Benelux Trip: Part 2

Now it’s time for the second part of my Benelux Trip. After spending one night in Luxembourg and two nights in Brussels, we made our way to the Netherlands. There, we spent another two nights in Amsterdam.

This, I personally think is the best part of the trip. And I think most people would know that any trip to the Netherlands would not be complete without seeing the famous tulips and the infamous Red Light District. On the first night that we were there, we took a stroll along the alleys in the Red Light District, which was helped by the fact that our hostel is within the parameter of the Red Light District itself. Red Light District, if you don’t already know is a centre for sex services. Basically, it is a one-stop sex centre. From young and very attractive prostitutes to live sex shows to normal sex shops, which sell sex video tapes and sex toys. Another feature of the Red Light District is the Coffeeshops. Coffeeshops are not your ordinary coffee shops because they sell drugs instead of ice blended coffee. Most coffeeshops sell marijuana, hashish and cannabis, which are legal in the Netherlands – but only in the Netherlands. People who goes to these coffeeshops usually smoke them but if you cannot or do not want to smoke, you an always buy the special cakes. Why is it special? Because it contains marijuana. I would like to write more on Amsterdam but since the pact was “what happens in Amsterdam stay in Amsterdam”, I will stop here and let just say that we had a good time there. And honestly, Amsterdam is really beautiful. If you go there, be sure to rent the canal bike and cycle around the city. We did that and I love it so much.

The next highlight of the trip was the visit to Keukenhof Botanical Garden where we get to see the famous Amsterdam tulips. For some reason, whenever people go to Amsterdam, they will always want to see the tulips, so, we spent the last day in the Netherlands in Lieden. Lieden is another town just 30 minutes away from Amsterdam. From there, we took a bus on a 20 minutes ride to Keukenhof Botanical Garden, which they claimed to be the most beautiful spring garden in the world. The garden itself was built based on the design of an English garden. And as we walked through the garden, we passed through 4 stations – Juliana, Wilhemina, William Alexander and Orange Nassau. Except for Juliana and Orange Nassau, the stations have big restaurants for people to sit down and enjoy their afternoon lunch surrounded by beautiful and colourful flowers. At Juliana station, they showed us the history of tulips and we got to see how tulips became so popular in the Netherlands. At Orange Nassau station, there is an exhibition on orchids. We also went to watch birds show and climbed a windmill that overlooks a field of tulips. Unfortunately, the field was not filled with tulips yet, so, there was nothing much to see. In front of the windmill though, there was this big green field with dozens of giant bean bags where you could just lie on and bask under the sun. We did that and I know that I actually napped for about half an hour.

I am going to stop here. There might be a third part for this but I have not decided yet. If there is another part, you will see it in few days time.

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