Gent & Bruges - Beautiful Belgium Memories

Before I began with my experience with beautiful cities – Gent, Bruges and Ostende in Belgium, I think it is important to let fellow budget travelers know about this website – carpooling.co.uk . I used this site to get good carpool to travel from one city to other in Europe and find it safe, quick and cheap. As an Indian, I had a natural instinct of converting Euros in Indian currency, and cost of carpool was cheaper than what I would spend in India on petrol driven car.

After reaching Gent in Belgium from Dusseldorf in Germany on a pooled car, first thing I notice were a huge no. of bicycles, some parked and some being pedaled. I thought about a while if I should hire one, but then I was not comfortable in keeping anything with me apart from a small back pack and my camera. So I chose to walk around in the city and very soon realized that Gent has a plenty to offer to those who chose their feet as mode of transport. I knew nothing about Gent or Belgium till then, apart from my local CS host in Gent. I met her at a supermarket and we purchased some food and after lunch I set out for a city walk tour.
Gent was more beautiful, friendly and lively than I could ever imagine. As I walked past a few cathedrals, canals and other old structured buildings, I reached Kouter – a grand square surrounded by old monuments and a canal passing through heart of it. The square is known as meeting point of people of the city. A little ahead and I could site 3 towers of St. Nicholas Church, which was an amazing site to watch in night. The lights gave all the monuments a special look. And on the other side of square was Belfort standing tall as a 14^th century castle.

I walked inside city’s famous and oldest cathedral – St Bavo’s and witnessed the grandness and the effort with which it must have been build.

I walked across a few other monuments and structures and captured the pics, but can’t remember all the names.  I learnt about canal route for exporting wheat and woolen clothes out of Gent on the trade ships.
By this time I was hungry again so I decided to try a few Belgian chocolates and then I had 3 local Belgian beers. All that I had was good enough for me to keep me walking again.

On my way back I casually reached the red light district of Gent, where semi naked women were trying to lure people from the show windows. I felt a little sad at that moment seeing the beautiful ladies behind the show windows in a set up made to satisfy lust of a man. But then, this made me go deeper into this subject and I will mention that in another blog here :
Prostitution – An insight into Indian and European brothels.

From there I walked to home of my CS host and we bought some Indian ready to cook food from a nearby shop that had a sikh owner. The place of my CS host was nice and she offered me a separate room on a separate floor and told me about her son who until a few years back used to stay in that room.
Some pics from Gent, if you are downloading any pic drop me a note, I will be happy to know people are liking the pics :

City square and beautiful canal

My trip to Gent was complete and before I could sleep I dropped an email to my wife back in India.


After having breakfast the next morning, I found myself in Oostende – a Belgian city located in Flemish province of West Flanders. Oostende was a small city standing next to North Sea which was set up as a town in 12^th century when fishing used to be a major source of income for the local inhabitants. Due to a harbor, it was always attacked and controlled. It was controlled by the Dutch, Austrian and was affected by British intervention in their trade with Africa as well. It was a cold day and I could see pets enjoying their day out on Sunday at the beach. I couldn’t stay long at the beach due to very cool breeze so I quickly sneaked inside a cozy bar to have some scotch. After visiting a few touristic spots I was out again in the train, this time to Bruges.

Bruges - often referred as 'Venice of North' is another canal based city with architecture ranging back from medieval period. The city was fortified to save from sea pirates. It is very interesting to know that earlier this city was connected to sea through canals which was closed naturally for a century and later a storm opened all canal links to sea. I reached here from Ostande and without wasting a moment was up on foot towards city center. One thing that mesmerized me most was the way medieval architecture is still intact and the way city is open to tourists. Being a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the government expects a lot of tourists and once I was there I didn't feel I am in new Europe, but in a very clean, medieval yet modern part of architecturally rich Europe.
I was suggested by someone I befriended in train to take a map and walk by foot, I did the same. A map that I took from tourist office at station helped me in moving between different monuments, forts and cathedrals. If you are visiting Bruges and have lot of questions, don't think about any and just be there and get lost in the streets of Bruges. I am sure you will agree with me that you are in a different era as long as you don't talk to anyone :)
After visiting a few monuments, I tried many Belgian beers and got high after having 8 or 10 different brand beers, beer was my energy drink that day to walk. I really loved the beers and would request beer makers of Belgium to launch some of their beers in India. All brands were new to me so no loyalty, but all were so good.

My second bullet is Electra 4s

How fool or cool it would be to buy another cast iron 350 when you have one? Everyone is running after new technology bikes but i laid my hands on a used electra 4s from a known person at a good price in an excellent condition. It is a 2005 model with gears on right. Another 4 to 5 k spending and this will be the best in its class. Below are few pictures, i am yet to do complete photography of it.

L

World's oldest trade

Prostitution – An insight into Indian and European brothels


Often labeled as the oldest trade in world, prostitution is a trade which is not always a topic of discussion among people. In various countries, it is legalized whereas in many countries in Indian sub-continent and Middle-East it is still considered a taboo to talk to prostitutes or to talk about this subject. My curiosity about legal prostitution in Europe made me draw some parallels between the way prostitution is carried out in Europe, and in India.

I will start with condition of brothels in India. Prostitution in India is sitting on a pendulum that swings it back and forth between boundaries of legality. Brothels are illegal in India, but no effort is made to eradicate them, although they are present in only a specific area inside a city or town. In ancient times, the kings used to have ‘dasis’ or slaves for satisfying their sexual desires and there were many places for men to enjoy sexually erotic dances. But prostitutes were never a part of society and there was no one to see their plights. Even after few centuries, the condition remains same here – The prostitutes are forced into this trade and once they give up, they are sold to brothel owners and are used for sexual business with customers. They often suffer and spread sexually transmitted diseases, they are considered as an unwanted portion of society, they struggle to get their identities or rights that any other Indian citizen enjoys. Often they are raped without use of condoms and they give birth to unwanted kids and this vicious circle never ends. For an example a brothel in Delhi charges 250 INR from a customer out of which around 70 comes to pocket of prostitute, 70 goes to pocket of pimps and brothel owners, 30 goes towards welfare of brothels or towards a temple set up inside brothel and rest goes to different parties for security, maintenance etc. There are several NGOs that try to educate prostitutes on HIV, they try to take the kids out from there for a better future but at the large the picture remains very sad. Many people in India call prostitute (randi) as a slang (gaali) but no one says anything to the customers who go there for pleasure. The alleys inside brothel are poorly lit, drunk people move around freely and aggressive pimps are present inside. All this goes on and on, everyone knows this is not good and must be either regularized or stopped but no government ever dares to stop this or regularize it or voice their opinion on welfare of those involved. A few cases how prostitutes in India possibly enter this field is:

· Neighbor in connivance with parents.

· Neighbors as pimps.

· Aged sex workers from same village or locality.

· Unknown person/accidental meeting with pimp.

· Mother/sister/near relative in the profession.

· Lover giving false hope of marriage or job, eloping with girl and selling to brothel.

· Close acquaintance giving false hope of marriage or job.

· Husband forcing wife into prostitution.

Now let me throw some light on operations of a brothel (known as landlord or place owner) in Europe.
I’ve had a chance to see and witness some in Germany, Belgium, France and Netherlands.
There are red light districts regulated by local municipality and government and the brothel owner rents out room to prostitute, where she can stay. Suppose owner rents out room at 100 Euros per day, there are show windows from where the girls try to lure customers by provocative gestures and showing their semi naked bodies. Now when a customer goes inside and pays 100 euros and she gets 2-3 customers a day, she is able to pay 100 Euros to landlord as rent and remaining is her profit. She has to pay a month’s rent in advance, which can be lowered to 10 days at many places and the day she settles her dues, she is free to walk out, still very much citizen of country enjoying all her rights. When she is living in red light district, she still enjoys all the benefits under labor law.
There are girls who often do this for a month or 2 in year as part time. Now the brothel owner or landlord is one who pays property taxes to government out of his income, he is one who makes sure of safety and security and if some customer tries to force himself in an undesirable way there is a legal system to punish him.
If the prostitute is not able to make money, she can give a notice, pay some penalty for early termination of contract and can very well leave the place.
Also, there are various sex shows that one can watch through peep window in one of those multiple live sex theatres. When I was walking in a lane in red light district, suddenly a door opened and a pretty girl smiled at me and asked why you are so serious, come in. Well I said – ‘Would you talk to me for a while’. And she replied – ‘Yes, I am talkative and can keep talking while having sex’. I was disappointed at the way how strange people must have asked strange demands while having sex, which has made these girls reply in a tape recorded manner without considering anyone as different from a prospective customer.
Well, a secondary search revealed that in eight European countries (The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Greece, Turkey, Hungary, and Latvia) prostitution is legal and regulated.
But I saw it in France and Belgium as well.
So when you compare the above two styles of prostitution what one you think should be adopted?

There are people who say it should be stopped, I would not go into that debate of what is right or wrong. For Indian brothels, I would only say that either stop it or control and regulate it. There is no mid-way and if there is one, it surely passes through a lot of pain, rapes, diseases, poverty, slavery, illegal trafficking, rights abusing, and child rapes and should be stopped.
I am shocked by state of affairs of my country and wish this should change along with millions of other things of governance and administration.

Feel free to leave a comment.

Cheers!