Edinburgh diaries fringed with the Fringe
I moved from India to Newcastle a year ago, and since my move was finalized, Scotland was first on my list of places to visit. Given the fact that I thrived on the Harry Potter series as I grew up, this was no surprise to anyone. This August, I finally decided to make that trip, and recommendations about the Harry Potter hangouts and Fringe started pouring in from my colleagues. Serendipitously, the dates I had picked happened to be the last 3 days of the Edinburgh Fringe. Hearing about the Fringe intrigued me. The more I researched about it, the more my anticipation and eagerness to experience it grew. I decided to spend all of the 3 days I had in Edinburgh, and save the rest of Scotland for some future trip.

Day 1: Edinburgh Old Town, Edinburgh Castle and the Fringe
The train journey from Newcastle to Edinburgh was short and pleasant, while we sat sipping coffee, munching on our homemade sandwiches and watching the sea whenever the tracks hit the coast.
We reached Edinburgh around lunch time, dropped our luggage at our Airbnb flat in a sweet neighbourhood of buildings that had little balconies with bicycles and garden benches (yes, in the balcony) and dashed back to join the crowds flitting from one fringe venue to another.
While the fringe formed a huge part of my Edinburgh allure, I wasn’t going to miss out on the age old charms of the city like the castle and the zoo. We walked merrily through the old town, pausing occasionally to savour any odd street-shows which caught our attention. Perched on the stairs of the National Museum of Scotland, we watched amidst bouts of laughter, a guy in a pink shirt and suspended pants who hugged random passersby and played with lit fire torches while he balanced himself precariously on the top rung of the unsupported ladder. Amused, we continued on our slow walk through the old town, visiting the famous Victoria Street that inspired Diagon Alley, and merchandise packed Harry Potter stores oozing with Muggles. However, living in a house that half looks like a Harry Potter museum from all the collectible gifts from my boyfriend, I couldn’t really find something appealing that I haven’t seen before. The shops seemed overpriced when compared to the Warner Bros Studios gift shop in London, which has some promising merchandise to offer.
Flitting between different shops in the old town, we crossed a mob of around 20–30 people wearing headphones and singing and dancing as they walked. Led by an enthusiastic guide who danced and jumped around with all his energy, these were the people out on what is famously known as the Silent Disco Walking Tour. It was a joy to watch people forget all their inhibitions and sing and dance to old classics like ‘Can’t take my eyes off you’ while the crowd around watched, cheered and clicked pictures.

We proceeded to the Castle, printed out our pre-booked tickets and entered the exquisite stone structure. We watched the military men prepare for the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo that night and took pictures of the breathtaking skyline. We visited the War Museum taking in details of the Scottish history of combat and also the Edinburgh Castle whisky shop offering magnificent whisky in artistic bottles.

We made our way back to our flat, famished and exhausted from walking all day through the cobbled streets of the town. We freshened up and looked up restaurants offering Indian food in the city. A staggering number of options with very high ratings showed up, and after a quick research of menus and offerings, we zeroed in on ‘KamaSutra’, a restaurant right at the heart of the fringe, serving authentic dishes mainly from North India. The food was a treat and as the name would suggest, the place was lined with appropriate imagery of an explicit nature. The staff was thoroughly Indian, and the experience was a refreshing change from the part-westernized Indian restaurants in Newcastle that are just half as authentic.
Well fed and energized, we proceeded to the nearest Fringe hangout called Laughing Horse @ The Counting house, that hosted 5 venues internally, most of which happened to host comedies. We picked the closest show which looked most interesting — The Hangry Americans, presented by Molly Sokhom and Neil Thornton from New Zealand. This was my first ever fringe show, and I honestly did not know what to expect. However, it was more than what I could have hoped for. Genuinely funny with laughter-sprinkled snacks being passed around throughout the stand-up, it proved to be one hour of pure unadulterated enjoyment, and it set a bar for what I could expect from the rest of the shows.
Next, we attended another stand-up called ‘AC/DC: Australian comedians, Dope comedy’ comprising a mixed bag of comedians from across the world living in Australia. Power packed performances by Daniel Muggleton, Dilruk Jayasinha and few others had us in splits by the end of the interactive and engaging performances. Thoroughly entertained, we made our way back to the flat late in the night and called it a day.
Day 2: Edinburgh Zoo and the Fringe
I woke up battling with the idea of choosing more fringe shows over a visit to the zoo based on last night’s experience, but my love for wildlife could not be tamed, and we decided to spend the first half of the day in the zoo before returning to catch some more action in the fringe. We stopped for some coffee and breakfast in the Happy Bean cafe, and tasted one of the best coffees in Edinburgh. We reached the zoo that’s slightly out of the city center, were handed out our tickets and a map of the zoo by the person at the counter with some information about the daily talk and animals that could not be viewed for the day.

Edinburgh Zoo offers a surprisingly wide variety of animals including Asian species like Sumatran tiger, Asiatic lion, Indian Rhino and the Giant Panda bear 🐼 (which finally explained how a Teddy Bear could originate from a bear). The pelicans and flamingos in their beautiful colours, the parrots with their bright feathers and some rare species in the walk through bird cage made for an impressive aviary section of the zoo. As expected, the adorable Giant Panda was the main attraction of the zoo. Lured out with a stack of bamboo and fruits by a smart zoo keeper in face of the rising crowd, it was a delight to watch for kids and adults alike. Barely noticing the crowd, it lay comfortably in it’s tree house with it’s face out to a slight drizzle and munched on young bamboo trees as if they were just twigs.

I was also introduced to a lot many new animals that day, only having heard of a few of them before, such as the sloth, meerkat, penguins, anteater, blue dart frog, various kinds of monkeys and reptiles. I loved how each animal had ample space with open and enclosed shelters that they are free to move into at their will. Glass windows allow people to view animals that choose to be indoors without disturbing them, and in case of some harmless animals like wallaby outback, visitors are allowed to enter their enclosure and walk along a path while the animals wander around freely.
The penguins in the zoo are a jolly lot and their space looks like one grand pool party. Visitors love the space for the sheer number of penguins walking around chattering incessantly, jumping into the pool and zooming around underwater with an astounding speed. Most animals like penguins are tagged individually to be identified and studied for their life course.

The Edinburgh zoo also hosts a huge family of 17 chimpanzees in a separate shelter. Like all other animals, the chimpanzees too have open and enclosed areas to spend time and their enclosed house consists of huge rooms panning multi-storied viewing spaces with swings and perches and branches to allow them ample moving space for physical activities as well as regular stimulants like games to exercise their mental abilities. The chimpanzee baby in this shelter was hilarious and had kids glued to the glass as they watched its naughty antics and the loving admonishment of the adults.
Given the brilliant party of the zoo, it was no surprise that we left the zoo much later than planned, but nonetheless satisfied. We took a taxi to ‘Tanjore’, another Indian restaurant in Edinburgh city center to grab supper. Specialising in South Indian cuisine, this restaurant had no room for complaints. The food was authentic and satisfied my idli-dosa cravings to the core. Sadly due to the fringe rush, the traditional coffee was unavailable, and hence, we walked down the road to a famous local coffee shop called Kilimanjaro. With its cheerful red exterior and spacious interior, Kilimanjaro had the perfect setting for a relaxed evening coffee that we sipped resting on plush sofas, watching the world go by. The coffee was rich and the spiced chai was brilliantly made.
Another short walk, and we ended up back at our fringe venue and decided to hit the earliest show up next about Mental Health by David Chawner. The premise of the show to talk about mental health over mental illness attracted us to it, and while most of the time David did speak about mental health, the show didn’t quite live up to our expectations. It had it’s share of punches and highs but there were times when it was bit directionless. We followed it up by another standup comedy presented by Ruven Govinder. The name Ethnic Cleansing not surprisingly attracted a lot of multi cultural crowd and the teenager-like host (who claimed to be a lot older than what he looked) won the hearts of the audience with candid humour and tales of his own experience of moving halfway across the world to run a chicken farm in Australia to honour his father’s wish.
Completely spent, we returned back to our hotel and at once fell into deep slumber.
Day 3: Edinburgh Coffee and Waverley
The next day, was the day of return. We packed our bags and left the room to head over to yet another famous Indian restaurant in Edinburgh, Dishoom! The place is so very Indian in everything from the appearance, furniture, ambience, service, menu and the food, that with one step in I was hit with a severe wave of nostalgia. Tantamount to the multitude of Iranian cafes in my hometown that I used to frequent during my college days, Dishoom offered a Bun maska with chai (a modest dish of buttered bun accompanied by tea to dip the bun in), that I ordered just for the sake of reminiscence. Coincidentally, Dishoom was also celebrating Rakshabandhan — an Indian festival on that day, with a thali of Rakhi and a card on each table, preserving the essence and celebrating its Indianness.
After breakfast, we walked around Waverley station, watched a bagpiper playing at the traffic lights. We visited a cafe that apparently serves the best coffee in Edinburgh, the Fortitude, which had an interesting mix of flavours to add to any normal coffee. We returned, walking alongside the tram path when I decided to make it a point to ride the tram on my next visit, since I’ve never been on one before.

We reached Waverly station in the nick of time to find 3 trains leaving the same minute and not knowing which one was ours. The platform information boards did not mention the via destinations, and our ticket failed to comment on the final destination. We spent some time trying to double check our tickets and information boards around to figure out a way till we realized that we had just 5 minutes to go and would surely miss the train thanks to the non-intuitive station information, unless some miraculous help arrived. Thankfully, we spotted a member of the railway staff, and though she was not an employee of Cross Country, the lady was kind enough to gauge our situation and point us in the right direction. With exactly 2.5 minutes left in hand to find the platform and get onto the train, we had nothing left to do but make a dash for it.
But all’s well that ends well, since we did make it in with 30 seconds to spare, ending our Edinburgh trip with a minuscule adventure of an almost missed train and lots of sweet memories!