Welcome To
Amsterdam: Everything’s Here!
From its
art to its sleaze to its heart of darkness, you’ll never have enough time to
explore this city
IT IS meant to be a kind
of improvised Dutch music and dance.
As it is, I have a
limited understanding of international music. On top of it, half an hour before
the show, there are just nine people at Bimhuis, the riverfront concert hall.
It looks like my first
evening in Amsterdam may be a flop. I head to the bar for a beer. By the time I
finish the second pint, a sizeable crowd has gathered. I grab another pint of
Grolsch blond and sit.
The backdrop is a glass
wall, through which the Eastern Dockland lights pour in, creating a magical
effect. Two women take the stage. No microphone, no accompanying music. Monica
Akihary starts playing with her voice and a young woman breaks into a slow
dance. Then, two new artists emerge for a dance on drum beats.
Fifteen minutes into the
show, I find I have forgotten to take a sip.
Two lessons learnt: never
underestimate the power of music, and that of a Dutch beer!
THE
OVERFLOWING PLATTER
Amsterdam offers a lot of
choices – except shopping – to its guests in the evening. In one of the most
densely populated cities of Europe, almost all shops pull down their shutters
by sunset.
But the city doesn’t
sleep early. At 9 pm, with temperatures falling rapidly, I enter Rijsel: a
French-Flemish restaurant in a quiet neighbourhood by the Amstel river.
The place is as lively as
a good Roman Trattoria. All customers, except the two of us, are locals. They
mix food and drinks with endless, loud chatter. It’s a packed house on just
another Wednesday evening.
We order mussels, Flemish
chicken roast with vegetables, and a fish soup. The server asks for my choice
of poison. “Dark beer,” I reply. Five minutes later, she puts a bottle labelled
‘Wild Jo’ on the table. I am worried when the food arrives. How can two of us
eat so much? The portions are twice of what you get in a Delhi restaurant.
Ruchira, my wife,
suggests that we order less next time. I propose to increase my beer intake to
help digest the food. As usual, she has the final say: “We have to walk more.”
SEX,
DRUGS, AND…
Amsterdam has an
excellent tram network, plus metro-rail and buses. But the best way to see the
heart of Holland is to walk.
Armed with a Rick Steves’
audio guide, I turn left from Damrak to Warmoesstraat for an Amsterdam landmark:
the red-light district; one hand, it’s about in-your-face sleaze and soft
drugs (coffee shops legally sell marijuana), on the other, it’s about a culture
of freedom that makes Amsterdam arguably the most liberal city in the world.
And it is possibly the
only redlight area where a guy can take his wife or girlfriend!
The walk starts near a
shop with a yellow signboard that reads:
Het Gulden Vlies. In
English it means “Golden Fleece Condomerie”. It sells an amazing variety of
condoms, including some that possibly can never be put to use.
Irish pubs dot the area,
but visitors are glued to the shops selling erotica. S&M starter kits,
bondage materials, whips, masks – you name the kind of sex and there’s every
product related to it.
The lane named Wijde
Kerksteeg leads to the core of the red-light zone that also houses a famous
church (see how religion and prostitution co-exist). Busty women in fancy
lingerie stand behind the glass in small rooms flooded with red light. “If the
light is blue, then it’s a transvestite,” a guide explains to a tourist group.
The trade is organised.
The women are unionised and even have a child-care centre.
We walk down to the
neighbouring canal that offers a splendid view of the old city. This is one of
the oldest parts of Amsterdam, founded after a dam was built on the Amstel in
the 13th century.
I find the original
Bulldog outlet – the first marijuana shop of Amsterdam. Armed with a proper
menu, the shopkeepers patiently explain the specialty of every weed. They also
prepare a joint for the customers.
I come out of Bulldog
better prepared to appreciate the ‘laal batti’ culture. More windows light up.
The area wakes up not just as a cauldron of sleaze, but also as a hotspot of
culture. European and Latin American restaurants coexist peacefully with sex
shops.
LIGHT
AND DARK
Just like it’s impossible
to see the entire Louvre in a month, Rijksmuseum needs at least a week.
“We just have an hour,” I
tell my wife. So we head straight to the Gallery of Honour. The greatest
paintings of the Dutch Golden Age are on display. At the end of the gallery is
The Night Watch, Rembrandt’s most famous work.
Nearby, Van Gogh has an
entire museum dedicated to him. My wife gets so carried away by his
Sunflowers and Almond
Blossoms that she buys a bundle of souvenirs from the museum gift shop. In the
upscale Jordaan neighbourhood, a hub of writers and poets, stands a renovated
house on Prinsengracht, which reminds not only the city but the world about a
dark period of human history.
There is always a queue
to enter the building. As we go inside, it transports us to 1942, when two
Jewish families had to hide in a secret annexe of a building for two years
until one morning in August 1944, when Nazi SS officers knocked down the doors.
Behind a bookcase lies the secret path to the annex. On a wall, are pictures
that Anne Frank pasted between 1942 and 1944. In the dingy rooms where two
Jewish families stayed, my senses go numb for a few minutes.
From the darkness of Anne
Frank House, I step out into the bright October sun.
And then, the bells of
the Westerkerk church – the only sound from the outside world Anne Frank could
hear – chime again.
HTBR 20NOV16
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