MUMBAI, GOA AND MANGALORE

 If you've been with me in this blog for any length of time, you know that I just don't like to go to India.  The people themselves are fine, but the government is a mess.

• Let me start with something almost trivial, but typical.  All of India has the same time, but at UTC +5:30.  You'd think that a ship going east would lose an hour every time it passes a certain zone.  But no....one night we had to advance an hour, then the next half and hour, and tonight we gain half an hour when we leave India.

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  The bureaucracy is both a joke and total pain.  Try getting a visa, especially when you're in some countries.  We had problems in the U.S., but if you're from the U.K., India penalizes them a lot more by having to go through all kinds of hoops.  This is payback for the country making in migration difficult.  For example, after you get the India visa, you end up with two pieces of paper that you need to show three times leaving and returning to the ship.  Or six times, plus two more when you count the room card we need to process going and coming.

Then the country itself.  On 7 February 2010 I wrote on INDIA SUCKS.  Last time I checked, there were 90 comments, and almost all of them agreed with me.  I had to delete several of them because they were ads for their company.  But I only do this once/year, so they accumulate.  Here is a more recent posting that summarizes the problem with the country.

The ship I'm on had three India stops, Mumbai, Goa and Mangalore.  I had to see Mumbai, because almost half a century ago my wife and I took the PanAm global journey, and Bombay was a stop.  Here is a summary of our experience:

Bombay was Eye-opening

We landed in Bombay after midnight, but the customs agent sent us to the back of the line because we had no visas. No one told us about that before the trip, but, sure, that was our fault.

At 2:30 in the morning, we were the final two in line. The temperature was in the 90’s (degrees Fahrenheit). That agent—and, sorry, but he looked like a crook—said he had to keep our passports, and we could enter the country, but we should hire someone to get them back before we checked out of the country. What choice did we have? This is scam city, and a more active form than in Cairo, yet to come.

There was a very large sign behind him warning anyone not to exchange money with these officials. So he proceeded to ask us how many rupees we wanted. Oh, great, now what? Do we ignore him and walk out, invoking his rage to purposely lose our passports, or get thrown in jail for exchanging money? We got a few rupees. No problem.

The taxi ride was uneventful. We checked into the Holiday Inn, and got a room with the noisiest air conditioner I have ever experienced. But it worked. We specifically picked this hotel because it was a Holiday Inn. Certainly, it would be sterile.

The next morning, we went down to breakfast in their coffee shop, which was swarming with flies. Yes, this was a Holiday Inn.

Pearl walked just outside the hotel area to the beach, and came running back, as a whole mob of children was chasing her to sell rocks. Not gemstone quality, but plain old rocks. What a cultural shock.

We took an arranged tour of the city. I can still remember the utter poverty. People living in cardboard boxes…mothers with deformed children begging…carts hauling dead people to special areas for vultures to pick on…this was a totally different world. Bombay was a shock to our senses.

The tour guide was especially proud of a church basement where 8-10 year old children were sewing in semi-darkness, almost swollen with pride because at least they had shelter and food. The Hanging Gardens of Bombay approximated my hanging roof garden in Honolulu. The Gateway of India was swarming with a million people. People bumped into you at this tourist attraction because of crowd surges, but as far as I could determine, there were no pickpockets. Singapore has about 2,000 people/square mile…Bombay is almost ten times that density. 20 million people? I can go on, but a couple of days later we finally found ourselves back at the airport six hours before our flight, to retrieve our passports.

You can imagine our anxiety as we waited for 5 ½ hours with our baggage, waiting to check in. Through a major miracle, the youth we hired came running back…we barely were able to check through…just got on board, and the plane left India. That was our last trip to this country. Eliminate India as a best place to live.

I just wanted to see how Bombay had changed, for it is now called Mumbai.  

• The poverty and sense of hopelessness is a stark contrast to everything we saw in the United Arab Emirates and Oman.  Everything was polished and new during the first few days of our cruise.  India is about as opposite as you can get, although I would think that Bangladesh and parts of Africa are equally terrible.

• 
  This is a controversial topic, but one tally has Greater Mumbai at a population of 18 million, Delhi at 16.3 million and Kolkata(formerly Calcutta) at 14 million.
• Actually, all in all, I would say that the living environment of Mumbai has improved in half a century.  I saw no homeless people living in large cardboard boxes this time.
• While one survey has less than 12,000 homeless in a population of 21 million (as I said, population is variable here), or a rate of 0.06%, many think the number is much higher, perhaps by a factor of five, bringing this percentage up to 0.3%.
• 
  Take Hawaii, with a population of 1.4 million.  We have a confirmed 15,000 homeless. Our percentage is 1%!!!
• But what does homelessness mean?  

I wanted to see Mumbai again, but all tours were booked, and there was one I could have for only $300 to have a private guide.  I think this is one of the Regent scams.  They don't offer enough free tours and want people to book extra-paying ones.  As most of those on this ship are pretty rich, it does not seem to matter to most.  It does to me, and the night before I went to the desk, and, aha, they had two openings.  

The view from our cabin was of a run-down attempt to build future facilities.  However, there is hope, although efforts seem to have stopped.

Blue-bar pigeons were here to greet our ship.  The two stops which were most important to me were where there were restroom facilities.  Dropped by the Gateway to India, with all those pigeons.  The Taj Palace and Tower are located across the street, This is were the terrorist attack of 2008 occurred.

I noticed that were large science featuring environment.  For example, one-use plastic bags were outlawed this year, and Mumbai's air pollution is terrible.  With the Mauna Loa eruption emission heading the direction of Oahu, the index was around 25 for Honolulu, but nearly 300 for Mumbai, which is hazardous.

 

We saw a huge outdoor laundry and a Hindu temple.

All trees are painted red and white.  I asked why, and the answer was they reflect light at night warn drivers not to hit them.  

India has 5 million cows roaming their cities.  Hindu's consider cows to be holy, and tomorrow I'll provide the lighter side of this matter.

We moved on to Goa, which is the smallest state, but with the highest GDP/capita.  Vasco da Game had a major influence, for this region became a Portuguese protectorate from the early 1500s, and after 450 years, India just annexed Goa, kicking out Portugal after a two-day war.  Goa only became a state of India in 1987.

The tour of Goa, for me not worth the effort. After a long ride, we went to a market, which wasn't distinctive in any way.  But the tour guide found me a reasonably clean toilet.  Gambling is only allowed in three states, and Goa leads.  Below four floating casinos.

We then went on another long ride to see three Christian churches  This next stop was memorable because the tour guide paid 20 rupees (around 25 cents) for me to use a toilet in one of the churches.  Of course, I gave her a generous tip at the end.  Anyway, it was a particularly long walk from the bus to the churches, lined with shops to take your money.  We were warned don't eat outside the ship, and if you had to, make sure the outside of the can or bottle was absolutely cleaned.  Yet someone bought a large amount of peanuts for a buck, and shared it with others.  Surprised that many partook.

That last photo shows chorizos, a popular Portuguese sausage.  There are numerous family names that reflect this country.  

The last photo shows the largest Christian church in all of Asia, the Se Cathedral Church of Goa, dedicated to St. Catherine of Alexandria.

What a day. Walked 8000 steps, mostly under a hot sun, with temperatures hovering around 90 F.  I assessed this tour and came to a conclusion that the best two parts of the trip were the pee stops.  Looking at the Mangalore tour, I saw churches and homes and the same things, with a lot of walking.  I cancelled and rested instead.  But here are a couple of photos from my partner.

Here is a map showing where Mumbai, Goa and Mangalore are located.

Well we have left Mangalore, where the Air Quality Index was a dangerous 151 today.  Worse, the ship was parked right next to a series of industrial refineries, where their emissions wafted in our direction every so often.  I rarely sneeze more than once/day.  Today, 10 times, at least.  I said I would never go to India again.  I'll say it again:  I WILL NEVER GO TO INDIA AGAIN.  Next, Male in the Maldives.  We will actually be able to sleep half an hour more tomorrow, for we set the clock back half a hour.  the Maldives are west of India.

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IT TAKES FOREVER TO PUT TOGETHER A BLOG IN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OCEAN.  I'LL LATER RETURN TO CLEAN IT UP.