2010 Hong Kong to Athens -India

Monday, April 26, 2010

Mangalore, India

We have had two more wonderful days at sea. Yesterday was the culmination of a passenger ship building contest. The ships were from salvaged materials from the ship and were judged on appearance, seaworthiness (they had to float in the pool) and ability to carry cargo (6 Coke Cans). It was a blast. All floated except the buoy, (made from a yogurt container) which wouldn’t float upright.

There was a bridge lecture by a fellow passenger from Australia and then more bridge playing so I am a happy camper. Jack has been busy attending all the lectures. We have been playing BINGO and winning! Then last night I even won $134 on the slot machines.

Last night we had another contest before the show. The night before it was about pirates, last night music videos. You can imagine how well I did with those. NOT! Even though they were from different decades starting with the 50’s I needed you kids here! We did get Elvis doing Jailhouse Rock!

We arrived today at Mangalore, India which is on the southwest coast of India. Two evenings ago they evacuated a couple for “advanced medical care” in Sri Lanka. They walked off the ship which was good. Today I can see why Sri Lanka was a better choice than Mangalore, India.

We cancelled our tour and decided to go on our own to town. That was after the destinations manager described Mangalore as a traveler’s city not a tourist city. He also requested we not clean our shoes with the ship’s towels when we returned from the tours. This is a busy, smelly, cargo port. This city consists of red dust and industrial plants. The port smells of ammonia. The shuttle bus took us to the port entrance where there were a variety of “taxis”. The taxi drivers are held back from the tourists/passengers by a policeman with a long rod who contains them to the other side of the road. But to negotiate you have to approach them and then you are surrounded by a swarm of drivers. We passed up the $40 air conditioned car (which was a mistake) and went for the $15 3 wheeled open “taxi”. It was as precarious a ride as the pedi-cab ride in Saigon but dirtier. Between the ammonia smell, diesel bus exhaust, and the “India” smell Jack was tossing his cookies out the side after 10 minutes.

We had gone to the tour lady in the lobby this morning and she wrote down the name of the local market, the church we wanted to see, and a mall where they had a nice “beauty shop” where I could get my nails done. Our taxi driver did not know where the market was even with the name and our map. After several miscues I decided to skip it since I didn’t know whether Jack could take the smells and asked for the church. We went to the wrong church. He asked directions and finally found the correct one- St Aloysius. It is covered in oil paintings on the ceiling about the saint and the side walls are frescoes of the life of Christ. There was an interesting banner.

Then it was on to the “mall” with the beauty shop. Well, the shop was air conditioned. Upstairs was the nail salon. I was asked to remove my shoes which I did, however, since I was wearing sandals and my feet were covered in red dust I don’t quite see the point. Needless to say, they didn’t do gel nails so I just asked for a polish change. She started when I asked the price- 50 rupees ($1=44 rupees) and they didn’t take American dollars. The ship was not exchanging dollars for rupees. So I asked them to stop and the boss said to continue taking all the polish off. Then she said to finish and I should just come back when I had rupees. There was an ATM in the mall. So after the polish change- which is much less than perfect, I went with the driver to the ATM. The ATM was closed, it was being repaired. That meant we had to cross the street to another ATM. That was an adventure. I lived, got the rupees, and paid the girl 100 rupees. It took our driver awhile to return with us to the taxi. Everything here is bribes or “grease the wheel” whatever you would like to call it. I am sure he was asking for a tip even though he had nothing to do with going to that specific salon. We got back in the taxi where he had to pay the policeman or uniformed parking attendant, whichever, so we could leave the parking place. Back to the ship, please.

The driver kept asking if we wanted to stop here for shopping, there for whatever, or go to the beach. No,no, no. Just the ship. We were very glad to get back. If you come to India, you can safely skip Mangalore.

We did speak to some fellow passengers who went to the temple which they said was beautiful and did go to the beach. They said it was a small beach where the locals went and the women were in the water with their saris. Most of the women we saw were wearing saris with a few birkas thrown in.

I am very glad I am done with this. I smell like India and I need to change my clothes and jump in the pool before I wash my hair and scrub down. Tomorrow we leave Goa for Agra and the Taj Mahal. I am hoping it won’t be as smelly. We won’t be able to stand one another on the plane ride home if it is.