MR. & MRS. PTOLEMY’S JOYOUS TRIP
TO JORDAN, DUBAI, ABU DHABI, FUJAIRAH, OMAN,
INDIA, THE SEYCHELLES, KENYA, TANZANIA,
MADAGASCAR, MOZAMBIQUE AND SOUTH AFRICA
OCTOBER 19 TO NOVEMBER 26, 2015
*****
LOG OF THE TRIP TO NORTHERN JORDAN
AND CRUISE ON
OCEANIA’S NAUTICA FROM DUBAI TO CAPE TOWN
October 20, 2015, Tuesday
Amman
We
arrived in Amman about five in the evening after a flight from San Francisco to
Chicago on American and an approximately fourteen-hour flight from Chicago to
Amman on Royal Jordanian Airlines. Our
travel agent for this trip, Clair Grayland of Audley Travel of London, had
arranged for the man who was to be our driver through Saturday, Nick, to pick
us up and drive us to the InterContinental Jordan Hotel to check in at
approximately 6 p.m.
The hotel was
decorated in the browns and tans of all InterContinentals of the vintage of
twenty-five years ago, but it proved to be spacious and comfortable throughout
our stay. Audley had prescribed most
details of our visit, including the guide/driver, the hotel and the itinerary,
with thoroughness and clarity.
We had dinner at the
hotel’s Lebanese restaurant. We ordered
from the interesting Arabic menu and decided on meatballs with spices and
almond chips in yoghurt. It was
excellent.
Utter collapse ensued.
October 21, 2015 Wednesday
Amman
After
a breakfast best characterized as moderately good for a hotel in the four-star
class (we decided that breakfast is probably perfunctory in Jordan) we met Nick
at the appointed hour of 10 a.m. for what was promised to be a tour of desert
castles. Nick told us he had turned an
ankle on his last guide assignment and could not do much walking from his
car. He had asked a younger friend and
licensed guide, Ahmad, to help escort us where walking would be required. We said OK.
Nick
had spent many years in Columbus, Ohio, and has an American wife. One of his sons, who was then home with his
parents but left the next day for Columbus, is enrolled at Ohio State. The entire family are U.S. citizens. Ahmad had lived many years in Portland,
Oregon. His parents were born in Jaffa
and were forced to leave there before 1960. Ahmad harbors frustration about the loss of
his ancestral home. Both men continually
voiced politically correct positions on issues such as the peace-loving
character of most Moslems and the abhorrent actions of ISIS, which has betrayed
Moslem teaching. They were clear that
while Jordan is a military state, Jordanians are peace-loving and cool. Unfortunately, most Jordanian males have
little interest in science, civil service or commerce, preferring to emulate
their ancestors and become soldiers, what I have always considered as the
Ottoman ethic. There are many foreigners
in the country to do the soft work.
We
drove out of the tan-colored, sprawling and dusty city east about 40 miles to
Azraq. The site was a small, stone fort constructed originally in Roman times
of irregular shaped rocks with small rocks and rubble in between but no mortar.
Not carefully crafted ashlar walls, as Dare explained. The fort had been modified over the centuries
by the subsequent sovereigns, the Byzantines, Ummayads, Mamluks and
Ottomans. We walked through a second
floor room off the inner courtyard that had been T.E. Lawrence’s headquarters for
some months when he led the Arab uprising against the Ottomans. Azraq is not a ruin of distinction and boasts
no architectural merit (which was the case with all of the ruins we visited in
Jordan except as described below) but interesting nonetheless. See the photos below.
The next stop was
at a medium size stone structure known as the Hammam, or communal baths. The building has a small dome with frescoes
of animals in each square of the dome and a ceiling with a baptismal scene of a
woman holding a baby over a font. A centaur
is pictured below the dome in coffers.
The hammam had separate pools of hot and cold water. An Italian organization has conducted
restorations of the frescoes, and archaeologists and restorers were working in
the baths when we were visiting.
We
drove to and walked through a sadly depleted area known as the Azraq
wetlands. For decades underground
springs had created a fertile marsh that was a stopping point for countless
birds migrating from Russia and flying south into Africa. In 1993 the water was needed for Amman. The pumping caused the water table to fall,
and the area dried up. Severe limits on
taking water were enacted recently, and the water is returning. Visitors walk on wooden pathways over ponds,
and there are numerous bird observation shelters. Migration routes have moved, but many birds
are still observable. Alas, the photo
below belies the general aridness of this nearly destroyed wetland.
The
final destination of the day was the fortress of al Harrana. This large structure, now standing starkly
isolated in a vast, red-rock and sand desert, has 60 rooms enclosed within towers
standing in each of the corners. The
many rooms include a large room with triplets of engaged columns and rosettes
above the arches of Iranian design.
Perhaps the structure also served as a caravan serai.
Once
again we dined in the Lebanese restaurant of the hotel on kafta (if you insist,
meatballs) in yoghurt. The waiter,
noticing that we had ordered the same dish the evening before, was prompted to
ask why we were partial to Turkish cooking.
I told him that was a long story.
October 22, 2015 Thursday
Amman
We met
our guides in the lobby of the hotel again at 10 a.m. and again drove east of
the city. The first stop was Quasar
al-Abd at Iraq al-Amir. At the end of a
narrow gravel road the fortress/castle appeared. It was constructed in the Hellenistic era about
200 B.C. largely of huge marble stones.
There are two free-standing Corinthian columns at each end and three
lion sculptures that were probably fountains embedded in the walls. Large well-modelled lions were sculpted in
relief on the high frieze. There were colonettes around the palace. There were ruins of buildings that were built
around the main fort, perhaps part of palace grounds. There was something compelling about the
architecture. We had never seen anything
like it. Perhaps it was the remaining
parts of Greek and Roman design, but it seemed to us that Persian elements had
also been incorporated. In retrospect
this was our favorite Jordan site.
The next stop was
an obligatory part of an arranged tour: a visit to a mosaic-making and crafts factory
staffed by handicapped people. The fare
consisted of tables, wall hangings, jewelry, all of the finest quality but most
of it unusable in the modern Western home or wardrobe. The manager who greeted us was in a
wheel-chair. Sadly, we passed on everything,
although the hard-core shoppers on the cruise would have found plenty to buy.
We
next drove to what is now the large town of Madaba to see the historic map in
St George’s church. Hugh Sackett, my friend from Oxford and the British School
of Archaeology in Athens and I had visited Madaba during our tour of January,
1955. At that time the map we saw was
inside a private home. The host invited
us for dinner after we had viewed the map.
It was served by the women of the house, who ate separately. The map to be seen today is housed in St.
George’s Greek Orthodox church which may or may not date back to 1884 - it
seems quite new – together with a number of icons of varying dates and quality.
The Madaba Map is a map of the Middle East. Part of it contains the oldest surviving
original cartographic depiction
of the Holy Land and
especially of Jerusalem. It dates to the 6th century AD. The Madaba Mosaic Map depicts Jerusalem with
the Nea
Church, which
was dedicated on the 20th of November, AD 542. Buildings erected in Jerusalem
after 570 are absent from the depiction, thus limiting the date range of its
creation to the period between 542 and 570. The mosaic was made by unknown
artists, probably for the Christian community
of Madaba, which was the seat of a bishop at
that time.
We lingered in the church, particularly a
basement section and the narthex, and took many photos.
The
lunch stop was at the nearby summit of Mount Nebo. From this promontory looking west almost the
entire Holy Land is visible, the Dead Sea dimly, although on this day the air
was quite hazy while the sun was bright.
This is the point from which Moses saw the Holy Land before he died, God
not having granted him entrance. The
entire area is owned by the Franciscan Order, which is building a large church
on the site. The view was stunning; the
lunch, unremarkable but adequate.
Our destination
was Umm al Rassas. There we found, on
what had been private property but which had, within the past few years, been
taken over by the state, a huge mosaic under an archaeologist’s shed. The former owner sat outside the shed in
apparent but unspontaneous dejection because he no longer had rights to the
property, whereupon we were asked to make a donation to the gentleman to ease
his worry. The landowners in the area of
have learned their lesson: if you
discover an ancient artifact, keep it quiet or you will lose your property
After another
seemingly interminable and uncomfortable ride back to Amman, we decided to vary
the fare and have dinner at the hotel’s Indian restaurant. Big mistake:
expensive, so-so quality of the curry and exasperatingly slow service.
October 23, 2015 Friday
Amman
Today
was the Sabbath. All was relatively
quiet traffic-wise. Nonetheless we
started at 9 a.m. because of the distances we proposed to drive.
A long drive
north of Amman almost to the Syrian border through hills and valleys took us to
within sight of the famous castle of Ajlun, which appeared at first far in the
distance atop a high mountain peak. The
fortification was built by Saladin’s nephew, a governor of the province during
the Crusades. As we drew close a moat
and drawbridge came into view. We were
soon crossing the moat and ascending stone stairways into the interior of the
castle.
The castle
interior is made of large stone blocks, complex and impressive. We were soon joined by a local motorcycle
club who had been enjoying the Sabbath with a bike ride and had taken a break
to tour of castle. They tried to
interest Dare in their club gear.
We
drove northwest through fertile valleys (relatively speaking) with many
vegetable stands selling olives, eggplant, tomatoes, pomegranates and other
fruit along the road and came to the restored ruins of the Roman city of
Jerash.
Hugh
Sackett and I had stopped at
Jerash in January of 1955 in the course of a five week trip that had taken us
to Beirut via Alexandria and Limassol, on to ancient Byblos, the Beqaa Valley,
Damascus and nearby Amman and was to take us to Jerusalem and Bethlehem for Christmas,
Homs, Hama, Palmyra, Mersin, Antioch, Tripoli, Latakia and back to Beirut. When we visited Jerash, the columns rose
starkly out of the desert sands, and there was no surrounding settlement to
temper the feeling of the vastness and isolation of the antique city. Now the ruins have been tamed and groomed,
and Jerash itself appears to be a growing city surrounding the ancient
site. Nonetheless, the photos allow a
glimpse of what this bustling eastern outpost of the Roman empire looked like.
We
stopped in the amphitheater of the city and were confronted with men in the
military dress of decades ago performing with Scottish bagpipes. They were entertaining the tourists. The British army that had been stationed in
Jordan for many years had been pleased to inculcate the local troops with
British army drills and formations and had passed along the traditions of
marching to bagpipes. The elevation of
Jerash is probably sufficient to qualify these men as highlanders.
We
drove for seemingly hours to return to Amman, once again battling our way
through traffic, and the oasis of our hotel.
We dined again at the Lebanese restaurant but not on meatballs. What we had was good but not memorable. We can’t remember what we ordered.
October 24, 2015 Saturday
Amman
It was
Saturday. The Sabbath was over, and the
traffic was back to it’s snarled and vicious self. This morning Nick and Ahmad took us to sites
within he city of Amman itself, starting with the ancient Roman citadel in the
middle of the city.
The Citadel is an
imposing hilltop compound of ruins. The foremost structure is the Roman Temple
of Hercules. The center point of what
remains of the temple consists of three free standing columns and five engaged
columns along a wall. A short walk away
stand the ruins of a sixth century Byzantine church with Corinthian columns
from the temple. The path among the
ruins terminates at the remains of an Umayyad palace. All three buildings were destroyed in
earthquakes. Also atop the hill, one of
seven on which modern-day Amman is built, stands the Jordan Archaeological
Museum, which houses various Roman sculpture, sarcophagi and coins.
We
drove down off the citadel to the final archeological stop, the Roman theater, together with its adjoining
smaller venue, the Odeon. But on the way we got a taste of the contemporary
downtown area.
The Roman theater
originally had held 6,000 spectators in three tiers of seats. For years the view of theater was blocked by
a hotel, the Philadelphia, the ancient name of Amman, but the hotel was torn
down a number of years ago. The theater
is now restored and imposing.
Finally, we were
led into the adjoining, much smaller theater, the Roman Odeon, which had been
intended for musical performances and which now serves as the venue for
contemporary productions, one of which was being rehearsed and sound checked as
we toured.
The
tour now being officially ended, we bade good bye to Ahmad, bestowed on him a
tip a trifle larger than the amount recommended by Audley and left with Nick
for the Queen Alia International Airport at about one o’clock. Queen Alia was the wife of Hussein, the
mother of the present King Abdullah and the mother-in-law of Queen Noor, nee
Halaby, whose dad was a great buddy of Jack Kennedy’s.
We
arrived at the airport more than three hours in advance of our flight to Dubai,
but the Royal Jordanian lounge provided an ample free lunch, and we were tired
enough from our recent peregrinations (we had left home six days ago, even
though these entailed mostly sitting in a plane or a car) to settle into a rest
in the plush lounge seating.
Three
hours or so after take-off and flying the length of the Arabian Peninsula we
arrived at the maze that is the Dubai airport and walked a half mile to the
baggage claim – itself a feat to locate – to pick up a taxi. On the way we were greeted heartily by a
limousine contingent from the Address Hotel, where we had a reservation and
which is a snooty place that is part of the formidable Dubai Mall. We had not splurged to reserve a limo, but a
uniformed gentleman graciously escorted us to the taxi stand. It might have
taken us 15 minutes to find it otherwise.
We checked in at
The Address Hotel, managed to find our very large and well-appointed room, took
a stab at getting refreshed, gazed out our window for a few minutes at the
tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, and found the right elevator
bank to get to the roof bar. (It’s an
Arab country, and no alcohol is served on the ground floor of the hotel). The martinis were tiny, and there were only a
handful of young swingers of the Emirates and, no doubt, of adjacent oil rich
countries to be seen, but the atmosphere and temperature were warm and
welcoming. At last we were in sight of
our upcoming cruise, and a morning of shopping at the super-glitz Dubai Mall
awaited us.
October 25, 2015 Sunday
Dubai
We awoke about
nine, packed and checked our bags with one of the twenty bellhops and repaired
to the sumptuous breakfast room of the hotel.
Once in that cavernous space, we found an overwhelming array of foods
and drinks – varieties of fruits, cereals, eggs, meats, coffees, tomatoes and
veggies (breakfast staples in Israel and much of the Near East), almost
anything that could be imagined as breakfast fare - spread before us over about 60 feet of
counter space. The tables and
leather-lined banquettes were ten feet apart.
We both opted for goodly portions of freshly squeezed mango juice for
starters. Eating was made almost
impossible because of the imperative of gazing at the fashionable diners from
all over the world. We lingered in the
area for about an hour, mostly staring at the beautiful people.
Dare
had forgotten to pack a pair of slacks and flat shoes for dinner. What to do but walk a few yards into what
must be one of the most luxurious shopping malls in the world, the Dubai
Mall. First I had to find the Panerai
store amid a hundred yards of jewelry and luxury watch stores. No discounts and out of my budget. (See the photo of me leaving the store with
my head bowed in humility.) Leaving
make-believe behind, we passed internationally known signature stores one after
the other before settling in at a Singapore based shoe store where Dare found the
flat shoes she wanted. Then she found
just the right slacks among a number of ladies’ wear shops with dizzying
displays.
Along the way we
paused by the famous vertical aquarium where we chatted with a Cypriot young
lady who had moved to Dubai with the husband and child from South Africa. Did she know my friend in Nicosia who invests
money in Switzerland for Russian clients?
No, she doesn’t know anyone who cleans money.
Sunday is Monday
in Moslem lands, so the Mall was busy with an incredibly diverse
clientele. We headed for the expansive
open area behind the Mall that looks up at the Burj Khalifa. I posed for
selfies and even Dare wanted to be photographed with the skyscraper in the
background.
In time
we sat in a café and spooned smoothies while waiting for the famous Dubai Mall
fountains to begin their choreographed routine.
By two
p.m. we were in a taxi to the port. In a
while we were in our stateroom unpacking and repeating the now formalized
ritual of stuffing drawers with socks and underwear and stuffing our soft bags
under the bed, as there is no space in the staterooms for baggage storage. We both headed to the fitness room for a
brief workout to get the cobwebs out. We
had dinner outside the Terrace Room on the rear deck looking out on the Dubai
high-rise buildings and bright lights.
It’s a stunning sight that overwhelms me every time. I want to live and die in Dubai.
October 26, 2015 Monday
Abu Dhabi
Overnight
the ship moved the short distance to the adjacent Emirate, Abu Dhabi. The latter has oil; Dubai has none. Nonetheless Sultan Khalifa of Abu Dhabi after
whom the tower is named has graciously supported his protégés in Dubai and the
the rapid development of what is now one of the world’s great commercial
centers. Abu Dhabi is, however, by my
reckoning, a tighter, neater and more esthetically pleasing place than Dubai. Its high rises are crisper and are placed so
as not to make the main city appear crowded.
At about 9:30 we
hired a taxi at the gate of the port together with another passenger and told
the driver that we were in his hands, which meant that we negotiated a fee for
a three-hour sightseeing roundabout to cover the principal sights. The driver spoke sufficient English.
The main tourist
attraction in town is the sprawling, gleaming, white marble Sheikh Zayed
Mosque. The complex shimmers in the
bright sunlight.
It was obvious
that the way we were dressed, i.e., Dare’s pants and my shorts, would not allow
us to enter the mosque, so the first entry point of the visit was down one
floor in an elevator to an enormous underground garage that I would guess holds
1,500 cars, which tells you something about the financial standing of the
congregation.
We walked about
probably 150 yards through the garage to a three room complex, still
underground, where about thirty visitors were waiting. Within ten minutes Dare became fitted with
full length black abaya, a floating lightweight robe with connected head-covering. I was fitted with a full-length white cotton
robe, the typical male abaya, which left my head uncovered.
We took the
elevator up to an arcade open on both sides and walked around a corner for about
100 yards to the entrance of a large courtyard paved with white marble. The mosque itself was across the
courtyard. The sun on the unrelieved
white marble was almost blinding. We
entered the mosque after removing our shoes.
The enormous interior was exquisitely appointed with hanging chandeliers
and art on the walls. The builders have
spared no expense. The Zayed Mosque must
be one of the greatest religious monuments of our time.
We returned our abayas to the infidel dressing
room and walked underground and then in the blinding light back to our
taxi.
The driver sped
along the sparkling beaches of the corniche past a number of handsome
high-rises to the grand Emirates Palace Hotel.
It is set back from the road more than 100 yards by a virtual botanical
garden of palms and flowering plants. This
hotel caters to the crème de la crème. I
wanted just to stand in the lobby for fifteen seconds and bow to Mammon. Alas, we were refused entry by guards at the
gate because I was wearing shorts.
Period.
The driver then
embarked on a quick city tour and sped back to the ship through sparse traffic
at about 2:30.
We had lunch and
later our daily workout in the gym, followed by steam. Dinner was in the Grand Dining Room with a
British couple whose home is just above the white cliffs of Dover. They can see the lights of Calais almost
every evening from their front porch.
Dare in women’s
black abaya, an exterior arcade of the Mosque in the background.
October 27,
2015 Tuesday Fujairah
Fujairah
is the smallest and poorest of the seven Emirates. It appears to be relatively sparsely
settled. Some of the literature says
that the entire state is owned by one family, who populate its government
exclusively.
We
hired a taxi at the dock about 10:30 and put ourselves at his mercy by once
again uttering fatefully the vaguest of directions, something like “Show us the
sights.” His rear tires sprayed gravel
as he pulled out of his stall and drove east to the Bithna Oasis and Fort. At least we believe we ended up at Bithna
because that name is the best we can remember.
We are now too old to differentiate among Arab names.
The
fort was a quarter-mile in from the highway down a narrow and bumpy dirt
road. The dimensions of the structure
are approximately 60 by 100 feet, and the walls appear to be a rough plaster
over wood lathe and stone. After some
negotiation with our driver, the caretaker admitted us into the interior of the
fort. The fort is being refurbished for tourist
traffic, but that work was not yet complete.
We were not told when the fort was built or by whom, but probably by
Omani Arabs and before 1700. It would have fallen into disuse decades ago.
Next
we drove a few miles on an up and down narrow and dusty desert road. The last section was uphill to another fort
known as the Al Hail fort, where we arrive about 11 a.m. The fort is situated above a large oasis and
was obviously a commanding fortification in its day. We had the place to ourselves for 15 minutes,
when a van arrived and disgorged eight tourists. We foolishly had forgotten to bring water
with us that morning, but Dare persuaded the van driver to give us a very
welcome bottle. I would judge that the
temperature was over 90 degrees and dry.
By
noon we had driven into the unprepossessing city center of Fujairah. First we stopped at an ATM so I could get the
cash to pay the driver. We had heard
that the destination personnel on the ship had sent passengers to a new,
elaborate shopping center in the city, but our driver either did not know about
it or pretended not to. Instead he
stopped at a modest, two-story combination food market and general store. There was an escalator to the second
floor. There, to our surprise and
delight, were the flat shoes for evening that Dare needed, and I found a wide,
tan leather belt that I needed for my shorts.
The cost for both items came to $20.
We
returned to the ship to lunch at the ship’s snack bar on Deck 9, the Waves
Grill, Dare on a small tuna chop and I on a Texas hamburger. We had dinner at 7:45 that evening at one of
the ship’s specialty restaurants, the Polo Grill, with Julie and Charlie from
Colorado. We had expected almost nothing
from the stop in Fujairah, but we learned quite a bit.
October 28,
2015 Wednesday Muscat, Oman
At
about 9:30 we disembarked and boarded a ship’s shuttle bus to the downtown
meeting point of taxis and the on-off touring buses at the entrance to the
major marketplace of Muscat, the Mourtrah Souq.
Two years ago we had boarded an on-off bus at that spot. We hired a taxi and pulled out for what
turned out to be a riskier ride than we bargained for.
It
is not unkind to suggest that our driver harbored a mental deficiency or minor
derangement. For the entire four hours
we were driven about the driver was either making or receiving phone calls or
text messages while driving as if in a trance.
When I remarked that what he was doing is illegal in California, he
replied that it was OK in Oman and refused to modify his behavior. He kept his
left hand on the steering wheel while in his right hand he clutched his
phone. His eyes were on the screen 90
percent of the time, yet he drove swiftly and flawlessly, possibly thanks to
superbly engineered and paved roads and streets, for the entire time. He understood exactly where we wanted to go.
The
first stop was a surprise to us, namely the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque. We were dropped off when the taxi could not
drive further, about 300 yards away from an outer wall of the complex. When we arrived at what we thought was the
entrance we had to walk another quarter mile counter-clockwise around the
periphery to a gate that had been left open.
We walked through unobserved and walked another 200 yards or so within what
was now a sprawling compound of 30-foot-high, flat-roofed brown stone buildings
until we found the entrance to the mosque proper. There a security official greeted us and
asked in a stern tone how had we gotten there, no doubt because Dare had no
headscarf and I was wearing shorts. He summoned a youth who began to escort us
to what we hoped would be the mosque entrance.
Instead the young man took us to the exit and waved us outside. We took the long walk back to the taxi
forlornly.
By
11:15 we were speeding along the freeway and boulevard (the driver never
averting his gaze from the screen of his phone) to a photo op point above the
Muscat Old Town and Palace areas. Next we
were taken to the El Alam Palace, residence of Sultan Qaboos, and is
surrounding gardens. Then with only a
summary explanation we stopped at the waters edge before the at Jilali and
Mirami forts, originally built by the Portuguese.
By
11:30 we drove back to the Town center along the park-like waterfront and under
two more forts high above on the cliffs lining the shore. We parted ways with our eccentric driver at
the center meeting point, but not until he had to be convinced to accept as
part of his payment two $20 bills which he alleged bore a date too early to be
bankable at an Oman bank. At this point
I was convinced that the man was nuts, but we hammered out the payment and
parted on friendly terms.
We
walked through the maze of aisles lined with sellers that is the Mourtrah
Souq. At one store at the rear of the
Souq that specialized in perfume and cheap imitations of well-known men’s
watches Dare bought silver slippers and lipstick. We emerged after almost an hour to a sidewalk
café where we enjoyed fresh mango juice.
We then boarded a red Big Bus that took us to the gate of the port. From there we still needed a shuttle bus from
the ship to take us the last quarter-mile to the ship.
At
16:30 I took my customary 45-minute ride on the stationery bike and then
steam. Dinner was at the Grand dining
room with Tom and Ruth from Toronto.
Dare enjoyed modeling her new silver slippers for three ladies in the
vicinity of our table. All were
astounded that such beautiful sparkling shoes had been purchased for $15.
View
of palace area of old Muscat.
October 29, 2015 Thursday
At sea
October 30, 2015 Friday
At sea
October 31, 2015 Saturday
Bombay
I hazard to use the name “Bombay” instead of the new name of Mumbai
with the permission of our guide for the first day on shore. “Mumbai” is a recent
creation adopted through a political maneuver of the regional Maharashtra
tribes against the will of approximately two-thirds of the residents of the
vast metropolitan area who still prefer the original Portuguese name.
For
several blocks the bus passed through many imposing government buildings dating
from the colonial times. We also passed
stately old apartment buildings, but sadly most of them appeared to be deteriorating. The guide explained that this was due to rent
control. Unfortunately, during our four
consecutive days in cities on the west coast of India, almost everyone in our
tours came away with the impression that all of the buildings and housing were
deteriorating at a faster rate than they could be replaced or repaired.
The
first stop of the tour bus was at the complex of allegedly old Portuguese
houses (the Khotachi Wadi district), consisting of approximately 35 19th
century houses still surviving from the original 110 after the onslaught of the
real estate developers who are intent on tearing down the city as it stands and
replacing all housing with high-rise apartments. This area has at last been designated as a “heritage
precinct.” We stopped at old/modern
house, a 150-year-old “mansion,” owned by James Ferreira, a fashion designer
whose saris and other clothing articles were on sale. Apparently the core group of
conservationists, to a significant extent the heirs of the founders of the
area, still carry Portuguese surnames.
They are leading the efforts to ban any further gentrification of the
area. We walked through the house and
were treated to a sari tying demonstration.
Some of the ladies on the tour bought things.
The
next visit was to a large, prominent Temple of Shiva (Babulnath). We had to walk up a large number of stone
steps to view the temple and its internal decoration. We passed through arcades and narrow streets
lined with votive statues and shrines.
Many of the shrines were in dark corners and appeared inflicted with an
excuse-me furtiveness as though being hid.
The
bus let us off in a street near the Churchgate Railway terminus where the Dabbawallahs
(lunchbox, sometimes styled as tiffin-box, carriers) were congregating before
making their lunchtime runs. There are some 4,000 of them. They carry dabbas with home-cooked food on
their bicycles all over Bombay. This is
a big deal, but I was not impressed to the point where I wish to explain what
these men do. You can look it up.
We
were taken to the well-known Khyber Restaurant in an art district known as Kala
Ghoda for lunch. We were treated to northwest
tribal cuisine, as in Afghani. I thought
the food was undistinguished at best. I
drowned everything in Fanta orange.
We
took part in a so-called Crawford market stroll. The cottage where Kipling was raised is in
the area. This is the main wholesale
market of Bombay. It was crowded,
thriving and very interesting.
We
drove once again toward the harbor, stopping at the magnificent Taj Mahal
Hotel, the original section of which was built by the Tata family in 1903. The lobby was luxurious, and the pool and
garden area in the rear are sublime. The
hotel retail stores are on a par with anything extant anywhere in the world
including the Dubai Mall.
The
last stop was at the Albert Museum in Byculla, also know as the Bhau Daji Lad
Museum. Tis museum houses artifacts and
artworks mostly from the colonial 19th century. Until 10 so so years
ago the museum was falling apart, but three foundations have saved the building
and the collection. It was very much
worth the visit.
We
returned to the ship for a shower followed by dinner in Terrace Grill, but by
7:30 were were launched on another adventure billed as “Bombay by Lights.” The first stop was our entry into the “Regal
Cinema Hall,” Bombay’s first art deco theater built circa 1925, where we
sat through about 45 minutes of a new Bollywood movie. Half of our group hated it. Two young women were
incensed that the film in particular and the genre in general trivialized
women. Dare and I and many others loved
the movie for its élan, pace, surreal imagination and just plain fun. The film was absurd but brilliant.
The
guide walked us through the “Pydhone Market” or “Colaba” night market. It was crowded and upbeat for fifteen or so
blocks. The guide warned the group not
to try to bargain during a purchase because that would insure that the buyer
would overpay. That offended our group
as absurd, counterintuitive and against everything we had been told on the
cruise (some of the women had been shopping in foreign bazaars for years), but
I accepted the guide’s dictum, figuring that he knew what he was talking about.
The
tour concluded with a treat in the cocktail lounge of the sleek Oberoi Hotel. We could choose from an array of beer and
wine. It was cool. The bus took us back to the ship.
November 1, 2015 Sunday
Bombay
The day was
occupied principally by an excursion to Elephanta Island, one hour’s boat-ride
by a reserved public ferry that held about 40 people from the Nautica. The island boasts a number of caves carved
from rocky outcroppings by Hindu monks in the 6th century.
We left the ship
on a Nautica shuttle bus to the area of the Gateway of India, an imposing stone
arch built on the waterfront by the British specifically for the grand entrance
into India by King George V in 1911.
That event must have been stirring and filled with the pomp and circumstance.
In retrospect, the Empire must have been at the peak of its power, legitimacy
and self-assurance in that magic, innocent pre-war year. The dominating Taj Mahal hotel is a few yards
away. These two structures appeared to
us to signify the glory and grandeur of what was once the fabled Raj.
We boarded a boat
very near the Gate and chugged across the bay for an hour or so to the
island. We disembarked on Elephanta, so
named by the Portuguese according to a story or myth involving an elephant. We then boarded a wood-burning miniature
train for six minutes to cross a causeway over water. The track was bordered with high grass and
the usual debris. We detrained onto a
platform, whereupon I received the first bad news of my day: We would have to climb an elevation of about
250 feet on slippery stone steps crammed wall-to-wall with vendors’ stands that
were already filling up with all kinds of textiles, carvings and myriad
do-dads, not to mention the two or three hundred vendors themselves. At about 10 a.m. it was already getting hot. Not my thing.
I wheezed and
strained up the stone path that featured steps from three to ten feet wide,
fully expecting a knee to buckle at any time.
Out of breath, I made it to the top only to note that Dare, a/k/a the
mountain goat, was missing. A real
husband would have started down the steps to search for his wife, but it took
me about two seconds to fail that test.
Ten minutes later she arrived, explaining nothing, and all was
well. After we had walked a short
distance the guide assembled our group of 30 or so eager tourists and began an
endless dissertation on the history of the itinerant Hindu monks, the travails
of the carving out of the caves and the theological significance of the
multiple gigantic sculptures of the god Shiva in the cave we were to
visit. Because I consider it in bad
taste and common to do one’s homework on the sites to be visited in advance, in
my ignorance I had expected to see mammoth natural caves a la E. M.
Forster so I could determine whether I could make my shouts sound like
reverberating Vedic incantations. The
cave we were led to was large enough, and the excavation effort must have been
formidable (this isn’t Cappadocia, after all, where the stone is so soft that
caves were hollowed out with the equivalent of a teaspoon). However, after the first story I heard from
the guide about how Shiva jumped from mountain top to mountain top, and given
the state of my hearing (which is perfect except that I can’t hear consonants),
I bailed out of the official presentation and spent the time trying to take
legible photographs of the all dark-gray limestone of the cave. My pouting had essentially, and deservedly,
ruined my day.
Our group was
allowed to buy the displayed handicrafts on the way down, and so the descent
took about half an hour. Why anyone
would buy that stuff is beyond my ken (I buy only worthy goods, namely, Apple
products and cameras), but many of the ladies loaded up, and in a few weeks the
Christmas stockings of dozens of grandchildren from Australia to Poland will
groan and stretch from the day’s loot.
We reversed our
steps after more bargaining with vendors at the railhead and took the little
train back to the ferry boat. An hour
later we disembarked in the shadow of the majestic Gateway of India. We walked about a quarter-mile through
holiday revelers, balloon salesmen and young people – a colorful and gay
assemblage of people of all ages – back to our bus, which in turn returned us
safely to the Nautica. By the end of the day, I had stopped pouting.
The Gateway of
India, with the Taj Mahal Hotel in the background.
November 2, 2015
Monday Goa
Goa looked
fascinating from the ship. We decided
not to take a ship’s tour but once again to hire a taxi and take our
chances. Debarkations in Indian ports
are adventures because each gate is staffed with enough police and soldiers to
storm an outlaw Yemeni cave. The detail
on duty may or may not feel that day like inspecting the travel documents of
each passenger on the shuttle bus trying to squeeze through the gate. Once outside we found our man and negotiated
a fee of 6,000 Rupees (around $80) for three or four hours of his time and
gasoline. The fellow was pleasant
enough, notwithstanding that he was a dead ringer for Yasiel Puig.
Both Dare and I
had an immediate reaction to the landscape we were driving through. It could have been rural Kauai, and we
wouldn’t have known the difference.
We
drove a short distance to an imposing but dark and hulking Basilica do Bom
Jesus. The basilica holds
the mortal remains of St. Francis Xavier, the patron saint of Goa and a
contemporary of Ignatius Loyola. The basilica was built by the Portuguese and finished in 1605. The Wikipedia article on
his site is recommended.
We milled about
the entrance with a hundred or so tourists, but we could not enter the main
nave because a wedding was in process.
We walked through a side aisle, and peeked into the altar area. I bought a wooden crucifix in the church
store. The weather was overcast, and so
we had to imagine what the dark façade would look like on a sunny day.
Next was the
Shree Mangueshi Hindu Temple, brightly colored both inside and outside. We walked through a large garden to the
entrance, where vendors were selling small bouquets. We understood later that the bouquets were
for the ritual offering flowers to the priests or holy men inside. Each donor would kneel to receive a blessing,
as we looked on.
San Cajetan
Church was a major highlight of our entire cruise. It is the only domed church in
India. The dome is a miniature model of
the dome of St. Peter’s. The church,
which is all white, was built n 1651 and is in the shape of a Greek cross (each
transept is of equal length). The
gardens leading to the entrance are well kept. The architectural symmetry of
the church gives a feeling of lightness and well-being. All in all, a wonderful place to visit.
The Se’ Cathedral
in Old Goa, built in 1640, is a short distance away. Large but not particularly notable
architecturally, but it shows that Catholic Christianity is thriving in Goa.
The taxi drivers
are programmed, or perhaps simply paid, always to stop at a store. You ask them not to stop, and they will
ignore your instructions. In this case
we were introduced to a fine outlet for well-fashioned and expensive
souvenirs. I bit this time, buying a
small marble elephant.
We next drove
almost 20 kilometers to see the capital of Goa, Panjin. There is a small part of town that features
large old houses with veranda, windows with delicate metal grills. My notes tell what followed: “Rest was a
sprawling mess.”
San Cajetan church. Saint Cajetan is the patron saint of the
unemployed.
November 3, 2015 Tuesday
Mangalore
Once again we
combined minimal brain power with maximum gambling instinct and hired a taxi at
the gate of the port. First we had to
pass the gauntlet of 40 soldiers (there were a few unsmiling females in the
ranks) at the port gate. There was no
document inspection.
We had our hearts
set on visiting what was billed as a magnificent Jain (sub-specie of Hindu)
temple some distance away that was billed as the temple of 1,000 pillars. How could anyone resist that? On seating ourselves in the taxi, Dare
complained to the driver that she couldn’t fasten her seatbelt. He responded cheerfully, “That’s OK
lady. This is India.”
We drove the
harrowing 40 kilometers (dodging oxcarts, cows, motor scooters and pedestrians)
to a small village outside of the town of Karkala and were driven to the
entrance of a handsome, what must have been Jain, temple of Moodbidri. The
temple was not of a type previously seen.
There were vertical protrusions in relief in the walls that created an
enclosure around the temple and that might, in a stretch, be classified as
pillars. Confusingly, there were 200 at
most. We proceeded through the temple
which was laid out in a style unlike other (Orthodox?) Hindu temples we had
seen. It was beautiful and intriguing.
Small crowds of visitors from a boys’ school were fun to watch as they
scrambled through the temple.
After
visiting another Hindu temple, the driver took us through Mangalore, which
appeared undistinguished to us, to a famous hilltop Jesuit center overlooking
the city. There we found a complex with
a high school and the famous St Aloysius College Chapel. A Jesuit priest, Antonio Moscheni, SJ
(1854-1905), had spent two years covering the chapel with frescoes and wall
paintings. The style is realistic. The colors are vivid. One would not compare it with the Sistine
Chapel, but the devotion of the artist was obviously deep.
We had
understood a fashionable lady passenger from St. Louis on the Nautica to tell
us that she planned to stop for morning tea at the Taj Majal Hotel in central Mangalore,
no doubt part of the same chain as its illustrious namesake in Bombay. We regretted that we had not had the wit to
enjoy the morning tea ceremony in Bombay. We resolved not to miss out in
Mangalore. Alas, when we stopped at the
hotel, the building looked small and a bit shabby. A glance told us there was nothing going
on. We were downcast for ten seconds and
then asked the driver to take us to the ship.
The
rest of the way through the streets of Mangalore were uninspiring, although
other passengers told us later that we missed a topflight market. All these towns appear to have grown
aimlessly, probably within the past decade.
November 4, 2015 Thursday
Cochin
Sometime
in the early 2000’s, when Dare was still leading excursions to China and
southeast Asia with Bill Wu, as part of her favorite trip of all, to Sri Lanka,
her group visited Cochin, the capital of Kerala province. They had taken a leisurely boat tour through
nearby waterways saturated with flowering trees and quaint houseboats. It was a highlight of her Asia
experiences. So we signed up for Nautica’s
excursion to the “Tranquil Backwaters.”
We started with
an hour’s bus ride to the village of Alleppey (or Alappuzha), known without
apology as the Venice of the East. The history of the region is replete with
coconuts, but I can’t remember why. We recalled that three years ago in
Jerusalem, as we entered the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, the large concrete
staircase outside the main entrance was packed with 40 people from India. We learned that they were Catholics from Kerala. Indeed, Catholics make up a sizable portion
of the population of Kerala. As do
Communists, who have been in competition for control of the provincial
government for more than fifty years.
The float was on
a chartered river boat. We wended our
way through the waterways and saw a snake boat, numerous small houses and a
number of women busy doing laundry. We
stopped for a leisurely and good buffet lunch at the upscale Lake Palace Resort
and then returned by the way we came to the bus and the center of Cochin.
WE were
taken to the Fort Cochin area past attractive colonial buildings and a large
St. Francis church that originally held the tomb of Vasco de Gama, who died
there in 1524 on his third visit to India.
We proceeded to Vasco de Gama Square to see the Chinese fish nets (see
photos, including the one showing Dare on a team that is hoisting a fish
net). Dare bought necklaces for our
granddaughters from the street stalls lining the road. The experience was compromised significantly
because the beach adjacent to the fish nets was cluttered with trash. If someone were to tell me that the entire
west coast of India is buried in trash, I would believe it.
The bus
transported us back to the ship.
November 6, 2015 Friday
At sea (could not dock at the Maldives because of bad weather)
November 7, 2015 Saturday
At sea
November 8, 2015 Sunday
Mahe Island, Seychelles
The Nautica arrived at Mahe Island of the Seychelles group a day
earlier than scheduled. We had missed
our scheduled stop at the Maldives. The
captain had determined that the prevailing high swells would render use of the
ship’s tenders to land passengers too dangerous.
We docked at Victoria,
the capital city of the Seychelles, at noon and soon thereafter boarded our
designated tour bus. Our first impression
was that there was considerably more wealth per capita on the island than in
India and that the roadways were neat and well paved.
The
first stop was the municipal botanical gardens. With a fair amount of walking
in the heat we saw resplendent flowering trees and the awesome tortoises, the
oldest of which somewhere on the island is reputed to be about 156 years
old. The garden was well maintained and
the flora were bursting with high colors.
We
drove through the central city of Victoria, which was empty because the shops
were all closed on Sunday. We walked by
St. Paul’s, the white frame Anglican cathedral for the islands. We were pleased to hear robust singing of
hymns reaching to the street. Better
yet, the voices sounded youthful. We
also walked by the Roman Catholic cathedral.
The bus took us
on a 45-minute drive north of Victoria along the scenic seashore to Beau Vallon
beach, surely a model for any travel brochure. The white sand stretches far
into the distance and the body- temperature shallow water extends at low tide
for 200 yards at waist level. We had a drink of soda and the Berjaya Hotel and
tarried for almost an hour on the beach, inspecting the semi-nude French
tourists in their beach chairs and otherwise shuffling our feet. I found and bought a deep turquoise tee shirt
depicting a big fish and announcing “Seychelles.”
We drove back to the ship through a hillside
residential area with attractive and substantial homes. When I asked the guide who lives in these
houses, she answered “We do.”
November 9, 2015 Monday
Mahe, Seychelles
The morning
brought the bad news that the passengers could not land on nearby Praslin Island
as scheduled, once again because landing by tender would be too dangerous due
to rough seas.
What to
do on an overcast day? Together with
many passengers we walked about a mile to downtown Victoria to browse, shop and
perhaps have lunch. Our first stop was
at a specialty island clothing store, Maki, where Dare bought a sheer top. We made a purchase at a drug store and
followed that up with lunch at Pirates Coves Restaurant. The restaurant was open to the street and was
quite lively with foreign tourists, apparently British and French. We ordered the tropical drink of the day and
an under-tenderized small pepper steak.
Afterwards
we walked back to the port and idled away the rest of the day.
November 10, 2015 Tuesday
Mahe, Seychelles
We were
originally scheduled for two days in the Seychelles, but missing the stop in
the Maldives led to our spending this third, unplanned day on the main island, Mahe. We had to find something to do. The weather was comfortably warm but
overcast.
After shifting
our weight between our two feet alternately for a minute or so, we agreed with
new acquaintances Adrian and Dianne from Sydney, professionals both, to hire a
boat to sightsee around the islands in the bay that were visible from
Victoria. That plan was preferred to
taking a taxi to the south end of Mahe for lunch at the Kempinski. We made the wrong choice. After a brisk half-mile walk we arrived at
the small-boat dock, where we were joined by Jacqueline from Lausanne, recently
retired and evidently traveling alone.
We embarked on a motor launch that held about eight passengers seated on
benches flush against the open sides of the boat. There was a lot of fellowship and banter of
the kind one learns to engage in on a long cruise. The plan was for a three-hour tour of the islands
comprising the Ste. Anne Marine National Park, namely, Sainte Anne, Round
Island, Moyenne, Long Island and Cerf Island.
We
putted along, chatting and inspecting the islands and other boats in the
area. A large boat with 30 or 40
passengers pulled aside, and most of those aboard entered the water for
snorkeling. Our boat featured a glass
panel beneath our feet. The fish we had
been able to see didn’t merit much interest, and the water was not entirely
clear. Back on the ship later, however, some
of those who snorkeled, as could be expected, reported having seen many fish, some
large. Furthermore, they professed satisfaction with their outing.
We put
ashore off the beach of Moyenne Island, which is a state park, and had to walk
through water a few inches deep populated with rather sharp stones and bits of
coral strewn over the bottom. I found it
painful but managed to walk 30 yards to the shore, iPhone in my pocket, without
slipping and falling. The guide had told
us we could walk through woods to the top of the visible rise, perhaps a
60-foot elevation, to view a home built by a wealthy resident who had donated
the island to the state, but we had been let off in the wrong place, and our
ascent was blocked. We embarked into the
bay once more and spent an hour and a half inspecting the islands. There was almost nothing to hold our
attention, but all of us passengers kept up an upbeat chatter.
We
returned to the dock and shopped at tent souvenir stands set up for the
tourists. We boarded the Nautica for our
accustomed routine – lunch at 2 p.m. at the Terrace Café in the open on deck 9
at the stern of the ship, followed by reading or editing photographs. Later came a workout in the fitness center,
namely 45 minutes on the stationary bike, some stretching and finally fifteen
minutes between the sauna and the steam room.
Dinner was five courses at a “shared table” in the Grand Dining Room
with 300 or so travelers seated at 75 tables set with silver and gleaming
crystal
November 11, 2015 Wednesday
At sea
November 12, 2015 Thursday
At sea
November 13, 2015 Friday
Mombasa
Before
we left home we convinced ourselves that we could do sightseeing of the African
ports on a shoestring by following our usual excursion routine as reported
above, namely, by hiring a taxi at the port gate and asking to be taken on a
standard tour around the city in question for a fee based on time elapsed. However, upon extensive inquiry at the
Nautica Destinations desk and with our now trusted travel advisor Clair
Grayland at Audley in London, and upon review of anecdotal testimony by several
past visitors to our upcoming ports, especially to Mombasa, we stood warned to
be cautious and take pre-arranged tours.
Accordingly, we caved, and a few days after the ship left Dubai we
signed up for ship’s tours of Mombasa, Zanzibar and Maputo. This day began auspiciously as we boarded a
bus for “Mombasa – a Glimpse of the Past.”
The
tour bus took us first to beach area and ten to a large Hindu temple on the
edge of the Old Town. This temple was
elaborate and color-drenched. It had two
stories and well executed wall decorations.
Almost everyone removed his or her shoes upon entering the spaces of
worship, but my shoes are a chore to put on and take off, so lazily I remained
respectfully out of those spaces.
The
group then walked along a long and narrow street through the Old Town, which
was marked with shops and a number of customers and vendors.
At the
end of the street we reached the precincts of a large walled structure, the
Portuguese fort known counterintuitively as Fort Jesus. The late 16th century Portuguese
contingents to Africa considered themselves emissaries of Christendom first and
of Portugal commercial and military interests second. The fort is replete with massive walls and
artillery emplacements, now complemented by a number of souvenir shops tucked
into dark rooms. The fort still commands
a splendid view high above the harbor that covers a vista of about 270 degrees.
Alas, it was
unavoidable that a local tour company would end the tour with a long, hot bus
ride to a crafts manufacturing and gift shop site, in this case the rather
famous Akamba wood carving factory. We
found a large treed area that held a number of long and narrow structures that
appeared to be five feet or less high with roofs of corrugated iron
sheets. Craftsmen were working side by
side and one after the other within about twenty square feet of space. The men were either sitting or squatting,
most of them striking portions of the trunks of small trees with an adze or
carving other branches or odd pieces of wood.
The resulting carvings, mostly figurines of dancers or wild game, were delicate
and exquisite, but there seemed to be no reason why the men were working in
such cramped and dark spaces other than to re-create the craft-making of long
ago. The sales shop held many worthy
objects, but as usual only the ladies of the relentless hard-core shopping
brigade bought anything.
November
14, 2015 Saturday Zanzibar
Finally,
after a lifetime of wonder at what this mysterious place with the magical name
might be, we landed at Zanzibar. I saw
the Crosby-Hope-Dorothy Lamour “Road”-series comedy movie as a child, and I
have been intrigued ever since. Today’s island
city proved not to be exotic, but most of the people on the ship who visited it
found Zanzibar interesting and possibly the best of all of the stops on the
tour. I had formed mental pictures long
ago of what each of our stops on the cruise would look like. No place looked in the least as I had
imagined it, but no place looked radically different from what one might have
expected. After all, trees, roads,
vehicles, high-rises, stucco houses, hole-in-the-wall shops and motorcycles can
all be visualized. It’s the moods,
colors, sounds and configurations that differ.
Today’s tour was
the Sultan Heritage Tour. Indeed, the
Sultans of its history still dominate the city.
The first stop was the extensive Stonetown market. The bus parked close by. We entered as a group following our guide and
strolled through the vast arrays of vegetables, meats, flowers, clothing and
handicrafts. The building housing the
market had been built by the British colonial government. As in India it was hard to think of what
would exist today if the British hadn’t built the first public buildings.
The
principal site to visit was the place of the slave market that had existed for
decades before it was finally abolished in Zanzibar by a decree of the Sultan
in 1873. The abolition began with the agitation of David Livingstone, who had
written numerous letters to Oxford colleagues and who had in turn pressured the
British colonial office to persuade the Sultan after threat of naval
bombardment. We were told that the
slaves were assembled from all parts of Africa and sold from Zanzibar
eventually elsewhere in Africa and Asia, largely by Omani Arab traders. Our guide said that all slaves imported into
the United States came from West Africa.
Livingstone
instigated the building of a sizeable brick church over the site of the
platform from which the slaves were auctioned and where the slaves were
chained. The church became Christ
Church, the Anglican Cathedral and seat of the Bishop of Zanzibar. Nearby is St. Monica’s school, hostel and
restaurant. The bleak stone quarters
where the slaves slept before being sold may be viewed under the church as
well. The site depressing but also a
symbol of hope.
The bus took us through an upscale part
of the city with fine, large homes and hotels directly on the rather narrow
road. This locale would have been
fascinating to walk through, but the bus could not park and proceeded to a
civic beach area which formed the center of the city called the Fordhani
Gardens. Nearby is a four-story white
building located between the Old
Fort and the Palace
Museum (and former Sultan's Palace), known colloquially as the
House of Wonders. It is one of six palaces built by Barghash
bin Said, second Sultan
of Zanzibar, and it is said to be located on the site of
the 17th-century palace of Zanzibari queen Fatuma. It was the most modern building in East
African in its time. We could not enter
the building, which is now a museum, because at long last it is being
renovated. The group did visit the former
Sultan’s Palace, which is a smaller and more modest version of the Sultans’
palaces in Istanbul. The public and living quarters may be viewed. There is a view over the beach and harbor.
Again we were at
the mercy of the local touring company which caused us to take another
uncomfortable 45-minute bus ride on a narrow bad road through what had changed
from fine sunshine to a storm and pouring rain to another “African village”
locale called Kizibani, another Swahili place name. We were to be subjected to grass huts,
handicraft manufacture and the crafts shop.
The ground there had turned to mud.
Everyone stayed on the bus except for three intrepid Belgians who had to
see everything. Mercifully they looked around for only ten minutes and returned
to the bus with shoes intact but a bit muddy, while the rest of tried not to
fume visibly. The Belgians were within
their rights, after all.
November 15, 2015 Sunday
At sea
November 16, 2015 Monday
Nosy Be, Madagascar
Today’s
ship’s tour was entitled “A Glimpse of Nosy Be,” meaning in the local Malagasy language
“big island.” Nosy Be is a small island off
the northwest corner of Madagascar, which is the third (or fourth) largest
island in the world after Greenland and New Guinea at about 600 miles in
length. Nosy Be is billed as the resort
area of Madagascar.
The
first stop was in the town of Hell-Ville, named after a French explorer,
Admiral de Hell. We walked through the
downtown market place, a large structure with open sides. It was colorful. The counter personnel were extravagantly
garbed in bright colors. The offerings
were food and clothing. The market
abounded in delightful small children.
We
next drove to a distillery that produces perfume from the leaves of the
Ylangylang tree. Attractive dancers and
a drum greeted out arrival. The
flower-crunching machinery is basic, but the workers are bright, enthusiastic
and welcoming. Dare could not readily smell the perfume, but many of the women
in our party were delighted with the aromas.
There was a shop selling various perfumes, scarves, handbags and
everything, and one could walk on through a nature preserve park area where we
saw cute, furry little lemurs and a variety of lizards and iguanas. Most of the lemurs were a showy light cream
color, i.e., white, signifying females.
We saw only one black lemur, a curled up sleeping male who had hidden
himself under a tree limb and who probably was in no shape to make a public
appearance. That was understandable
given what I surmised to be the high ratio of female lemurs to that one male.
Once
again, what appeared to be the chance to do a good deed, i.e., visit a native
habitat and mingle with the residents, turned into a disagreeable
experience. The guide promised a
half-hour drive to a splendid beach, but the half-hour exceeded a most
uncomfortable full hour. We arrived at
Andilana Beach, which was itself a marvel of broad, white sand stretching away
for at least a mile. The refreshment
stand featured a full buffet under a thatched roof, but since we weren’t hungry
discretion became the better part of valor.
We ate nothing but confined ourselves to another orange Fanta, a staple
of mine all over Europe for years and probably the fifth one on this
cruise.
The
downer and extreme irritation came in the form of about ten young barefoot
ladies in arm bracelets facing each other in two rows next to the buffet. They sang, or rather chirped, endlessly in a
high pitched Zulu register in a nightmarish repetition of nonsensical ululating
sounds that would have shamed any techno venue in Berlin or San Francisco. All the while the young chorines were beating
a droning, non-stop, unchanging, maddening, diabolical rhythm by clanging
together what used to be called thundersticks in U.S. ballparks. I asked the bar personnel if they could stop
the noise, but they turned their palms up in helplessness, even as they
sympathized with my irritation. The
cacophony went on all the while we were there.
The
beach and vistas were extraordinary. At other times when one might be in a better
mood the beach was the stuff that dreams are made of. We were prepared to take a swim, but the
guide had announced our stop would be only 15 minutes. It turned out to be 45, a careless
miscalculation that was all too typical of the guides we encountered on the
cruise. But then it was we who were
crudely carrying our time-consciousness with us into a timeless paradise.
The
drive back to the ship featured attractive landscapes and evidence of quality
development. The guide with the same
abandon evidenced earlier had promised we would be back by 1:30 but delivered
us, as though mindless of our schedule, after 2:30 and after the main dining
area on the ship had closed. Not to
worry: I devoured another Texas burger in the Waves Grill.
November 17, 2015 Tuesday
At sea
November 18, 2015 Wednesday
At sea
November 19, 2015 Thursday
Maputo, Mozambique
We
were met at the foot of the gangway by our pert young lady guide, who spoke
excellent English, for a three-hour walking tour of Maputo, the capital of
Mozambique. Mozambique achieved its
independence from Portugal in 1975, only to face a 10-year civil war and
invasions from pro-colonial forces for many years. These destroyed the economy. In 1994 the present, peaceful constitutional
government came into power. Maputo today
appears to be a thriving and busy business center with new high-rise buildings,
but evidence of horrendous unemployment, said to be 85%, is everywhere, as seen
in the countless and aggressive street vendors.
Those in our walking group found the vendors to be quite vexing. Dare and I had somewhat better luck because
of our practice of the rule: make no eye contact. That’s the only thing they understand as
“no.”
We
were supposed to walk through the green and white painted early modern railroad
station, which in many quarters had been erroneously attributed to Gustave
Eiffel and which featured interesting architectural elements, but our guide
merely waved at the structure from 100 yards away. We also missed an all-steel house built by
Eiffel, but other travelers reported that it was a poor, squat, one-story
affair that was a hard walk’s distance away.
We
walked through busy streets and the inevitable market-place, ending up at a
nice café with tables about three feet above street level. We were promised a 15-minute stop, but this
one morphed into almost an hour without explanation. In the mean time the members of our tour
chatted with one another. I whispered to
the guide that I wanted to indulge one of my weaknesses, in this case shopping
for a tee shirt with a local logo, so she walked us all to a sporting goods
store. There several men bought
ridiculous multi-colored, logo-rife bicycle racing caps. I eschewed that as uncool but instead
acquired my second soccer jersey of the trip after Zanzibar. Gross, but handsome. We men were quite
pleased with ourselves.
We
toured the local fort built by the Portuguese about 1850. It featured a large
statue of a colonial cavalryman in the court yard and two large bronze reliefs
showing the subjugation of the locals by the Portuguese. One subdued chief (I can’t readily find his
complicated name, which begins with an “n’”) was stripped of most of his 35
wives. He was exiled to Portugal with
seven wives, who were soon exported to difference European countries. The old chief ended his days in exile
somewhere in Portugal.
We
walked back to the ship, but not before walking along on a street which,
looking at the signs, at night featured a number of cabarets and strip clubs,
showing that at least in that respect the economy of Mozambique is in good
shape. We might have seen more, but one
old gentleman was taking the tour with a cane.
He was exhausted near the end of the tour, and the guide had to walk
slowly with him. He had done a
disservice to the rest of us by taking the tour at all after being warned of
the considerable distances. C’est la
vie. We knew that most of the passengers
on the cruise would be elderly. People
who are still working don’t take 30-day cruises.
November 20, 2015 Friday
At sea
Today
we were scheduled for a landing at Richards Bay, South Africa. I had called the day before on the ship’s
satellite phone to arrange for a mini-safari into the hinterland. However, the wind and high seas were so bad
that the local authorities closed the port and would not permit any
landing. As a result, the Captain of the
Nautica, a Ukrainian with a heavy accent who needs work on polishing his image,
which is roughly that of a former weight-lifter, announced to the unhappy
passengers that the ship would continue to Durban and land about 4 p.m. the
next day, almost a day early. Most of us
grumbled silently, but the ship forged on through wind and heavy seas.
November 21, 2015 Saturday
Durban, South Africa
The
Nautica docked about 2 p.m., not 4 p.m. as had been forecast the day before,
but it took forever to get off the ship.
Local authorities had expected the passengers to clear immigration in
Richards Bay. Further, the immigration
stations lacked the devices that allow the magnetic strips of passports to be
swiped, so much information had to by typed in by hand after the officers saw
that proper visas had been obtained. We
craftily inserted ourselves out of order into those leaving the ship, but it
was nearly five p.m. when we had our visas validated and exited to board a
shuttle bus into the city. At least,
that was what was represented. The
weather at noon had been sunny, but by late afternoon it was dark and
threatening. As we were boarding the
bus, several fellow passengers had just returned complaining that there was
nothing to see; they never even got off the bus. We boarded the bus with the wind gusting.
We
drove to the part of the Durban waterfront, to a commercial development known
as Wilson’s Wharf. It was forbiddingly
separated from high-rise buildings by a broad avenue and railroad tracks. We decided not to risk crossing, so that was
as much downtown Durban as we got. We
walked into a rather drab, small shopping center. Someone said that at least we would find an
ATM inside. Instead we walked into a
plain eatery with a bar and ordered two glasses of red wine. The wine reminded us of the rough vin
ordinaire that everyone except rich tourists drank in France many years ago,
the wine that had to be diluted with water to be drinkable. We paid $3 U.S. per glass. The wine was stark. Halfway through our drinks, a middle-aged
athletic gentleman in running shoes with a London East End accent leaned across
from his bar stool and advised us that the wine would have tasted better mixed
with Coca Cola and ice. We thanked him
for that, finished our wine and made our way back to the last two seats on the
shuttle bus and back two or three miles or so to the ship. By then a chilly light rain had begin to fall
and it was getting dark.
November 22, 2015 Sunday
Durban, South Africa
We
were down the gangway at 7 a.m. to meet Rob, who was to be our guide by
pre-arrangement with Durban Safaris. We
had had the wit and good luck to make this arrangement on the web two or three
months before the start of our trip. It
took 20 minutes or so for the lucky eleven who had booked the same tour to
assemble and pack ourselves into a Toyota van that had no doubt been
manufactured in Durban. Rob turned out
to be a big man, an ex-forest ranger and guide for may years. He had a South African version of an English
accent. As the morning would show, Rob
was also an accomplished naturalist with the Latin names of all of the plants
and trees and some of the fauna ready at hand.
We
drove out of town and on to the N-3, a six lane highway that runs from Durban
to Johannesburg, and then on to a smaller, well paved two lane road. We arrived at the Tala Private Game
Reserve. The reserve is about 6,000
hectares in area. It had been a cattle
ranch that a rich man devoted to preserving the environment had purchased,
fenced and stocked with animals and birds.
There are resort lodges on the property.
We bounced along the bumpy and slippery mud roads for almost two hours,
stopping to photograph nyalas, impala, rhinos, cape buffaloes, beautiful and
graceful zebra, sable antelopes, warthogs, red bishop birds and Egyptian geese
(named for the marking on their faces.)
We stopped from time to time so that passengers could exchange seats
from which to photograph, as getting out of the van for any purpose was
forbidden. We did not see hippopotamus
or giraffes. From time to time we would
encounter another vehicle full of tourists, and the drivers would exchange
information on what game they had seen last and where. The games and birds were clearly not in the
wild, but their roaming and feeding habits appeared to me not to vary much from
game that is not fenced in.
Half
an hour after we left Tala we entered the famous Kwazulu cultural and dance
center, just in time for the 11 a.m. performance. About twenty young members of the Zulu nation
(a cultural group and no longer a tribe) were clad in colorful costumes, albeit
they were mostly bare. Deep kettle drums
were made to beat loudly and swiftly, and the dances started. While any such shows, in Fiji for example,
are dull and mechanical, this show was fun from the start because the
youngsters imparted a funny narrative about a would-be groom chasing a would-be
bride. The dancing was physical and
spirited.
Afterwards
the group shopped and were then summoned fifty yards ago to a reptile
center. There we walked past a number of
glass cages filled with formidable looking snakes and a large pit and pond that
were home to about 25 really ugly crocodiles.
Soon it was crocodile feeding time.
Someone said that crocodiles can eat as infrequently as once a
week. We then witnessed a scene to be
forgotten, unless you have a strong constitution – a man throwing whole dead
chickens over an eight feet high wire fence into a mass of swarming crocodiles
slithering and sliding over one another and snapping their huge jaws over the
charred fowl three feet over the water level of the pond. The chickens usually
disappeared in one gulp unless possession was disputed, and then they
disappeared in one gulp each from two crocodiles. The scene looked like rebound practice on a
basketball court, with 25 guys trying to get the rebound. The feeding frenzy was over in about five
minutes. And not any too soon.
The
final activity-not-for-the-weak-of-digestion was the demonstration with
venomous snakes conducted by a young male herpetologist. We stayed only for the first act. At the outset a skinny grey cobra was
released from a box. The snake charmer
explained that the snake had little energy that morning because the temperature
was cool (I was wearing a nylon shell over my tee shirt). He poked at the cobra
with a four-foot steel rod bent into a hook at the end, and the cobra obliged
by flattening its neck so that it looked like a cobra in the picture
books. Eventually he let anyone who
wished feel the snake. Dare and I
stroked the tail of the snake for ten seconds, but our hands were four feet
away from its teeth. That was enough.
Rob
drove is back through pleasant suburbs with shopping centers crowded with
weekend shoppers. Then we drove into the
city, past the huge, modernistic soccer stadium that had been built in this
soccer-crazy nation for the 2010 World Cup and other sports venues. We continued along the five kilometer beach
and through the so-called Golden Mile, which is lined with luxury hotels and
apartments. Rob took us back to the
ship, and everyone was happy. The
morning cost Dare and me $100 each. All
the passengers agreed that it was good value.
We
got back under the wire. I was able to
enjoy another Texas burger in the Tides snack bar. The stationary bike and treadmill, and later
dinner, awaited us.
Shortly
after we boarded we received the bad news that the sea swells and the wind was
so severe that the Nautica could not leave the port. The scheduled arrival in Cape Town was pushed
back from 4 p.m. on the 23d to 1 a.m. on the 24th. We had been looking forward to a dinner-time
stroll along the Cape Town waterfront after docking, but those plans were now
dashed. We would be on board until
disembarking for good on Tuesday morning.
November 23, 2015 Monday At sea
November 24, 2015 Tuesday
Cape Town
We
breakfasted for the last time on the open deck of the Terrace Café on the stern
of Deck 9, and we said our goodbyes to the few folks to whom we had become
moderately attached during the voyage.
The bags had been placed outside our cabin door by 10 p.m. the night
before, and we mow had to walk a distance to the pier exit and fetch the
bags. We waited outside for about ten
minutes until at a bit past 9 a.m. Our driver and guide for the next three
days, Graham Dollman, appeared and escorted us to his spacious Mercedes van.
It took
a while for Graham to find our hotel, but soon we were checking into the
upscale, seemingly all-glass Manna Bay boutique hotel situated at the base of
Table Mountain in a very comfortable residential area. We deposited our bags, underwent a brief
orientation and made dinner reservations at a restaurant in the main part of
the city. The hotel informed us that,
while they specialized in ornate breakfasts and high teas, they did not cook. We would have dinner out. However, the hotel would have one of the
staff take us to the restaurant and pick us up after dinner. That sounded swell to us.
The
first order of business on this splendid clear and sunny day was to get to the
famed Table Mountain before fog or clouds might enshroud it. We negotiated a sinuous route ever upwards
and parked the van in a tourist space not far from the base of the funicular
that was to take us up to the top, situated about 3,500 feet above sea level. We stood in line for about 45 minutes until
it was our turn to take our places in a cable car, each of which (one ascends
as the other descends) holds 55 nervous people.
The ride
up caused a few tummy flutters. Once at the virtually flat, tabletop-like
summit we walked for 30 or 40 minutes along the prescribed concrete path which
enabled an entire circle of vistas, all of them spectacular, particularly on
this clear day.
We came
down and headed for a drive around the center of the city. Graham showed us the Malay section. The earliest slaves were brought to Cape Town
from the Malay peninsula, and they were settled in this part of town. We also drove through the new yuppy section,
Water’s Edge. We then drove north along
the suburban beaches for a late lunch at a new restaurant on the beach.
On the
way back we stopped in the older center of the city for a fifteen-minute visit
to St. George’s Anglican Cathedral, Bishop Desmond Tutu’s church. We saw the small famous statue of the Black
Madonna and reflected a while in that large and imposing place of worship built
at the height of the influence and wealth of the British Empire. The interior is quite beautiful. Now the church must scramble to raise the
funds necessary to repair the roof before another winter sets in.
Both Dare and I as well as Graham were tired
by this time, so we returned to the hotel.
We changed into our bathing attire and sat by the pool until we got up
the nerve to go into the chilly water. Eventually
we each did alternately, but we splashed only for a few perfunctory laps before
feeling the cold. (The next morning the
manager was surprised we had even tried it.)
That reminded us that summer on the Cape had not yet fully arrived. After the dip we showered and prepared for
dinner.
A driver
took us down the hill to an Italian steak house, Carne, where we ordered prime
rib that was aged only eight weeks and was not quite to our taste. Nonetheless, the restaurant became crowded
and jovial, and we enjoyed the experience.
A taxi was dispatched to take us to the hotel and bed.
November 25, 2015
Wednesday Cape Town
Today
we drove south from the city to what we expected simply to be the most
southerly point of Africa. It’s not that
simple. The Cape of Good Hope is the
most southwesterly tip of Africa, but the most southerly point is at Cape
Point.
In
any event we sped south on the coast road that lies along the western shore of
the peninsula, passing suburbs and beaches, inlets and bays that had us looking
every which way and always confused.
It’s a topographical nightmare.
There is even a False Bay, so named because the earliest mariners, when
they had rounded a particular protrusion of cliffs, assumed they had left the
Atlantic and were finally headed for India, except they weren’t.
We
stopped for excellent cappuccinos at a small private park off the road called
the Village Roast and proceeded to our first stop, Cape Point. Thinking that we had arrived when we had
posed for congratulatory photos at a big sign at the parking lot, were soon
disabused of that idea by Graham, who pointed skyward to a tall white
lighthouse high up on a cliff. He
suggested that we had to go to the top or be American wimps. We had our choice between the funicular and
trekking up. It didn’t look so far. Graham insisted that he made it in 12
minutes, but that must have been during his long-distance running days or
before his now obstructed hip. Of course
we would walk up. It took us 25 minutes
and considerable breathlessness and a few short rest stops for me. Dare “the Goat” had no evident difficulties,
given her prior training on the steep slopes of Potrero Hill. At any rate a number of tourists were making
the trek, albeit they all looked like husky Germans. The lighthouse was, well, a lighthouse. It had been abandoned in 1913 because it was
so elevated over the sea that when it became shrouded in fog ships below would
wreck on an offshore reef. A new
lighthouse was then constructed on a cliff below.
The
view at the top was rewarding. It was a
clear and sunny day. Dare and I became
separated at the summit and lost each other for ten minutes or so. I began to fear that he had been taken away
by an alien spaceship. We found each
other below at the rest stop and proceeded back to the parking lot. We then drove about ten minutes to the Cape
of Good Hope, which happens to be a rocky pointed cliff upon which waves crash
and burst into frothy cascades. We had
to wait until a gang of German motorcycle riders and their dames posed in high
spirits for a number of photos behind large signs telling us where were in
navigational detail in both English and Afrikaans. I was beginning to get it - ocean waves were
breaking on rocky cliffs.
We
stopped as a small seaside town called Boulders Beach to view, of all things, a
horde of indigenous African penguins molting en masse on a couple of narrow
beaches about 500 yards from the public parking area. The penguins were scruffy because of the the
season of their year, but they were formal, upright and funny as they stood at
attention while the odd human beings got close and took picture after
picture. They were also much smaller
than I expected, but that is the norm for the African penguin.
Dare
would not settle for an ice cream cone by two p.m., so we ate spicy hamburgers
with chocolate milkshakes at a tiny corner eatery in the tiny town, the three
of us at a table about three feet round.
This meal was just OK, like every meal we had in Cape Town except for
our hotel breakfasts. Not gourmet
territory. We drove on, this time along
the eastern edge of the peninsula, and passed through a pleasant suburb called
Simon’s Town, the main post of the South Africa navy, which is limited to
patrolling the shores of the country.
We
were back at the Manna Bay after four, rather tired. Time to read the day’s e-mail, a lesser
hardship given the hotel’s fast wi-fi, a pleasure after a month of slow,
satellite wi-fi on the Nautica.
Refreshed by a shower, we were summoned by the management to board a
taxi for a downtown area known as Donkey Square. There we had dinner at Maria’s, a pleasant
outdoor Greek restaurant under leafy trees.
We had lamb giouvets (roasted lamb) and a bottle of Attic retsina. We enjoyed the wine, while noting as two
veterans of the real Greece in the old days (the mid-1950’s) that the retsina
was pretty watered down contrasted with what it was when Greeks were Greeks and
not imitations of Europeans. Maria’s
purported to serve a Turkish pastry known as cadaiff (umlaut over the
“i”). It was a travesty. Dare passed, but I disgustingly finished my
caloric portion. The waiter summoned a
taxi at hotel expense, and we were driven up the hill to retire for the
evening.
November 26, 2015
Thursday Cape Town
Noting that our flight home would not depart until after
six this evening, and not wishing to overburden our driver with tour overload,
we opted to spend the morning packing and not be picked up until 11 a.m. After one more baggage reorganization, we
said our farewells to the hotel staff and headed downhill from the magnificent
elevation of the Manna Bay to the main part of the city.
Dare
had told Graham that she wanted to see the infamous District 6 area of Cape
Town, so we went. This area, in a prime
central location, had once been cleared of native housing by the Apartheid
government to establish residences for whites only. After the mid-1990’s, the area was bulldozed
so that the land could be returned to its prior owners. Only a few prior owners have claimed their
parcels and built residences. Large
tracts remain vacant because the persons entitled to the property do not have
the means to build on the land.
We
drove on to a freeway and headed toward the wine country. On the way we passed two or three of formerly
notorious townships, the large and intensely crowded shanty areas on flat land
populated by black Africans behind wire fences.
Graham explained that the people living there could not afford to move
out, although there are no legal restraints keeping them there. They are waiting for housing built by the
government to be built for them. This in
most cases will take years.
Gradually
we entered into relatively open, lightly wooded areas and came to the famous
Vergelegen Wine Estate. The house and
grounds are worth googling, as the founding history goes back to early Dutch
settlers of 1700. The ownership by
successive families is documented on the premises, and it’s fair to say that
their fortunes increased exponentially after leaving England for South
Africa. The trees on the property,
including huge camphor trees and large oaks, and the flower gardens are quite
beautiful. After touring the manor house
we had a delicious light lunch in the Stables restaurant and tasted a discreet
selection of the wines of the Estate in the Wine Tasting Centre.
Graham
drove us through more of the lower wine area, through Stellenbosch, and then to
the airport.
We
waited for over three hours before taking off.
Once airborne we were very pleased with the facilities of Emirates
Airways. The seats and leg area in coach
were significantly more comfortable than those in other airlines, there was a
continuous flow of old movies (we watched “Casablanca” and “Arthur”) and the
food was tasty. We flew eight hours to
Dubai, waited about four hours in that airport and enjoyed another 16 hours on
the non-stop flight to San Francisco.
The
five-weeks trip held a few uncomfortable moments, but on the whole we were
quite pleased with our trip.
THE END
