Brian LARA Lives Here.....

...yes...here in Port of Spain, the capital of Trinadad and Tobago, a Windward Island of the Caribbean(the natives call it:Trini or TT). It is only 11 km from Venezuela.

As soon as I got off the plane at the Piarco Intl. Airport and was heading towards hotel, the driver decided to brief me on some "important facts" about Trinidad and Tobago in general and Port of Spain in particular such as their history & culture. He covered all the tangible and intangible assets with great pride and needless to say, he had questions for me as well.

His first revelation was about LARA: "Sir Brian Charles Lara, the 'best' batsman in the world lives very close to the hotel (Lady Young Road)where you are gonna stay" he said. He advised me to take the opprortunity of seeing Lara's house for sure.(During my stay, I heard Lara's name being mentioned over and over again plus people asked me if I saw his house yet or not? Finally, I decided to walk up the small hill where they had only 2 houses and I took pictures of both. Later on, the the hotel manager identified for me his house, which is on the right side (made of red bricks). I saw a lot of activity in both the houses and the one that turned out to be Lara's house - I saw two men on the terrace - both looked like Lara but as soon as the man tried to say something to me from the terrace-I ran away. Anyhow, nobody call him Brian Lara as we know him they absolutely add 'Charles' and say his full name with a prefix: Sir. Everybody loves him. I was confused by the fact that why doesn't he live in the West Indies? Well, for the answer-google is an easy option ;D

Lara is all over the place; on the walls, on the billboards, at the bus stops, airport, display windows, malls: selling this and selling that - playing yet another long innings of a differnt sort! Even in the lobby of the hotel, I saw a huge framed photograph of him with Obama, teaching him how to bat?

For more on Lara HERE

Well, back to the driver- who's second revelation was: "Port of Spain has the world's largest roundabout." he added. I later found out that it's name is Queen's Park Savannah roundabout - which is also a venue of one of the world's "best" Carnivals. Trinidad and Tobago hold this carnival every February according to the driver.

The third revelation: "Wasim Akram is the "best" baller of the world"...yes he was, I added. I noticed that Waseem Akram is synonamous to Pakistan or vice versa and I felt pretty good.

People in Port of Spain are very friendly and helpful at almost all levels - it is worth going there and during my stay, I made friends and have beautiful memories to charish.


p.s: Second last picture is Lara's house ( itinerary to Lara's place was given to me by 2 young school boys. One has to go uphill to have a closer view - you will pass by the zoo, botanical gardens and the presidency toget to this hill. "