Scribe and Photo by Website Kang
Date: 08-09-2004

On 29th July, early in the morning 6.00 am, we packed and left the hostel, the Linen House, and walked towards to the bus station. We had to be there by 6.30 am and by the rehearsal of the previous day, we would be right. Punctuality was no small matter, and if you missed the boat, the whole ball game would be different.

The schedule of the trip north to Inverness was as follows:-

The Stenaline is a big ferry boat, having a capacity of carrying 1500 passengers and 375 cars. The facilty inside is world class. restaurants, bars, TV theatres, and clean toilets. The journey was very pleasant, and lasted 1 hr 15 mins.

On the way to Inverness, the scenery was beautiful on the highland of Scotland. Surprisingly, the weather was warmer since then. We made a slight mistake by not stopping in Perth, by taking a next bus during the transit. It became a rush job especially it proved difficult for Drug Buster as he was caught unprepared for shortage of drinking water. it was difficult to purchase a bottle of drinking water as it was always " 3 mins " declared by the bus driver whenever there was a chance for stopping. Finally, at one of those " 3 mins " stop, Drug Buster quickly rushed to a shop few hundred meters away like a 100 meter sprinter dashing for the finishing line to purchase drinking water. They did not have any drinking, or mineral water, but did have 300ml Spring water costing 1.5 pounds. No choice, Drug Buster just had to get it because he said he would die of thirst. When back to the bus, Drug Buster, like one who just emerged from Sahara Desert, with unsteady foot steps, hitting his head at the low ceiling of the bus, attracting giggling of the lady passengers who were just amused by our Malaysian kampung boy. The rest, however were quite well prepared somehow by intuition, experience or advice, with boiled eggs, apples, biscuits, water and Garfield even had cans of beer with him.

We reached the hostel of Inverness per schedule, and it was three min walk from the bus station. The hostel was newly renovated with a very nice kitchen which Garfield loved it very much such that he was very contented especially there was a big supermarket just opposite the hostel. We were scheduled to go to Loch ness the next day and Garfield said he did not want to go and prefer to go to Edinburgh and back to London earlier. Maybe due to homesickness, he felt that if he were to be in London, he would be nearer to the airport and so home. We had to convince him that if he had wanted to go back to London, he needed only to catch a bus and by the evening, he would reach London. Finally, I had to touch his grandfather's heart. " Look, Garfield, you know that the lake monster makes a very good bedside story for your grandchildren! The Loch ness lake monster is a well known legend. Everybody comes to Inverness because of Loch Ness. If you miss this time you probably would never have it in your life time. Who knows? Your grandchildren may want to come here in the future especially when they want to find out what their grandfather's story was all about when they recall.". Garfield's eyes sparkled, it worked, and he wanted both the bus and the boat trip to really get the full story of the Loch Ness legend.

So, we booked both the bus and boat trip to Loch Ness in the afternoon. We saw no lake monster really, but some plastic ones. But people were very willing to be tricked to go to feel the vastness of The loch, the beautiful scenery of the surroundings. The bus driver was a very talkative Scottish who perhaps understood our English better. He pointed to me and talked to a group of young Italian tourists and said: " If you don't understand what I said, please ask him to translate for you!" The bus took us to an exhibition hall, the loch and we had a boat ride after viewing " The sound and sight effect " inside the exhibition hall.

Loch Ness is situated at the south west side of Inverness. and it takes from Inverness a half an hour journey by bus to reach there. It is the most famous loch in the world, extends from Augustus in the south to the narrows of Bona Ferry in the north, a distance of almost 23 miles. The water covers an area of almost 22 square miles and has a depth of 754 feet. the most surprising statistic is the volume of water contained in the loch which is estimated to be 263,000 million cubic feet. This exceeds that of any other loch or lake in Great Britain.

Loch Ness is famed for its monster, Nessie. There have been numerous sightings over many years and the usual description of the monster is a small head at the end of a long neck, with a broad body with humps. It is also described as having four flippers and a long tail with a rounded end.

The Loch Ness exhibition hall with sound and sight effect did have six rooms showing from the dinosaur age, the formation of the loch, the legend of the monster, the Ness, and the witnesses who had see the monster, and the scientific method to try to find the monster, and finally concluded that the loch could not afford to feed such huge size animal as the quantity of living creatures is not enough to provide for that. the legend remains as it is, but the tourists keep coming in. Perhaps this is the effect of one of those so called k-economy.

The boat ride perhaps was the most enjoyable one, the water was dark, but fresh and drinkable. Its temperature is kept at 6 degree C throughout the year and it never freezes in the winter. Viewing the hills, landscapes, the castles, farmland was very pleasing and our Garfield was very happy and thankful to us that he could make this trip a success. He is a proud grandfather who is now going back to spread the legend of Loch Ness.

In the evening, we strolled along the Caledomain canal which flew through Inverness, the surrounding was very peaceful, beautiful, and tranquilising. We met an Indian restaurateur from London. We said we seemed to see quite a number of Indian reataurants sprouting everywhere. He said those Indian foods were already modified to suit local taste and he preferred his own home cooking.

We also booked bus tickets to head to St Andrews the next day. Origianlly we planned to go to Edinburg first and then took a short trip to St Andrews, but we could not get any accommodation in Edinburg. So we had to alter our plan. Story continues next update - pilgrimage of a golfer, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews. -

• Photos, by Website Kang

• Photos, by Vincent Wong

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