Pat and Norm's World Cruises and other adventures

Cruising the Andaman Sea enroute to Phuket, Thailand

Posted on October 7, 2015 by patmathews

October 6

We have two New Zealand sisters on board – Amy and Liza Cronhelm – who are the designers of a jewelry company called Wild Jewels. Their handcrafted jewelry features sterling silver, paua shell, Mother of Pearl, gemstones and fresh water pearls.

As part of their personal philosophy of giving back, Wild Jewels helps support the Michael Cronhelm Foundation Trust, formed to honor their brother Michael who died at 33. He did a lot of work in Africa, and the foundation supports children and education in Northern Kenya.

They did a slide show of their compelling story. To learn more about the foundation, here is the website:

http://www.michaelcronhelmfoundation.org

I did buy two pieces of jewelry. Here are the pictures and here is the Wild Jewels website. If you are interested in jewelry (and who among my friends isn’t?!) and want to support a great cause, check it out.

http://www.wildjewels.net

Pink freshwater pearl bracelet, it stretches

Bracelet on the paua shell side

Bracelet on the mother of pearl side

And here is our “around the world in 180 days” shirt.

As of yesterday, we started the second half of the cruise. I cannot believe that three months has gone so fast, and lots of adventures still to come.

Posted in Asia, At Sea, October, World Cruise 1 | Leave a comment

Temples of Bagan, Myanmar

Posted on October 6, 2015 by patmathews

October 4 and 5

After our tour of the Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon (which by the way has a gold stupa that is visable from all over town and is said to be topped with more than 6500 diamonds, rubies and other precious stones with a 76 carat diamond crowning the top), we headed for the airport and arrived in Bagan in time to see the sunset from the “Sunset Pagoda”. It was a beautiful panorama, but the sunset was obscured by clouds.

At the sunset temple before it got dark!

I love taking pictures of the adorable children!

Entry to the sunset pagoda – most here are made of brick

More people who love to have their picture taken!

A golden temple by night, this is the Shwezigone Pagoda, said to be the prototype of many later Myanmar pagodas. We will also see it by day. Shwe means gold, so any temple with that part in its name will be in gold

Bagan is known as one of the richest archeological sites in Asia. Today there are over 2000 pagodas, temples and monasteries that remain (about half have been destroyed). They were built during the Bagan Dynasty in the 11th and 12th century.

After seeing the enormity of the area, we went to our hotel, Bagan Lodge, for dinner and to spend the night. What a beautiful place! In some ways it reminded us of our luxurious tents in Africa, although it was not a tent.

Our dinner was around the beautiful pool and was a Myanmar delight. Rice, of course, noodles and a variety of dishes all served buffet style.

Just after you enter the lobby of the hotel, you look out at this pool and the restaurant on the left

We saw these 4 hot air balloons as we went to breakfast.

He entertained us at breakfast

And, after a wonderful shower and restful night, we had breakfast – again very traditional – here is a photo of it.

Breakfast Myanmar style. The noodle soup was fabulous, as was everything else.

Our servers

Norm with an elephant by the pool

And here are some of the areas in the hotel by day. Each building holds two suites.

We visited the Shwezigone Pagoda in the morning. Equally impressive by day, you see the gilded zedi that dominates the small town of Nyaung-U. It has 4 shrines at the cardinal points, each housing a 13 foot high bronze standing Buddha, the largest surviving examples in Bagan. Phinda told us how to tell the authentic Buddhas from the replicas, it has to do with the style of the hair, the length of the ears, the shape of the nose the curve of the hips and the transparency of the cape! Interesting.

One of the things that really made us laugh all through the trip was the local vendors, selling clothing, postcards, paintings, etc. They met us at the first pagoda and tried hard to sell us things. Wnen you said no, they said “maybe later, what’s your name?” So you told them and said “maybe later”. Little did we know that they have motorcycles and cell phones, and they followed us to every single stop, on both days!!! Now that is entrepreunerism at its best! Of course we all contributed to the local economy. In fact, I coined a new meaning for the words “window shopping” because they came all around the bus and people ended up buying stuff through the bus windows.

The horse carts and some of the local vendors waiting for us

window shopping!

Packed up and ready to meet us at our next stop!

Here she is again!

We had a horse cart ride through the temple area and our driver would stop anywhere we wanted to take pictures. Each cart was for two people and the one hour ride was wonderful. I have so many temple pictures I can’t believe it! He also drove us through his village and we got to see his granddaughter. Very special indeed.

Our driver’s granddaughter

His home in the village

Us with our driver

One of the four remaining main temples in Bagan is the Ananda Temple. It is also known as the finest. largest, best preserved and most revered of the Bagan temples.

We then went to a local restaurant for lunch. Much like breakfast with rice, noodles and a variety of Myanmar specialties.

We had a visit to a local market, and enjoyed the many signts and sounds there. I wouldn’t want to buy any of the chicken or fish, though, as the flies were all over it. The vendors even followed us to the market and chastized us if we even thought of buying something from someone else. “You KNOW me, why you buy from them?”

Then we visited the Dhammayangyi and the Sulamani Temple. The Sulamani temple offers some of the finest ornamental work and is in fairly good condition. After the 1975 earthquake which destroyed many temples, it was restored in 1994 utilizing brick and stone with frescoes in the interior.

You must take youir shoes off in all temples because there needs to be 5 points of your body touching the floor while praying, two hands, two feet and forehead. They believe that taking your shoes off keeps it cleaner for that, but so many of the floors were red sandstone that I am not sure it matters. Our bus attendant always gave us wet wipes to clean our feet before putting shoes back on.

Some of the frescoes

Is there a resemblance to the ogre?

Painted Buddha, another style

A visit to a lacquer-ware factory – Bagan is famous for their lacquer-ware – was very educational. I had no idea of the number of steps and time involved in making the real lacquer-ware and the degree of artistry it takes to do it well. We bought several bowls, and while I was taking a picture of one of the artists (who was working freehand), he asked me for my phone and drew this elephant figure on the case. Of course I gave him a tip.

Phida explaining the process

My cell phone case! Now one of a kind

Before going to the airport, we had one last climb on very steep steps to view many of the thousands of pagodas- it was amazing and again, photos do not do it justice.

Being in these countries is eye opening and makes me realize that while I may think nothing of spending $4 on a cup of coffee, $4 to them is a lot of money. I bought some souvenirs in part to support the people.

Another adorable child

Photo ops with thiese young students

After a 1 hour 15 minute flight (we were almost the only people on the flight), our buses were waiting with a snack box from a French restaurant in Yangon – a baguette sandwich and a big cookie. We needed it because there was no police escort on the way back to the ship and it was pouring. The traffic was terrible and it took almost 3 hours to make the trip from airport to ship. Pinda had small lacquer-ware boxes for each of us. She was a terrific guide, and said a sad goodbye as we reached the pier.

Sunset from the plane

Another plate of sandwiches and cookies was waiting in our room – that’s the kind of service you get from Oceania (of course it was wasted as we weren’t hungry at all).

A wonderful, inspiring and always educational trip to Myanmar – we want to return! We also had a lot of fun with the people on “yellow bus”. Nancy from destination services was with us and she has the most delightful blonde curly hair. The locals all wanted pictures of her. She also did a lot of “retail therapy” with the local vendors.

Fishing boat seen before leaving Myanmar at 8:30 AM on 10/7. This is a clearer picture, but no pigs. We enjoyed the fresh fish that night. The cruise line contracts with some of these fishermen. Hope no flies sit on those!

Posted in Asia, Excursions, Food, October, World Cruise 1 | 3 Comments

Yangon, Myanmar

Posted on October 6, 2015 by patmathews

October 4

What an amazing couple of days in Myanmar. This country is culturally rich and has been cursed for decades with a brutally oppressive regime. It is making tentative steps toward democracy and the 15 year tourism boycott has ended. Myanmar has only been open to tourism since 2011. Tourist numbers have grown but the infrastructure is still inadequate to accomodate them. Most memorable about the trip are the people eager to introduce their country to us.

We planned an overnight excursion to Bagan and we started the day by having breakfast in the terrace cafe on the ship. We sailed into the harbor on a 38 mile long river that has quite a current. We saw these small fishing boats off to the side of the ship. Some had entire families and pigs and goats, melons and coconuts on them and others were fishing with huge nets dragging behind the boats.

After breakfast we left the ship with a small cooler that was packed with food and provided to us so that we could have our lunch on the trip from Yangon port to the airport.

But first we visited the wonderful temple or pagoda- Swedagon – said to be the holiest in Myanmar. Pagoda is the word for all religious buildings. Phida is our guide, she explained that phida means water, and she taught us to say minglebaga which means good morning or good day.

This pagoda is really spectacular, and there are too many statues, etc, to count.One of the interesting and different things we learned is the significance of the day of the week you were born. There are shrines representing each day of the week that had significance in the life of the Buddha and people go to their own area to pour water over the Buddha image that relates to the day of their birth and they provide offerings or make specific wishes for good luck. Wedenesday is the day that the Buddha went to the forest to meditate and is considered his lucky day. So there are two images for Wednesday, morning and evening.

Bringing offerings

Making wishes

I was born on a Wednesday morning, so here I am making my offering and my wishes.

Norm was born on a Tuesday so here he is making his offering and wishes. You can see that the Buddha statues are surrounded by flowers that are often brought as offerings.

Other photos are of the stupa and some of the beautiful and jewel encrusted statues.

The temples have 4 entrances which represent the 4 Buddhas. And, they have the ever present ATM machines!

They keep the place clean.

Yes, we take pictures of ATM machines!

On our way to the airport which is quite a drive from Yangon port – especially with the traffic, Phida told us a lot about Myanmar. We had a police escort to the airport, so that did make it a little faster. Bystanders probably wondered who was in those buses!

Here’s some of the traffic!

They do believe in reincarnation here and believe that by doing good deeds in this life, the next will be better – good Karma. She said that ladies pray to be a man in their next life. Not sure I can hold with that one!

Myanmar has 60 million people and 90% are Buddhist. Only 5 countries in the world practice Theravada Buddhism which is the one that is religious. Education is free here. 67% of people are farmers and they have 5-10 children, to help with the work. In the capital, the maximum number of children is 3. They grow a lot of rice, which they have at every meal. Fish is an important export for them too. They have teak forests and export that and have rubies, sapphires and jade.

They are mostly vegetarian, so pork and beef are very inexpensive here. Even if they are not vegetarian, most people practice that once a week.

The longyi is the traditional dress for both men and women although they wear them differently, men tie them in the front, and can pull them up into a kind of shorts in the hot weather or when playing sports. Women tie them on the side. In the school system everyone wears uniforms, even the teachers. The longyi is traditional after age 10.

Here are some photos of people in longyis, and of the Bo or Bodhi tree, sacred to Buddhists as I mentioned before. The one in Sri Lanka is said to be from a cutting of the original tree.

Umbrella to shiield from the sun

More umbrellas and traditional longyi dress

Hmmm, foreigners and children? We were not allowed up!

Although they were not smiling, they happily agreed to pose for a picture. They were touring from India.

The “makeup” on the girl in orange is called Thanaka and is made from wood. You see most of the women wearing it as sun protection, You will see boys under 10 with it too, if they have it on after age 10, it is a sign of being gay.

The first election was held in 2010 and there are 2 main parties represented by the lion and the peacock. Up until 3 years ago, no new cars were allowed to be imported here, so people bought good used cars (mostly Toyotas) and they cost around $35,000. Now they import cars so costs are going down.

At the airport, we were so surprised at the difference in the security from the rigor of India. We were checked in by our guide, no one asked for any ID and there was just the usual luggage screening. It was a 1 hour 15 minute flight and we got drinks and a small tray with a sandwich, a pastry and a cake. Later the crew handed out small hard candies. Not like American airline flights!

I will cover Bagan in the next post – it deserves its own!

Posted in Asia, Excursions, October, World Cruise 1 | 1 Comment

Cruising the Andaman Sea (enroute to Rangoon, Burma)

Posted on October 2, 2015 by patmathews

October 3

This is the third sea day on the way to Myanmar (Burma). We saled the Bay of Bengal for two days and are now in the Andaman Sea. The Bay of Bengal is the largest bay in the world and it abounds with coral reefs, tropical dolphins and sharks. There was a recent finding of 6000 rare Irrawaddi dolphins here. We didn’t see any yet. Our sea days are very relaxing and we are now ready to leave tomorrow to tour Rangoon (Yangon) – this variety of names is very confusing sometimes – and then fly to Bagan for an overnight sightseeing trip of the many temples there. There are about 91 people going on that excursion.

We got a notice that the internet will be erratic due to some types of interference in this area and for sure that has been true. It cuts out all the time when you are lucky enough to get on. So I hope to get this posted!

We were warned that there is a big surcharge to use credit cards here and that dollars are accepted. Also that Yangon has very heavy traffic – “traffic laws are routinely ignored and driving can be hazardous” so renting a car is not recommended. As if we would even THINK of doing that!

Today we have a special trivia session for ATW (that means Around the World) travelers and we will get our special shirts that say Around the World in 180 days. I will take a picture for the next blog.

I am continuing with the bridge lessons but I am sad to say that Norm has quit again. He says it is too much work for a vacation. But I have met many fun people to play with on board, although some are only on for segments of the trip and then I meet new ones. The artist in residence from the first segment, Pat Grillo, is back on. We had dinner with she and Angelo a couple of nights ago – fun! And we met someone who was originally from Shippensburg. Small world for sure. I am continuing doing some art classes, and right now there is a lecturer on board, John Freedman, who is doing lectures on Buddhism and the temples of Myanmar. He is also doing one on the seven wonders of the world. He is a retired physician and very knowledgeable, enjoying him.

We have had a couple of great shows in a row, too. Ashley Carruthers, who is in the Guiness Book of Records as the world’s fastest pianist. He is amazing. The other group is called the Boys in the Band and they are doing everything from Jersey Boys to Queen. Both are Australian. It’s fun on a small ship because you get to meet them around the ship and get to know them a bit. Generally each performer or group stays on and does two different shows a day or two apart.

Last evening we had dinner with a couple from Australia that we dined with before and had fun deciding where we will go when we return to Australia on another trip. And in the vein of small world, we also met two sisters who were on the Nautica with us when we traveled on the wine trip in 2008 – we didn’t meet them then, but they were saying that they were wishing they were part of the wine group.

Did I mention the many monkeys around the Taj Mahal? They are climbing on the walls, etc.

One of our favorite waiters, Than, is from Myanmar and he will leave for his vacation when we reach there. He is SO excited to see his family including his two daughters, 3 and 5 years old. He was beaming when he served us last night.

We are still on that strange 30 min time adjustment and that will change before we reach Thailand, after Myanmar. So now we are 10 1/2 hours ahead of our time at home in Philadelphia.

We did weigh ourselves this morning and Norm is just slightly up and I am maintaining the loss. Pretty good at almost the half way point of the trip!

We are watching the hurricane at home and now it looks like it will veer to the northwest and miss the NJ shore. We hope so!

Anyway, on to Burma (Myanmar) and lots of adventures to come.

Posted in At Sea, October, World Cruise 1 | 1 Comment

Colombo, Sri Lanka

Posted on October 1, 2015 by patmathews

September 30

Sri Lanka is another place we never visited and never imagined visiting! We took a full day tour in Colombo, the capital city. It is formerly called Ceylon – from the time of British rule – and you probably recognize that Ceylon tea is a major export, as are spices of all kinds.

Shanaka is our guide and he talked first of the variety of religions represented here. It is mostly a Buddhist country, and the four corners of the flag represent the Buddhist values of compassion, kindness, happiness and equanimity. He is a Catholic and he said that the country respects and honors people of all religions, and that, although he is Catholic, he believes in reincarnation. We had two practicing Buddhists on the tour – they are traveling on our cruise – and they could add a couple of things but were very impressed with his knowledge.

We visited the Kelaniya Temple, a religious center that the Buddhists hold especially hallowed because Buddha is said to have visited here. The three things that are needed to be a Buddhist temple are the stupa (the dome), the bo tree (a tree that is part of the ficus family that is held to be a holy tree) and an image house. Inside the temple image house there was exquisite artwork depicting the history of Sri Lanka. Photos of that artwork were not allowed but you can look up images on the internet. Amazing, every inch was covered.

Amazing carvings around the temple

The stupa

A view of a Buddha statue showing the carvings

People bring offerings of water to put on the sacred tree, and lotus flowers which are sold at booths outside the temple

People praying and reading

The reclining Buddha (under repair) with some of the lotus flower offerings

The railing on the steps – an elephant carving

It did make me a bit squeemish to take my shoes off – as was required, because the the temple is big and a lot of it is outside where stray dogs roam. They keep it pretty clean, but I did scrub my feet and shoes when we came back to the ship!

This is the end of one of their monsoon seasons also, and it is the first time we encountered any rain. And did we have rain! It came down in buckets and really impacted the traffic. This is also a city of contrasts – some slums and run down buildings, but also the beautiful residential district of Cinnamon Gardens.

Nevertheless, we perservered and went on to visit the National Museum where the collection of art objects and antiques beautifully expresses the island’s culture. Again, no pictures were allowed inside. You could buy a special permit to take photos or videos.

Taken from the bus – you can see the raindrops on the window!

We had a traditional Sri Lankan lunch at the Taj hotel, which was beautiful! The name of the restaurant was “On Golden Pond”!

We passed a playground with this elephant slide… looked like so much fun, I had to have a picture.

After lunch, we visited a Hindu temple. I think all of the 300,000 gods they believe in are represented here! Hinduism is not the major religion, as I mentioned, but it was introduced during the reign of the Tamil kings in the second century BC and is the second most popular religion here.

We ended the day with some shopping. They are known for gemstones, but I wasn’t in the market for them, so I just bought a few small souvenirs. I do have a small collection of magnets that are useful on the metal walls of our cabin, so I added an elephant one to my collection.

One of the colonial buildings. This is a supermarket now.

The tuk tuks can be terrifying in traffic. They are privately owned and have decorations on the back. We saw a Bob Marley one but I couldn’t catch a photo, he was going too fast!

Posted in Asia, Excursions, Food, September, World Cruise 1 | 2 Comments

Cochin, India

Posted on September 30, 2015 by patmathews

September 28

Well, internet access has been very bad for the past few days so I am now posting about our last port in India, Cochin.

Cochin is a city built on islands, some manmade. There are 24 islands and 5 are connected by bridges. It was originally settled and built by the Portuguese.

Our guide was Cleetus. He explained that spices are the main export here, especially pepper, which grows on vines that survive on other trees. In fact, Cochin is called the land of spices Hard to see but the small green “berries” are pepper.

Monsoon season is coming to an end here, but there hasn’t been much rain, they attribute this to global warming. Normally they get 12 feet of rain a year.

We didn’t see any cows in the street, so someone asked Cleetus where the cows are, and he replied in a quizzical manner “in the cow shed!” No animals are holy here. They have water buffalos here and the ice cream is supposed to be the best! We didn’t have time to try it.

Cochin has 1.5 million people and half are Christian, mostly Catholic due to the Portuguese influence.

There is a high literacy rate here – 94%, and the lowest birth rate in India – 2 children. Many people work outside India and Clettus’s father is one of them. He works in Dubai and comes home only once a year,

People own the trucks here and they are colorful and often “named”. Here’s an example:

We went to the St. Francis church, the oldest European church in India and noted the cemetery with its plain white crosses. Vasco de Gama is buried here.

This is VERY different from what we heard about the Parsis, who have revived the Tower of Silence in old Bombay where the dead are taken and the birds (mostly vultures) eat their bodies.

We visited the Indo-Portuguese Museum and the Bishop’s House which had wonderful examples of the art and architecture of the region.

Our last stop was “Jew Town” which was once a thriving Jewish enclave in the late 1500s. Now there are 4 families with 6 Jewish people here, but the name of the region persists. We shopped in the markets here, wonderful for spices, and yes, these ladies wanted a picture of me with them, and then wanted me to take their picture.

We drove along the water’s edge and saw the first visual symbol of ancient trace and the shared inluence of Cochin, the Chinese fishing nets. These fixed and cantilevered fishing nets are the icon of Cochin sea trade and cannot be found anywhere else in India. it is said that Chinese traders brought these huge fishing nets to Cochin from the court of Kublai Khan. All kinds of fish and other items for sale here. Note the water buffalos and the goat near the fishing nets!

Posted in Asia, Excursions, September, World Cruise 1 | Leave a comment

Agra and the Taj Mahal

Posted on September 28, 2015 by patmathews

September 25, 26 and 27

We left the ship in Mumbai at 6:30 AM for our flight to Delhi. Security is very tight. You go through a scanner before you even enter the airport, show your documents to two separate people, then men and women go in different lines where EVERYONE is patted down, the women in a curtained area. We started wondering if all of the people that seem to be needed for all this is to keep people employed.

Our guide is Sunil Gupta and he is a wealth of information. 87 people came on this trip, and there were four buses, so there was lots of room to spread out. We heard some of the info in Mumbai, but some other information:

India is the largest democracy in the world. It is a secular country with 4 major religions,and 76% of the population is Hindu. There are, however, 300,000 mosques in India. There ae 23 official languages but over 300 languages are actually spoken here.

Average income in India is 1600-1800 American dollars a year.

Castes are officially no longer recognized but unofficially some still believe in that system. There is “reservation” system for the former untouchables to get educations, sort of like what we know as affirmative action but many don’t believe in it because many who get into medical school, etc, are not able to do the work and don’t complete.

We enjoyed the drive through Delhi and the countryside, so very different from Mumbai – lots of green spaces and they have built an expressway from Delhi to Agra, so we were on it a lot of the way. Initially we were scheduled to fly into Agra, but that flight was cancelled a while ago, so we went by bus from Delhi.

We arrived at the ITC Mughal hotel just after 6:15, checked in and had time to freshen up before our 7 PM dinner.

The hotel is beautiful! We had a wonderful dinner with entertainment – Classical Kathak Dance performance, which is the fusion of Hindu and Muslim cultures during the Mughal era, and is characterized by rhythmic footwork, spectacular spins, mime and gestures that dramatically trpresent themes from Persian poetry and Hindu mythology. . Then went to bed pretty soon after as we leave the hotel at 5:15 in the morning to see the Taj Mahal at sunrise.

Hotel lobby

Part of the hotel gardens

We arrived at the Taj Mahal in time for sunrise. They start letting people in at 6:05, and we were among the first. Again, much security and you could really only take a camera and water with you.

The first sight was just spectacular!

What we never realized is that the marble structure you see in all the photos is just a part of the Taj Mahal complex. It is, of course, a mauseleum, not a temple, There is a red sandstone enclosure, a mosque and a “fake mosque” that matches the other one, never used but everything has to be symmetrical! It was commissioned in 1632 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan to house the tomb of his favorite wife of three, Mumtaz MahalIt. You get to view the replicas of the tombs but not the real ones anymore – since the terrorist attacks in India, many things are restricted.

The entrance to the Taj Mahal

Sun coming up behind the Taj

Sunrise behind the Taj reflected in my sunglasses! There are people who direct you to the places for the best shots (they want a tip, of course!)

Lovely gardens and handsome husband.

It was worth getting up early!

Not too crowded

From the Taj looking back toward the entrance

After the visit which was everything we anticipated and more, we returned to the hotel for breakfast, then went to the Agra Fort, which is behind the Taj and is a UNESCO world heritage site. It really was a city within a city back in the day but now it is mostly used as housing for the army. We can only visit the non military parts. It is made of red sandstone, the same as the walls surrounding the Taj Mahal.

At the end of his life, Shah Jahan (who built the Taj Mahal) was deposed and restrained by his son, Aurangzeb, in the fort. It is rumored that Shah Jahan died in Muasamman Burj, a tower with a marble balcony with a view of the Taj Mahal. We did get to see the room he was imprisoned in. His son also killed his three brothers because he wanted to be the ruler. Sounds like a lovely guy.

We returned to the hotel for lunch and to check out, then headed back to Delhi for our flight to Mangalore in the morning. They had an astrologer outside of the ballroom who was amazingly accurate in telling me about my life and what may be ahead (not sure if that part will be accurate, but if it is, that’s good!) Fun, anyway.

Agrra has 4 million people and I think we saw most of them on our trip out of town. Here there are cows, donkeys, goats, dogs, camels, and yes, even an elephant (Sunil said it was a “personal elephant” belonging to someone.) They are in the streets competing with the motorccycles, trucks, bicycles, cars, tuk-tuks, etc – and it is an impossibly hectic atmosphere. The cows can lie down in the middle of the road and because they are sacred here, no one can move them. They do this because the exhaust from the cars keeps the flies off of them!

We stopped at this rest stop ( they were making fruit drinks) and to follow up on the employement comment – the rest rooms have no toilet paper in them, there is a woman who hands you some as you enter ( for a tip of course!)

The hotel in Delhi was one of the most spectacular we have seen anywhere – it is part of the Oberoi group of hotels. You can see by the kind of shops they have there what kind of a hotel it is! We were greeted with mango juice and these leis of real flowers. Dinner was delicious again, and an early night as we need to have breakfast at 4:45.Flight back from Delhi stopped in Mumbai before going to Mangalore where we had a guide on our way back to the ship.

In Mangalore, there are many religions, 5 million population but it is very green and quite pretty. They are the largest exporter of cashews. Many religions are represented here, but they were influenced by the Jesuits early – and the educational system is largely Jesuit. There are 258 churches here.

Many lovely beaches draw people to Mangalore.

OK, enough for now – I will post about Cochin (where we toured today) in tomorrow’s blog post.

Posted in Asia, Excursions, September, World Cruise 1 | Leave a comment

Pictures from Mumbai

Posted on September 28, 2015 by patmathews

September 24

Here are some of the pictures from Mumbai that should have accompanied my last post.

Mumbai has over 22 million people, some say 23.7, and census is not very good here. The estimate is that about half are homeless. There are lots of very crowded slums, yet it is the world’s second most expensive city after London.

People are very superstitious here and believe in many gods. Shiva is the main one for Hindus. They also believe in reincarnation.

Bollywood is a combo of Bombay and Hollywood. They make about 800 movies a year – we have a man here who does work in Hollywood and he says they make about 15 there!

This is the cow I wrote about where one woman leases it to another, she sells the hay to feed it and the cow gets fed!

This is the statue of Ganesh, son of Shiva, with the elephant head at the Babulnath temple.

The top of the Babulnath temple

A woman bringing flowers as an offering at the temple

Victoria station – 3.5 million people use it every day. This is where the final dance scene in Slumdog Millionaire was filmed during the hours of 1 – 4 AM when there are no trains running.

There are no doors on the trains and 3 – 4000 people fall out every year.

At the home of James Ferreira in the original settlement of Khotachiwadi

Learning how to tie a sari

The finished effect!

Street scenes – sometimes there are up to five on a motorcycle and the women ride side saddle! Crazy traffic, I don’t know how they do it

A mix of religions here and you see all kinds of dress.

You do see a lot of people sitting around. The bureaucracy is crazy – many security checks, scanners that don’t do any good, they go off and no one pays attention, and then 3 or 4 people check the same documentation.

Gateway of India

Taj Mahal hotel opposite Gateway of India

The dabbawallahs of Bombay and their lunch boxes at the Churchgate Railway station ready to board the train to make their deliveries

This is like no laundry you have ever seen. They use a hard stone like soap and basically beat the clothes clean.

Here’s how they beat them.

And here’s how they hang them up.

They dry the jeans and pants here!

Welcoming us to the Khyber restaurant

Lunch at the Khyber restaurant – delicious!

Our guide, Sanil Gupta

She keeps the museum grounds clean

They love having their pictures taken and wanted me to pose with them too!

More posing for pictures

At the Crawford Market – everything from fruits and vegetables to birds and bunnies!

All in all a wonderful experience in Mumbai – seeing the crowded bustling city and the real diversity of rich and poor, religions, the crazy traffic, etc. Like nowhere we have ever been.

Posted in Asia, Excursions, Food, September, World Cruise 1 | 1 Comment

Mumbai, India

Posted on September 24, 2015 by patmathews

September 24

*** Well, I was unable to upload any photos – and I have soooo many! Stay tuned, will either add them later or do a separate post just with photos. What an interesting and amazing day.

What can you say about Mumbai? It is the most crowded, diverse place we have ever visited! The Mumbai music, as I called it, is the constant beeping of horns as over 35,000 taxis and who knows how many cars, scooters, bicycles, trucks, buses, dogs, goats, cows, etc all try to get to the same place at the same time. And people walk right out into the traffic because that is the only way they get anywhere!

This is the festival time in Mumbai, celebrating the elephant god, Ganesh, and there are celebrations all over the city. Shiva is the main god that they worship, but the story of Ganesh is interesting – I won’t try to write the whole thing here, but it’s interesting to look up and read about. Mumbai has 20 million people and 80% are Hindu but you do see Muslims and some Catholic influence from when the Portuguese ruled the country. There are 51 children born every minute in India. There is still British influence, too, and all signs are in English as well as native language.

Our guide is Yamini and she is terrific. She mentions that more people in Mumbai have cell phones than have toilets! Mumbai is the “new” name for Bombay, named in 1996 by the government to erase any places, roads and features that had connotations of the Raj.It is still pretty unpopular in India, especially the renaming of museums, etc. Yamini says that people can’t even remember the street names, they are so long!

We drive along Marine Drive, build on land reclaimed from the Back Bay and fronting on the Arabian coast. Because of the many street lights, it is called the Queen’s necklace. Our first stop today was the Babulmath temple, one of the original shrines of the city. It is dedicated to the god Shiva. It is very crowded on Mondays because it is said that people who pray there on that day get their prayers answered. No photos could be taken inside. We had to take our shoes off to enter and there were people giving floral offerings and pouring water and milk as offerings.

The cow we saw on the way to the temple has an interesting story. It is owned by a woman who “leases” the cow out to another woman. The second woman makes money by selling people who come to the temple some hay to feed the cow. So as an example of Indian ingenuity, everyone wins. Both women make money and the cow gets to eat!

We then drove through old sections of the city, some looking like slums and then some in art deco style. The city is second only to Miami in the number of art deco buildings.

We had a walk through the Khotachiwadi, an original setttlement of the 19th century. People here are now limited to getting water only 1 hour a day. There is a serious drought and the people who live here are not wealthy enough to buy water, so they fill up big tanks every morning.

We visited the home and studio of James Ferreira, a renowned fashion designer who lives and works in a 150 year old mansion. He is trying to protect the neighborhood from having the old homes torn down to build high rises, and so he invites people into his home. He served us lemonade and a lovely assortment of cookies and tarts. I was asked to be the model for showing how to tie a sari.. here is the result! We also had a forehead dot put on as we entered and we were showered with flower petals.

We went to the Gateway to India and saw this colorful group of women. Curiously, men and women had to go through separate entrances right next to each other and came out together. The other picture is of the Taj Mahal hotel.

We then stopped at the Churchgate Railway Terminus where we saw the Dabbawallahs of Bombay. Each morning, more than 5000 dabbawallahs call on suburban housewives who pack a freshly cooked lunch into small circular aluminum or stainless steel containers – dabbas. Typically each dabawallah collects 30 – 40 boxes, puts them onto poles or more commonly, bicycles, and then transports them in the luggage car of the train to the consumer (businessperson usually). Each day over 200,000 lunches are delivered, and the dabawallahs have never lost a lunch. The service costs only a few rupees a week and is a great example of division of labor in India. The recent film “the Lunchbox” is about this service and I will watch it for sure when I return home.

Yamini asked if we wanted to see the laundry – Bombay is known for lunches and laundry, she said. We were on a tour with only 10 people – we paid extra for it – and it was so worth it, if just to see the laundry. Words really can’t describe it, but here are some pictures of the washing, the drying and the beating of garments with stones. And this wasn’t even the biggest one in Mumbai!

We had a wonderful Indian lunch at the Khyber restaurant – here is the menu – and it was all served to us, one dish at a time by friendly waiters who couldn’t do enough for us.

After the lunch we went to the Albert Museum. It highlights arts and life in 19th century Bombay and was very interesting. There was a display of women’s apparel in a temporary exhibit. The people loved having their picture taken and many wanted to take pictures of me with them!

Our last stop was the Crawford market which was named after the first municipal commissioner, Arthur Crawford. There are mountains of fresh fruits and vegetables as well as a bird market, and many cats, dogs and rabbits for sale.

A very interesting day – one that some people said they wouldn’t want to repeat (in fact one said INDIA stands for “interesting, never do it again”.) I don’t agree with that – it is an experience we will never forget. Now on to other areas of India.

Posted in Asia, Excursions, Food, September, World Cruise 1 | 2 Comments

Cruising the Arabian Sea

Posted on September 22, 2015 by patmathews

September 22

First of all, here are a couple of pictures from the gala dinner at the Emirates Palace Hotel. Inquiring minds wanted to know!

Rodney, Owen, Candice, Norm, Pat and Judith at the Emirates Palace Hotel

Part of our table at dinner

And here are a few from Tom’s 101st birthday party. They served everyone champagne, the cruise director and the general manager made toasts, and then they surprised Tom with 6 of the women from the staff, dressed to the nines – one at a time – to be his dinner companions for the evening, and, as the topper to that, Claudia, the social hostess, came out dressed as Marilyn Monroe and did the “happy birthday” song that was done for JFK, and sat on his lap – and was his surprise 7th dinner companion. Then we all had cake. Oceania made it a special event for him – for sure. And his comment was “this was the best birthday I ever had – and now I can’t wait for 102!”

Claudia as Marilyn at far left!

The beautiful cake and terrific servers

Tom’s “necklace” said 40+60+1

At sea today and enjoying it – the temperature is in the high 80’s which is a cooling trend! We left Fujairah 4 hours late due to “bunkering” – taking on fuel – the tanker was late to arrive. I am sure the captain was not pleased, but today he said that we would make up the time and arrive in Mumbai on time on Thursday.

We have a new lecturer on board from Harvard, Adam Tanner. He is a fellow at Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science. He has spent most of his career as a foreign correspondent for Reuters. We have attended two of the four lectures he will do on this segment of the cruise – on India’s history – Gandhi in the first one and “India since independence” in the second one – both excellent. Tomorrow he will talk about the big export for India – Bollywood – and show film clips, and then one we might miss while we are off the ship – based on his book “What Stays in Vegas: The World of Personal Data – Lifeblood of Big Business – and the End of Privacy as We Know it”. The Washington Post named this book one of the 50 notable non-fiction books of 2014. They do record these lectures, so if it is while we are off, I really want to watch that one.

Continuing with bridge and doing some social playing, having my third hot stone massage today, taking an art class and basically relaxing, reading and enjoying the balcony, walking the deck, lectures and the spa terrace.

This morning, they delivered another gift for the world cruise travelers. We each got a beautiful white Oceania windbreaker jacket which is waterproof, breathable, etc. Very nice.

We’re told to bring a jacket or sweater to Agra when we fly there on Friday, they say the mornings and evenings will be about 50 degrees. What a change. We got all of our documents, etc, for the trip. Wow, is India complicated to visit.

Looking forward to another sea day tomorrow.

Posted in Asia, At Sea, September, World Cruise 1 | 2 Comments