MARCH 24, 2008 – First day toward Dubai.

We woke up a little after 8:30 am and got ready for the first speaker. The weather today was warm and sunny and the lounge lizards are all over the upper deck near the pool. I agree with the Malayasians who see dark skin as a sign of the lower class peasants who work in the fields and sun all day. To have light white skin is a sign of luxury and higher class. So they say why do these people come to our beaches and grill?
WAGING PEACE: THE STATUS OF THE ANIT-WAR MOVEMENT IN AMERICA TODAY. This was Scott Ritter again, and he generated a lot of push back with his remarks. The old vets, not all but many, were outraged at what they consider unpatriotic remarks from Ritter. And of course, this was exactly the point that he was making: the Constitution protects free speech. How many folks could pass a test on the Constitution? We are giving away our rights.
One questioner had googled Ritter’s name and was asking him about some of the quotes and comments he had found. The main point of Ritter’s answer was right on target: consult several diverse sources of data, regularly, and then make your own analysis. He observed how many different newspapers one finds in foreign cities such as London, all with their own biases. At least one gets a broader perspective on what’s going on that we have in America with most cities with only one newspaper and news media who are often owned by the same entity. I can’t do justice to his remarks here, but it was nice to see some of the complacent shook up a little; they believe what’s told to them and don’t look any further.
One man in the audience said that he had worked hard all his life and now he wanted to enjoy the fruits of his labor. He wasn’t interested in doing all this work to be a good citizen. I’m paraphrasing of course but that is the essence of his remarks, and a few heads here and there bobbed, but I was stunned. Ritter’s response was respectful but firm in terms of the need to remain engaged and vote knowledgably.
TRIVIA: We came our #3 today. Our scribe for the day was upset because she put Jack Nicklaus when the answer was Jack Nicholson. She knew the answer of Nicholson was currect but as a golfer I guess her fingers were automatic. None of us double checked that. She was so upset by this error. We tried to reassure her that we’ve all done this and that it’s only a game. Even with that answer, we wouldn’t have won anyway. Though I will say we do this game of “if only we’d changed that answer back to the other one we thought….and so on.” The prizes this morning were Princess tote bags.
LUNCH: the padre was passing out quips as usual. He comes up with stuff out of the blue that is so unexpected but so funny. We talked with some folks who had gone to the Taj. I’ll write more about that after I talk with several more people. Clearly we have many folks on this cruise who have led a very sheltered life; many asserting they’d never come back to India again.
We did pretty much agree that Bombay is cleaner than it was on our last visit(s); many of us remarked about this. There’s still poverty and begging but it’s not so oppressive as before. Of course, we were out on a triple holiday (Easter and 2 others) and the traffic was (supposedly) mild for Bombay, though it still reminded us of China’s traffic congestion.
THE DELHI INTELLIGENCE BUREAU: Nigel West, the intelligence expert, wove a fascinating history of this intelligence bureau most of us had never heard of. According to his remarks, it is the only one never to have been penetrated by spies. I couldn’t do justice to his remarks but his analysis was certainly spellbinding.
BURNING DISCS: I’ve had a backlog of disks to burn; photos and videos of other folks who would enjoy having copies, many because they lost or damaged their own cameras. I double checked all of them this time and all were working properly. Ed tries to tell me how to do this and I try to humor him but sometimes I want to pop him in the mouth. He made two disks the other day and they were blanks, so who needs the double checking?
TRIVIA: We only had 16 questions today. But many were very hard. The dynamics of our group were funny (if it didn’t make you mad). The answer to one question about Obediah was bible or Old Testament. One of our group said there wasn’t anyone in the Bible named Obediah and I thought she was going to faint dead away when that was the answer. Another question was: what is the Australian Dugong otherwise known as? I said Manatee but our Aussie member hadn’t heard of that. He tried to describe it and finally “seal” was put down. It turns out I was right. He was very apologetic and I reminded him that he gave us New Caledonia (after much thinking and exercising of little grey cells—shades of Poirot) as the country whose capital is Noumea. We’d never have known that one had it not been for him. The other contentious question was: which animal has the largest eye? After much discussion, the group settled on the whale, but Ed had the answer which was Giant Squid. And I don’t know what the “prizes” were today.
FINISHING THE DISCS: So I finished them all and delivered those whose “address” I knew. I felt like a Brownie scout again.
DINNER: Dave, Twyla and Bill. They all went to the Taj Mahal but Bill and Lea went privately and the other two took the Princess tour. I’ll write more later about what we’re hearing about the Taj visit.
I really sinned tonite, but I had lots of company. The Head Waiters were making peach melba for everyone; then we saw peanut butter ice cream and we were all sunk. We all ordered peanut butter ice cream except for Twyla and she took a taste of Dave’s. We were lamenting the fact that Henry wasn’t with us this tonite and if we could have accurately remembered his cabin number, Rod would have had some delivered to him. I’ll have to climb a lot more stairs to pay for all the calories I consumed at dinner.
COMEDIAN: John Martin: world record holder for non-stop joke telling – 101 hours and 39 min. We didn’t go. I read and did some other stuff while Ed watched a Discovery Channel program about men climbing Mt. Everest and losing toes and fingers.

MARCH 23, 2008 – BOMBAY, INDIA

6 am we woke up and it was dark outside but there was a spotlight searching the water. Could have been the pilot boat? I keep wanting to see the pilot climb the rope or whatever they have, to get on board. As you may recall, the Aussie reef pilot said he’d quit when he couldn’t climb the rope ladders and then the stairs to the bridge with ease.
IMMIGRATION: It took longer than expected for the ship to be cleared so immigration didn’t start when it had been scheduled. Even with this, it went very quickly and it was back on schedule ahead of time. This process involves us taking our notice and our cruise card, along with the tour ticket, to the starboard entrance to the Pacific Lounge. The line, when we joined it this morning, was on deck 7; the Lounge is on deck 10.
When we get to the first table, we get our passport from ship’s personnel. Then we queue up again and eventually we are in front of an Indian immigration official who looks at our photo in the passport, then at us, then looks for a place to stamp the passport (this is becoming a real challenge in mine), and stamps the tourist card we’re given for the day and which we surrender when we are back on board for good. Then he signs the stamps and we are on to the next station where we again surrender our passport to the ship’s personnel and retain the yellow Dock Entry Permit.
Lovely ladies in gorgeous saris await us as we walk off the ship; they present each of us with two red rose buds. I put them in water when we got back to the room but I don’t have much hope for them after a day in this heat and then a/c on the bus.
TOUR: Our group was the smallest and the next to last to leave.
Still we were pretty much on time. This was to visit synogogues in Bombay. There is a man among the group with whom I’ve had some not pleasant for me encounters. He hasn’t figured out the religious status of me vis a vis Ed. His girlfriend is friendly enough, and pleasant though quite a know it all. He has figured out that I’m Catholic but hasn’t made anything else fit to suit him. I give him credit: his inquiries are tasteful.
We had to walk several blocks through a very poor area to reach the first synagogue. This tour is rarely done and so the tour guide, while he seemed to be fairly knowledgable about Jews in Bombay, though I he is not Jewish himself, seemed confused that the temple wasn’t open. One of the ladies strongly suggested that he rap on the door. Voila! A man appeared, and he in turn brought another old man down. So we were ushered into this very old temple. We were allowed to take photos freely and he opened the ark where they have 10 Torahs. The last prayer service only had 25 attendees, and it is obvious that the building is strapped for money.
There is a women’s section upstairs in the balcony and the entrance to it is from the outside. I wasn’t sure about women wandering freely on the ground floor but it seemed to present no problems. I think most everyone left generous donations as we left.
Synagogue #2 was free standing behind another street. Each of these temples were painted in a light powder blue and white. Paint was chipping and flaking away everywhere; the last one was in the best condition. We were given permission to take photos ad lib in this synagogue as well. It was larger than the first one, and in a little better neighborhood (but it’s all relative as Americans find these environments very disturbing).
Synagogue #3 was the largest and best maintained, but it has the largest membership too, which isn’t saying much as there are 4000 Jews in Bombay and many synagogues. Most of the population moved to Israel in the 1950s, and the remaining ones are dying off quickly. This synagogue has a Mikvah on the first floor; you mount steep stairs to see the temple on the second floor. This one has gorgeous stained glass windows. Madonna had visited last January and they have many photos of this in the hallway. The bathrooms in this temple were not squat, but not Western either. The commode looked like western but there wasn’t a seat. And after you were done, you pitched a pitcher of water into the bowl to flush.
Finally, we went to the required tourist trap where goods are lovely but no price breaks. Along the way today, we passed all the major sites in Bombay; we had seen almost all of them on our last trip. Because it is Easter, much was closed and traffic was less than usual. Still it’s worse than LA on it’s busiest rush hour time. There are 70,000 taxis in Bombay and that doesn’t count the carriages and trishaws (scooters adapted to carry 3 passengers—two Americans—and the driver).
I feel like I have really seen Mombai today because of the routes we took and the neighborhoods we went into. We saw men getting haircuts and shaves on the sidewalk, kids playing cricket with sticks and stones in the streets, cows wandering freely here and there, people living on sidewalks and curbsides, people bathing with water buckets on the roadsides, cooking in a single pot on the curbside, dye thrown into pot holes.
TAJ HOTEL: I had mentioned going to the Taj Hotel but Ed didn’t seem interested so I psyched myself up to forego it. Later at the last stop, he asked the guide how to get there and walked over there. He came back and got me, told the guide we’d be leaving the tour here, and off we went to the Taj Hotel.
I’ve forgotten to mention how much I enjoy the architecture in Mombai. It is all old from the British period, but they are gorgeous edifices. The older part of the Taj Hotel, called the Palace, is lovely. There are very upscale shops in this building; you can have suits, shirts, and saris custom made in 24 hours.
INDIAN FOOD: We had REAL Indian food in an Indian restaurant in the hotel; two other passengers we have met several times sat next to us and we helped each other out with the menu. We had leg of lamb ( I expected a full leg of lamb), a broccoli florets and potatoes dish, Nan bread: butter and garlic, and Iced Tea. When we got to the table, snacks were brought out: cucumbers, carrots, and turnips with several crunchy things and a dip, spicy, for all. We cleaned this up pretty quickly. There was some, but not much, food left over after we ate. We had two glasses each of this wonderful iced tea which I couldn’t possible describe adequately except to say that it isn’t American Iced Tea. We declined dessert. Our fellow passengers had curry chicken with rice, the broccoli and potatoes, iced tea, and chili nan. Their’s was also marvelous.
BOOK STORE: We hit the book store in the hotel where Ed bought a stock of Soduku puzzles (I couldn’t find any crossword puzzles), and two copies of the Economist. Now we’ll have to fight over the latter since we’ve both finished all our reading we brought along. I have started Rashi’s daughters: Miriam.
TAXI: the folks in front of the hotel got a taxi for us that was air conditioned and that would charge us $7 USD to the entrance to the pier, and $10 to the ship. It turns out they have to buy a permit for $2 USD for the latter; it was probably a bribe as no one asked us for ID though we had our cruise cards ready.
We got back about 2:45 pm and looked through the stalls in the terminal. It’s hard to know what you’re buying and it was hard for me to find things in my size. They want to insist that you look fine in something that Omar the tentmaker would generous. The fabrics are clearly gorgeous but it’s hard to know if it’s really silk, if it’s really 6 meters long (sari length), if the extra fabric inside will really make sleeves, if the decoration is sprayed on or somehow embossed because it isn’t woven into the fabric. And one lady quoted me $25 USD (special price just for you) for 6 meters of silk sari fabric; the other stalls were quoting over a $100 USD for the same. Something’s wrong with this picture and I wound up buying nothing in the end. If I want a sari or Punjabi style dress badly enough, I know where there are lots of Indian clothing shops a few miles from me.
DIET COKES: Oh dear. We’ve seen no cokes at all and India clearly doesn’t need Diet cokes! We’re down to one in the fridge (plus the two beers Ro donated to Ed) and we have 6 days at sea ahead of us.
PICKING PHOTOS: I download the pictures each time we go out. Between Ed and I we have so many photos and most need some work, e.g. lightening, contrast, etc. After this, I have to export them in a smaller size for the blog. Picking just the right ones is as hard as any part of it. I feel like an electrician sometimes: charging our cameras, hooking up the download systems (both are different), and then making sure I get them in the right files on the hard drive; I’m not doing so well with this but it’s a boring story to explain.
Assuming I remember, I’ll attach some long over due photos when I upload this blog.
DINNER: Just Ed and I. Rod visited with us for a while. They had a special menu and Rod gave us a copy as a memento.
EASTER DECORATIONS: the entryway into the dining room has a display of HUGE chocolate Easter eggs; you can smell the chocolate all over the place. Mauritzio, our head waiter, tells us that they will serve them for dessert tomorrow as it is Easter Monday. I hope they survive that long. When I say they are big, I mean big enough that I cold barely get my arms around them. Ed asked if they were solid and never got a good answer. Ha.
ENTERTAINMENT: the ship had a folkloric group come on board and they did a 1 hr show for us. We saw the tail end of the first performance, and then the full performance again. What great smiles they all had and the colorful costumes were amazing, rivaled only by the energy shown in these dances. We took a few shots with our cameras and I found that a night time setting with the little tripod works best for me.