Israel

This is probably one of the strangest blog entries I will make for the entire trip. Neither one of us was on an excursion and neither one of us went sightseeing.  We had two stops in Israel, Ashdod and Haifa, and we saw virtually nothing --- by choice.  And there are no pictures. 

DAY 1

Last year we went to Jerusalem and did quite a bit of extensive sightseeing there. We also toured  Haifa.  So this year we chose not to repeat things that we did last year, and neither one of us was motivated to go on any tours this year.  So what exactly did we do?

I had my nails done on the ship and I must say I have never had such a poor job done.  I thought today would be a good day to go into Ashdod, where they have several malls, and find a place to get my nails done.  Michael is in need of a haircut, so this would also be a good day for him to get that done as well.  We took the shuttle from the ship to the mall. The first thing we noticed was that there is security to enter the mall, and the security people had guns.  The next thing we noticed was that all the signage was in Hebrew.  It makes for a very difficult shopping experience when one cannot read the directory or the name of the store.

Not everyone in Israel speaks English, so I had to find somebody who did speak English to inquire where a nail shop was located.  I got the location of one and followed the directions; the nail shop happened to be right next to a hair salon.  Perfect!  Except there were no hairdressers on duty that day and the nail shop was too busy to take me.  Rats!  A client in the nail shop gave us directions to another nail shop.  We traipsed across a street into another building and the same thing happened there: no time for nails, no time for haircut.  

There was another mall on the other side of the intersection, so we headed over there.  I was not in a particularly walking mood because I woke up with a very stiff and sore left knee and leg.  I had taken a pain pill before we left and I was having difficulty making my leg work.  By this time, I decided that I can just live with my nails the way they were thanks to superglue and Michael decided he could live with his hair until we got home.  We picked up a few things that we had run out of and then took the shuttle back to the ship.

We had a most enjoyable afternoon floating in the pool and lounging in the hot tub.

DAY 2

I had a restless night due to pain in my knee. When I got up this morning I could barely stand on my left leg as the knee wanted to buckle.  I really don't understand why I have more pain when I sleep then when I walk.  I went to see the acupuncturist because that's the closest I can get to any kind of therapy on the ship.  He determined that was there was a lot of swelling and fluid around the knee and down the entire leg.  It seemed a little less stiff after the treatment.  He told me to spend some time in the hot tub, which I was glad to do.  This was a day to take it very easy and rest as much as I could. 

Michael, on the other hand, did get off the ship and had a most interesting "excursion" as he reports below:

MICHAEL

It turned out that Adrian had a severe earache and needed to go see a specialist at the hospital.  Lillian was still ailing with her bronchitis so I offered to escort Adrian.  He and I, along with the ship's second officer, were picked up by the port agent and taken to B'nai Zion Hospital.  Here we discovered that hospitals in Israel are absolutely no different than hospitals in the United States, other then being unable to read any of the signage.  For some strange reason, everything is written in Hebrew.  LOL Anyway, after the paperwork at the front desk was completed, we were escorted into the emergency room and told we would have to wait our turn.   And wait we did for about 45 minutes until our escort somehow, someway got us around the emergency room and into the ENT clinic, where we needed to be in the first place.

Here, we got to wait another 45 minutes until it was time to see the doctor.  Both Adrian and the second officer were examined at the same time, although by different doctors.  Ironically, they both had exactly the same problem and were treated in the same way.  They even received exactly the same prescription.  Our escort then directed us to the front desk so that Adrian could pay his bill, which was outrageous, and then put us in a cab.  We got to stop at the drugstore to pick up the prescriptions and then return to the ship.  It turned out that both the trip to the hospital, which is located on top of the largest hill in the city, and the return trip were both quite enjoyable.  And best of all, I got to see the inside of an Israeli hospital without having to be sick.

Life at Sea, Cruising the Red Sea, and the Suez Canal

We have ship-wide events that celebrates different occasions such as welcome to Arabia Night. Both men and women were dressed in their best guess as to what Arabian clothes look like. The pool deck was decorated with colorful lanterns and pretty table decorations. All kinds of appetizers were available for the adventurist. I wore my Indian caftan, which looked quite smart, while the entertainers wore belly dancer outfits. And why not -- when you got the figure, flaunt it. 

Once in a while, I can chill for an hour or two when I don't have to play bridge.  The seas have been so calm, that one hardly knows we are on a ship. That's my foot in the picture, and I am relaxing on the aft deck reading. 

I have been playing a lot of bridge this segment, but unfortunately with not such good players.  It is frustrating!  We have two life masters who have teamed up and nobody can beat them.  Our games have dwindled to five tables, so it is a very quiet room.  

Here we are, at anchor overnight, waiting our turn to enter the Suez Canal.  It is almost 1 AM, and the plumbers are still here trying to fix the toilet after three hours.  Michael has fallen asleep and I am writing this to keep awake.  [Editor's note: they finally fixed it and left at 1:30 AM]

My whole body hurts from our little outing yesterday to Petra.  I can't get up from a seated position without making geezer noises when I try to stand up.  Walking is painful due to sore calf muscles that are tight. I guess walking over rocks, in sand, and getting jostled around in a carriage with no springs as well as riding a horse can make an ocean going bridge director/player long for the sea. 

Going through the Suez Canal

The Suez Canal is nothing more than a big ditch. There is nothing exciting about it like going through the Panama Canal. There are no locks. The traffic goes one way only and there are lakes spaced at regular intervals for ships to sit out while waiting to go the direction they want to go.  It takes a good day to transverse the 140 mile long, 75 foot deep water filled ditch.  On the west side of the canal there are many villages and cities along the bank. Beyond civilization, there is 2,000 miles of the Sahara Desert ending at the Atlantic Ocean. To the east, is 100 miles of the Sinai Desert.

    A resort on the west side of the canal

    A view of the canal from the aft deck of the ship

Petra, Jordan

We were here at Petra about four or five years ago, and it hasn't changed. But I certainly have changed.  I am stubborn as a mule and sometimes what is the practical thing to do does not make it past my common sense detector.  I am five years older, I am out of shape, and I have bad knees. Doesn't that suggest that somebody should not attempt a five mile walk in the heat walking over rocks and gravel and ancient cobblestones?  But nooooo, I have to go and do it.    

Our destination was Petra, one of the new Seven Wonders of the World. It was a good two hour ride and did we see sights!  We saw camels, goats, donkeys and sheep, all grazing by the road, near the road, on the road and anywhere else they felt like it. There were Bedouin camps dotting the barren desert landscaping. These people are nomads who live in one huge tent and tend the animals.

The desert landscape was breathtaking. Parts of it looked like Arizona, parts like Utah. There were all shades of tans, browns, reds with a few green plants scattered among the rocks. There were mesas, wadis (gullies), hills and mountains, rock formations, valleys and great vistas -- and did I say lots of rocks. There wasn’t much civilization between Aqaba and the nearest city to Petra (Atybat). 

We rode on a nice highway for about 45 minutes, and then turned off onto the road to Petra.  This was a winding and bumpy road, and in a bus, it was like being on the sea in about an 8 foot swells hitting you on the beam. We finally arrived in a town (Atybat) that was quite interesting. The streets were steeper and curvier and the buildings were built into the hillsides.  It was a very scenic town with lots of tourist amenities, such as hotels and restaurants.

Petra was a city built by the Nabataeans more than 2,000 years ago and served as a very important cross road in commerce between the Red Sea and Mediterranean Sea. It is also known as the Rose-Red City, a name it gets from the wonderful color of the rock from which many of the city’s structures were carved. 

After walking through the entrance gate with our guide, the walk from the visitor center to the beginning of the Siq (the gorge to Petra) was about ¾ of a mile, downhill on a variety of surfaces, mostly gravel, rock, and sand.  Walking through the Siq (about one mile long), the color and shape of the rock walls was amazing. The walls looked like polished marble, so smooth and intricately carved by both man and nature, and stood at least 30 stories high.  The road through the Siq had the original rock surface that made walking slow as we walked from rock to rock. In some places, it was sand or small rocks. 

At the very end of the Siq, the narrow opening revealed Petra’s most magnificent façade, the Treasury, which is over 140 feet high. This façade has been carved into the rock and is incredible. Going through the Siq, and walking through Petra itself wasn't too bad, as I had plenty of water, an umbrella for shade, and it was all downhill.  There is another two miles of more caves, facades, columns and monuments, which we did not do because Michael had done it last time and I was not in the best shape to do much more as we had an uphill return trip.  

   Peak-a-boo

    More is revealed 

  Treasury Building

   In front of the Treasury

I was getting overheated and of course if you're walking downhill to enter, then you've got to walk back uphill to exit.  I wanted to ride a carriage out of the Siq, but here comes the stubborn part:  Michael said we would take it easy and go slow.  I guess I had to prove that I can still do it -- whatever it is.  And Michael sorta made me feel like a wimp because I wanted to take the carriage or he didn't want to pay the money; in any event, I tried to walk back -- up hill -- two miles.  I'm afraid to say that I didn't get too far. I just couldn't do it no matter how much grief Michael gave me. I was able to snag a horse drawn carriage (that is putting it politely) to ride back up the hill to the beginning of the Siq (Michael chose to walk).  These carriages are old, dirty, and have no springs.  I'm not sure which was worse on my knees, walking or the carriage as it flew over the original rock floor.  Let me put it this way:  I bounced up and down so much, that I didn't think it was possible for my boobs to hit my chin.  The horse didn't really feel like listening to the driver and would just stop. The poor, tired horse just gave up near the top , so I had to walk the rest of the way out.

I am near death at this point and there was another 3/4 mile to go. So I then rode a horse from the Siq entrance to the entrance gate.  Would you believe that Michael arrived at the same time at the spot where I got off the horse?  What timing as the horse guide wanted more money.  All in all it was $35 well spent. 

Salalah, Oman

I am falling down on the job. I can't get excited about writing about Salalah.  Since we have previously been to Salalah, I would just be repeating what I wrote about last year.  Here is that link. 

http://worldquest2013.blogspot.com/2013/04/oman.html

Michael insists that I write more about Salalah because we went to a couple of new places that we have not been to before.  Both of us were escorts on the same of excursion and we went to the Al Husn Palace, where the sultan currently lives.  

Then we went to the frankincense museum, which had nothing to do with frankincense.  There were frankincense bushes outside the museum that is part of the landscaping, but inside it was a history museum. Again, you know how much I love museums, but at least this one was air-conditioned.  Michael says the replica of a dhow was incredible, including anchor chain made out of teak.  

    Berries on the frankincense tree

    The frankincense tree

We went to Al Balid, a UNESCO world heritage site and a once prosperous medieval era port.  The harbor was important for the export of frankincense.  It was very hot and since I had been here before, I elected to stay on the air-conditioned bus.  We stopped here and there and a few other places that really were not much to look at, and I spent a great deal of time on the bus just staying cool and not overdoing the steps because of my knees.  

Again, I stayed on the bus when we stopped at the worst souk I have ever been too. They mostly sold frankincense and Muslim clothes for men. There were some jewelry stores and perfume, most of which are probably knockoffs.  There was some other stuff, but it look like a bunch of junk to me.  The odor of frankincense was everywhere and it was pungent and very powerful.  

This was one of the worst escorting assignments I ever had in more ways than one. 

Mumbai, India

Take two. I had written the entire blog and was very pleased with it, and then I started to put the pictures in and I accidentally somehow deleted the whole thing.  Grrrr.......   So here goes and let's see if I can re-create it.

It was a weird day. We were supposed to dock at 11 AM in Mumbai but we actually docked at 7 AM. As you can imagine, the alarm clock went off right on time at 6 AM.  Since we both had excursions to escort in the afternoon, we had the morning to ourselves. What to do?  Doesn't doing laundry sound like a good idea? No, but that was Michael's idea and besides, we had nothing else better to do so that's what we did. 

We only had one bag of laundry but by the time Michael got done going through the closet, he managed to fill up three washing machines full of dirty clothes.  Things were going according to schedule and we brought the laundry back to our room to fold. Michael said to me, "where is the rest of my underwear and I only have one sock."  I went back to the laundry room and found that there were none of our clothes left in the dryer. Hummmm, where could they be?  I decided to look in the washing machine that we had used, but there was a load of someone else's laundry going at the time.  I stopped the machine and I looked inside and lo and behold, there was all the rest of our missing laundry:  five pairs of underwear, one undershirt, the missing sock, and a laundry bag. Some idiot took our stuff out the washing machine and put it in the dryer and then put his clothes in the washing machine which was still full of our clothes!  So doing the laundry took a lot longer than we had planned on, but we know his undies are nice and clean since they were washed twice.  Yes people, they walk among us.

Last year when we were in Mumbai, I wrote extensively on my blog about the city and its inhabitants. So instead of repeating everything I wrote from last year, which is pretty much the same, Here is the link to that blog for your further reading enjoyment.

http://worldquest2013.blogspot.com/2013/04/mumbai-india.html

Here are some miscellaneous images I thought would be interesting to share:

    A typical street scene

    And independent cobbler shop

    A doorman at the Taj Hotel, representing colonial British times

There was one topic that I did not cover that I think is pretty interesting to tell you about -- dappawallas, a person who delivers lunch boxes.  Workers from the suburbs take the train into the city as their primary means of transportation. The trains in Mumbai are so crowded, that there is very little room to carry anything extra on your person.  Six million people per day use the Victoria train station, and this station only serves the east side of the city.  There is another train station that serves the west side of the city.  Restaurant food is pricey for the average worker, plus they like to have a hot meal at lunchtime. 

A dabbawalla is part of a delivery system that collects hot food in lunch boxes (dappas) from the residences of workers in the late morning, delivers the lunches to the workplace utilizing various modes of transport, predominantly bicycles and the trains, and returns the empty boxes back to the customer's residence that afternoon.  A collecting dabbawalla, usually on bicycle, collects the dappas from a worker's home.  As many of the carriers are illiterate, the dabbas have some sort of distinguishing mark on them, such as a color or group of symbols.  The dabbawalla then takes them to a designated sorting place, where he and other collecting dabbawallas sort (and sometimes bundle) the lunch boxes into groups. The grouped boxes are put in the coaches of trains, with markings to identify the destination of the box (usually there is a designated car for the boxes). The markings include the railway station to unload the boxes and the destination building delivery address.  At each station, boxes are handed over to a local dabbawalla, who delivers them. The empty boxes are collected after lunch or the next day and sent back to the respective houses.  This system has a 99% rate of effectiveness and Harvard business school has come here to study this system. 

As I mentioned previously, Michael and I both had excursions to do.  I received an excursion to the Caves of Elephanta and Michael received an excursion for the marvels of Mumbai that both of us have done twice before.  The excursion to the caves involves climbing 125 stone steps. But it also involves climbing down 125 steps, for a grand total of 250 steps. A person with bad knees, would be foolish to try and attempt this, so being of sound mind, I traded excursions with Michael.  My excursion would just be getting on and off the bus several times, and it seemed the more prudent thing to do.  Needless to say, I was not excited about this. 

Ha ha ha, the laugh was on me. I thought I was getting away from climbing stairs and that was not to be today.  I have been on many buses across the world and this is the first time I ever had to get on the bus that had spiral stairs that were so narrow that a normal sized foot could barely fit on the step.  And then you had to do a little maneuver to get through the door that separates the driver's compartment from the passenger compartment. But at least the bus had good air conditioning.

So we saw the usual touristy type stuff -- the Gateway of India, the Taj Hotel, and the Dhobi Ghat laundry -- and stopped for visits at the Gandhi Museum and the Prince of Wales Museum.  Oh boy, you know how much I love museums. I had planned to sit on the bus during the museum stops, but I was informed that the bus driver would turn off the engine and therefore there would be no air conditioning in the bus.  One does not sit on a hot, unair-conditioned bus for an extended period of time, so using some sound judgment I went to the museum, which of course, was not air-conditioned. And in order to see anything in either one of the museums, what do you think one had to do? Why climb stairs!  The entire reason for me not taking the caves excursion was to avoid climbing stairs!  At least in this case, I don't feel like I missed anything too much since I had already been here before.

    Gateway of India

    Taj Hotel

    British colonial architecture

    Modern Mumbai 

    Dhobi Ghat laundry

I have to mention the crazy driving in Mumbai. Our bus driver thought he was driving a race car because he would go was fast as he could when traffic allowed and then slam on the brakes causing us to fall off our seats.  He did this over and over and over again. I do not remember ever having a bus ride this bad.  

Many people have told me how much they like India. Well, I for one, would be very happy if I never see Mumbai again.

MICHAEL 

Well, I escorted a most interesting excursion today to Elephanta caves.  Actually, Beverly was assigned to do this one but when she read about the 125 stairs that you had to climb to get there she opted out.  The tour began with a 15 minute ride from the pier over to the gateway  of India.  From here, we boarded a private ferry for the long, slow ride over to Elephanta Island.  This was an old, slow boat but since it was a private tour, we only filled up about half of it so there was plenty of room to move around.  At long last, we arrived at Elephant Island.  The first thing you need to know is that this whole place is incorrectly named.   A couple of thousand years ago someone spotted an elephant here and so named it Elephanta Island. In reality, there had never in recorded history ever been an elephant on the island.

After walking up a few flights of stairs from the landing, we found ourselves at the end of half-mile long pier.  However, and of all things, they had a train here to take us to the other end. This looked more like a kiddy train then a grown up train but it did the job.  

After a short walk, we stopped to go to the toilet. Our tour guide paid for all of us so each one of us was armed with two sheets of toilet paper, and off we went to this rather primitive installation.  Now it was time to climb the 600 feet up to the caves. This involved 125 stairs as well as a ramp. It was grueling.  

On the way, you had to dodge cows, sheep, dogs and monkeys. They all seemed to be after you.  I managed to miss them all except for the one bird who decided to take a dump on my leg.  By the way, if you didn't want to make the climb, they had bearers, who were happy to lift you on top of a palanquin, or sedan chair.  One fellow, who was carrying a baby, opted for this treatment, which cost only $15.

So now we were at the caves and this really was most interesting.  Carved from rock, the caves, or temples of Elephanta Island are believed to have been created between 450 and 750 A.D.  Of course, this depends who you talk with. One of the signs around the caves said they were built around 300 BC, so who really knows.  The caves, and the art within them, are truly fascinating. The images were mostly of the Hindu gods, and particularly of Shiva.  Other, but lesser images, represented Brahma and Vishnu as well. In any event, these were powerful representations of love, strength and spiritual peace.  The caves, which were much bigger and deeper than they appeared at first, and held up by imposing circular columns, and were painstakingly hewn from solid stone.  It was now time to work our way down the 125 stairs, and again dodge the cows, sheep, dogs, monkeys and birds, take the train, ride the boat, ride the bus, and ultimately return to our home away from home.

Goa, India

I came, I saw. Now I never have to go back again.  Coastal India is not one of my favorite places.  Goa is located on the Arabian Sea. The Mormugao harbour on the mouth of the River Zuari is one of the best natural harbors in South Asia, and this river is one of the busiest in India.  This was our first time calling in the port of Goa, and we docked at the commercial harbor that has equipment for exporting ore and oil.  And like most commercial ports that we have docked at, it is not very pretty.

Goa is the smallest state in India and has 1.5 million population, 60% which are Hindu. They are very proud of the fact that they have a literacy rate of 90%.  Goa is different from the rest of India because of it's Portuguese influence.  The Portuguese first landed here in the early 16th century as merchants and conquered it soon there after. Goa was a former Portuguese province that existed for about 450 years; it was annexed by India in 1961.  Goa is India's richest state with a GDP per capita two and a half times that of the country as a whole.  

Michael did not have an excursion today, but I did.  My tour took us to two UNESCO world heritage sites in Old Goa.  I really can't get excited about visiting old churches, I was fascinated by what I saw by just driving out in the countryside.  We rode on small buses that were not that well maintained, but at least the air conditioning worked. I must say that the weather was a lot more pleasant than I thought it would be today.  Riding along on narrow winding, twisting roads and sitting over the back wheels, I had an extremely bumpy ride, thus my pictures are pretty unsatisfactory today.  So I will have to use all my descriptive writing techniques to explain what it was that I saw that fascinated me so much.

Once we left at the port we traveled through the town of Vasco de Gama, the largest town in Goa.  There was nothing here really worth mentioning. But once we got into the countryside, we passed many small villages and homes built right up to the road edge and in the tropical jungle. For many miles we had the jungle on one side and an estuary on the other where we saw several different species of birds doing whatever birds do in an estuary. 

We saw many homes that had blue tarps on the rooftops.  Blue tarps were also used for carports, and as coverings for roadside fruit stands.  It seems that blue tarps are used for a lot of things, so if you are a blue tarp salesman, you would have a great deal of business in this part of the world.  Many homes had corrugated tin roofs, and the side of the buildings had a mishmash of patched corrugated tin as well. 

    I just threw this one in because I happen to like the picture

 

What was astounding was that there would be a very beautiful home and right next to it would be a shack.  They definitely do not have any zoning laws here.  Quite a few of the homes were painted in bright, garish colors such as knock-your-eyeballs-out yellow, royal purple, bright orange and whatever else I guess was on sale at the paint shop that day.  Many homes that looked like they were made of concrete were stained with black mildew because it rains so much here.  Monsoon season goes from June through September, and it is not unusual to get 120 inches of rain.

    Nice home

We passed many agricultural fields where coconut palm trees were quite abundant, as well as mangoes and pineapples. There were also rice fields and water buffalo. Teak wood is also harvested here.

We visited two of the oldest churches in old Goa:  St. Catherine's Cathedral (the largest in India) and the Basilica of Bom Jesus, which contains the relics of St. Francis Xavier.  These churches were built around the 1560s and they are in pretty darn good condition for being that old, although the roof in the basilica had plenty of daylight showing through.  

    Basilica Bom Jesus

    The altar

    Saint Catherine's Cathedral (notice that the belltower on the right-hand side is missing)

Our final stop was to the ancestral home of the Oliveira de Fernandes family.  The Fernandes family has been living here since the house was built 250 years ago. Our host today is the sixth generation of occupants, and she greeted each guest personally as we arrived.  We were free to move about the house and admire the furniture, some which is over 300 years old and made of solid wood.  Goan puu puu's were laid out for us to enjoy. We were then directed out to the yard where tables were set up amid many beautiful flowers.  There was a live band to serenade us.  There were also dogs, turkeys, chickens, and birds all roaming around the grounds.  

   Our hostess

  China cabinet

We were now fortified for the almost one hour trip back to the ship.