12th February 2012

Today was our last day in Mumbai and it was a very busy one.  After having breakfast with Vera and Chris, we went back to our room to pack and get ready.  This being India, the plans made yesterday to have a car and driver at our disposal all day fell through. The taxi driver Willie had contacted, cancelled at the last minute and we just found out when we called Willie.  Oh well, the plans of mice and men ....

Once ready, we checked out of the YWCA and they refunded us our last night which would have been tonight.  It was not even difficult, they did not make a fuss at all.  Willie came over (just because he is such a nice guy) and helped carry our luggage to a taxi and off we went to Bandra where Maria (Willie's wife) expected us. I had written to Maria at Christmas for so many years but had never met her in person.  It is really nice to put a face to her name.  She is a very warm and friendly person and we immediately felt at ease in her presence.  We also got to meet their daughter Paloma.  What a pretty girl!  We just dropped our belongings there and went to visit some friends we had not seen in ages.  Cecil and Sheila were very happy to see us and so were we.  They are getting older now and it broke my heart when, as we were leaving, Cecil gave me a big warm hug and said "this is the last time we see each other".

I have so often said that life is hard in India.  The cities are so dirty, the traffic so terrible that no one can really walk in a relaxed fashion, the sidewalks are non-existent for the most part but, the people are so kind.  No one is rude to you when you ask for directions. Example:  we got in a rickshaw to go to Cecil and Sheila's place.  We remembered they lived on Prof. Almeida Road but, once there, could not recognize their building.  Some young men noticed us and immediately came to us and asked if they could help.  We called our friends and one of them talked to them.  They then told us where to go and even offered to walk there with us.


After our visit with Cecil and Sheila, we got into another rickshaw and met Lynnette and Benjamen who were taking us out to lunch at the Bandra Gymkahna.  We had a really lovely time with them.  We had not seen Benjamen since l989 and Lynnette, some years later when she came to Ottawa with her parents to celebrate Mum and Dad's 50th wedding anniversary.  Somehow, all these people don't seem to age.  From there, we went on to visit another cousin and her family, Leonie, Nitin, Semoline his wife and Nandita.  Again, we had not seen them since 1989 when Nandita was about 4 years old and Nitin a bit older.  By then the traffic in Bandra was so incredible, that we walked back to Willie's place to pick up our luggage and drive to the Santa Cruz Gymkahna for dinner. 

Dinner was really very nice.  We were touched to see that everyone came happily to be with us on our last evening in India.  We even got to meet Christine, Selwyn and Vera's youngest daughter, the only one still living at home, and Karl and Sean, Giles and Vida's sons.   We found it so nice of these young people to even want to come and meet some distant cousins from Canada.  The whole get together was very pleasant and it was with a sad heart that we had to get ourselves ready to leave.  I have to say that we had invited everyone to this dinner, 17 of us in all, including Chris and Vera. When it was time to pay for it, Vera and Selwyn never let us even see the bill.  Thank you so much was all that we could say.

It was now 11pm and getting a taxi was quite the job.  Willie seems to be an expert at this.  The boys never let us even pick-up our luggage.  After innumerable hugs, we had to say goodbye to everyone and be on our way.  The whole evening was the perfect finale for our Indian holiday.

Getting to the airport was terrible, Mumbai really never sleeps. The traffic was horrendous and I really though we would be late.  We made it on time and the long flight home was uneventful.  We had plenty of time to replay our day and to wish that our family was not spread out so far away.

11th February 2012

We woke up this morning in our newer room and were happy to find that there was "Annual Sports Day" at Campion School.  As I mentioned yesterday, our 4th floor balcony overlooks their sport field so we had  the best seat in the house, better than the parents view since they are sitting on chairs at ground level. The boys range from very young to teens.  They all wear different colored shorts depending on their standards (grade level).  The scene was so joyous and so colorful with white, red, yellow, green, blue shorts and white school T-Shirt.  Bernie was brought right back to his school years at Mount-Abu where they also had an Annual Sports Day.  We decided to call Chris who is also an Abu boy and he also came to take in the the happy event.

After breakfast with Vera and Chris, we went back to the Taj to see Willie while our friends went off on their own as we needed to fix our problem.  What we will do tomorrow is, with Willie's help, we will get a car and driver to pick us up in  town and take us to Bandra.  He will stay with us until we go to the airport so we will have a place for our luggage.  Hopefully, we will  be able to visit a few people during the afternoon.   We all meet at 7 PM at the Santa Cruz Gymkhana.

Ouf! what a relief, it all seems to be working out.

After all this was settled, we walked for a couple of hours, all the way to Flora Fountain and back, and then went for a bite to eat in an AC restaurant.  Chris and Vera are going out to dinner this evening with Chris' cousin and his family and we will be meeting an Abu boy, Aloysius (Datch), for dinner.

We are back and dinner was very nice.  Aloysius picked us up and took us to a place where you can have a Thali. Everything was quite tasty and, the servers  kept refilling our Thal until we said we had enough and could not eat anymore.  It was of course all vegetarian with all kinds of bean dishes, my favorite Thoran cabbage, eggplant, okra and much more.  There also served us many different kinds of breads like chapatti, paratha, puri, naan and others I cannot name.  We decided not to get Aloysius to drive us back. since we needed the walk.  It turned out to be a very short walk but had been quite a long drive in heavy traffic to get there.  We are now getting ourselves ready for our last day tomorrow which will be a long one since we will have no real sleep for probably close to 48 hours (almost 20 hours before our flight and another 20+ in transit). I really am getting too old for these grueling flights

I am sure you are all waiting for Lynanne and Lloyd's contribution describing their trip to Delhi and Agra.  I know I am.

Next entry from us, Danielle and Bernie, will be from our home in Ottawa, after having some rest.

10th February 2012

Our first night in Mumbai was uneventful.  Mumbai is a big city and big cities in India are often just too congested, too loud and too dirty.  I had really hoped for changes in the last 24 years but, from what I can see, there has not been much improvement.  Of course, there are the new roads made wider, taking over sidewalks in the process.  It leaves all pedestrians fighting for their lives every time they want to go anywhere.  No one can  ever go out with a stroller or for a pleasant walk with their children.  There is absolutely no place to walk.  Every sidewalk has been commandeered by some business or other or is in a state of disrepair.    There are dogs everywhere.  They are not aggressive at all.  They all seem so hungry and so tired and in great need of a nice flee killing shampoo and a good bath.  They sleep in the middle of the place and everyone walks around them.  I feel sorry for anyone with any physical disability.  The curbs are often a foot high so one must jump off it to get down, at least if one is as short legged as I am.  Maybe I am starting to miss my home and my loved ones which is why this city has lost it's appeal for me.

Our room at the YWCA was not what we had reserved 6 months ago so we mentioned it at the reception desk this morning and we were given a much larger one with a view of the Campion Boys School play area. Bernie insists on my describing it as the garden behind the school.  That is the shortcut they used when he was young to get from Maher Mansion to Woodhouse Church.  It has now been converted into a very large playing field made of brown earth.

There area couple of Kites (very large hawk style birds) making a nest outside our window.  They build it out of twigs and it is a very messy and ugly nest.  Since it does not rain here for months at a time, the trees are covered with a layer of brown soil dust which probably gets cleaned out during the monsoon season.

After our complimentary breakfast, we went to the Taj Hotel to meet our cousin Willie.  We had not seen him in 24 years and it was so nice to see him again. Our friends who had been to India this past year, had come to say hello to him from us and taken his picture so we recognized him immediately.  He was very helpful in providing us with every one's phone number so we could organize to meet all of them for dinner on the 12th since we are leaving on the 13th.  Talking about our departure, we decided to check our return ticket only to find out we had gotten muddled.  The dinner with our relatives is organized for the 12th evening and we have just now realized that we do leave on the 13th but at 2:30 AM which means we have booked and paid for an extra night here.  We will have to sort this out, check out on the 12th by noon and organize ourselves differently.  We will not be coming back in town after this dinner as we will already be half way to the airport.  Give you more details tomorrow when we have sorted them out.

Later on, we met with Chris and Vera and spent the evening with them. We had not seen them in a long time and it was nice to catch up with each other's lives again.   After dinner, we went to the Kala Godha Festival close by and after a nightcap at a local restaurant/bar, we said goodnight.  We will meet them at 8:30 for breakfast.  Another day has gone by getting us closer to our return home.

It will be nice to meet all our relatives Sunday evening for a drink and dinner.  We just have to iron out all the details.

9th February 2012

Today, we got ourselves organized to leave for the last leg of our trip.  We (meaning Bernie) also took more pictures of  the owls who came back to their favorite roost.  How lucky for us to be in this beautiful home, at the right time to see these two beautiful birds.
Our breakfast was quite nice and very varied.  There was the South Indian component but also some French Toasts, toasts and jam, scrambled egg and fruit. 

Kumar is also an amateur photographer so he and Bernie had a lot to chat about. 

Later on, he very kindly offered to drive us to the first stop of the coach going to the airport but before that, they shared some delicious samosas with us and a nice piece of homemade chocolate cake .  It was all delicious and an added bonus since this was suppose to be a B&B sort of arrangement.  Pauline gave me her email address when she found out I was a born baker.  I will be sending her some recipes when I get home.  They really are lovely people.

We did not realize that this bus was not an express bus to the airport but rather a milk route to the airport.  It took almost 2 hours to get there and we arrived at 3:20 for a 4 o'clock flight.  As luck would have it, our flight was delayed about 30 minutes so it all worked out for the best. 

Kumar, if you read this, thank you again for everything.

We landed in Mumbai around 6:30 but, despite an rather aggressive cab driver, we made it here by 7:30.  We came by the new Worli Sea Link Bridge.  It greatly reduced the drive time to town and we were happy to see this new engineering marvel.

We are finally catching up with this blog since the have WiFi here.

 Tomorrow, we will meet with our friends Chis and Vera who have come from Mangalore.  They will also be visiting their relatives here in Mumbai. 

8th February 2012

Today was our last day together as traveling partners.  Lloyd and Lynanne left for Delhi and we headed for Fort Kochi.  Our drive together was sort of sad.  No one wanted to say goodbye not knowing when we would have the chance to meet again.  The adventure had been so much fun, never an argument or a misunderstanding.  Our goodbyes at the airport were warm but short and sweet.  Lynanne and I knew that tears could show up at any moment.  We promised each other that we would visit and I do hope it works out.  We do live thousands of miles (kms for us) away.  There is always Skype in the meantime.

We were pleasantly surprised to see our new homestay Sui House which was a heritage building, nicely renovated and beautifully furnished with colonial furniture.  Pauline and Kumar  were really nice to us.  After showing us to our room which also comprised a nice living room, he came to chat with us.  He showed us that right outside our door lived 2 small owls.  I was so excited to finally see owls in their own habitat.  They are Pallid Scops Owls, they are about 22cm and are truly beautiful.  They stay in that tree all day until dusk and then leave for the night.  They come back in the early morning and remain there once again.  Later on we went and asked our host about restaurants and, after naming a few, they changed their minds and invited us to share their lunch.  It was delicious and very pleasant to continue chatting with them.  They told us about an Ayurvedic Center next door where one can go for a massage.  We ceased the opportunity and both went for it.  It was very relaxing.  The rest of our day was spent walking around the place, taking pictures of the owls and chatting Anna, our hosts' daughter.   We do miss Lloyd and Lynanne. They would love this place.

Tomorrow, we leave for Mumbai.

7th February 2012

Yesterday had been so great that we got up early this morning and got ready for an earlier version of yesterday.  Our captain arrived promptly at 7 a.m. and we were ready to walk with him to the boat jetty.  Bernie asked him if he would be taking us on different canals and he nodded with a smile as we pulled away from the dock.  We passed dozens of much bigger houseboats, docked and preparing the breakfast for their guests.  We even saw someone sleeping in his bed.  I guess that passenger will be late for breakfast.  Unfortunately, the canal got wider and we found ourselves on the lake.  It was quite relaxing but there was very little to see.  Let this be a lesson to all who try to relieve a great experience a second time, it usually does not work out.  After a couple of hours, we turned into a narrower canal and things got to be better but not as good as the previous day.

When we came back, we went to look for a car cell phone charger.  We stopped at this little place packed to the gunnel from floor to ceiling.  They finally found what we needed, outside in a suitcase (after searching through several). Where they to sell this suitcase, they would take all their stock out of it and find another place to store it all.   India being India, the said charger comes with so many adapters that it is capable to charge any cell phone known to man and all for about $3.00.

Today, we had both our lunch and dinner at the same place as our dinner last night.  We went somewhere else before but they did not have anything we were ordering. We decided to leave and went back to the Concordia Hotel for the evening buffet.

Let's see what tomorrow brings.

6 February 2012

WOW! It is 5 AM and the loud speakers outside, a few feet from our window have come on.  We both bolted up, heart pounding and then I burst out laughing almost as loud as the music outside.  At the same time as the Hindu music, came the Muslim call to prayer.  ONLY IN INDIA!  Needless to say, no point trying to sleep after this. We got ready for our cruise on the backwaters and went down to breakfast with Matthew and his mother Mary.  Our captain showed up precisely at 8 AM as planned and we walked to the jetty where we boarded our boat.

The boat was fairly wide, covered at the top and open all around.  It was outfitted with comfortable armchairs and loungers.  The day was cloudy and cool and promised to be a very pleasant experience.  We traveled through wide and narrow canals, passing innumerable multi-bedroom houseboats all returning from their overnight trips. Hopefully, in time, Bernie will post pictures.  The canals provided a snapshot of daily rural life in Allapuzha.  There was the usual washing of clothes and of pots and pans, the bathing of children, the cooking of meals, the children waiting for their school boat, all dressed in their different uniforms.  The whole experience was wonderful, so much so, that we are repeating it tomorrow, only earlier.  At one point, our captain stopped at a canal side restaurant where Bernie and Lloyd were brave enough to sample the local fare served on a banana leaf, probably washed in the river.  Lynanne and I abstained and had bananas.  On our way out, a friendly eagle perched on our shoulder and posed for pictures. 

On our return, we sat on the patio bombarded by the loud music.  There were several electricity interruptions (very common in India) and each  provided a brief respite from the din throughout the afternoon. It was the first time during this trip that we welcomed  these power outages

After the boys had their mandatory King Fisher beer, we all walked to the local Acadia hotel for an Indian Buffet.  On our return, this being the last evening of the festivities, our little dirt road was lined with oil lamps to welcome the procession of worshippers.  There were people of all ages, decked out in their finery and all the little girls looked really cute.  There was drumming, singing, dancing and fireworks.  We were invited to join everyone in the temple and partake in the festivities.   We had a great time  and are all happy for the experience.  It was worth the price of the noise.  Tomorrow morning at 5 AM we should only hear the Muslim call to prayer.

Meet you again on our next post..