This was our last day in London and we need to complete some of the important places ,so as not to miss the historial importance of it and are not scold upon by the relatives,that how can you miss these places?.So we went early for the buffet breakfast, and came out of the hotel at around 9.00 am studied the map properly rached an u/gr. station, of Glucester road, found out bus stop of Original bus route., met a conductor type person , who gave some guidance and some misguidance too, especially for 2 things, one that this route is availabe for 24 hrs, but we found out in the evening that this route-Blue line closes down in the evening,when we could not get the blue line from Trafalgar square for our hotel. 2nd that if we buy the tickets for Madame tussads from him , we can avoid the queues and can get the direct entry,as otherwise, what he said that we might have to waste 1 hr or more.But we found out that in fact there were no queues, and we could have got the entry, otherwise too directly.Thus he took 3 pounds more from us.

Anyhow, we paid him 18 + 16 x 2= 68 pounds for this original tour bus plus Tussads.We boarded the bus and came down near HARRODS departmental stores,but since our pririoties were Buckingham palace and Tussads, we just skiped the Harrods and went ahead towards, picadilly circus but missed the palace bus stop. After some time we sensed that palace stop has already gone, we inquired with the bus driver, who asked us to keep calm and be seated and he will guide us properly to see that we reach palace before the change of guard at 11.30. He took pains to drive the bus to the nearest stop of palace and asked us to walk fast towards Buckingham palace. We reached by 11.20 and saw huge crowd waiting for the change of guard.People were seating on foundtain,stairs, steps and everywhere to have a glimpse of changing of guard. To misfortune of all the visitors, anoucement was made that programme of changing of guard is postponed to tomorrow. People greatly disappointed. I checked with Nimish and some other people and every body said that THEY TOO had the same bitter experience of postpponing the change of guard.

I am some how not impressed with Buckingham palace. it is an ordinary structure and is not a building compared with other london buildings, especialy Big ben and other such victorian era huge beautiful buildings. Buckhingham palace has no elevation, huge gates or doors or sprawling lawns, I can compare this palace with some bhayat of Rajkot or some smaller towns of chuda etc and could not be compared even with Bhuj palace , leave aside Laxmi vilas and other palaces. Surprisingly Buckhingham palace had KANKARET in front area instead of lawn and paved way and I don't know how guards might be feeling comfortable when changing. There was huge fountain in front of the palace with Queen victoria statue seating..

We then came back to Picadilly circus, after crossing green park and took original tour bus to Marble Arch, got down and changed the bus to Baker street for visitng Madame Tussads. Marble Arch too has historical importance. We arrived at Baker street at around 12.10 am , went straight inside the Tussads, got direct entry (there was no queue otherwise too). We were taken by lift to 1st floor and ushered into main hall named Holywood arena .There were hugh crowd watching various stars of yeaster years and present one.People were so engrossed that near every stars more than 10/12 people were taking photos seating along with them. We saw, julia roberts,michael jackson,tom hanks,Arold, silvester stallone, and then oldies like john wayne,frank sinatra, etc, etc, we then went into International hall, where, alll the great leaders and celebraties were there including Mahtma Gandhi, Bush,JFK beatles, etc etc. further down we came to players gallery where crickets like Don Bradman, andfootball star Pele were shown and further down artists like Pablo picasso, shakeaspeare, etc were shown, then came Royal family where Queen Victoria Elizabeth,prince phillip, Diana, 2 princes etc shown. We then came do the haunted gallery, where some notorious criminals like Jack the ripper etc were shown. also haunted show was on but we being seniors were not allowed inside.Also french revolution were shown.Madame Tussads now seems little old, worn out and too crowded.They have it seems space problem to accomodate lots of celebrities, new players and politicians.

We unfortunatly could NOT see any INDIANS in the gallery, as we did have heard about Indira gandhi,Rajiv gandhi, Amitabh, Aishwarya ray etc but none them were seen anywhere and in fact every indian that we met in gallery say in queue or while phtographing, were invariably asking us that have we seen any of these and that they have missed it?.

There after we were asked to sit in a small baby car which was running on rails and shown of know your London show., where old english history such as coronation of Vilctoria, great fire of London etc. In the last stage we came on the top of the building to planetarium where we were shown galaxy of stars.We came out at around 3.00pm .Took original tour bus to Westminster u/gr. station and went to take the river cruise on Thames. As we had no time to have the lunch ( that was for all the 3 days)we just snatched time to eat something brought with us like Thepla,chhundo ,buying coffee for 80 pence while standing in queue and waiting for the launch to come to take us on cruise.Steam launch came at 4.00 pm and took us on 55 minutes cruise towards Tower bridge. They give every one remote radio set through which one can listen to the commentaries in 9 languages. We came across various monuments, buildings,bridges (15) while on cruise ( we think there must be atleast 50 bridges on river Thames).

We then took a walk to trafalgar square, tried to take the original bus to our hotel but could not get the one for 2 hrs, due to heavy traffic and that they close down in the evening, we had to take the u/gr. train and came to our hotel at around 8.00 went out for dinner to a nearby indian restaurant namely Indian summer, took , paratha,mix veg korma,chhole, lassi etc and came to our hotel.

This was our last night in London and we were to say good bye .I had an impression that London is crowded and dirty , but i am impressed that London is none inferior to USA , only that they have space problem due to small size of the land.Otherwise road maitenance,discipline, manners, affluency, everything is very good and praise worthy.In fact London has excellent infrastructure for tranportation

niranjan buch