Posts From India

We are on our way to Sri Lanka and will be at sea for the next few days. The noteable feature of todays travel was the very calm and glassy sea. Reminded Nina and I of a water skiing morning at Lake Macquarie. The second noteable event of the day was at dinner. Our table gave us a view east over the stern of the ship with a fine view of the moon and the lunar eclipse that started around sun set.

Today we are still traveling west towards Sri Lanka. A bit more activity today as Nina decided to get a pedicure. We finally took some photos of the calm and glassy sea. After dinner tonight we noticed another lunar phenominon a Red or Blood Moon. Some research suggests this effect occurs near a lunar eclipse and is the result of the sun's light being scattered by the Earths atmosphere.

We docked in Cochin this morning just after dawn so got a good view of the port area during the docking operation. It was clear that the passenger terminal was an after thought in what is a very large and busy cargo port. Like Colombo yesterday the air was thick with dust or pollution and visibility was restricted.

Again we docked this morning just after dawn so got a good view of the port area of Mangalore, and again it seemed clear that the passenger terminal was an after thought as it was in an area that seemed primarily provided for loading fertilizer and coal. On first impression it seemed that the air of Mangalore was even more polluted by smog and dust than Cochin. This imression was re-enforced during the tour.

Today we were in the city of Goa which in the 1500s and 1600s Goa was part of the Portuguese Empire in India, and as usual there are a range of excursion for passengers. Back when we made our choices of shore excursions a day at a beach side resort seemed like a good change from temples but to me, today, it seemed less attractive so I abandoned Nina and left her to experience the beach resort by herself. As a result the brief report below is based on hear-say and the photos.

What can I say, Mumbai (or as it was called for a long period Bombay) is an amazing, extra ordinary place that is not entirely pleasant or uplifting. During our short visit no sight did a better job of capturing the contradictions of this city than the open air laundry called Dhobi Ghat. This 125 year old establishment is reputed to be the largest open air laundry in the world. For 18 to 20 hours each day, over 7,000 people flog, scrub, dye and bleach clothes on concrete wash pens, dry them on ropes, neatly press them and transport the garments to different parts of the city. Over 100,000 pieces of clothing are washed each day. And as you can see from some of the photos below all of this takes place within a short distance of modern up market high rise apartment buildings. click here for wikipedia link.

Nina and I had no planned excursions today so we decided we would spend some time exploring the area of Mumbia around the dock and in order to have an objective Nina decided she needed a supermarket in order to buy some muesli. After some google research we narrowed down to a likely establishment; a shop that had an name in English and that was part of a chain of shops with the same name. Amazingly after a taxi ride to the center of the local "town" and a 2 km walk we found the shop and acquired the necessary supplies.