Turnover day

We just docked in Dubai; end of segment 3 and the beginning of seg 4. Less than a month to go… I don’t want to go back to real life! Who will cook? Who will make the bed? I’ll report on Dubai after we return.

I won the Segment 3 photo contest with a shot taken earlier in the cruise in Callao, Peru. Now I’m ahead… then again, Jim didn’t enter one this time. The category was architecture, buildings and towns. The next category is open and artistic… should make for interesting entries.

They are beginning to make noticable preparations onboard for our transit of the Gulf of Aden. Yesterday they ran a test of the ‘anti-pirate drenching system’. It is a setup of firehoses connected to some mounted nozzles on deck 5 (the open deck). They also will behaving crew members standing watch on all open decks… that also started yesterday. They are going to use all crewmembers for these watch positions in 2 or 4 hour blocks. Yesterday the one we saw was an attendant in the buffet. He was wearing the Orange security vest (and looked a bit uncomfortable or bewildered). I had a report from my friend on Tahitian Princess about the procedures they had in place; much like ours. She also reported that nothing interesting has happened so far except for some military ships and aircraft.

We are docked two berths away from QE2, Costa is between. I am happy I have this last chance to say goodbye to her and was particularly happy that the red funnel is still in place. I’ve taken a number of pictures of her.

John Maxtone Graham - Hi John, I hope you get the google alert on this. I wanted you to read the part about QE2. We miss you and Mary!
Sue

Mumbai, India

Fascinating. That’s the only way I can sum up our day in Mumbai - I can’t say I really liked it or I’d want to return, but it was certainly fascinating. It reminds me of New York City burned out on drugs. It is a solid mass of people; slums intermixed with very nice buildings.

Our tour was called Temples and Shrines. It was an all day tour and included lunch at a local hotel and the obligatory shopping stop. There were only 20 of us on the tour and the bus was a 36 passenger one so we had plenty of room again. Our first stop was across from the Taj Mahal hotel (one of the hotels bombed by the terrorists last November), although we didn’t have time to go into the hotel I was able to get some pictures from the outside.

After that quick photo stop we headed for the temples; we actually got to see a great deal of Mumbai and a couple suburbs as the temples were fairly far apart. You weren’t allowed to take photos in most of the temples so the best parts are only in my memory, but I did get some shots of the outsides. At the Hare Krishna temple we were allowed to take photos on the interior so it was a lot more fun for me. Our guide was excellent - she explained much about the different religions in India, including Hindu, Jain, and Muslim, Buddhist, Christian and several others. I found it very interesting watching the rituals performed by the people praying in the different temples.

Perhaps the actual ride through the city was more interesting than the temples… It would have to be seen to be understood. Every inch of useable land is being used either as a shop/stall or a dwelling. People (and some cows) are everywhere; sidewalks and streets are packed, there are no crosswalks so people just weave between the moving cars to cross the streets and roadways. The roads were completely filled with cars, taxis, motorcycles, trucks and buses - They don’t allow TukTuks in Mumbai proper, but when they were added to the mix in the suburbs it was unbelievable. When our guide said that it was slightly better than usual because it was a bank holiday and many people were off work we just all kind of sat there with dumb grins on our faces. Our driver did a great job… two traffic cop fines and only one car hit us.

The women in their brightly colored saris or Punjabis all look beautiful; even in the worst of the slums the women were all wearing the beautiful colors. I purchased a beautiful Sari and a Punjabi. Before our return to the ship, the tour bus took us to the ‘recommended’ store for shopping… not what I was looking for - I wanted to go to the real shops and stalls across the street so after a few minutes of watching people dodge their way through the cars we decided to give it a try. I’m writing this so you can tell we made it. This was the kind of market I enjoy, it was a mixture of clothing, hard goods, soft goods and even some produce. They didn’t seem willing to bargain but I was able to get them to knock off the odd couple dollars on both purchases. Now we have four days at sea prior to Dubai.
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Right after I wrote the report above the movie Slum Dog Millionaire came on the TV. (They had shown this academy award winning movie in the lounge just prior to Mumbai, but I don’t like sitting in those chairs so we didn’t go.) We decided to watch it. I’m glad we saw it after our trip into Mumbai as I don’t think I would have really understood how accurate it is. The only scene that isn’t accurate (our guide told us this) is the one where the Indian movie star is mobbed by fans. She says they do not do this in India. Everything else is exactly as we saw Mumbai.

Random Thoughts

• Our Cabin steward has developed a new personality; he is happy and cheerful. Is he (or his boss) reading this blog?
• The Princess Captain’s Circle (past passenger) benefits seem to be the best of any of the cruise lines we have been on. The free laundry and many free internet minutes have been wonderful on this cruise. Toting a bag of dirty laundry to the launderette doesn’t look like fun to me.
• The little 9x6 inch computer I bought for this trip has been wonderful. The WiFi onboard is very good in most all locations including our cabin and the computer is small and light enough to just drop in my bag to carry ashore. A drawback is that it’s awfully tiny to look at my photos, but then I’m used to my 21” monitor at home for that.
• The ocean is endlessly fascinating. From glass-smooth to crashing waves I love to watch it. “Sea-critters” are fun to look for; one afternoon we sat on the balcony watching about a half dozen birds for an hour. They would fly along side our balcony working their way up higher and closer to the bow. All of a sudden they would come diving down to water level trying to catch a flying fish. We actually did see a couple of these birds catch a fish, then it would fly away from the ship and land in the water. We presumed they were eating the fish and then they would rejoin the hunt. Considering the length of this cruise, we haven’t seen a lot of “critters”. Early on there were some whales and we’ve seen dolphins about 5 times and flying fish almost every day.
• Trivia became less fun when one team started bringing books to challenge the answers. Good heavens these are games - if you win you get a little green voucher. You can cash in the vouchers for things like a tote bag or a baseball cap. Wow that’s something to get all worked up about.
• I’ve received a number of emails lately asking if we are still enjoying it and if we would do another one. Yup, we are still enjoying it and YES, if I another one came along at a good enough price I’d do it without question.
• I’m going to get questions about who would I recommend do a world cruise. The answer is anyone that has the time and money and wants to experience many different countries and cultures in one cruise - the caveat would be that you would have to be comfortable with many sea days.