London Underground
One of the most fascinating things about London is its Underground. Though I have seen the ones at Paris and at Calcutta I have never stopped being fascinated by the London one. The neat and clean trains which come softly in the station with a whoosh of air, the doors opening and closing with precision, the perfect timings, the detailed maps inside the compartments, the maps at the station, the cultured voice announcing the destination, the next and the previous station are all the interesting parts.
The Paris Underground may be partly surface( as is the London one) but the majority of the London tube stations are really underground sometimes even two storeys inside the bowels of the earth.
I remember the first time I saw the London Underground. It was some three decades back when I had first gone to UK. I was apprehensive about the claustrophobic feeling I got as I traveled down the escalator. I kept wondering what would happen if an earthquake happened or some train derailed or there was a stampede, so on and so forth.
A couple of rides later I got so addicted that I just didn?t want to come out at all. I just felt like boarding every train that came at the station and I just didn?t want to get out.
I also liked the system where one could buy a ticket which could be used the whole day. However last year when my daughter and I went to UK and we bought what we thought were full day travel tickets, we were upset when, at the second station, the machine gobbled up our tickets and did not release them. When we checked again we discovered that it was a two time usable ticket only and there was some time limit.
Last year we were in UK for only ten days. After paying exorbitantly and through our noses for long distance coaches and trains and taxis, we were pleasantly surprised when for just four pounds we could travel by the Underground to the Heathrow airport. My daughter could not help saying, ?So cheap, ? to which the smiling ticket window person said, ?Should I charge you more??
The surface trains as well as the buses are more expensive and time consuming. But the tube is affordable and grand to travel in. One needs to know only the English language to travel anywhere in London by tube.