Has it ever happened to you that you wake up and suddenly find yourself amidst heavenly surroundings? No Im not talking about near death experiences, but something equally breathtaking. When Dawn tore down the inky black curtains of the night, we couldnt quite take our eyes off (neither stop drooling at) this romantic town. The hotel partially surrounded afar by a chain of steep rock faces. Further near the sea you would find narrow piers reaching out into the sea towards a vanishing point, an inviting pebble beach and breezy walkways. The pebble beach was fascinating; one could easily find 10-12 different kinds of smooth pebbles by a cursory observation. We moved on from this really beautiful place with immense reluctance.
Thirsty for adventure, we tried climbing a hill in our car. We barely managed to burn our tires and had to abort the mission. Armed with the laptop, I took upon myself the role of the navigator. I had literally downloaded an entire website about North Wales. I spotted Convy and immediately fell in love with the castle in the picture. So Convy it shall be. Already this do-it-yourself-tour was feeling good. The Toyota was simply superb, amazing sound system and excellent manoverability. Ashish did most of the driving and Sauji was our backup. Bhute was the distant runner-up backup. Playing soulful Hindi melodies and cruising down a lush greenscape reminded me of a scene from Dil Chahta Hai where the lead trio escapes to Goa. This was so unbelievably cool.
By the time we reached Convy the castle greeted us from the other side of the lake. This island promises many, many hours of intriguing sights. From the smallest house in Britain to the tall, wide fortress that circles the town. The most interesting of which is the Convy castle itself which has remarkably sustained the last couple of hundred years. One would take hours to simply walk around, climb up the stairs to a nearly 6 storied view of the island complete with the trio of bridges that connect it to the main land and the many yatches and speedboats in the wonderful blue stretch in between.
While running down like school kids down the enormous stairway by the hill, we apparently received a lot attention. Everyone was in their frolicking holiday mood and so were we. All the while the sand in the hourglass swiftly slipped away and, a quick munch later, we once again had to tear ourselves from yet another wonderful place.
We did book for a hostel the next night, but this night we had no where to stay. We decided to drive to Cardiff overnight, so as to catch the nightlife in time. I donned the navigators cap and chalked out the route. Soon enough, we were in the brightly lit streets of Cardiff. Already with the distaste of the Landudno experience and still wearing the same old trainers (well, we didnt have a spare) we were sceptical. But there did hit the party zone and, boy, we had a groovy time. Ankur was perhaps at his all time best. Sauji did stylishly stick on to some Dharmendra moves. They even played my request- Punjabi MC the Knight Rider mix. We even taught some girls some Bangra moves. They were delighted.
After three hours of dancing, we resumed our journey at 3:30 am. Once again at the navigators seat, we proceeded towards our hostel at Carmarthen. We had some difficulty in finding our International hostel in some villas backyard, but even more taxing was waking up the owner as it was just 5 in the morning! To cut the long story short, our room was not yet ready. Some of us slept on the sofa and some in the car. The former woke up with bent backbones and the latter with chattering teeth.
