Ways2Travel: BEING DUTCH...

...Is all about neatness, order and politeness and pleasing symmetry as Bhuwan Bhaskar found out

THEY TOLD me I was lucky to visit Amsterdam on my first foreign trip. "It's the perfect world we Indians are often in awe of while talking about Western countries," said a friend. So I read up before starting out!
    The excitement stayed right through the eight-and-a-half hour KLM flight from Delhi and the chill in the air at Schiphol airport was a reminder that I was now 7,000km away from India's scorching shores! Of course, Schiphol itself was an eye opener with its huge duty-free shops, museum, massage centre, baby-sitting hall and even a casino!
    The roads leading to the city were as clean and wide as I had imagined. But being a Delhi-ite, and thus familiar with road rage, I wanted to see how traffic worked. And one thing stood out: bicycles! There are 20 million bicycles for a population of 16.3 million, so all across Amsterdam, there are parallel cycle tracks, like along Delhi's BRT. The best part is, the Dutch don't cycle for fashion or exercise; it's in their DNA, so all kinds of people-cycle to work. I'm not sure what exactly those cyclists thought of jaywalkers but whenever I crossed over —by mistake, of course—I was invariably met with a baleful stare.
    The traffic is amazingly smooth and in spite of busy streets, I never saw rash driving or anything remotely like road rage. In fact many a time drivers stopped and signaled me to cross the zebra line first! Can you imagine that in India? And be they trams, buses or taxis, the drivers of public transport were all dressed smartly and extremely courteous, quite the opposite of DTC and Blueline drivers!
    Staying at the Hotel Museum Quarter at Museum Plein was a treat as it was so close to the Van Gogh Museum and the Rijksmuseum. I've always been mesmerised by the Van Gogh but realised the extent of his greatness and popularity when I saw 200 people in the queue before the museum opened at 10am! The three-storied building even had a special section on Van Gogh's night paintings. And the audio tour was amazing in its attention to detail and information. I also figured why Amsterdam is called a walking city — it's small and the weather makes perambulation a pleasure! I could easily walk the entire city in 3 hours. The Dutch clearly love beauty and symmetry — even their houses are mostly of the same height, all in a row with brick-red walls and small windows.
    I strolled around a lot to see the architecture more closely. The Dutch seem to lay special stress on decorating their windows. Each of them was pretty distinct, and the drapes framed them rather than obscuring them! I lunched in Amstelveen at a nice restaurant called De Jonge Dikkert, housed in a 300-year-old windmill. From the lush lawn, I could see the four blades of the windmill chained to stay put. Inside the restaurant, there was a bar below and tables upstairs. My host, from the Indian embassy, showcased the menu with great enthusiasm but I noticed there were only two dishes for the main course. But neither the home-smoked salmon with herring caviar, avocado mousse and parsley jelly nor the roasted guinea fowl with beet, chicory and aceto balsamico gravy tempted me. I struggled to find something familiar and then left it to my host!
    Later, I learnt that in almost every good Dutch restaurant, there are only two or three options on the menu daily. But I must confess, like a typical desi, I did not find Dutch cuisine very exciting as much of it seemed to be semi-cooked or raw! Oh well, just because the roads, houses, museums and weather interested me, that didn't mean I had to love the food too!
    But the best thing about Amsterdam is that there are alternatives to the local fare — from all over the world! So the next couple of days saw me experimenting with other cuisines as varied as Argentinean and Lebanese! I couldn't leave the Netherlands without a trip to Keukenhof. I made it there on the last day and was soon joyously lost in the vast expanse of eye-poppingly vibrant daffodils and tulips! Keukenhof is open from March 19 to May 21 every year and is said to be the world's biggest flower garden with 7 million flower bulbs.
    Keukenhof was the perfect finale for my trip to Amsterdam and reminded me of the poet's famous evocation of our own Kashmir: "If the heaven is somewhere on this earth, it is here, only here, only here...."