Pat and Norm's World Cruises and other adventures

May 9, 2019

Incredible India, indeed. So first of all, I should mention that we had movie night last night, and the movie was “Lion”.  We had seen it before but chose to go again and we were so glad we did.  Seeing it while in India was very special and emotional and it really highlighted so many aspects of the culture including the fact that there are 29 different languages spoken here and people from one area often cannot communicate with others from another area.

This was our final tour in India with Alice and Tom and the tour company, Magic Tours of India, was a wonderful choice in every city. This tour in Mumbai was no exception.

Our guide was Meherrukh and our driver was Vithal.

Meherrukh greeted us and gave us some informative maps to show that Mumbai (formerly Bombay, which she still calls it) was originally 7 islands which are now joined together.  The name Bombay came from Bom Bahia which means beautiful bay. It was renamed Mumbai in 1996 as part of a wider policy instigated by the right wing nationalist Shiv Sena Municipality to replace names of any places, roads and features in the city that had connotations of the Raj.  The name change was widely unpopular when it was first imposed especially among the upper and middle classes and the immigrant communities.  Now it has taken root and even outgrown the narrow agenda of the originators.  But as our guide proves, those who grew up in Bombay often still know it as Bombay.

Our first stop was the most acclaimed attraction, the Gateway of India.  It was built to commemorate the visit of King George V and Queen Mary and was officially inaugurated in 1924.  It is situated on the waterfront and is just across from the Taj Mahal Palace hotel where the terrorist attack and bombing took place in November of 2008. It was part of a series of 12 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks across Mumbai which left lasting scars here in this city.

Gateway of India

Taj Mahal Palace Hotel

New wing of the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel

We had been to both the Gateway and the hotel previously but the Gateway (and the crowds that are there) are always interesting to see. Beautiful clothing. It was early so not too crowded.  Always vendors to try to sell you things, though. We didn’t spend any time in the hotel this visit.

Here are some of the other buildings in the area. And a panoramic view.

There are lots of fishing boats and houseboats just off the pier too.

We stopped at an area that really highlights the contrasts of this city. It is big.  It has lots and lots of people and a lot of traffic. It has India’s most prolific film industry.  It has the world’s most expensive house (more about that later) and it is an area of slum living, and our guide shared that 60% of the 14 million people here live in slums.  She said that the schools for guides tell them not to focus on that but she believes that she should share reality with everyone. Some of the reason for slums is rent control.  Some people pay as little as $10/month and so the landlords let things get run down and become slums. They are trying to move people into big buildings and tear down the slums but people do resist this.

There was so much trash in this area.  She said that people just discard trash without even thinking about it and some of the trash also comes from other countries and just piles up.

Right around this slum area are high rise hotels including the Ritz Carleton hotel.

You also see homeless people on the streets. They hang their clothes on the fences.

There are a lot of interesting colonial buildings in Mumbai and it also has a variety of art deco buildings.  Here are some examples.

This building was once a beautiful hotel.  It is now unoccupied and in terrible condition.

We walked through the gardens of the Children’s Museum.  A beautiful building and grounds.

They have a lot of fruit bats (flying foxes) in the trees outside the museum.  The picture only shows some of them!

Interesting – this woman is selling fruits and also charges for people to weigh themselves!

The Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, formerly known as the Victoria Terminus, is a huge historic railway station and also a UNESCO World Heritage site and is considered the finest example of Victorian Gothic architecture in India. It is used by 7.5 million people every day!  There are separate cars for women if they choose to use them. During rush hour it is so crowded that people hang out of the doors.  People are so used to overcrowded living conditions that the trains seem normal to them. Sometimes tourists like to hang out of the doors too! But never go on it at rush hour.

We so enjoyed being able to ride on the train.

The dabbawalla lunch box system has been in place for more than 100 years and is 99.9% on time with no errors!  More than 250,000 lunches are prepared in homes and delivered by these self employed dabbawallas to offices and businesses.  They are picked up usually by men on bikes and then taken by train to the people in the businesses and then the lunchboxes are picked up and returned to the homes.  The system is said to be the envy of Federal Express for its efficiency!  You can recognize the dabbawallas by the white hats they wear.

Some of the people love to have their pictures taken!

May 8, 2019

Ray, our cruise director, is getting everyone prepared for the big Indian deck party on May 10. Tonight at the show he appeared in his new outfit that he said he bought in Mangalore for the US price of $43. He also announced that the party will include the crew!  Fabulous idea. 

What about those shoes?!

Goa is a former Portuguese colony and the smallest state in India as well as its richest area.  It only became a part of India in 1961. The Portuguese were the first to settle here and the last to leave. Many did not want the Portuguese rule to end.

The ship docks in Mormugao and the state’s largest city, Vasco de Gama is nearby.  There isn’t much to see except the huge container port in this area. Our tour will take us to Panjim and Old Goa.

We were met by music and greeters who gave us roses, pens, drinks, key chains and hats.

We were again touring with Tom and Alice and were met by our tour guide, Valentino, at the port.  He told us that the taxi union is very strong here and would harass him if he led us through the many waiting taxi drivers so he asked us to walk far behind him and out of the sight of the taxi drivers!

So we walked out of the area and were asked by many taxi drivers to go with them.  We were then joined by Valentino and our driver, Viju. Valentino is on the left.

We visited the Viceroy’s Arch which was built over the road leading from the river to the town which was once the main road into Old Goa. It was built in memory of Vasco de Gama by his great grandson in 1599.

Valentino was very eager to work with us on what we wanted to see on the tour.  We told him we didn’t want to visit too many churches so went first to the St. Cajetan Church which was built in the 1600s and is considered to be one of the most beautiful in India.  It features a large central dome which was modeled after St. Peter’s in Rome.  In fact, Goa is often called the Rome of the east.

There are 14 churches in Goa but only 2 are active.  This one is not active but all are still maintained well. It is beautiful outside and in.  The carvings are all wood. And all of the windows are placed so that no artificial lighting was needed in the daytime.

Just across the road is the Basilica of Bom Jesus, the most famous church in Old Goa.  Bom means holy or good. We had visited both of these churches on our last visit here in 2017 but Tom and Alice had not been to India before.  With new guides, you always appreciate something new though.

The tomb of St. Francis Xavier, the Jesuit who spread Christianity  in the Portuguese colonies and is the patron saint of Goa, is found here.  The building is the first church in India to be elevated to the status of a minor basilica and is also a UNESCO World Heritage site.  It was consecrated in 1605 and is the best example of baroque architecture in India.  What we didn’t know before is that the church was originally covered in lime plaster which was all removed prior to the visit by the Pope in 1950. You can see that the adjoining building still has the lime plaster covering.

There are many other churches to see but we asked Valentino to take us to some other areas where we could see how people live. Again, we had a nice air conditioned car and plenty of water, it was hot but not quite as hot as yesterday.

We started out on a walk through Old Goa and Valentino took us to a small bakery which was very lovely.  He bought us a sample plates of the specialties found in Goa.  The bakery also had main dishes and you can see how reasonable the prices are. For an example, 80 rupees is $1.15 US.

The tables were covered with typical Portuguese tiles.

We continued our walk through this area of Old Goa which was really charming.  The homes are painted in bright colors and many are in Portuguese style with verandas. The paint is not required anymore but the old rule was that the homes had to be repainted every year.  Many still do it even though they don’t have to.

We went to a shopping street and did some browsing and shopping. Some of the signs are interesting!

We had a drink that is made in Boa called KOKM.  There are many flavors and Valentino bought us the green amla kind which is the India Gooseberry.  It is said to be good for many ailments, including those of the liver and the heart. We got a bottle of the kokum type (red)  at the port. Kokum is a purple berry which has been long used to prevent infection, treat sores, cure ear infections, heal stomach ulcers, improve digestion, lessen arthritis pain and alleviate diarrhea & constipation. I guess it is good for almost everything. This picture is the bottle that contains what can be mixed with water.  The ones we had were slightly carbonated and very good!

We saw many rooster figurines.  Valentino told us that it is the unofficial bird of Portugal and is considered to be very lucky. Here if you see it, it usually means that people in that household wanted to remain Portuguese.

We also saw statues of soldiers on roofs and they indicate that an ancestor was in the army. 

They have both land based and casino boats here.  Here are pictures of two of the boats.

Valentino took us to the Horizon Bay restaurant for lunch, but he wouldn’t let us pay for his lunch.  He did point out some of the specialties on the menu.  The restaurant was right on the beach – Indian Ocean.

They had very unusual lights – loved them. 

But the signs were a bit confusing!

A great day again.  On our way back to the ship we spotted the red bull car!

We weren’t sure whether Viju was a Christian or a Hindu as he had symbols of both in his car. 

Tomorrow is Mumbai, our last stop in India. We have been there twice before but it is always interesting, and crowded, and of course, hot.  We are looking forward to a fun day with Alice and Tom.

May 7, 2019

It is day 2 of 4 days in Incredible India.  Today we explored Mangalore with Tom and Alice and our guide, Savan and our driver whose name was too long to remember!

No matter where you go in the world, there is always Coke!

Note that “it contains no fruit!”

Mangalore has been a prominent hub of maritime trade for ages.  As we arrived, we saw a lot of cranes and containers waiting to be placed on ships.

We talked with him about what we wanted to see and do, and he agreed to everything we said and we could modify things along the way.  Thank goodness, there was plenty of water and the vehicle was air conditioned, it was very hot and humid.

Savan is an MBA graduate who has been unable to find a job in India, so he is providing service as a guide, and he is a very good one.  He is studying to take the test for English proficiency so that he could get a job in another country. We asked if it is easy to leave India – he said it is easy to leave but hard to survive.

We traveled first to the Kadri Manjunath Temple, a Hindu temple that has a large area around it, but the actual temple is quite small.  It dates back to approximately 1068.  There are nine water ponds outside the temple where people go to take a holy dip.  Savan said that if anyone is actually caught swimming, he or she is asked to leave.  Here are some of the sights from around the temple.  As always, no photos were allowed inside.

We watched these men doing the wood carving for parts of the temple.

We were very lucky to be at this temple on a festival day – the festival is Akshaya Tritiya. It is known as a day of new beginnings and also remembering loved ones who have died. They erect the same kind of pole that we saw in Nepal at New Year – the same way – with ropes.  This one was already standing.

We met lots of people who were very excited to talk with us and find out where we were from.  This family was just lovely. Everyone spoke English very well.

You often see the little children very dressed up.

Here are some pictures of the ponds.

During this festival, which is celebrated for 3 days, this temple gives out food to whoever comes for it.  They start early in the morning and serve until 1:30 AM the next day.  25-30,000 people show up EVERY DAY. Savan belongs to this temple and his uncle and cousin were working so Alice and I got a wonderful tour of the kitchen.  Amazing.  Over 1000 volunteers do this work and the food is all donated.

We gave them a cash donation and they were really excited, they took our picture and gave us a bag of sweets.

Outside the temple we saw a whole row of the tuk tuks that are a major source of transportation here.

Next we went to the market, which Savan said was “just a small one”.  So when we got there we knew that he understood sarcasm.  It was huge.  There was a fish market with both dried and regular fish, even some that were still alive.  The vegetable and fruit market seemed to go on forever.  I never saw so many bananas in one place.

These plates are made from leaves, and are disposed of after the meal and completely organic.

We were pretty hot by now and Savan suggested ice cream at the best place in Mangalore – Ideal Ice Cream Parlor.

We all had two scoops of delicious ice cream and treated Savan too,  and the bill for all 5 of us  came to $6.50 US.

Note their sign with the small sign underneath it that says “have you checked your weight?”  Seems strange for an ice cream parlor.  But it didn’t stop us.

Afterwards we went to a flower market where men and women were making beautiful garlands of flowers.

Tom bought Alice and me each one of these garlands.  The aroma of the jasmine is beautiful.

Dessert was before lunch, and our lunch was at the Coral restaurant at the Ocean Pearl Hotel.

Our last adventure was to the Artisan Village where we saw many demonstrations of the traditional arts and crafts in Mangalore history.  We was the pottery, rice pounding, stone carving, blacksmithing, weaving and cane furniture.

We also toured a traditional house from historic Mangalore.

Before we left we saw this man’s shirt and he allowed us to take a picture – but just of the shirt!

And, this is the trash bin in the terminal!

Hot and tiring day but another good one.  Lots of contact with the local people.  Savan ended the tour by asking each one of us what we liked the best.  The people and the work at the temple were highlights for sure.  And the ice cream.

May 6, 2019

The last two nights were the Oceania Club returning guest cocktail parties.  As Diamond members we get invited to both, and they need two because they still have over 450 returning guests!  Pretty amazing.  Here are a couple of pictures from the party. How do you like our cruise director, Ray’s jacket?  He has them custom made in Shanghai!

Our first port in India is Cochin.  We have been here twice before but our friends Alice and Tom have never visited India. Alice arranged tours in all four ports and this was the first one.

If you are interested in what we did the other two times, feel free to use the search bar on the blog site and just fill in “Cochin” and the other posts will come up.

This time there were a few repeats for us but still always interesting.

The pollution was not as bad here as in other parts of India, and it was not as crowded.  But the driving was still crazy.

Our guide was Joseph and our driver was Sadish.

Cochin is in the state of Kerala, one of 29 states in India.  It has 1.8% of the land and 35 million people.  2 million of the residents work outside of India, primarily in the Arab countries, and they support the state by the money they send back.

Over 95% of the people here are educated.  Hindi is the official language but almost everyone speaks English and their language which is Malayali.  Most people do not even know Hindi!

Religions co-exist nicely here.  56% of the country is Hindu, 26% Muslim and 19% Christian.

Smoking is illegal, guns are extremely hard to get and the population in general is quite liberal.

Joseph says that most people here do eat beef in spite of being Hindu and that 97% of the people are not vegetarians.

We saw some shops that said “government approved” and when we asked what that meant, Joseph said “it doesn’t mean anything!”

Cars drive on the left side of the road here, with the steering wheel in cars on the right.  In Myanmar, we noticed that they drive on the right but the steering wheel on our vehicle there was on the right too!  They said they have just changed the side of the road they drive on, but the old cars still have the steering wheel on the right.  It must be difficult, but all the drivers there and here are amazingly good.

They have the only solar powered airport in the world here.

Our first stop today was St. Francis Church.  It was originally constructed in 1503 and is the oldest church built by Europeans in India.  There are many colonial buildings in the Fort Kochi area of town as they were ruled by the Portuguese, the Dutch and the English before getting their independence in 1947.  The Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama who discovered the first sea trade route between Europe and India – fell ill and died.  He was buried in the church but his remains were later taken to Portugal.

There are only windows on one side of the church because the monsoon winds come from the other side. And there are these unique cloth fans called punkahas that are operated by pulling ropes. And the ceiling is made to look like the inside of a boat.

Next we went to Fort Kochi beach and Vasco de Gama Square where there are a lot of vendors and many of the Chinese fishing nets which are the only ones of their kind in India.  It is believed that traders from the court of the Chinese ruler Kublai Khan introduced the nets to this region.

It is so interesting to see the men pull the stone weights to lift the nets out of the water. Here are also some of the fish they catch and some of the birds who are also waiting for the catch!

We moved on to Jew Town, which is really the name of the area where many Jewish people used to live. Now there are only 6 Jewish people left but the town still keeps the synagogue operating.  It is called the Paradesi Synagogue and it was built in 1568.  We couldn’t take pictures inside.  The features are reflective of the many cultures that once flourished here.  There are hand painted Chinese tiles on the floor, 1100 of them, and no two are alike.  There are Belgian chandeliers and copper plates that date back to the 14th century.

Our executive chef, Mario, comes to Cochin and Mumbai to buy spices which he says are the best in the world.

We browsed in the shops and saw Sarah, the oldest Jewish resident at 97 years old!

A 1 hour and 45 minute trip brought us to our last adventure of the day, a houseboat trip on Vembanab Lake with lunch.

The houseboat has 3 bedrooms for people taking a vacation and there was sort of a back porch type of area where we had comfortable chairs and a table set for lunch.

What a lovely trip it was!  Gretchen and Jane, I thought of you as there were two boats right next to each other with a piece of wood for people to cross into the one that was next to ours!

The breeze was refreshing, Tom got to steer the boat, and we had a great lunch.  Joseph explained that they eat with their hands, which he did, but we all chose to use forks!

There are many kinds of boats and houseboats here and lots of homes that often get flooded in the rainy season.  And even a Rotary Club and a church. Adjoining the lake, there are rice fields.  Most of them were water covered right now, but some had rice coming up.

We made it back to the ship with time to spare before our 6 PM departure to Mangalore. 

A wonderful day exploring Cochin.

May 1, 2019

Today we started out at 8:45 AM.  Jack and Saul were waiting for us in the air conditioned (thank goodness) van that was so comfortable yesterday. Jack speaks English quite well but says he cannot read it.  He learns more from watching TV and YouTube and from the guests that he guides around his country.

Today is Alice’s birthday and we intend to have a simply fabulous day.  It is also a holiday here in Myanmar, so the traffic is not as bad as it was yesterday.

We were interested in watching the people on the highways and in the streets selling flowers and food items such as mango.  All Buddhists here have at least one Buddha image in their cars and in their homes and the flowers you see the vendors selling are often hung from the rear view mirrors in the cars and taxis.

Our first visit today was to the Kalaywa monastery. There are both teaching and meditation monasteries here in Myanmar.  Boys as young as 8 become novices and all boys must be in a monastery for a period of time.  This monastery was in very poor condition. There was a lot of trash around and the walls were often full of holes.

The meals that the monks eat are all from what they gather when they go out to the village from house to house, so if it is very little, that is all they get to eat.  You don’t see any fat monks for sure.

Here are some of the monks and pictures of the monastery.

There is a museum like area in the monastery and we walked through that – here the images are beautiful.

This is the area where they eat.  It was soon to be lunch time for them (11 AM) and here are some of the pots with what they have been given to eat.  You can see that one pot contains only rice.

We asked Jack about donating to them, you can donate food, etc, but we chose to give money.  We had a variety of different bills in their currency, and as they moved through the line to go to lunch, we handed bills to the novice monks.

Here are some of them at their water stations.

Next, we had a really fascinating experience.  We rode the circular train from Insein to Yangon.  This is about half of the entire circular route.  The whole circle takes about 3 hours, so we were on the train for 1.5 hours.  Our ticket cost was 20 cents US! Even waiting at the train station was an adventure.  The many vendors, people eating their lunch and just generally relaxing was fun to observe.

Kissing is prohibited in public here.  Jack says that when you see a couple under an umbrella, they are “discussing the future”, which is code for kissing, etc.!

And you see that no one is supposed to throw trash off the train but we saw many people doing that.

Once on the train, again, many people are having lunch and there are all kinds of vendors selling food, glasses, books and many other items.  The food vendors were especially interesting.  They had fried tofu and made sort of a sandwich with it, they made to order salads, and even the vendors with the betel nut/leaf stuff were there.

Here are some of the people on the train.

Wonder if this man knew what his shirt said?  San Diego girl scouts!

Some of the sights from the train. Lots of poverty here. And, the people are lovely.

After our train ride, we went to the Shan Yoe Yar restaurant for lunch. On the way, Tom and Alice saw on their accuweather app that it would rain around 2.  Jack was so intrigued by the app that he took his iPhone out so that Tom could install it for him.  It didn’t have Burmese language though so he couldn’t read the American days of the week.  He said he would have to learn that. But he did know the expression “raining cats and dogs”!

Sure enough, while in the restaurant, we had quite the rain storm.  Jack got us the fried tofu that we saw on the train, and advised us not to eat it with the sauce which is very spicy.  Here the food is safe and some is spicy but not all.  This restaurant is known for the food from the Shan State of Myanmar.

The waitress is wearing the traditional dress of the Shan State.

This mom and daughter live in this area but are originally from Japan.  Both spoke English. Tom likes to bring $2 bills to give out to people because the bills are so unusual to them.  This little girl was thrilled with it.

After lunch, it was still a bit rainy so we decided to save the park for later and go to see the reclining Buddha at Chank Htat Kyi.  The reclining Buddha stands three stories high.

There are all kinds of rules at each of the pagodas.

I think this is a rather rude bird.

The Buddha footprint is interesting.

Cats everywhere.

There was a beautiful mural of the life of the Buddha.  By now we know the story but this was laid out with good explanations and Jack also told us the story.

After this visit, it had stopped raining so we went on to the Kandawgyi park that borders the lake of the same name. What a beautiful spot!  There was a couple “discussing the future!”

Notice the no sex rule!

This is Karaweik  Royal Barge  This image is the logo for Myanmar beer too.

After a walk through the park, we went to the Royal Barge for dinner and a cultural show.  First we shopped in the adjoining shop where things were so inexpensive.  I bought a necklace for 8500 which was about $5.60 US.

On the way in to the show there were people preparing traditional appetizers which were all very good.

The greeters at the door.

And the traditional music inside.

We wanted to use the rest room to wash our hands but Jack said they weren’t ready yet and to sit back down until he let us know.  And he said this with a straight face.  It turned out that Tom had arranged for the musical group to play happy birthday for Alice and had a cake delivered.

Jack gave Alice a Buddhist prayer flag. And she shared the cake with the band and with 4 fellow passengers who were at a nearby table as well as with Jack and Saul.

The dinner was a buffet and the show went on all during dinner.  The Myanmar dancing is essentially postures in movement of the feet, hip, head and hands.  It is said that there are about 2000 ways of dancing in the performance.  They stem from 13 movements of the head, 28 kinds of expressions with the eyes, nine movements of the neck, 24 movements of the single hands, 24 movements of combined hands, 38 kinds of movement, 5 acrobatic figures, 8 ways of turning the body and 10 styles of walking!  No wonder it takes years to learn.  And the costumes were amazing.

The elephant was quite amazing.

After  the show, we were tired but quite happy with our two days here.  Tomorrow the ship leaves port at 11 and we are not planning to go out before that.

We said “mingalaba” (means hello, goodbye and best wishes) to Jack and Saul and returned to the ship just in time to see the last show by Michelle Montauri, which was as great as the first one.