Isle of Man is also known as the 'Road Racing Capital of the World'. Perhaps, it is the only country in the world to close its roads for public for the sake of 'racing' during the championship. It is being said that in any given week of the year, there would be bike racing in the island. Again, we missed this spectacle coz of the holiday time.

After a hour long drive, we reached the town called Peel. Peel is another of the important towns of Isle of Man. This town is of great heritage importance for the island as there is a huge, ancient castle at this place. We felt that we would be running out of time, if we visit the castle and hence didn't take the trouble to visit the same. The bus went past the narrow roads of Peel and passed through many lovely, natural scenaries. The entire route had beautiful gardens, lovely, shady roads and the place was full of beauty.

lThe bus stopped in front of a small church adjacent to a little hill. We were shocked to note that the place is called Tynwald - country's Parliament. It is the oldest parliament in the world, functioning for the past 1000 years. Whenever the parliament decides to convene, a tent would be erected over the hill and that is the place where the Parliament sits. No law or act can be passed in the island without being read out and discussed at Tynwald. Much for its simplicity, the Parliament of a nation is located in the roadside of an ordinary road.

Proceeding further, we stopped near a village called Cregneash. The village had lot of cottages which were said to be depicting the 18th century's culture and heritage. We can find hundreds of thousands of such villages back in India and there were nothing in these cottages for these people to boast about. But then, as I mentioned earlier, Tourism is all about marketing. Isn't it ?

After spending some time there at Cregneash, the bus took us back to Castletown. While the rest of the people in the bus went about exploring the town, we went in vain hunting for a restaurant that could serve us some tea/coffee. After a while, we travelled back to Douglas and went on a shopping spree buying out souvenirs of the island to take back in its memory.

Monday, 1st April 2002

We boarded the early morning ferry from the sea terminal at Douglas and sailed towards Liverpool, England. The weather was bad and the sea was very rough. Many people were sea sick and kept vomitting (I was one among them!). Indeed, it was a minor abberration to the otherwise happy & enjoyable tour.

We returned back to London from Liverpool, the same evening after having a well deserved break. Unfortunately though, this tour to Isle of Man after a long time, happens to be the farewell tour as a group in our first innings of our stay at England.

(The End)