Monday 28th November - a couple of sea days on the Voyager

So what have we been doing?  Lie ins have been in order, and Peter has been running his classes.  We've listened to the Entertainments Manager Jack Clarkson one evening (he's really good), and sat on deck in the afternoons and evenings. We've spent hours looking out to sea and searching the waves for signs of life, but all we've seen so far are a few flying fish.

We eat in the Bistro each night and have begun to get to know some of the "very good looking waiters" (as described repeatedly in one of the daily activities).  One of the surprises is that they are generally older than they look, and have a multitude of talents.  Mark Louis sits behind the buffet counters, he keeps a big bowl aside for when Peter comes in just so that Peter can have a extra large helping of whichever soup they are serving.  He he makes flowers from napkins, one of which was presented to me last night.  Awwwwwww. Anyone who knows Peter will know he doesn't really like desserts, and is only happy with a bowl full of icecream.  One of the waiters goes downstairs from the Bistro to the main restuarant every night, just to get Peter two scoops of vanilla icecream. We are very well looked after here.

So our next stop after these two days is Port Blair in India.  We don't have a tour, so we'll just be going out for a walk around.  If it's anything like last time we went out for a walk, it'll probably be full of surprises. 

Tuesday 29th November, Port Blair, India.

India has never caught my imagination as a tourist destination, and never been on my bucket list, even the The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel couldn't entice me.  Now that we are here, India is everything I expected it to be - busy and full of colour, but also squalid and littered with rubbish.

Immigration procedures here in Port Blair were not quite as bad as they had been in Chennai, but there were still a few hoops that they wanted us to jump through to get off the ship.  Once off, Peter and I had decided to walk.  The area didn't look like it had much to offer, and I was hoping to see some of the local wildlife.  As we approached the exit gate, we bumped into Raoul (the Shorex guy), who grinned and asked if we had our hard hats ready?

And he wasn't joking.  As we walked out of the gates of the port, the tuk tuk drivers came at us in a wave of bodies.  And boy are those guys persistent!  No. No. No! We repeated again and again, but they kept asking.  One driver must have kerb crawled (well it would have been kerb crawling if there had been a kerb), for a good 5 minutes as we kept repeating "No! Go away!" to him.

We reached a stretch of road where we were given a little peace (which means the tuk tuk drivers only stopped every 5 mins or so, rather than every 10 secs), and we walked along in the heat, looking, photographing, and getting a feel of the place.

A roadside garage.  All makes and models of vehicle fixed here. 

I think this is a long tailed shrike.  He was perched above a load of rusty  waste oil drums.

 The photographs have been selected to show the best of the area, but in truth the beaches were covered in rubbish, and it was piled in heaps at the side of the road, looking and smelling disgusting.
Even the photographs showing it are disgusting, so I couldn't bring myself to post one.  Suffice to say it was easily equal to the rubbish surrounding the slums in Chennai.

It took a while before we came to a stretch along the coastline that wasn't covered in floating debris and plastic bottles.

This white throated kingisher was beautiful.  Even the rusty old boat it was perched on had charm

The cows wander freely, and yes, the cars, motorbikes, and tuk tuks just drive carefully around them.

Tumble drying indian style.  This washing has been hung out by the local launderette, and included the towels and sheets for the nearby hotels. 

This is the launderette. It seems all that washing has been done by hand. 

Eventually we reached the city centre.  Using Maps.me (an excellent app and highly recommended), we worked out that it was only a little way to reach the bay opposite Ross Island.  The path ran alongside an open sewer at one point, but we walked on, thinking that we would get a tuk tuk back from the bay on the other side.

A very much respected and revered man.  

The streets were full of noise and colour.  An amazing place.  

2 hours from our start point, we were sitting on the pier in the bay, enjoying the view and the sea breeze.  A couple of passengers from the ship walked past, asking if we were going across to Ross Island as they went. Since it was something I had read up about and sort of wanted to do, Peter agreed and we made our way to the ferry point.  But we didn't have tickets, we should have got them from a hut about 5 mins away and the ferry was about to leave! Amazingly, the ferry crew arranged for someone to come from the ticket booth with our tickets, (I think there may have been something funny going on cos the $5 we gave them seemed to be shared out between the three guys on the gate). In a couple of minutes a guy in a brown uniform hurried up the pier with the tickets and we were able to climb into the riverboat and set off.

Ross Island was used by the British as a penal colony back in the day.  It sort of reminded us of Isle De Salut, only not quite as memorable.   The deer, ground squirrels and peacocks added to the colour of the place, and not only that, it was only litter free area we'd seen here.

It's like something out of Lord or the Rings.  We loved the way the trees have taken over the old buildings. 

Remnants of the luxury lifestyle of the British wardens, which included tennis courts and a swimming pool, 

It's a palm squirrel

We caught the ferry back a couple of hours later, agreed a price of $2 with a tuk tuk driver for the crazy ride back to port, (but paid him $5 anyway) and arrived back on the ship just after 2.30pm.  Too late for lunch, but that gave us an excuse to dive into afternoon tea, which we normally miss.

All in all a good day out.  I still don't think of India as a holiday destination, but I really loved the opportunity to see new wildlife and a little of the culture.

Tomorrow is a sea day and a chance to rest the feet. After that we have Thailand and Malaysia, now those countries do peak my interest.  I am really looking  forward to them. 

Saturday 26th November - A difficult day in Chennai, India,

We thought we'd be pottering around the city today, but Raoul from the Shorex team came to us yesterday afternoon to let us know we were both on tour, except Peter was to go to the Mahabalipuram temple, and I would be doing the city tour.  I was quite happy about that, city tours tend to be quite easy, as most of the time we are sat on the bus whilst the guide tells the passengers loads of stuff about the city, its history and its culture.

The ship was a little late into port, and there there was the immigration procedures to get through.  It was easier to visit Russia! There is a different process for the different states of India, and the one for Chennai must be designed as a deterrent to visiting.  The amount of hoops to jump through and paperwork required is ridiculous.  We'd already completed a Security Clearance questionaire back in the UK in order to get a visa to visit India.  Now, to visit Chennai, we had to complete 3 documents each, including a shore pass, and a customs declaration regarding our electrical equipment.  Thankfully, the ship admin was excellent, they did most of the filling in for us, and we received printed documents that we only needed to add our electrical items to and sign. Once we docked into port, we had to do a face to face with various Indian immigration officials, whilst they stamped our documentation and passports (3 times at 3 different desks).  Again, the ships admin set up was brilliant.  They managed to get all the passengers and crew through the process in the quickest of time and with the minimum of fuss.  I have to give them 5 stars for that.

Peter's tour set off in the morning, and mine was due to start a little after an early lunch.  And we still had one more immigration hoop to jump through once we had got off the ship and onto the bus, as the port officials boarded and took the details of each shore pass.  What a palava!

So now our tour began.  Remember the bit where I said that city tours were easy?  Forget that!  My problem was that the guide was absolutely hopeless.  We could forgive her the thick Indian accent, the fact that she didn't tell us anything useful or interesting and spoke quietly meaning most of us couldn't hear her.  But she didn't take any care or responsibility for the passengers at all, never once checking that everyone was keeping up and relying entirely on me to keep track.  Most of the time we coped, but our last stop involved walking through an extremely busy area of the city - and to be honest, the only way we knew where she'd gone was by following the passenger in front and hoping. It got worse when we got inside the Hindu temple, and we found that we'd lost two.  Our guide knew that two guys hadn't come in with us, but she didn't tell me, nor had she told them where to meet us later or how long we'd be.  I spent a good half hour carrying the dread that we'd lost passengers in this incredible and somewhat intimidating bustle. Fortunately they had the sense to wait at the bus collection point so all was well in the end.

So as you can tell, my escorting duties were quite stressful today, which spoilt my enjoyment of the tour and the visit to the Hindu temple in particular. A bit of a shame, because that was the one place that I really wanted to see. Anyway, here are the pictures:

Not surprisingly, our guide didn't point out the slums that we passed.  What a terrible place to live. 

Reeaaddy........ Steeaaddy..........  The traffic was quite manic, although here you can see all the drivers on their best behaviour.

We visited St Mary's, which is the oldest protestant church in the city and was built within the British colonial fort. 

A drive by of the Ghandi sculpture.  This is on the front of the Marina Beach - extensive sands which were covered with toursists going for a swim.  Indian tourists that is. 

We did visit a couple of museums, but the best part of the tour for me was when we got off the bus and started to make our way through the madness of the city towards the temple. 

There was so much noise and colour.  The locals were either staring at us, (the noveltyof all these white people), trying to sell us something or trying to run us over. 

These flower garlands are hand made and probably take a very long time to complete, we were able to watch some of the men in their craft.  The garlands are sold to the passers by give them to the Hindu priests as offerings to the Gods

We weren't allowed to take photographs of any of the insides of the temple areas or the altars, but we were allowed to photograph the elaborat roofs. Quite stunningly beautiful. (By now I know we've lost a couple of passengers, so it sort of took the shine off the moment as I was taking these).

After the temple we visited the Basilica, which is where the body of the disciple Thomas is buried.  This was of particular interest to few of our more devoted passengers, who were absolutely delighted to have been able to visit his tomb.

So, an eventful day out.  I'm really glad I got to see the Hindu temple.  It's just a shame that it was a holy day and absolutely packed, so that we never got a chance to see inside the altars, as well as the missing passengers raising my stress levels.

Next we have a couple of sea days, so I can relax and recover.