Month: September 2018

Sri Lankans greet each other with hands pressed together in front of the heart in a prayer-like manner and by saying, “Ayubowan” (ah-you-BOH-anh). This roughly translates as “I wish you good health and a long life,” and it’s used as a greeting and a farewell. We weren’t really sure what to expect from our two days here. Viking's excursions staff forewarned us that Sri Lanka is a poor country, and conditions might not be as good as we had in India. We found the opposite to be the case. Colombo Development is booming in Sri Lanka, particularly in its financial capital, Colombo. The Chinese are pouring money into the country. They’re financing the Lotus Tower, which at 1,150 feet will be the tallest self-supporting structure in south Asia. The not-so-secret goal of the Chinese is to gain a foothold in the Indian Ocean and keep India in check. This comes at a price for Sri Lanka, though. The country wasn’t able to make its...

We docked this morning in Mormugao, a port in the Indian state of Goa. Goa was a Portuguese colony and the last state of India to gain independence from foreign occupation, in 1961. The Portuguese influence still shows strongly in the brightly colored buildings and homes in the area. Today’s excursion took us to the Tropical Spice Plantation, a few kilometers north of the town of Ponda. After three days in one of the most densely-populated cities on the planet, it was a refreshing change to get out into the countryside. We even caught a fleeting glimpse of monkeys in the trees beside the road. Crossing the low bridge over the lakebed to get to the farm was a little unsettling. The bridge planks were rounded halves of trees, covered with burlap and then a layer of rubber. The footing felt a little unsteady! The “tourist” side of the operation is a pathway through a verdant maze of various types of spice plants and...

Our final day in Mumbai took us through some old neighborhoods. Sunday traffic was light, but there were many people out and about. The first walk of the day was through the Khotachi Wadi area, which is a very culturally and religiously diverse area of Mumbai. There are still Christian Indians of Portuguese descent here, living amongst Hindus, Jains, and Zoroastrians. Many families have been living in the same houses for generations. We passed one home where the owner said his family had been living since the 1880s. The Portuguese-influenced houses had carved window frames and balconies. Their courtyards were often brightly decorated. We stopped for refreshment at the 300-year-old James Ferreira bungalow. The owner said that the house had belonged to his grandfather. He fought the city to keep it, and the surrounding area, as a cultural heritage preserve and prevent it from being razed for high-rise apartments. His home and “No Borders” shop demonstrate that all are welcome. Next we went through the upscale Malabar Hill...

Our first day in Mumbai opened with nervous/eager anticipation. We’d heard so many praises—and warnings—about Mumbai that we didn’t really know what to expect. We were fortunate to have Silpa, a middle-aged Indian woman with a fantastic sense of humor, as our guide for the day. We started with a brief drive-by of some of old Bombay’s classic Victorian buildings (the University, the train station, etc.). We then headed to Crawford Market, a fruit and vegetable marketplace that has been here since the late 1800s. Porters stand near the entrance with baskets balanced on their heads. Shoppers hire a porter to carry their purchases as they shop. Silpa explained that with the heat and humidity of Mumbai, food spoils rather quickly, so it’s not unusual for a housewife to go to the market at least once a day for fresh produce. She showed us her mother’s favorite grocer. Photos can’t do justice to the feeling of walking among the very narrow paths in the...

O vast Rondure, swimming in space, Cover'd all over with visible power and beauty, Alternate light and day and the teeming spiritual darkness, Unspeakable high processions of sun and moon and countless stars above, Below, the manifold grass and waters, animals, mountains, trees, With inscrutable purpose, some hidden prophetic intention, Now first it seems my thought begins to span thee… ...The traders, rulers, explorers, Moslems, Venetians, Byzantium, the Arabs, Portuguese, The first travelers famous yet, Marco Polo, Batouta the Moor, Doubts to be solv'd, the map incognita, blanks to be fill'd, The foot of man unstay'd, the hands never at rest, Thyself O soul that will not brook a challenge. —Walt Whitman, Blades of Grass, Book XXVI How different is the voyage of the modern “explorer!” As I write this on my laptop computer, I sit in a plush terrycloth bathrobe on a comfortable bed in an air-conditioned stateroom, while the roll-stabilized mighty ship cuts through the monsoon-stirred waters at 20 knots with barely a creak. I bemoan that the ship’s rolling and pitching...

We docked at al-Muttrah port in Muscat just after sunrise this morning. We took it easy yet again today, with a brief driving tour of some of the sights of the city. Our drive first took us past the new opera house. Sultan Qaboos is an organist and lutanist. His world-class opera house opened in 2001, and it houses the Sultan’s own symphony orchestra. I wish we would have had time to stop by there. It was a beautiful building, and there is a large shopping mall and arts center behind it. We stopped at the new mosque, another of the Sultan’s projects “for the enrichment of the Omani people.” It’s the country’s biggest mosque and can house thousands of worshippers at once. The landscaping around the mosque was tasteful and colorful, with hundreds of neatly-planted shrubs flowering in many hues. As we noticed in Salalah, the streets in Muscat are spotless. Our guide Khalid explained to us that cleaning crews work three shifts...

Today we berthed at Salalah, a port at the southwest corner of Oman. After 4-1/2 days at sea, our ship needed to refuel, and we were all eager to get off the ship and stretch our legs. Salalah’s weather was very different than what we’ve experienced on this journey so far. We left the hot-and-dry of Egypt and Jordan for the hot-and-incredibly-humid of the Red Sea. Salalah, in contrast, was in the low 80’s today and a little humid, but not oppressively so. They’ve just come off a rainy spell from the Indian monsoons, so the local vegetation was a nice healthy green. The city was very clean and not at all crowded, even though we had come at the start of rush hour. Salalah is a relatively unknown spot for Western tourists, but it is a popular summer getaway for residents of the Arabian peninsula. In July and August, when temperatures easily exceed 104°F (40°C) in cities like Riyadh or Dubai,...