hallucinogenic blur, with visions, orchestras, and patterns aplenty for all of us. When I woke up finally around 2 in the afternoon, I had had a shower and breakfast without really knowing how I did it. So, that should give you a clue.
DAY 2
Sumit and I swinging from the edge
With half the day gone and no one feeling 100%, we forced ourselves out by 4 PM. We found this place called A’DAM LOOKOUT, which was a swing above a 20-storey building that gave you a view of the city. Simran opted out while the rest of us went up. Imagine swinging 300 metres in the air from the edge of a building, dusky sky above, pavement with ant-like people below, the river ahead carrying cruises, and the wind in your face. It was a memorable experience, certainly heightened by the frivolities of last night.
We went back to the Red Light District to visit the Red Light Secrets Museum which offered a history of prostitution in the country and offered the nuts and bolts of the profession and the ethics of it. Whatever little curiosity any of us had to explore a strip club, it died with that museum when we read stories of some women who joined the profession under precarious circumstances. On the exit, there was a wall with Sticky notes where visitors of the museum had confessed their fantasies and secrets. While I didn’t take a picture of it but the collective canvas of desire covered everything from fetishes to cheating couples to incest to office escapades which would certainly have HR concerned. I’m not exaggerating when I say that the museum was eye-opening. This hypocritical notion of looking down upon women in glass windows as you sneak off to pay to look at them behind closed doors. Truth be told, I was still mildly loopy so you can blame the philosophizing on the chocolate. We soon spotted Fries so spoiler alert, we had some. We retired to Delft.
DAY 3
We had experienced canals and weed. To tick the quintessential Amsterdam checklist, we were missing bicycles. So we planned to visit Zaandam and rent cycles. But it was not to be. The construction work delayed the train so much that we had to skip it entirely. We had booked a slot for the Anne Frank Museum so we only had a few hours to spare. I had spotted a vintage shopping district called The Nine Streets. The others were keen on cycling. I went by myself through the streets, walking in and out of stores, finding that second hand clothes were insanely costlier than their fresh counterparts, strolling through a makeshift market that sold trinkets, old posters, vinyl CDs, musty books. The hours went by quickly.
We all met at the Anne Frank Museum where I found out that no one cycled because they couldn’t agree on the price. We figured we’ll do it somewhere else eventually(Morgan Freeman voiceover: They never did.) We went to the museum. The tour is set so that they take you through the actual house where Anne and her family had been hidden. In between are displayed the pages of her diary in her clear, cursive handwriting. It was worth the experience.
The train we were supposed to catch back home had no seats left so we had to improvise. We came to Rotterdam. On the train, I saw an Italian family that was to reach the airport but had taken the wrong train. The couple argued while the kids were off in their own reveries. I don’t know why I remember it. Anyhow, we got off and Deepesh luckily found a bus that would take us directly to Lille. We stocked up on food for the ride and boarded our first cross-country bus. Netherlands’ delays had forced us to change our itinerary on the fly* but it was just practice for what was coming in the next months.
Next up, the city that occupied a huge chunk of my History textbook, Berlin!
*Travel Tips
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- Most train stations offer the facility of luggage storage. It’s good for when you can’t go to your accommodation first due to time constraints. We made ample use of them.
- In Amsterdam, legal marijuana is sold in coffee shops, which seems counter-intuitive. Other shops carry medicinal material.
- It’s much better to have a list of things you’d like to do instead of a chalked-out plan. Most plans go for a toss when the rubber meets the road.
Candid Wallflowers 