Archive for the ‘India’ Category
From Whale Sharks in the Maldives to Mohandas Gandhi in Mumbai
By Chase A. Wolfe
The original wing of the Taj Mahal Palace hotel (1904)
Chase’s Log 3.14.2010. As I was leaving my week-long R&R in the Maldives, I found a place that served beer near the Male airport – no easy feat, with teetotaling Muslims being in the majority there – and I spent a few final hours with my Singaporean shipmates from the Orion before we were to bid each other farewell, and I was to fly off into the darkness for Mumbai, India. We talked about our recent swim with a teenage whale shark and how gentle and polite it was, allowing us to swim and eat plankton with it. Nothing like those ill-mannered brutes – Bull Sharks – that someone’s always hauling up on their backyard dock in Florida where I live.
We talked about the diving in the Maldives in general and what a great week it had been – trading remembrances large and small. That’s the sweet sadness of travel – making friends, sharing adventures, and knowing all the time that you may – and probably won’t – see them again. But then, I do have this blog, the Internet, email and Skype, so who knows? Burton Holmes, eat your heart out. But all things come to an end and I boarded my flight to Mumbai.
Hindu God with Connections to the Travel Gods
Home Office has been fretting about how my delicate, Western-style intestinal fortitude will hold up in India, and I’ve promised to make opulent offerings to every elephant-headed, six-armed deity I run across – hoping they can get a message to the Travel Gods of Intestinal Fortitude. They’ve been quiet for a few weeks now, but it would be just like them to pay a little mischief with the Indian food – which I love – and send me hopping, skipping and sprinting the Bombay Two-Step for the nearest thunder closet.
A Mumbai Laundry
I arrived in Mumbai without incident, but during the drive from the airport I was saddened by the many hundreds of people sleeping on sidewalks. Such poverty amid such richness of culture. So many things we take for granted in the States - even simple clothes washing – has a different meaning here - it’s work. I make a mental note to be more grateful for the little things about my country.
Whip it!
I arrived at the opulent, colonial-era Taj Mahal Palace & Tower Hotel – yes, the target of terrorists and, given the overwhelming display of police and soldiers, probably the safest place in India today – around 4:30 a.m. I was given the choice of paying for a night’s rent or checking in after 9:00 am. Frugal is my middle name, so I spent five hours snoozing in the lobby and business center before getting a very nice room later in the morning and crashing. Read the rest of this entry »