Putting on our shoe coverings to visit the Taj Mahal

This certainly beats taking off and putting back on sneakers and also walking around barefoot on floors that, even if they were clean, were quite cold.

In the very center of the mausoleum are the cenotaphs of Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan but photos weren’t allowed. They are white marble with rows and rows of inlaid flowers. But both are really buried in a dark crypt below.

The white marble had colored stones inlaid.

The red and yellow colored stones were translucent and when a flashlight was shone on it, let the light through.

It really is quite immense.

A family outing.

Thankfully locals paid much less for their tickets than foreigners at all of the monuments we visited. One palace in Jaipur charged $55 US per ticket so we took a pass. The ticket charge for the Taj was 750 rupees per ticket for foreigners. That translates to about $16 US per ticket. Everyplace we visited charged and at times, we also had a local guide arranged by our “tour operator.” The local guide did add a great deal but that added “a tip” to the ticket price. We could have chosen not to have a guide but we did learn more though I can’t say that I remember all that much.

A do it yourself photo.

I offered to take a photo for her but she said that she could do it. My arms aren’t long enough and I always end up with a bad photo of myself. Of course other people don’t always get it right either….

Not sure who took this one but……

I like the two women in their saris.

Looking back at the entrance gate.

Another view showing some of the grounds.

The photo from the other direction must have been an interesting image of the Taj.

Close up of the red sandstone.

Pattern block for bas relief.

I bought this small block in Jaipur before we visited the Taj. The young shop keeper told me that an artisan would carve this small example to be used as a pattern for workers making columns. I don’t know if that’s true or it was used for block printing but someone had to make patterns that the workers would use and maybe they carved them.

Ru

DoraMac

Hi All

  I’m starting off with the Taj Mahal rather than writing about our trip as things happened.  It really doesn’t matter and I think lots of you are most curious about the Taj.  A "point and shoot" camera just doesn’t do the Taj justice.  Too much light against dark and fog and it’s just so huge!  I did my best.  Here is part 1.

Ru

Taj Mahal

“The Taj Mahal is one of the world’s acknowledged wonders. Its construction began in 1632 and was completed by the middle of the seventeenth century. Though the name of the architect remains a mystery, the inspiration was essentially that of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan who employed 20,000 men to labor for twenty-two years to fulfill his dream of building for his queen, the finest mausoleum every created by man.

The story behind the Taj Mahal is a poignant one. Mumtaz Mahal, Shah Jahan’s queen and constant companion for nineteen years, even in battle, died giving birth to their fourteenth child in June 1631. It was said that for two years Shah Jahan lived the life of one in mourning. The story is also one of unbelievable opulence. Ancient records refer to the material used, to the white marble from Makrana to the precious and semi-precious stones for the inlay work such as lapis lazuli and sapphires from Lanka, carnelian from Baghdad, turquoise from Tibet, agate from Yemen, coral from Arabia, garnets from Bundelkhand, diamonds from Jaisalmer, onyx and amethysts from Persia and so on. Tragically, most of this wealth was plundered through the years…..Constructed entirely in white marble, the famed mausoleum stands on the gently curving banks of the river Yamuna in Agra.” Rupa Classic India Series 1993

We did learn from our tour that most of the workers were Persian and the descendants of these workers still live in Agra and still work in the marble industry. There is a legend that Shah Jahan wanted no copies of the Taj so had one hand of the 5,500 artisans cut off! We were told a more humane interpretation. Shah Jahan told the workers he would pay them for seven generations of workers who would not work to recreate anything like the Taj. Thus their “hands were cut off from that type of work.”

Taj Mahal at sunset from across the Yamuna River: the next morning we would actually go there and go inside.

Ruth and Randal at the Taj Mahal

I’m wearing a wool sweater and wool shawl because it got very cool in the evenings. Though this vantage point isn’t as crowded as the Taj, you had to take turns for your photo op.

The small building on the right is a mosque and the identical building on the left was called a “jawab or answer” and used to house travelers. The red is sandstone and the white is marble. I think the “answer” part comes from the building being a response to the mosque to make everything symmetrical. Because it’s the dry season the river was pretty low and the dust and dirt were not so scenic. The 4 minarets were constructed tilting away from the mausoleum in case of earthquake they would fall way and cause no damage.

“Housing” for the soldiers who guard the Taj

The next morning we met our guide at 6:45 a.m. to see the Taj Mahal at sunrise. At first all of the grounds and the Taj Mahal were coated with fog which made for amazing images that my camera and I just couldn’t capture.

Lines form early and there is a security check.

You can bring in cameras but no food, drink or sketching materials though I don’t know why the sketching materials were banned.

The entrance gate.

You start to walk through and get your first glimpse of the Taj and it is truly impressive.

I just couldn’t capture it: sorry.

The fog made the Taj look as if it were floating.

The grounds were lovely too.

Reflection

If I had been back further I could have captured the entire Taj but it was quite tricky to get a shot off without someone walking in front or waiting for you to move so they could take a photo.

Another tourist offered to use my camera to take this photo.

Randal and our guide walking from “the answer” to the Taj.

Taj Mahal shrouded in fog.

I’m holding up the Taj

As I was walking through “the answer” a 10 year old boy took charge of me. He spoke quite good English at lightning speed while he took me to different spots to take photos and then took this one of me though I’m not so sure what it represents. We were told not to “talk with, listen to, look at” anyone or they would “become our guide” and would expect a tip. I just couldn’t ignore this kid and at the end offered him 40 rupee, about $1. He wanted 100 rupee! He wouldn’t take the 40 so got nothing.

Another image of “the answer.”

Hi All

  After a whirlwind tour of Delhi, Jaipur, Haridwar, etc… we are back on DoraMac.  It was quite the adventure.  We saw the sun rise over the Taj Mahal. We watched as people bathed in the Ganges in Haridwar.  We had a tour of the Jaipur Public Library and we visited a Synagogue in Delhi.  It often took 5 or 6 hours to get from place to place as the roads are crowded with trucks, buses, cars, motorbikes, bicycles, buffalo carts, camel carts, equine carts of all sorts and even Elephant!  And lanes are just suggestions and not something one must stay in.   I took a zillion photos.  I am back using my computer with my Outlook so things should go more smoothly.  If you didn’t receive the one email I sent, it is posted on www.mydoramac.com.  Lots of emails came back to me and that seems to happen when I use the web yahoo.

We will leave Cochin sometime during the first week in March for the Maldives where the list of boats to be shipped is growing as more cruisers reluctantly decide to ship rather than make the passage.  As you can imagine, the Quest and piracy are uppermost on the minds of most cruisers.  But no one is packing up and going home.  We’re all just moving ahead to another part of the world and thankfully there are still parts of the world that welcome everyone. 

  Ru

Hi All,

  Saw the Taj Mahal at sunrise today and it was quite an experience.  We actually could stop thinking about the cruising world for a bit of time.  India is, well, "all things are possible in India" is the thought of each day.

  Will send photos as soon as we are back on Doramac in Cochin on Sunday evening.

Ru

We drove about 8 hours (including a lunch stop) from Delhi to Jaipur through tons of traffic and crazy driving with trucks and cars that say BLOW HORN so the noise is astounding.  But it all works for them and our driver Sandeeb only once came close to giving the finger.  We will spend 3 days in the area and then move on to Agra to see the Taj Mahal.  Then it’s back to Delhi, on to Haridwar with a side trip to Rishikeh and then back to Delhi.  We’ll return to Cochin on the 26th.

   On a very sad note, an American yacht with 4 Americans was taken hostage by the Somalie pirates today. The yacht Quest was tied across from us at the Cochin marina and we waved them off as they started on their passage to the Red Sea.  As much as we chose not to make the passage, it was a horrible shock to learn that a yacht was actually taken.  We hope this is resolved as quickly as possible and our thoughts go to their families and friends.

  Ru

 

India # 1

Snake charmers, camels, elephants, tombs, forts and a visit to the Delhi synagogue. We like what we have seen so far of northern India. Much of it is reminiscent of industrializing China with smog and congested roads and horrible traffic jams. But, ‘don’t worry, be happy” as our guide Sandeep says. And we are being happy.

Snake charmer?

He was sitting outside a “tourist restaurant” next to the souvenir sellers. We knew we’d have to pay, but so what so Linda and I took photos and he prodded the snake to face us which I didn’t exactly need. I didn’t have any small bills so Linda told him the 20 rupees was from both of us. The snake barely came out of the basket and I don’t remember any great music coming from the flute; but he quickly let us know that I needed to give him money too. I had a 5 rupee bill so that was it. We told the tour operator who we had started working with that the restaurant was far too full of tourists, the food was bland and twice the price we usually paid for half the food. Next day we ate where the locals ate. The women at the next table were in India because their husbands were there. One woman was from Staten Island, looked like Tracy Ullman and had a nose decoration. Her husband worked for the World Bank and this was a 3 year assignment. The other woman was Indian by birth but hadn’t grown up in India. Her husband had come to work for an Indian company. The restaurant was jam packed, noisy and had good cheap food. Our kind of place. There was a line waiting to get in and we decided it was the equivalent to a New York deli.

Humayun’s Tomb

Humayun the Moghul Emperors (Muslim ruler of India) in the year 1555 AD. Six months after retaking Delhi he fell from the stairs of his library and died. His tomb was built by his widow around 1565 AD. “One of the greatest examples of architecture in India, Humayun’s tomb is known for influencing the structure of the Taj Mahal as well.” Delhi, A Travel Guide. It is a UNESCO Heritage Site; it is protected under the rules of the Archaeology Survey of India and is maintained by the Aga Khan Trust.

No more fountains or gardens.

Like the woman in Venice who said it was almost as good as the casino in Las Vegas, my reaction the tomb is that it reminded me of the government building in Johor newly constructed with this architecture with more gardens and actual fountains.

Inside the tomb

Repair men

Some of the domes showing how Muslim and Jews share the Star of David.

Other tourists

The Red Fort

“The Red Fort is to Delhi what the Colosseum is to Rome or the Acropolis is to Athens: it is the single most famous monument in the city. It represents the climax of more than 600 years of experimentation in palace building by Indo-Islamic architects”. City of Djinns William Dalrymple Lonely Planet said it would take at least 2 hours to see the Red Fort. We all managed it in under and hour. Twice men asked if we wanted to hire them as guides and that certainly would have made it more interesting. But though the price was right we have such a hard time with the Indian accent that we took a pass. Also, after the Great Wall we weren’t wowed by the size and scale of the Red Fort after the damage done by the British who drained the moats and fountain and pulled up the flower gardens and planted grass.

A map of the fort area.

Between the outer gate and the inner fort was a tourist bazaar where Dalrymple points out one runs the gauntlet of salesmen and their tourist wares.

Not just a fort, but palaces for the emperor’s family.

We also kept thinking about the Forbidden City and this paled in comparison. Not sure what that says about the Red Fort or about us. The dog was very sweet. There are dogs all over Delhi and they are all sweet and smile at you if you say hello and give it a pat on the head. Again, Dalrymple has this to say, “Today, the inner enclosure should be the climax of the fort, but the sight of it produces only a sensation of anticlimax.”

Decorated archways.

There were several building in the compound for the emperor, his wives, children, etc.

More archways.

An outer wall.

The very outer walls.

What has impressed us so far other than just the vibrancy of Delhi itself, the Judah Hyam Synagogue and Ezekiel Isaac Malekar its Honorary Secretary, leader of services, warm weclomer of foreign visitors and great ambassador of the Jewish community of Delhi. I had Googled synagogue and Delhi and found information for the synagogue. It was a bit tricky for our guide Sandeep to actually find since he knows monuments etc, but not actual streets per se. Sandeep never gave up; we found the synagogue, met Mr. Malekar and were invited to services and to hear the former head of the Indian Air Force lecture on the commonality of all religions. (Actually I thought Mr. Malekar said he was to lecture on the history of Jews in India.) We had a wonderful time meeting priests, imams, visitors and members of the local Jewish community. That in the next email.

February 15, 2011

Bolgatty Marina

Bolgatty Island, Cochin, India

Hi All,

  Randal and I are really enjoying just wandering around the different parts of Cochin; sometimes on errands and sometimes just wandering.  Tomorrow, we are off to Delhi, Old and New, Agra to see the Taj Mahal, and probably Rajasthan to maybe ride a camel and hopeful to Varanasi to see the Ganges.  We have booked our flight to Delhi and a hotel for 4 nights.  Then we’ll decide what to do.  We’re going with Linda and Michael from the sailboat B’Sheret who are very seasoned travelers and, like us are happy spending as little as we have to for a hotel room.  They have the same requirements: clean, a bathroom in the room, AC, WiFi.  Linda managed to find us rooms for $33 per night that met all the requirements and has an electric kettle so we can make our morning tea.  She also hunted down the airline tickets.  We just have to show up.  We’re leaving tomorrow morning from the marina at 9 am and should be in New Delhi by 5 pm.  Our flight leaves at 11:20 am but we have one stop, I think in Mumbai.  We’re taking our small ACER so hopefully I’ll be able to send photos but they will be in the form of attachments.

   The paperwork is pretty much done for shipping DoraMac and we’ll leave Cochin the first week in March and head to the Maldives.  It’s about 400 miles but we should have favorable winds and weather going in this direction.

  Ru

  DoraMac

Ernakulam

Ernakulam is another one of the small areas that joined together to form Cochin. For the past several days we have been exploring the streets and alleyways just across the river from the marina. We have also been “way the heck on the other side” to visit the Big Airtel Service Center, 3 times. But the tuk tuks are cheap and it’s fun just to go for a ride.

Airtel Service Center

In India we needed cell phone SIM cards and an Indian SIM card for our 3G phone that we can use with our two larger computers. Our Netbook doesn’t have a cd drive and we don’t have a portable cd drive attachment for it yet so we couldn’t load the 3G phone software on it. We decided to buy a dongle that would hold a SIM card if that was possible. Many of the cruisers have bought a “use only in India” dongle, but since we had the phone we didn’t want to pay $45 US for something we’d use less than a month. Because we were still having questions about our 3G phone service we went off to visit different, larger Airtel Service Center and there discovered a dongle that would take SIM cards so could be used in other countries. Our first visit we bought the dongle. We decided to buy a second SIM card so we could use the dongle and the 3G phone and “not have to share.” But, though dongle purchasing doesn’t require showing your passport, SIM cards do, and also a small passport size photo to attach to the purchase forms they keep on file. Randal had a copy of the passport and a photo but they wanted to see his Indian visa also. We hadn’t realized that had also been required when we had bought SIM cards earlier. At that time Randal had his actual passport with the India visa affixed to one of the pages. I said we couldn’t be in India if we didn’t have a visa, but that was not acceptable. Our second visit we used the address on the receipt for the dongle, which funny enough is not the address for the Airtel Center, so we ended up on a small side road somewhere, we aren’t sure where, but had an interesting walk around. When we asked for directions from a Nokia Mobile shop they said the Airtel Center was closed on Sunday anyway. Our third visit was totally successful since we had the address we’d used the first time to find the place and we got the second SIM card as Randal had brought his passport and a small photo.

This was my only photo.

I wish I could rave about the library, but I can’t, EXCEPT, if I had brought a note from the marina, I very likely could have gotten a library card. I speak no Malayalam, the local language. No surprise there. But the head of the Ernakulam Public Library seemed to speak almost no English. So we really couldn’t communicate beyond the bit of information about the card and how I needed to go back downstairs to leave my backpack at the security desk. Randal and I had gone to look at travel guides to save ourselves 1000 rupee at a book store. But the guides in the Reference Area were quite old and falling to pieces. Another reminder of how fortunate we are in the USA.

I wanted to visit for another reason, S.R. Ranganathan, a name once learned in library school, not ever forgotten….

S. R. Ranganathan is considered to be the father of library science, documentation, and information science in India and is widely known throughout the rest of the world for his fundamental thinking in the field. Wikipedia

An ideology of librarianship was created by Shiyali Ramamrita (SR) Ranganathan in his classic The Five Laws of Library Science. He formulated objectives and principles for the organization of, access to, and use of library materials…….

Ranganathan’s five laws:

1. Books are for use.
2. Every reader, his book.
3. Every book, its reader.
4. Save the time of the reader.
5. A library is a growing organism.

Ranganathan also writes about the importance of good catalogs, especially those with effective cross references. He advocates good marketing of library resources. He even suggests popularizing certain books as parts of edited series, so patrons learn that a book has "cousins" on other or related topics. In this way, Ranganathan suggested, new vistas are opened to users via books similar in style and approach to books they already know and like.

Do digital libraries violate the Third Law? By Michle V. Cloonan & John G. Dove — Library Journal, 04/01/2005

After our library visit we went off to lunch of Biryani Chicken and lots of little dishes of stuff to go with it. I’m not so much of a rice fan and ate much less of it in China and the Philippines than I am here in India, but it tastes so good and it’s one of the few dishes I actually know what it is.

“Biryani is usually cooked with a choice of meat or vegetables and rice flavored with a blend of aromatic spices. Usual accompaniments to this dish include Chutneys (generic reference to an Indian relish) and “Raita” – a creamy yoghurt side-dish that is the Indian version of a cold salad. Biryani is a hodgepodge of exotic spices and condiments. Cardamoms, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, fennel, star anise, pepper, cumin, chili powder, turmeric, ghee (clarified butter), and saffron are some of the additions that give the biryani its distinct aroma, flavor and its signature yellowish tinge.

http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-make-Biriyani

Ice Cream to cool off from the hot, spicy food.

One day our explorations started with lunch with Linda and Michael. After my chicken biryani, I was too full for ice cream of my own but helped Randal a bit with his. I thought it tasted good but Randal mentioned something later about wishing for a Dairy Queen. Linda’s was quite exotic and included noodles at the bottom reminding me of the Philippine halo halo that had beans in the mixture. Michael asked for the plain two scoop ice cream but wanted one each of vanilla and chocolate. What he got was two dishes of ice cream, one with two scoops of vanilla and one with two scoops of chocolate.

I knew from reading The God of Small Things that the Communist Party had supporters in India but this flag certainly caught my attention.

One of the tour boats is shaped like a giant goose.

Lots of different tour boats go past the marina several times each day. This one was parked in the spot across the river where the Bolgatty Ferry ties up. You can see it to the right of the goose. We had to climb out of our ferry and onto the goose and walk through and out onto the landing.

He asked me to take his photo so I obliged.

Temple Gates

A “godown” is a warehouse but sounds more intriguing.

It was really dark inside and my flash automatically went off.

She is up in a huge glass box and the same stray dog sleeps at the foot of the monument every day.

Friends reading.

I think these were bags of rice.

He was making these giant baskets.

We walked through the streets and alleys where fruit, vegetables, live chicken and hanging legs of some kind of meat are sold.

The more we explore the different parts of Cochin, the more we really like it.

Hi All,

  So many of you have written saying you are quite relieved at our change of plans.  We do appreciate that.   What is a bit reassuring is that almost all of the cruisers who made the passage from Malaysia or Thailand to Galle, Sri Lanka and then to Cochin are saying that it was just about their worst passage ever.  I find that reassuring because we made it under our own power and with almost all systems in tact by the end.  Of course, we did manage to avoid some of the worst of the storm while friends were stuck pretty much in it.  But whatever happened DoraMac and Randal got us here safe and sound. 

  We don’t have many plans in place for the time starting now. We will plan to leave India for the Maldives at the end of the month.   We plan to stop first at Uligan an island in the northern most part of the Maldives because it has great diving and we do have four diving tanks we’d filled to use in the Red Sea.  Then we will head on to Marmaris to pack up DoraMac and ship her off.  Other than that our plans are so new we have no details.   Here are some follow-up photos and odds and ends.

Ru

DoraMac

Cochin Miscellaneous

My treatment ladies.

This morning was my last treatment so I asked the ladies if I could take their photo. The one on the left is engaged and will marry in 7 months. The one on the right is married with two young children in primary school. They live about 200 kilometers from Cochin so stay in rooms upstairs in the treatment building. During a month they get 4 days off but both worked on me the entire 7 days I was there. When I asked about that, they smiled and shrugged and said there were no other women workers. They earn 4,000 rupees per month. I don’t know if they pay for their room and food or if that’s part of their pay. I speak no Malayalam and their English was a bit limited. They were very sweet and concerned and made it all bearable And the pain mostly seems gone.

When they work, their saris are pulled up around their knees and they wear the purple aprons tied around their waists to try to keep most of the oil off their uniforms.

Sarah Cohen – corrections.

This is the real photo of Sarah Cohen’s wedding…I found that out during my second visit. In the other photo, Sarah was standing to the brides left.

Abdul, Sarah, Thaha

I had met Thaha the first visit but assumed he was Abdul who was mentioned in the Washington Post article. They are brothers and both help Sarah.

I also read in Kerala and Her Jews that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi came to Cochin for the 400^th anniversary of the Cochin Synagogue to take part in the celebration.

Hungry for information; they really do eat paper and about anything else so are the trash collectors of Mattancherry.

This jazzy tuk tuk either said Elvis or reminded me of Elvis, but somehow Elvis sticks in my mind.

The driver was very nice and took me to the veggie and fruit street and then drove around looking for a bakery that sold whole wheat bread.

One evening 12 of us took the ferry across to Ernakulam for dinner at the Grand Hotel. It took 4 tuk tuks carrying 3 cruisers each to get us there.

Americans Bill and Amy on Estrelitta, homeport, Florida.

Bill and Judy on BeBe, from Texas and Michael and Linda on B’Sheret, from Wisconsin.

Michael and Linda are the friends we’ll travel with to New Delhi. They, and Bill and Judy on BeBe are also shipping their boats.

Brits Terry and Fiona on Roam II

They came from the Mediterranean this past year and are heading towards South East Asia.

Brits Chris and Trish on Sapristy registered in South Africa

After dinner we loaded back into the tuk tuk parade back to the ferry pier. Fiona had called the Bolgatty Hotel and it had sent a small boat to bring us all back to the marina since the public ferry had stopped running at 8pm. We paid 10 rupee per person.

Three young working women came to visit.

I met these ladies on the ferry from Ernakulam back to Bolgatty. They were going to spend an hour or so walking around the resort. They took out their camera phones and made a short video about me. They bought some bags of popcorn from a vendor and gave one to me. I invited them to our boat. They asked how India compared to China. I wish they could talk with our Chinese friends BoBo, Zoey and Singkey. They all look so lovely in their saris. Two of the women are 24 and one 23. They work here in Cochin and live in a “hostel” because home, where their parents live, is too far and I guess they don’t want to live at home any more.

Bolgatty guards at the gate.

When the marina was first built lots of people came to see the boats and climb all over them so guards were added and RULES. Now tour boats go by the marina and we wave and say hello.

Hi All

This morning I set off with friends on a "last visit to Jew Town" because when I left the boat this morning we were about to do a passage to the Red Sea and on to the Mediterranean. 

Ru

DoraMac

Return to Jew Town with Linda and Michael from B’Sheret

Our friends Linda and Michael hadn’t yet been to Jew Town or the Synagogue so I acted as tour guide. We had a lovely time. Randal came and met us for lunch and then he and Michael went off to do boat parts shopping and Linda and I to do our shopping. I bought a long skirt to wear in Oman and Yemen and Eritrea where we won’t be going. I also bought some pants with elastic around the ankles and I can pull them up higher on my leg to make really blowzy short pants to keep out of the wet in squat toilets. Linda excellently negotiated the price of the pants for me. Randal and Michael didn’t find boat parts so settled for a beer at the Seagull.

Bazar Road scene

Coffee break after our visit to the Synagogue

Michael and Linda

Bright colorful cloth sunbrellas for sale at the book shop just down from the Synagogue.

They really look like fun but most people just use regular cheap lightweight umbrellas.

A lesson in how to tell a genuine pashima which could be summed up to “the one that costs the most.”

We actually did learn quite a bit and you could feel the difference in the real pashima yarn. But they were way too expensive so we were all just looking.

Teeny, tiny copper elephants that I just had to have…… so tiny you can’t see them in the photo but they are around the edge of the table. Linda negotiated for me here too. He never had a chance; she’s good.

I’m wearing my ‘Not Red Sox hat.” I’m thinking I’ll color the words Red Sox on the brim.

The locked gate to the Jewish Cemetery

Linda and I walked to the cemetery at the edge of Jew Town but the gate was locked and no caretakers within like the one in George Town, Penang.

Space for what once was a thriving community but now is less than ten.

The cemetery in George Town was the same, space for people who had moved to other countries.

We were intrigued by this building but no signs explained its origins.

They stopped to say hello and introduced themselves and asked our names and were quite curious about our interest in the building. Their English was pretty limited to hello, what’s your name….Both were in the 7^th grade.

The taller boy wanted me to take his photo and sort of coerced his friend too.

Inside the building was dust and dark and some odd statues.

Shopkeeper’s niece.

In a small shop across from the Fort Kochi ferry, Linda and I were looking at postcards and puppets when this young girl came in. She had just had her hand decorated with henna.

Tour boat goes by the marina

Early in the morning before we left for Jew Town, this tour boat went by with a loud, jovial group of young men.

Frisbee toss

Randal keeps a supply of Frisbees on the bow and this was the first time he was able to toss them to a passing boat. He was one for three.

Dear Family and Friends,

  No photos with this email.  Randal and I are fine as are all of our friends.  But this is a very hard email to write.  We have decided to ship the boat to Turkey.  The fear of pirate attacks has grown so much in the past months, weeks, and days that we no longer can feel it is safe to make the passage.  It is truly, truly disappointing to us to make this decision.  Almost all of the cruisers we know have decided not to make the passage.  Some will ship their boat, some will return to South East Asia and wait for better times.  Some will return to South East Asia and then go south around the tip of Africa.  I left our decision to Randal.  Although I told him I wasn’t brave and couldn’t face being taken by Somali pirates, I had accepted that I could deal with it and made the decision to go.  I had to decide for myself and my decision was to trust Randal. I always have and he has gotten safely through bad weather and boat problems.  We had planned to go up the Indian coast north of 22 degrees and cross there, but in recent days that passage has become unsafe.  Today while I was out acting as tour guide for friends Linda and Michael from B’Sheret, Randal made the decision to ship DoraMac.  Our hearts had been set for a trip up the Red Sea, a Suez Canal transit and Israel in May.  When Randal told me he had committed us to shipping DoraMac, I cried from disappointment, from relief, but mostly I cried for Randal who so wanted to make this passage.  He deserves to make the passage as do all boats.  That our government is doing nothing to stop the pirates is beyond comprehension.  They are terrorists and criminals and they control the shipping lanes.  We must now return south to the Maldives where boats will await the pick-up between March 15th and March 25th for shipping on a cargo ship designed to carry boats as cargo.  We will not accompany DoraMac but meet her in Marmaris, Turkey in April.  The cost is high in dollars, but less than ransom money if the worst should happen.  We can afford the shipping charge but not the worry and fear to our families and friends if we should be taken and ransom money would cost everything we had ever saved.  It seems so absurd that we even have to think about this.

  On a lighter note, we will have more time in India.  We are joining our friends Linda and Michael on B’Sheret for a 10 day trip to New Delhi and a visit to the Taj Mahal.  We will still visit Israel and the Red Sea, but it will come later in the year.

Ru

DoraMac

The path from the Marina/Hotel complex to the ferry and the rest of the island.

Restaurant and Ice Cream Parlor now over grown.

All of the cruisers wish this place still existed because we all like ice cream and this marina has no small store like the one in Rebak where you could buy bread and eggs and Ice cream. We see many buildings half falling down; more than one would think of a BRIC country with good economic earnings projected for the future. It kind of reminds me of Olongapo in the Philippines.

This building, derelict and overgrown, reminds me of The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.

Set partly in Cochin and partly just south of Ernakulam, it’s a look at an India that we as cruisers won’t see because we come and go and stay at a marina.

Little ferry terminal along the 5 minute path from the marina.

The ferry runs from about 7 am and returns last at 8 pm form Ernakulam. If you stay later, the resort will arrange a 12 passenger boat pick up for 56 rupee or you can take a tuk tuk across the bridge for 80 rupee. I took the bridge tuk tuk one time with bags of groceries. Randal had to go to the High Court building to get something notarized and we didn’t know how long that would take so I went back myself and the driver took me right to the door of the marina. In two trips I had all of the bags on the boat. Now we know that many of the small boats will take you from the Ernakulam side right to your boat for 50 rupee but we didn’t know that then and I needed a tuk tuk from the grocery store anyway. Learning all of the ins and outs takes time. Weather-wise we need to get going so we’ll maybe have to come back one day.

Many paths: one traveler; I started down this one first.

Just past the ferry is a whole warren of paths with walls or fences hiding homes or empty overgrown lots and each path looked very tempting. I just started walking and like Robert Frost said,

“And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.”

That’s why I went there yesterday afternoon because I knew it would probably be my only chance: we’ll be leaving soon and other things will come up.

Late afternoon light and shadow, but I never worried about going walking there alone.

More paths and secret gardens.

I never doubled back.

The areas seemed no larger than the Plymouth Street block where I grew up in New Bedford. But it probably was.

Some homes were tiny but some were large like this one you can see past the wall with the flowerpots. Behind the flowerpot wall was a large house too: but many were small, some medium. All interesting but hidden away.

I snuck this photo when she wasn’t looking.

At the dead-end of this path were cows grazing and I took several photos.

You always see egrets with the cows or water buffalo because they eat the bugs that pester the cows. While I was photographing the cows the neighborhood was watching me amused that I would think cows photo-worthy.

So I asked if I could take their photo.

They all wanted to be photographed!

Other folks at other houses were watched and seemed to enjoy my photo-taking. I probably could have taken that whole neighborhood. But I just said hello and waved and smiled and so did they.

A medium size house in their neighborhood.

This was a tiny hotel down from the ferry, or so the sign said, and it had a tiny store and what looked like a very tiny restaurant.

The lovely woman who works there.

Then I walked back to the marina and our “ho hum” boats.