Just one quick comment.
Susie, we think that young girl was just hanging out with her mother. One thing you couldn't see is these women are pushing pedals with their feet! Excellent coordination.
We are very excited to see you too!
Thursday, March 31, 2011
day 79, at sea, final Cochin videos
Believe it or not, the Captain has told us we will have a "pirate drill"! Also, we will be cruising with all lights out at night from now until we pass through the Suez Canal. We have decided to cancel our Luxor Tour. It is a risk we don't need to take and, besides, it is 14 hours long in extreme heat and humidity. We would miss our afternoon nap! We are planning to take the tour where we get to meet some Bedouins and ride a camel, though.
There are at least two amazing (if you have listened to the video clips you will realize that "amazing" is my favorite word!) aspects to this trip. One is to observe the inexorable movement toward affluence in many of these countries and the corresponding decline in rural and family life. There is a sadness about it. The second is to be smack dab in the middle of world events. It is very different than watching it on TV!
Less than four weeks left on our cruise. We have been changed by this trip but we aren't sure exactly how. We certainly have a greater appreciation for what we have at home. Definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Getting all dressed up for dinner and saying "Good Evening" to 20 different people is beginning to lose its charm. A sandwich in our cabin or the cafeteria is becoming more appealing. To paraphrase one of my favorite expressions, we like jellybeans, but 40 pounds of them ( or of gourmet chocolates) is a lot!
day 79, at sea, more Cochin videos
Susie, your comment warmed our hearts. Mom said it is heartening to take the time to do this when you understand what we have seen and how we feel about it. Thank you so much. We also got an excellent email from Ralph Westington..
day 78, at sea, videos of Cochin, India
Believe it or not, the Captain has told us we will have a "pirate drill"! Also, we will be cruising with all lights out at night from now until we pass through the Suez Canal. We have decided to cancel our Luxor Tour. It is a risk we don't need to take and, besides, it is 14 hours long in extreme heat and humidity. We would miss our afternoon nap! We are planning to take the tour where we get to meet some Bedouins and ride a camel, though.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
day 78, at sea, on the way to Dubai, writeup and pictures of Cochin, India
Hi everybody,
Today we are in Cochin, India. We were not sure we were going to go on the tour as it is very hot and humid and the description of the tour said the buses might not be air-conditioned! We were pleasantly surprised that our bus was air-conditioned and I am so glad we didn't chicken out because we had a fascinating day. It took about an hour to drive through the city, into the suburbs and then the countryside. The city was interesting and much more prosperous looking than some of the other countries we have visited. Obviously they don't have any zoning laws because there would be several really nice houses-not quite mansions but really nice and then there would be a row of market type buildings. I haven't looked at the pictures yet but I hope I got some of the people because their clothes were very interesting. Every single woman I saw was wearing a sari-some of them absolutely gorgeous. In the city about one half of the men wore Western-style trousers and the other half wore a western shirt but on their lower half they wore this long piece of cloth. Some of them left it long-write to their ankles like a woman's skirt and some of them folded it in half so it came to their knees (like shorts) and then pulled the back through their legs and tucked it in at the waist. In the countryside all the man dressed this way. I realized I had seen this manner of dressing in the movie, "Gunga Din" but I think I thought only very poor people (almost slaves) wore them a long time ago. All the children I saw wore Western clothes.
The province of Karala is 60% Hindu, 20% Moslem, and 20% Christian. I was heartened to see trucks and buses with the big signs on them saying, "Power of prayer", and "praise the Lord". Also hospitals and schools had Christian names. We saw several Christian churches-they looked quite different than churches in America-sort of like a Hindu temple except it had a cross on the top and had a Christian saint's name. The bus was going too fast for me to get any pictures.
The first stop we made was to see ladies weaving cloth. There were about 10 women each working a wooden weaving apparatus. It was very noisy and I thought it would not be pleasant to work all day in that environment. The cotton cloth they will look like something you would cover patio furniture with or make curtains out of-very pretty stripes and checks but not something you would make clothing out of. The weave was quite loose. These women make very little money. We did not go to any stores so I don't have any idea what the cost of living is. We also saw a blacksmith at this shop-at least dad did and got a picture. I was more interested in getting back on the air-conditioned bus!
Although our guide spoke English (I guess he would have to, eh?) He had such a heavy accent I couldn't understand a word. There were lots of questions I would have liked to ask him but there really wasn't any point because I would not have understood his answers. At the end of the tour he gave us the written page summarizing what he had talked about so that was helpful.
Our next stop was a Hindu temple but we decided to stay on the cool bus as we are somewhat "Templed out". Actually this was quite interesting as we were parked beside an area that had cement walls around it-an area of about 1 acre-that was full of water. This may have been part of the Temple complex. Anyway we watched one man washing his clothes and another man taking a bath! I wonder how clean his clothes got! It kind of reminded me of the Roman baths in Bath, England.
Our next stop was the most interesting to me but I am a bit frustrated because we were not given an explanation of what we were going to do and we missed out on some of it although we had our own personal experience which is often more meaningful.
First, we boarded some primitive looking boats. Hope we do have pictures of them. I must be getting a little jaded because I wondered if they were provided by the tour company and made commercially in China. Once we got to the village we did see two men in a dugout canoe that looked more authentic. This tour was described as visiting a village on a backwater. I imagined some body of water about 30 feet wide overhung with jungle type vegetation. Instead it was more like a lake although it couldn't have been too deep because we were poled across. It was very peaceful and if you shut your eyes so you didn't see the huge concrete bridge-a little distance away-you could imagine you were in a timeless country village.
Once we got to the other side we alighted via a very wobbly board and were given our "snack pack"-very nicely made bags made out of newspaper and containing two chocolate bars, a bag of potato chips, a package of chocolate chip cookies, and a boxed fruit drink. The man who handed these out to me pointed out proudly that the bags were made out of their local newspaper. I couldn't really appreciate this because of course it was written in Malayalam-the native language. After we all sat around enjoying our snacks we were supposed to go behind some houses to see a woman making coir rope and a man making pottery. Dad and I (after asking permission) chose to move away from the group and enjoy a smoke in the shade of a mango tree. While we were there two young girls shyly approached us and we got involved in conversation with them. They were learning English in school but were not too proficient yet so it was a bit difficult but fun. They asked us if we had a pen and paper and we exchanged names and addresses (I must send them some postcards from the US and Canada). We were so engrossed in this that when I looked up and saw all the people on the tour had disappeared I thought they had returned to the boat and we were holding up the whole tour. This is a big no-no on these tours.
We dashed back to the boat which was moored out of sight only to find just one other couple there. They are from Kentucky and we chatted with them for what was beginning to seem quite a long time for the rest of the tour to return. Imagine our surprise when the boat driver, who of course spoke no English jumped in the boat and took off! I couldn't believe he was going to leave 35 people stranded in this village. What we didn't realize was that we were on an island and the others, after seeing the rope and pottery stuff, were walking through the rest of the village to the other side of the island where we then picked them up! I hope you get a good laugh out of this.
I am disappointed I didn't get to do this because I found the village very interesting but if we had, of course, we would not have had our conversation with the girls and also with two man who showed us how they climb the mango trees.
Many people on the tour found the village horrifyingly primitive but I didn't. Primitive, yes, but not horrifying. I can understand why they did after seeing a woman washing clothes on the edge of the river and slapping them against the rock to get them clean. Also a woman with lovely long hair washing it in the river (backwater or whatever you call it).
The place, itself, reminded me of red Pine Camp on Golden Lake in the 1950s, with coconut and mango trees instead of pine. Actually it was less primitive than read by because they have electricity and I don't think red Pine did then-at least not in the cabins. I don't think the village had indoor plumbing and although I felt the need I really didn't want to check out this aspect of their living conditions. Their houses looked a decent size and were made out of some kind of cement. I wish I hadn't felt it would be to nosy to get a peek inside. The houses are not all bunched together so each family has some privacy. I got the sense of a strong feeling of community.
We didn't take too many pictures or video here because it seemed rude to do so-sort of like treating them like they were animals in a zoo.
Talking to the girls, we found out 30 families live here and they said 600 people (we may have misunderstood that number). The girls go to school on a water bus.
I asked our guide later on the way back how the people earn a living. All I could understand is that it used to be a fishing village but for some reason that is no longer possible and now something about the government-I don't know if this means welfare or some kind of government job off the island. The people seemed very friendly and happy. I hope this explains why I wasn't as horrified as some of the other tour people. Frankly, I found their attitude patronizing and snobbish and you can understand where the expression "ugly American"came from.
Dad and I have just looked at the pictures and a word of explanation. Number one is of the weaving ladies. The second is a typical house-not the fanciest one it shows the tone. I forgot to mention each house has a wall around it but I don't know why. The third picture is the blacksmith-not everything look this primitive. The next two are the walled pool I described. The next one is a little car called a tuk-tuk.
The next one shows the market next to the nice houses and the "pants"the men wore. Notice the guy waving at us on our bus. The next one shows two ladies on the left wearing Sarah Rees (not the most gorgeous ones I saw) and a little girl holding an umbrella. All the ladies carried parasols because of the hot Sun. On the right you can see two tourists taking a picture of a little girl. Next one is just a market picture. Next one is the inside of the boat (after they moved us around to balance the weight!). Next another view of the boat. Next five pictures are views of the shoreline from the boat. The next one shows the guy pulling the boat-note the boat is empty because this is when we were the only people on it!
We just looked at the videos and I am so pleased. I think you can see why I was so impressed with the island and how funny it was when there were just four of us on the boat and we didn't know where they were taking us. By the way, notice the plastic chairs-kind of takes away from the atmosphere.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
day 77, Cochin, India, final videos of Phuket, Thailand
Thanks for your comments, Sophie.I agree, it sounds crazy to have an elephant stepping on you. And I couldn't believe that an elephant could throw darts! Today we are on a tour of Cochin to see village life. Hot and humid again, and some of the buses may not have air-conditioning!
day 76, at sea, more Phuket videos
Thanks for your comments Susie, Rachel, and Cliff. We love hearing your news.. That was an older lady under the elephant's foot! I was going to do it but they had moved on to the next thing. Did you see Mom on the water buffalo?
We have no idea why you can't chew gum in Singapore, Kate. Isn't that crazy?
I think we are going to cancel the Luxor, Egypt tour but go on the other tours. The Luxor tour is also 14 hours which is too long.
There is an older single lady who was very nervous about the Red Sea and the Suez Canal and asked the Commodore about it. He told her there was a submarine already under the ship!(she was very comforted) .... and then he sold her the Brooklyn Bridge.
We have no idea why you can't chew gum in Singapore, Kate. Isn't that crazy?
I think we are going to cancel the Luxor, Egypt tour but go on the other tours. The Luxor tour is also 14 hours which is too long.
day 76, at sea, Cochin, India tomorrow, Singapore videos
We missed the tour in Singapore, which we visited 2 days before Phuket, because, as they say, I was feeling poorly on the dock. Very hot and humid!
day 76, at sea, more pictures of Phuket
Yesterday we were in Phuket, Thailand and finally we felt well enough to get off the ship. We totally missed Bangkok and Singapore. We knew we wouldn't be up for Bangkok so canceled a few days in advance and changed to a less grueling day but even so we didn't feel up to it. The weather was very hot and unbelievably humid. We heard from other people that the bus ride to Bangkok was even longer than the expected three hours. One of the problems of being on a big ship such as the Queen Mary two is that you can never get close to the city you want to go to.
Missing Singapore was more disappointing. We did actually make it off the ship but after standing in the hot sun for about 15 min. waiting for the tour bus we realized we were not up for.
We did learn some interesting facts about Singapore. They have very strict laws that are rigorously enforced. It is illegal to chew gum. It is illegal to jaywalk. You will be fined or arrested if you do these things and they have plainclothes police all over the place. It is also illegal to criticize the government.
I know these laws would not have affected us as we don't usually chew gum and we would be on a guided tour so not likely to jaywalk but it does make you nervous that you might break some other law by mistake!
Our Singapore tour was free from the mariner club so we were not out any money. It wasn't even what we were very interested in being mostly about "Feng Shui". A little information about this subject would be fine but as dad would say they were giving us 40 pounds of jellybeans. For those of you who have never heard of this, it is the philosophy that how you place material things in your life has an effect on you. For instance the back door in your house should not be directly opposite your front door because you're good luck would come in the front door and immediately leave by the back door. The ease Eastern religions seem to be very big on good luck. At the shrine in Japan I told you about all they pray for is good luck.
Okay, so much for what we missed. Phuket was interesting and fun. We went to a set ferry Park and you can see from the pictures that we had an elephant ride although I realize there are no pictures of us on the elephant. Actually they took a picture of us but we forgot to go and look at it. All I can say is it would be a very uncomfortable way to travel any distance as you really roll around. We also saw an elephant show and a monkey show. An interesting thing about the monkey is that they are actually used commercially to get the coconuts off the trees. After we left this ferry Park we went to the most famous temple on the island-see pictures. The beehive structure is where they light firecrackers-very loud bangs. We missed the explanation of why they do this. Perhaps it is to call the gods.
The picture of all the shoes in front of the temple is to show that you have to take off your shoes if you go into the temple.
After the Temple we went to a very fancy hotel for a wonderful meal. Dad really enjoyed the Thai cooking but what I totally pigged out on was the dessert buffet-absolutely awesome! (Today is going to have to be a no sugar day).
After lunch they took us to a shopping center for about half an hour but the only interesting thing about this was that you went in one door and had to go through the whole place to get out again-you were reword for doing this by free drinks at the end in a comfortable place to sit.
Back on the bus we drove through the town of Pattaya on and got off the bus at that time beach. This is the place that had the terrible tsunami a few Christmases ago. Our ship was anchored offshore and although the weather had improved considerably we could see a huge black cloud over the ship and it looked like a storm is coming right for us. There were about 500 people waiting for the tenders to take them back to the ship. We had to stand in line on a long floating pier. Dad put on the plastic poncho you saw us wearing in the pictures (he bought those in York, England years ago and never use them. They came back with all our stuff when we sold the English house and I had just tossed them in at the last minute when we packed for the cruise). The wind and rain were tremendous when the storm hit but there were sections of the peer that had awnings over them and the rain was warm and kind of refreshing.
We now have two days at sea before we get to Cochin, India so we will relax and just enjoy ship board life. We do have a lecture this morning on India but if we don't feel like going to it we can catch it later on the TV and our room. There is another lecture this afternoon on political jokes. That should be funny.
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