Monday, April 30, 2012
Getting Ready for some Crazy
Heading out shortly for the Pooram Festival. Got the VIP treatment yesterday. Went under ropes and jumped lines to see the elephants being prepared for the festival, saw the display of the umbrellas, nettipattams and other decorations that will be used and visited the temple. Rumor has it that there will be 1M to 2M people at the festival with usually about 200 to 300 foreign tourists...but the European holiday isn't falling in line this year so tourism is down already and we were the ONLY non-Indians we saw yesterday.
Gonna post some photos from yesterday.
Get ready.
Gonna post some photos from yesterday.
Get ready.
Kerala
We are now in the midst of the 'if it's Tuesday, this must be Belgium' portion of the trip.
Traveled yesterday from Mumbai to Cochin without incidence and with an exceptionally tasty samosa. Cochin is a port town in a tropical clime. Pretty bustling. But pretty clean.
Went to the Cochin Cultural Center to see a performance of Kathkali. Kind of like Kabuki with less screaming and more intricate facial expressions. Then dinner. Then bed.
Today was Cochin City Tour. Church. Synagogue. Huge cantilevered Chinese fishing nets. And the Dutch Palace with beautiful wall murals hundreds of years old but still vibrant colors (from natural dyes) and amazing detail - very reminiscent of Angkor wat.
And shopping. Of course some shopping. Picked up some of the candied fennel seeds. And Michael bought a small rug.
Now with lunch out of the way we are in the bus driving north towards Thrissur. Our printed itinerary says it's a 2 hour drive. Our guide said 3 hours and our driver says maybe 4!!! Hopefully not since tomorrow is the Pooram, Elephant Festival and that will be a REALLY long day what with fireworks at 2:30AM.
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Traveled yesterday from Mumbai to Cochin without incidence and with an exceptionally tasty samosa. Cochin is a port town in a tropical clime. Pretty bustling. But pretty clean.
Went to the Cochin Cultural Center to see a performance of Kathkali. Kind of like Kabuki with less screaming and more intricate facial expressions. Then dinner. Then bed.
Today was Cochin City Tour. Church. Synagogue. Huge cantilevered Chinese fishing nets. And the Dutch Palace with beautiful wall murals hundreds of years old but still vibrant colors (from natural dyes) and amazing detail - very reminiscent of Angkor wat.
And shopping. Of course some shopping. Picked up some of the candied fennel seeds. And Michael bought a small rug.
Now with lunch out of the way we are in the bus driving north towards Thrissur. Our printed itinerary says it's a 2 hour drive. Our guide said 3 hours and our driver says maybe 4!!! Hopefully not since tomorrow is the Pooram, Elephant Festival and that will be a REALLY long day what with fireworks at 2:30AM.
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Saturday, April 28, 2012
Mumbai
The trip was your typical 24 hours of traveling with a reroute through Chicago instead of New York and a quick shower in Heathrow. But the flight from Heathrow to Mumbai was atypical. The plane was nearly empty. A big 777 with probably 56 business class seats but only 9 business class passengers. It was like having a private jet. It also made us wonder why nobody was flying to Mumbai.
Well, we wonder no more. Having arrived at 1am, we didn't see much on the way to our airport hotel but what we did see was pretty run down and sad looking. But we withheld judgment hoping that by the light of day things would appear less bleak. Not so. Pretty bleak. After catching some sleep and a quick breakfast we grabbed a cab to take us to a couple of the relatively rare tourist spots here over an hour away from the airport downtown at the harbour. Still a pretty bleak place. In fact, I'd probably have to place Mumbai at the bottom of my ratings list of the "Cities I've Visited". And remember that I've been to Bangkok and Hanoi and Cairo.
Nevertheless, we saw Victoria Terminus and the Gateway to India arch below.
Outside the pier at the arch are all the hawkers trying to sell youballoon s. No idea why. And not regular balloons and not helium filled balloons but just big, honking balloons. (Not the ones the woman is blowing up in the photo below. Look at the green one behind the guy on the right or the one the guy is holding in front of himself in the back left.) Of course, as is always the case in these situations, there are 6 or 7 people within 50 ft of each other trying to sell you the exact same balloons as if, having walked past the first 5 of them, you will suddenly be taken by the urge to purchase a massive balloon from this, the 6th one. Michael politely told the guys thanks but he already has a big one!
While there we chatted with an American sitting at the next table (apparently locals start showing up at 8:30P). We remarked on our impressions of Mumbai, and he told us that it's the nicest place he's been in India so far. Woah. But he's been to Varansai (not going), Chennai (not going) and some other places I hadn't heard of (so clearly not going).
We on the other hand, head south to Kerala tomorrow. By all accounts, it should be beautiful there. Fingers crossed.
Well, we wonder no more. Having arrived at 1am, we didn't see much on the way to our airport hotel but what we did see was pretty run down and sad looking. But we withheld judgment hoping that by the light of day things would appear less bleak. Not so. Pretty bleak. After catching some sleep and a quick breakfast we grabbed a cab to take us to a couple of the relatively rare tourist spots here over an hour away from the airport downtown at the harbour. Still a pretty bleak place. In fact, I'd probably have to place Mumbai at the bottom of my ratings list of the "Cities I've Visited". And remember that I've been to Bangkok and Hanoi and Cairo.
Nevertheless, we saw Victoria Terminus and the Gateway to India arch below.
Outside the pier at the arch are all the hawkers trying to sell youballoon s. No idea why. And not regular balloons and not helium filled balloons but just big, honking balloons. (Not the ones the woman is blowing up in the photo below. Look at the green one behind the guy on the right or the one the guy is holding in front of himself in the back left.) Of course, as is always the case in these situations, there are 6 or 7 people within 50 ft of each other trying to sell you the exact same balloons as if, having walked past the first 5 of them, you will suddenly be taken by the urge to purchase a massive balloon from this, the 6th one. Michael politely told the guys thanks but he already has a big one!
After a brief escape into the air-conditioned Harbour Bar at the Taj Hotel for a beer, we headed back to our hotel. This evening we ventured out across crazy, crowded busy streets teeming with people, cars, buses and tuk-tuks to a local restuarant called the Seven Flags, though, and had a wonderful meal. Michael ordered tandoori chicken, some fried potatoes and a vegetable curry. I remembered to ask for the curry to be medium-hot. THANK GOD. The chicken was absolutely wonderful. The potatoes were fried potatoes (you can't go wrong there.) And the curry was great; but if that's medium-hot, there'll be no eating the really hot stuff! And the whole bill with drinks was $14US - less than the beers at the Taj Hotel.
While there we chatted with an American sitting at the next table (apparently locals start showing up at 8:30P). We remarked on our impressions of Mumbai, and he told us that it's the nicest place he's been in India so far. Woah. But he's been to Varansai (not going), Chennai (not going) and some other places I hadn't heard of (so clearly not going).
We on the other hand, head south to Kerala tomorrow. By all accounts, it should be beautiful there. Fingers crossed.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Next bed, Mumbai
So, I'm testing the blog before we leave this hemisphere.
Initially we were scheduled to depart St Martin today to NY and on. But Michael got a speaking engagement in DC so we arrived here for what appears to have been the most lovely, sunny day of the week for a nice visit with my brother Gregg and his wife, Beth.
Now I'm dressed in my uber flattering travel clothes waiting in the lobby while Michael presents two hours of lectures. Then he'll do a Clark Kent to Superman change of his clothes and we'll ship one small bag UPS on its way home and head out to the airport with just what we need.
DCA to JFK to LHR to Mumbai and our next real bed at about 6PM eastern time tomorrow (Friday) night. Until then, happy trails.
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Initially we were scheduled to depart St Martin today to NY and on. But Michael got a speaking engagement in DC so we arrived here for what appears to have been the most lovely, sunny day of the week for a nice visit with my brother Gregg and his wife, Beth.
Now I'm dressed in my uber flattering travel clothes waiting in the lobby while Michael presents two hours of lectures. Then he'll do a Clark Kent to Superman change of his clothes and we'll ship one small bag UPS on its way home and head out to the airport with just what we need.
DCA to JFK to LHR to Mumbai and our next real bed at about 6PM eastern time tomorrow (Friday) night. Until then, happy trails.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
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