I always thought the UK was a train country. By that, I mean you always hear about how good the trains are there, how easy they are to take, and how connected the country is. I also think the Victorian steam era of the UK heavily features the development of its rail network, so it’s an image burned into our minds when we think of the UK. Weirdly though, as I found out, the UK is not a train country — it’s a coach country. You see, you think the trains are really efficient and easy and then you look at the prices of them, and you audibly gasp because it is so expensive to go anywhere on a train. The coaches, on the other hand, are really cheap, easy to use, and honestly just as comfortable.

I found this out because over 4 days I travelled from London to Glasgow. “Why didn’t you just take a direct flight?” I hear you ask. Well, that’s because on each of those four days was a different rehearsal that I was trying to see in a UK town. Fortunately for me, the rehearsals followed a logical progression to the North, starting with London on Monday, Bristol on Tuesday, Penrith on Wednesday, and Glasgow on the Thursday. As part of my Europe trip, I was trying to see as many gamelan ensembles as I could, so this was really a major part of that exploration.

On the other hand, it’s really weird to do a trip like this and not get to see anything really within these towns. I was in Bristol for less than twenty four hours! I went to London and all I saw was a Balinese gamelan, not anything else that’s there. In Penrith I did have time to visit the local museum, but it rained every second from when I arrived until I left (though this did add to the atmosphere of the abandoned castle ruins opposite the coach station). Luckily I did actually have some time to spare in Glasgow, which was good because by that point I was quite sick of sitting on a bus for most of the day.

Unfortunately, only two of the rehearsals actually happened — in London and in Glasgow. Interestingly, these were two different styles of gamelan — Balinese in London and Javanese in Glasgow. Further to that, both of those groups maintained a very Indonesian style of teaching, both groups encouraged (and basically enforced) the moving around of players between parts, and both groups broke for a break (in London, this was a “scones” break and in Glasgow, this was a “wee” break). The journey of these instruments from Indonesia to so far north is really interesting to me. Scotland is about as far from Indonesia as you can get, and yet they still have a gamelan! It is pretty incredible when you think about the cultural reach the gamelan has across the world.

After Glasgow I went to Edinburgh for a couple of days, which was also where I spent my birthday. I didn’t see any gamelan there, though I did see some Indonesian or Malaysian tourists (based purely on the countdown for taking a photo). I regret not speaking to them further — but I was on the hunt for a slice of cake before the patisseries shut soon after.

P.S. I’m planning on catching up on the blog posts I would have liked to have done in Europe, so there’ll be a flurry of posts this week here now that I am back in Australia and then we should be back to our normal schedule.