Photo Essay: A trip down Swansea way

I had gone to Swansea to give couple of lectures, one to the first year students as part of the bank’s outreach programme to first year students and the second was to the MBA students. Its a pretty good time, love to interact with the students, but Swansea as a city leaves a bit to be desired. Anyway, here are my photographs from the trip.

 

While on the train platform at Cardiff, I noticed the name of the brewery across the road. Brains. That’s it, i knew nobody could defeat the UK when it can brew brains in a brewery! :).

 

I reached Swansea around 0950 hours, about 20 minutes early so thought of taking a walk around the train station to see the sights. The weather wasn't as good, it was damp and wet. Perhaps standard for the city but it didn't help the feeling that Swansea had seen better days. Given that first time visitors would see Swansea when they come out of the train station and then would see this rather tired, crumbling set of streets and buildings, I was surprised that the city council hasn't done something about it.

Here’s the church. Interesting structure, quite small.

 

The first was this rather nice church. Looked like it was Greek Orthodox from the language of the notice.

 

Nice autumnal walk up into the back of the church.

   

 

The graves were well maintained and the carved gravestone lettering was still quite clearly legible.

Nice railings as well.

Here’s the walkway back down to the street.

Then few feet up was perfection!

Selling wedding dresses. I found the entire scenario and situation very depressing. The irony of calling the shop as perfection, in front of a dingy street, with crumbling buildings selling stuff to celebrate such a joyful occasion such as a wedding? Sad.

 

Then comes the Palace Theatre. This is a building with a good distinguished history. At that time of construction, the place was apparently top of the pile and the road was called as Prince of Wales Road.

 

This is apparently one of only two purpose built music halls left in the UK.

 

 
 

And this is supposed to be a Grade II Listed Building. Which means that it cannot be torn down and replaced with flats. It can only be allowed to crumble away. I never understand this concept in the UK. You stick a listing on top of a building but there is no other help. If anybody wants to do something with it, they are ripped off by having to replace it exactly as it was originally. Its bureaucracy gone mad. There should be a statute of limitations. If it hasnt been sold after say 3 years, then its rezoned or reclassified, bring it down and then do something else with it. This is just simply destroying rest of the value of the street.

 

At this moment, apparently its up for auction for £250,000 but nobody is purchasing it. I guess nobody wants to touch it with a barge pole.

Sir Anthony Hopkins seems to have made his first professional stage appearance here way back in 1960. Even the road sign is all manky and looks leprous. The windows are boarded up. Handsome building but looking horrible.

 

What a sad sight. With weeds growing out of the top of the lintel and also on the top. You can just imagine how imposing this entrance would have been in its heyday. But now? the facade is crumbling. The rusting iron nails are exposed, the covering seems to have dropped away.

General miserable sight on the front door. Somebody managed to get inside and take some good pics here.

 

If you want to get some architectural details on this building, then click here.

 

A group seems to have been formed to protect and renew this building. There’s the map from the site shown above. Quite an interesting architectural plan, eh? I went on walking a bit more.

 

Here’s Bethesda Baptist Chapel. It closed in 1994 and typically, this is also crumbling away. The stonework is absolutely brilliant, very detailed work. Quite impressive indeed.

A great list of documents relating to this church is here.

Nice gravestone

not so nice one with ivy all over it.

The churchyard has not been maintained at all.

 

From the front, they seem to be doing some repairs to the building. But the portico just does not suit the building at all. Again, the looming weather with grey clouds doesnt really do Swansea any favours.

Looking up over the hill

 

The Swansea bus service. The sheer perkiness of the colours, Purple and Orange and the buses are very eye catching, specially when you compare it with the general dinginess around the place.



Somebody is taking the mickey. Salvation is nigh? With a McDonalds burger? Blasphemy!

 

Time was getting on, so I wanted to head back into the train station and catch a taxi to the university when this road sign caught my eye. Ebenezer Street leading to the Ebenezer Baptist Church.

 
Looks like this was a hotbed of Baptists here. Here’s the history of this church. I quote from this page:

The area surrounding Ebenezer has also seen some dramatic changes with run­down commercial properties being replaced with blocks of flats. The potential for outreach is great, but there are real problems. In the past we have visited these flats and we thank God for the contacts made, yet so many are now securely closed to casual callers. We find ourselves like the apostle praying, literally, for an 'open door' to reach those who live on our doorstep.

A rather sad indictment of this general area. I tell you, it did depress me..i took off post haste. But I promise you, its much better during summer..I think. Here’s the full slide show.

Mauritius Photo Essay #5, a Sunday Market Sojourn

My flight was supposed to leave at 10 PM on a Sunday. So I was pretty much free for the day. Wanted to go and see some libraries and museums, but as luck would have it, the damn country shuts down on Sunday. The concierge at the hotel suggested I go check out the Sunday market. Ok, so the Sunday market was eminently forgettable, its just a corrugated shed with 3 rows of very tightly packed tiny shops selling basic stuff. Not impressed and there were too many people so couldn't take good photographs anyway. But the trip was good and these photographs are for the trip to the market, the town itself and the trip back.

 

I had a choice of either taking the local bus or picking up a taxi from the hotel. The bus would have cost 25 rupees while the taxi cost 1500 rupees. Guess what I took like an idiot? sighs. Anyway. The taxi driver that I got was pretty good, very helpful in giving me directions. But what scared the heck out of me was what he had got stuck on his dashboard. Why does he feel the need to have 3 Hindu gods and goddesses looking over his speedometer, his tachymeter and temperature gauge? Very worrying.

The weather was perfect, the drive was brilliant. We were going towards that mountain in the far distance.

Passed by these jagged mountains on the way

pretty impressive, eh?

 

The town where I was headed to was on the right of that cliff on the right. On the right, here’s the sheer cliff. Looks like somebody has taken a giant axe to the mountain, no?

Jugnauth Road on the left.

 

I asked the taxi driver to stop at the local temple. And it was one of the cosmopolitan temples which are so common in Diaspora locations. Unlike India where there is sufficient demand that one can have dedicated temples to just one deity, you will need to have a Deity Mall, so to say, to appeal to a small population which worships a whole bunch of different gods.

 
 
 

There were about 20 odd small temples arranged around one large temple, all under one roof. And you would normally go in front of the temple, pay your respects and pray and then move off. Many go around and worship all the deities religiously. I have seen that here in London as well, perhaps one day I will do a photo essay on that. After me paying my respects and hoping that the gods would have listened to my entreaty about looking after the kids, I pushed off.

Say what? Yelly? I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole, that sounds horrible.

I know I am sounding illiterate, but found the juxtaposition of high French with the word Ganga Singh interesting :).

Another temple :)

A watch shop, unfortunately closed.

This was a bit wtf for me. It says, “A Lover” and then what looks like a phone number. Somebody is advertising themselves as a lover? hmmm, very weird, lol.

  

This was another curious piece. A whole bunch of different walls seem to have been painted by the Ministry of Tourism. I can understand them wanting to keep the place looking clean but why on earth would you want to stencil the damn ministry name there? To avoid bill posters?

Mr. P&K Sookhee (presumably a Hindi word, it means somebody who is happy) isnt very happy I guess. The posters on the window said that he was having a closing down sale. Not good. Poor chap and I am not sure that he got the irony or would have appreciated me telling him this.

Bollywood movie posters on a kiosk.

And on the high street, we have Vegas and a casino!

And can KFC be anywhere behind?

I was looking for bookstores which would sell me some books on Mauritius history, culture and stuff like that. So this very kind policeman said that I should nip into the mall. And it was a real life mall, at least 200 big shops, 4 levels. The entrance fronted by Ram Tulsidas :). As i mentioned in my previous essay, the Tulsidas clan in Mauritius seems to be heavy in the fashion industry.

And then it had this Bollywood Cafe inside.

 
With Thali’s!, bloody hell. That was a bit over the top for me. Since when would Bollywood people eat in a thali?

Ah!, now this is more like it. Baboojee Healthy Food, serving chicken burgers, chips, with curry sauce, chicken tikka burgers, special vegetarian meals and the lot. Heh, my kind of vendor, i love his definition of healthy food :). And the lady had lovely hair as well :)

And education is important. This seems to be an affiliated body to the University of Mauritius, educating the good citizens of Mauritius in advanced Computing. Good.



Mootoo (can be read as a Hindu word for Fatso). Well, if you keep on snacking, you will get seriously Mootoo, just look at me.

Damn Marmite is here as well, and I dont care that its deluxe, its disgusting.

Had a fair mind to go complain to the police that they were openly selling Marmite. Disgusting stuff.

More food stalls. Selling Roti Chawl, Dholl puri, juice and cakes :)

Couple of things caught my eye, What’s a Taxi Snack? And why confuse things on the right hand side shop? Private Parking sign just next to No Parking? Make up your damn mind, lol

And then you have Boutique Gajadar selling biscuits and soap.

Another rather interesting combo. A French language sign for a Gujarati restaurant, which seems to specialise in Chinese, Mauritarian and Italian cooking. You cant get any more globalised than that, can you?

Cabbages, absolutely infested with cabbages.

A shop selling Grecian construction columns, lol. As one does.

A rather cute sign advertising massages.

Cheshire Homes which is good but that’s not what caught my eye. What did catch my eye was the road sign. Overhead Irrigation? Those are electricity wires. Just what are these islanders growing that requires electricity to feed them from overhead? heh.

This is supposed to be the Hindu Cremation Ground. Not impressed, it was a drain, choked with rubbish and you are supposed to be cremated into that drain? Not impressed at all.

 

Remember what I said about the fascinating colour choices of the islanders? See this one, bright orange and bright pink. Makes one go, what on earth? How do people manage to live in those places? Permanent sunglasses, I bet :)

Anyway, that’s the end of my photoessays on my trip to Mauritius. Hope you enjoyed it. The full high resolution slide show is here.