India: A place of contrasts

Tuesday March 31
Day at sea: Bumming around the ship. The weather is hot and humid. The pool feels good!
Wednesday, April 1
Mumbai, India : Our 15 hour shore excursion starts at 5:30 AM. The bus takes us through some of the most ramshackle slums to date. Made a very unsettling start for the day. There are enough of us on the tour that a private chartered jet is being used. Our customs processing divides the men and women into separate lines. We all get the wand treatment. The wanding for the women is done in private and only by women. Our destination is the Taj Mahal which is located in Agra a two hour flight NE from Mumbai. After a nice ethnic lunch we are off to fight the hoards of hawkers that line the streets that we have to walk down to get to the Taj. Again security is very tight getting in. Shoes have to be covered and no video inside the tomb. Even inside, lots of people want to take pictures of you in different settings for a price. Once we got to the shrine it’s like a white marble football field. Its grandeur seems out of place and from a better time in India when the crush of overpopulation hadn’t manifested itself yet. A lot of the Indian populace was there decked out in their very colorful best. Another running of the gauntlet back to the bus and a trip to the Agra Fort. This was the residence of the mughal that built the Taj. In my view this was the most impressive stop. It was like the biggest castle from a medieval fairytale. Complete with moat and drawbridge. The interior was like a small city. It housed 5000 concubines the mughal took care of plus his wife who had 17 children and died with the last one in childbirth. A hurried trip thru Mumbai after our return flight revealed the masses of people, bikes, motor bikes and cars in the twilight slowly pulsing their way home or just getting out after the heat of the day. It was a day of many emotions.
April 2
Day at sea: Sue went to a very ethnic English meal at noon. They offered bangers and mash (mashed potatoes and sausage), cottage pie (beef stew with cheese and baked with mashed spuds on top—my choice—yum!), ploughman’s lunch (a deli type sandwich) and fish and chips. Found mahjong on the computer but it’s just a matching game.