29th July, 2017

We slept surprisingly well at Sears Motel despite the rather basic accommodation and wandered over the road to the cafe for an excellent breakfast of omelettes with all the trimmings. We were now practised in the art of loading the car and we were soon on the road again and heading back towards Kalispell.

There was nothing particularly planned for the day, so we drove round Glacier Park on Highway 2 and headed for Whitefish where we parked and walked about the town. Whitefish is decidedly upmarket and caters for the skiers in the winter and the vacationers in the summer. Lots of chic shops with prices to match (and that is not simply because of the lousy exchange rate!), so it was decidedly window shopping only. An attractive town – or city? The US seems to call even tiny places city and we went through one recently that only had 94 inhabitants.

 

We feasted at Chick a Fillet (I may have got that wrong). Tasty enough, but the pounds are definitely starting to show! Chris went to Boot Barn and treated himself to a very fancy pair of proper cowboy boots so he should be looking the part when he is in Texas later in the trip. Nick and I found a free plastic bow and arrow range and had fun trying to hit balls floating on jets of air. It was not as easy as it looked!

We then set off for our accommodation for the night, just outside Kalispell, at the Lonesome Dove Ranch, where we arrived mid afternoon. This was a bit of a different experience as we were all sharing the same cabin and all basically in the same room, as you can see.

We were located in the middle of the ranch with a rather scruffy bison and lots of horses scattered about. Very idyllic, though we pretty much crashed out on arrival until it was time to go to supper. Nick did try his horse whisperer act (I found one of them lying down on its side soon after, which was a bit of a worry, but it still seemed to be breathing). There horses seemed friendly enough!

Supper was a short drive to a local pub, but Val was feeling a bit tired, so we left her resting in the cabin and tucked in to a variety of pizzas and other fare. We are getting seriously close to scurvy with the lack of vegetables, but no teeth have fallen out yet! We took Val a vegetable pizza back and started a game of Crazy Whist until eyelids started to droop. Val and I had the massive bed in the middle of the cabin and the kids were on the mezzanine floors, which looked a bit challenging especially if you sat up quickly and banged your head on the ceiling!

A quietish day, but fun and we were well rested for the adventures ahead!

More soon.

28th July, 2017

We set off after the free breakfast in the Aero Inn, an interesting affair as there seemed to be about 12 of us but only about 8 chairs, so there was a fair amount of lingering expectantly like a round of musical chairs in the hope someone would vacate their spot. It was very much do it yourself with all the plates and cutlery being disposable plastic, but they had Cheerios, so Nick and I at least were happy. Chris worked out how to make his own waffle (can you make yours waffle?) so he was a happy and fairly full bunny.

Our destination today was the wonderful Glacier National Park adjoining the Canadian border. First stop was a very upmarket supermarket for some provisions and snacks and then off we set. It was about an hour to West Glacier Village and the entry to the park. Chris very kindly agreed to drive and after a few practice turns in the hotel car park and some coaching by our resident US expert Shivonne on some of the finer points of driving in America, he safely got us to the park and onto the Going-to-the-Sun Road, a 50 mile drive through some of the most stunning scenery in the world. Our first stop was the Visitor Centre to find out what we should aim to see and for a team photo.

Next stop was at Lake Macdonald where we all piled out of the car and walked down to the water’s edge where we took photos, played ducks and drakes and indulged in some serious selfies. The light was brilliant and the view breathtaking as you can see from the photos below, I trust.

We stopped briefly at the Lake Macdonald Lodge, which proved a wonderful old wooden building and which had a number of furry friends to boot.

We had decided on a short hike, nothing too strenuous, but something to give us a taste of the Park and the Trail of the Cedars seemed to fit the bill well, with a boardwalk, some interesting trees and a nice tumbling stream of an almost electric blue colour. The usual posing from the kids…….

We did try to do another hike at Logan’s Pass, but the car park was full and we abandoned the attempt. A shame as it is where you cross the Continental Divide – which would have been the high point of the whole trip as Nick pointed out! There were still many photo opportunities, as you can see!

A truly breathtaking visit and one we have done before, but it was still worth a second one. We spent the night at a motel in East Glacier, Sears Motel, who actually pride themselves on the basic facilities on offer (no air con). The shower we had did leave a bit to be desired, but it was not bad despite the ‘saloon’ doors it sported and the bed was comfy enough for someone who was still getting over the effects of jet lag.

We found that East Glacier is something of a tourist spot with prices to match, but we did manage to dine at a good Mexican restaurant, Seranos, which Shivonne, who is an expert, felt was pretty good. A quick game of Hearts before bed and our thoroughly enjoyable day ended.

Apologies for the delay in publishing this. The usual problem of having too much fun! More soon.

 

 

 

27th July 2017

Well, we had an eventful day, in a way, starting early as I mentioned in my first post for this trip with the effect of the jetlag affecting all of us to the extent that we were all ready for some breakfast at about 7.00am. We had planned to have something at the Italian deli next to the Italian restaurant we had eaten in the day before, but they only opened at 8.00 and we were way too hungry, so we set off for  Tim Norton’s, which, for those of you who are not in the know such as yours truly, is a Canadian Starbucks. It was a bit of a walk, but the morning was fresh and we were ravenous, so we didn’t mind that. What did give us a bit of a surprise was that it was a drive through! So no leisurely lingering over our croissant and coffee, but it was back to the BnB and breakfast round the dining table. Luckily Test Match Special was available to amuse us all – well, at least me and Nick.

Imran arrived on time, we piled all our luggage in (we are travelling surprisingly light, but there still seems to be quite a lot of it) and set off to drive down to Kalispell,  Montana. There are about 3 ways to get there and we went via Crowsnest Pass and then south to Roosville on the border and then down US93 through Whitefish. Initially there was endless flat fields, mostly of cereal crops stretching into the distance to the east, but once we turned right and headed west we were faced with stunning scenery as you might expect here by the Rockies. Crowsnest is noted for two major disasters. The first one was a landslide of rocks that buried the town killing about 90 people in the early years of the 20th Century, followed by a mining disater in 1914 when 189 men were killed in an explosion. It was said that there was a man who managed to be late for his first day in the town and missed the landslide and then was working down the mine, but changed shifts to go to the movies and missed the explosion. I suspect he was nicknamed Lucky! There was also a notorious rum running murder.  So all very jolly! Oh and not forgetting what was claimed to be the world’s largest truck.

Some photos of the crew!

We made sure that we were also jolly by a dip into our respective playlists and a bit of a singing, much to the delight (or was it bemusement?) of Imran. At least he stayed awake.

Our border crossing went fine, though I don’t think they get many Brits coming in that way. The nice immigration chap managed first to mispronounce SHIVONNE name and then Valsala proved a bit tricky, prompting Nick, when asked who wasNicholasto respond with, “it’s pronounced Nikerlas”. I amtempted to say thatNick is now doing hard labour in some Montana penitentiary,  but, amazingly, the man saw the funny side and we all had a good laugh.

We did eventually arrive at Glacier International Airport to pick up the rental car only to find that Enterprise  are not located there, but a bit further in the town. Not a problem and we picked up the beast that is our Chrysler Dodge Grand Caravan and set off for our hotel. This proved interesting as it seemed we only had one room booked as muggins here had strangely booked the other room for the next night. So that was no good, not least as they were fully booked. The lady on the front desk, Sheila, could not have been nicer and phoned another hotel to get us the right number of rooms on the right night. This is the Aero Inn, which is the standard US motel type, but comfortable enough. The bed is quite highly sprung and has that slightly worrying aspect of sloping outwards so that you either have to head for the centre or hang on somewhat. We also have an air conditioner that must be joining in the aeronautical theme of the hotel as it seems to have only one setting of ‘jet engine strength’. It is also of a similar sound volume. Still, nice and cool.

We were all a bit whacked with some residual jetlag, so we decided to try a burger place across the road from the hotel that had a sign saying it had been voted best burger joint 2016. Sounded good, but, guess what – it was drive through only, with no tables and chairs. Aaaarrrggghhhh!!!! Oh well, needs must and it was a quick walk down the road to, I am ashamed to say, Burger King. Actually, not bad, though hunger might have dampened my tastebuds. And possibly my sense of propriety!

And so to bed for another early night. Tomorrow we go to explore Glacier National Park.

 

26th – 27th July, 2017

We are on the road again! Yes, dear readers, we are on our travels again, this time on a road trip through Canada (a bit) and the USA (a LOT!) with the main aim of stopping off at Cody, Wyoming for the reunion of descendants of Buffalo Bill on the anniversary year of his death in 1917. For those of you that are not aware, he was (is?) my Great-Great Grandfather, but more on that in due course when we are nearer to Cody.

For now let me fill you in on what has happened so far. I am typing this at 4.30am in Calgary or 1130 UK time having gone to sleep at 7.30 last night local time.

Well, our party this trip consists of myself and Val, Christopher and our lovely Texan daughter-in-law, Shivonne and Caroline and her (lovely?) partner, Nick. So we are six if you don’t count the bump that Caroline is carrying. Did I mention that Val and I are going to be grandparents? 21st January, 2018 is the due date. Very exciting.

All went well with a very civilised pickup at 0930 and a drive to Gatwick by taxi. Checking in went fine, we settled down to wait for the flight to be called, the kids went off to find something to eat (Boots meal deal), Nick worried about whether he had packed his new toy, a sort of GoPro camera (he had, we discovered on arrival at Calgary), Val and I fretted that we needed to get to the gate (we were fine, but we can’t help it) and then it was all aboard our WestJet flight to Calgary.

An uneventful 9 hour flight and several films (Hidden Figures, very good, Master & Commander, a classic and opportune as I am rereading the books and Once, which, if you have not seen it, is brilliant) later we touched down in sunny and nicely warm Calgary. WestJet are decidedly budget, but they try very hard and the stewardesses (there were no stewards for some reason) were endlessly cheerful. We were met, after a small delay, by Imran who took us all to our AirBNB where we were to overnight.

The apartment is good – clean, comfy and with all the modcons and will do us fine. See photos above. A walk down the road and we were sitting down to a nice Italian meal, despite several Chinese restaurants en route, which was very brave and decent of Val. Then an early night and, as you can see, an early morning. We will head off for some breakfast before Imran picks us up at 0900 to transfer us all to Kalispell in Montana. Why not drive yourselves, I hear you ask? I did look into this, but it is impossible to do a one-way hire from Canada to the USA and as it was soooo much cheaper to fly to Calgary than to anywhere even remotely close in the US, this is the best option.

I am glad to report that everyone is in good spirits. Val had a bit of a pre-trip wobble, but is now OK, Chris and Shivonne are in top form, Caro is tired, but holding up well and Nick has only made about half a dozen puns so far – indeed I must acknowledge his contribution to the title of this post. I will be intrigued by what he can come up with for Kalispell, our next destination!

More soon!

 

29th March to 1st April, 2017

Well, bar a stop in Dubai, our fantastic journey is almost at an end. We did have one last trip here in Goa, which entailed a drive north to the village of Nerul. You may recall that I mentioned a delightful lady called Jenepher Bramble who we met at the Latin Jazz Funk evening and who invited us for (very late) dinner, which unfortunately we had to decline. Well, good to her word, she invited us for lunch instead, last Thursday. So it was off with Izzy in his trusty taxi, stopping en route at a museum that I had spotted in my guidebook just north of Panjim that we had not been able to visit when we visited that city. This is the Houses of Goa Museum, the building in which it is housed being worthy of a visit in its own right, as you can see from the photos. It is actually built on a traffic island, though luckily in a quiet neighbourhood! The inside was a bit different too, but gives an excellent background into the Indo-Portuguese architectural style of which there are so many examples still standing in Goa (if rather decaying in too many cases).

There were quite a few unusual buildings just by the museum too including something that reminded Val and me of a Hobbit house as well as a local school and library. All very unexpected.

It was time to go and we made our way to Nerul and to Quinta de Halicarnassus, the house where we were to have lunch. The house was built by Jenepher and her brother who wanted a place to stay in Goa. I asked why she had not simply bought an old Goan house but she pointed out that Goan inheritance law works that property is divided up among descendants so it would usually involve contacting 15 or so family members, many of whom live overseas, and trying to persuade them to sell. So it was easier to build a new house, but in a variation of the old style. Stupidly I forgot to,take a photo of the outside, but the interior was beautiful – spacious and airy (and quite noisy with 6 dogs all barking at the same time!)

A fabulous lunch, great conversation with the other guests and some dynamic Bloody Marys made for a very memorable day. Izzy drove us back and another lovely day was complete.

Finally, for Goa, here are a few photos of the resort and the streets and characters nearby. Also Val at the darts board in the pub at the resort.

And now we are waiting for the taxi to take us to the airport for our flight to Dubai. It has been a nice trip to Goa. It certainly has a distinct feel to it, with lots of colour and something of a seaside feel to it. Great food, nice people, but it would have been nice to have had our own transport just so we could potter about and explore a bit more at our own leisure. Maybe next time.

Time to go. Next stop Dubai!

26th to 29th March, 2017

We have been filling up our last week with this and that – the table tennis table has been restored, Val has seriously taken to darts (though progress seems distinctly slow – I blame the darts) and there is still the pool and the pool table. We are fit and healthy, enjoying ourselves and making the most of our last week.

We have been on another trip with Izzy, our friendly taxi driver, this time heading due east to the Dudhsagar waterfalls on the Goa-Karnataka border. They are some of the highest in India, falling down the Western Ghats with the name translating as ‘sea of milk’, which, as I hope you will agree from the photos, is very apposite.

It was an early 7.30 start (I know, but that is early for us!) for reasons that will become apparent soon. It is about an hour’s drive from where we are staying to Colem which is the  staging post for phase two of ‘getting to the falls’. A couple of on-the-way photos….

We arrived to what seemed to be total chaos in rather typical Indian fashion, but also in typical Indian fashion were sort of pounced on by a few gentlemen who immediately took us in hand, guiding us to the ‘controller of jeeps’ who relieved us of 400 rupees each for the 45 minute jeep journey to the falls, then some more for the statutory life jackets (you can swim at the falls and there have been drowning in the past) and a few more rupees for the use of a camera. All this to accompanying shouts and noise and people dashing about. We were then squeezed into the back of the Bolero jeep along with a freelance guide who sort of attached himself to us. It was an interesting journey as we bumped over the dusty road, forded three rivers and shook until it felt as though we had gone 10 rounds with Mohammed Ali! There are supposedly over 430 jeeps ready to transport you and a family of Russians up the only, narrow road. Luckily, having got there reasonably early, we got away quite easily, arriving before most of the other 429 jeeps. Actually, at this time of year there are probably a mere 300 operating on a daily basis, in strict unionised rotation, but we still did well to get there early.

There is a 10 minute walk to the falls, helped by our ‘guide’, which was quite scenic in its own right, until we arrived at the star attraction, not least the great sign on the ladies’ “changing room”.

And then we came across the waterfall. It is hard to capture the height of it with the wide-angle lens, but I hope you get the idea. It is 610 metres high and has a very exciting railway bridge that crosses it about halfway up – complete with train at one point! I would point out that it is considerably more impressive after the monsoon, but it is still reasonably awe-inspiring all the same.

Of course, being a hot day, I had to have a swim. Val was on camera duty and did an excellent job of me inching my way over some rather slippery rocks until I was able to strike out for the deluge itself – after scaring off the quite large resident fish and discovering there was a rock halfway on the way there on which you can happily bash yourself. My apologies for the following full-frontal footage! I have spared you some of the more embarrassing photos, trust me!

Very refreshing! The place was filling up pretty quickly and there was a growl of Russian across the water. Still time for a few poses…….

The sight that greeted us back at the jeep park was of jeep overload. Getting out took a bit of work, but we were eventually on our way. As Val and I got to the jeep before our Russian fellow passengers, I sat in the front (where the father Russian had sat on the way up) though Val generously resumed her seat in the very back so that the mother and two girls could sit together. This arrangement did not go down very well with Papa Russian who unceremoniously tried to pass Val’s backpack all the way to me in the front without even asking. Val NOT impressed and said something very terse and pithy about manners and courtesy, which was undoubtedly not understood by the recipient. Still, it had to be done! Cutish monkey with baby posing for photos which despite being expressly asked not to, was being fed by the general public. We bumped our way back to Colem where it was possibly more frenetic than ever and said goodbye to Rams, our spontaneous guide.

We had one other destination, which was a very old and rather magnificent house that is open to the public. This is actually two houses, though one building, called the Braganza-Perrreira/Menezes-Braganza house. It is divided into two separate wings each occupied by several generations of the original family who built the house in the 1500s each branch descended from two brothers who each lived in each wing. The oldest part is 450 years old and the newest about 300 and chock full of antiques. We were invited to the right-hand side first by the matriarch, Judith and given the tour. Very nice, but photos are verboten, so I can’t show you what it looks like (try online?). There is no entrance fee, but you are expected to make a donation. I was ‘amused’ that my original donation was turned down and it was suggested that I need to try again!

We thought we would try the left-hand side too, so rang the bell and were greeted by another matriarch who advised us she was 14th generation (well, she married into it) and that the house was home to the 16th generation. I was allowed to take some photos including the ballroom and chapel, wherein lies the diamond-encrusted toenail of St Francis Xavier no less. A fascinating insight into a world long gone now.

Another great day out, though Izzy our trusty taxi driver managed to include a temple as well on the way back. Rather fitting considering how many we have fitted in on our tour. And if you have ever wondered what a cashew looks like, there is a picture below. The nut is the bit on the right sticking out of the fruit.

Ok, I am going to post this now. We are nearly at the end of our wonderful travels, though I have one more adventure to tell you about from Goa and then it is off to Dubai for three nights and then home to what I hope will be sunny and warm England.

18th to 25th March, 2017

Well, good news, we are still here in Goa and still having a wonderful time. Last time we were together we had been for our statutory trip to a market and you got an insight into the wild time we are having. Nothing much has changed, you will be glad to hear. We are still playing table tennis (though shock horror, the table is out of commission today – Val is almost having withdrawals) and I even won the afternoon competition. Ok, it was only Val, me and a couple of kids, but it did get me a free cocktail. Unfortunately we have been pipped twice in the pub quiz –  next week! Val has also discovered pool and is determined to improve to the extent that she disappears at times to put in a bit of extra practice. We have even had a go at darts, though we are so poor that we had to abandon one game as neither of us could get a double to finish.

Other than that it is lots of exercise (Val gym, me pool (as in swimming)), relaxing, reading and using this wonderful free time to catch up on things like planning our next trip, doing our cash flow (so we can afford the next trip!) and Parkinson’s stuff An such like. We have now played game 636 of Yahtzee and Val has opened up a lead again of 9. It won’t last long…… (he said, confidently).

We have been sampling the local restaurants one by one. There is plenty of Goan food on offer with many different masala sauces. It is quite useful really as you can really brush up on your knowledge of Indian food and work on the difference between a Rogan Josh, Korma, Chicken Tikka, Tandoori and Biryani or try the different dahls, parathas, naans or roti. Goa is the home of the vindaloo, which comes from the Portuguese, vinho d’alho, literally ‘garlic wine’, originally an extremely hot and sour pork curry.

We had an interesting time last Saturday as we signed up for an evening of Latin Jazz Funk with a live band at the hotel and South American and Mexican buffet. The music was excellent, food good and we met a fascinating lady called Jenepher Bramble who had brought the band leader to Goa from Brazil via Rome. She was born in India, is descended from General Napier of the famous Latin quip ‘peccavi’ ‘I have sinned’, after he captured the city of Sind (gettit?), has lived many years in Rome, but spends some months of the year in Goa in a wonderful old Portuguese house she and her brother (ex Lord Mayor of London) bought and renovated named Quito de Halicarnassus (check it out online). She asked us to come for dinner, but it is sadly some way away and dinner wasn’t going to start until after 9pm. We could have stayed overnight, but it was probably a bit too much, so we declined.

We have had a day out though to the capital of Goa, Panjim (new name Panaji, that no one seems to use) and the old capital, Old Goa. The best news is that Anthony, our taxi driver from our last trip, was not next on the taxi rank. Instead we had Izzy in a very nice, almost new car which he drove at a very good pace and enhanced the trip by being a fount of knowledge on many things Goan. Some interesting sights on the way to Panjim reflecting the Catholic influence of the Portuguese who were here from 1510 when Afonso de Albuquerque captured Panjim fort to 1961 when the Indian government launched ‘Operation Vijay’ in defiance of the UN sending in the troops having lost patience with negotiations with the Portuguese dictator, Salazar, to cede the territory to India. Other religions other than Catholicism having originally been banned by the Portuguese and enforced by the Inquisition (who themselves were banned in 1820), the numbers of Catholics have declined from about two thirds in 1851 to 25% in 2011. However, their representation in churches, chapels and names like de Souza, Perreira, Braganza, d’Mello, and da Silva belies their reduced status.

We were dropped off in an area of the city called Fontainhas where many of the buildings have retained the Portuguese injunction that all buildings must be colour washed after each monsoon. Sadly, even though Goa is a big improvement on all the rest of the bits of India we have seen with regards to building maintenance, many of the rest of Panjim has seen better days. As my guidebook so appositely puts it, most buildings in Fontainhas are ‘in a state of charismatic decay’. I really hope someone describes me like that one day (though not yet).

A few photos, including the local chapel, sadly closed, in which there is an eerily lifelike crucifix which formerly hung in the Palace of the Inquisition in Old Goa. Unusually Christ’s eyes are open – allegedly to inspire fear in those being interrogated! I have also included a photo of what must be a more unusual tree decoration apparently made from bits of plumbing!

We wandered on via the azulejos or Portuguese tiles gallery to the Church of the Immaculate Conception, built in 1541 and to Church Square with a decent park and on to the oldest building, the Secretariat. The latter was originally the summer palace of Goa’s 16th-century Muslim ruler, the Adil Shah and latterly of the state legislature. There is a wonderful statue nearby of Abbé de Faria (1755-1819), a Goan priest who emigrated to France to become one of the world’s first professional hypnotists.

Other than that we did not wander far in the 34 degree heat, but I did snap a few street scenes including the mildly disturbing sign included below (you have to hope that the two institutions are not linked) and the Archbishop’s palace. There is obviously more to Panjim including your standard commercial and retail areas, but we had limited time and energy!

Next on our itinerary was Old Goa or Velha Goa which was the capital until 1843 when the river on which it is situated silted up and the ravages of malaria, plague and cholera epidemics meant the city was virtually abandoned in the 18th century. It had had a population of as many as 200,000 in the 16th century, bigger than London or Paris at that time, but was only 1,500 by the 1750s. Sadly there is nothing left of the old city, but the magnificent churches are still there and are a UNESCO site and a place of pilgrimage for Catholics and Hindus alike specifically to pay homage at the tomb of St. Francis Xavier, about whom, more later.

Our first stop was to a church dedicated to a different St. Francis, that of Assisi, built in 1521 and mistaken by us initially for the cathedral next door. It is a really interesting design and has a mildly ruined or unfinished quality to it that gives it real spiritual quality, helped by a lack of tourists too. The entrance, with its archway was different and the side chapels were beautiful with intricate carvings. I think that the lack of gold everywhere which you can so often find in other examples of this kind, helps give it a more attractive allure.

Wonderful though this had been, it was not the main attraction one of which was almost next door, the Sé (Portuguese for See) aka St. Catherine’s Cathedral. It is larger than any church in Portugal, took 80 years to build and was consecrated in 1640. It only has one tower now, which houses the Golden Bell whose tolling announced the start of the gruesome auto da fés in the square outside when heretics were tortured and burned at the stake. The interior is designed to shock and awe and does the job well, with the massive gilded main altar and 15 side chapels dedicated among others to Our Ladies of Hope, Anguish and Three Needs (?). Not sure what the last ones are, but I am sure they all came in useful if you felt the Inquisition breathing down your neck! The chapel with the ornate carved screen is that of the Miraculous Cross, found in a Goan village on which Christ was said to have appeared.

Not much more than 200 yards away is the big draw for Goans, Catholics and many Indians, the Bom (as in Good or Holy) Jesus basilica, holding as it does, the remains of St. Francis Xavier, the ‘Apostle of the Indies’, who was born in 1506 in Navarre, was ordained in 1537 and was a founder member of the Society of Jesus or Jesuits having been recruited by St. Ignatius Loyola. He was despatched to Goa in 1541 to smarten them up a bit and worked throughout southern India, Sri Lanka, Malacca in Malaysia and, with limited success, in China and Japan. He died near China in 1552 where he was buried, then removed to Malacca for a year and then reexhumed and reburied here in Goa. Luckily for all concerned, his body had miraculously failed to decompose, though it has never really rested in peace as chunks have been removed over the years by relic hunters. In 1641 the right arm was dispatched to the Pope in Rome (where it allegedly wrote its name on paper), a hand was sent to Japan (but only made it to Macao) and parts of his intestines to Southeast Asia. The most gruesome mutilation occurred in 1634 when a Portuguese noblewoman, Dona Isabel de Caron, in a moment of spiritual ecstasy, bit off one of Francis’s toes. So much blood spurted into her mouth that it led a trail to her house and she was discovered. Nice! His now very decrepit body is exposed every ten years for pilgrims to view and touch it, the last time being in 2014.

Anyway, first up here is the exterior of the front of the cathedral and a side view with the church of St. Francis of Assisi on the left and a nice sign of slogans of cultural heritage and a very leaning tree.

Next the exterior of the basilica, complete with a posing lady having her photo taken outside, with Val trying to shield herself from the sun and heat with her scarf!

The interior is fairly standard, but suitably impressive.

And then there is the tomb itself, a gift of the Medici, Cosimo III, in 1696 and a rather gruesome cross and his original casket. His body is in the glass casket on the top of the altar in the photo below.

And so after a warm but rewarding day we headed back to the air-conditioned comfort of our resort. A very interesting view of a very different part of India.

More soon!

11th to 17th March, 2017

Well, here we are in Goa. Nothing to report on the flight, though the taxi we procured at Goa Airport was a bit of an experience as it seems we have met India’s answer to Lewis Hamilton! The roads are quite narrow in places too, but with surprisingly quick acceleration, thankfully good brakes and a horn that was in the finest of fettle, we made it to our next stop in South Goa in record time. We did get a chance to have a look at the local area, though it was often flashing by in a blur or our attention was more aimed towards what was in front, beside and behind us. What we did see was a pleasant surprise as most of the houses were painted and in very bright colours at that. It seems the Portuguese had a policy that all houses had to be colour-washed after each monsoon and the habit seemed to have stuck for the most part. There are still plenty of old Portuguese-style houses and we plan to visit some during our stay.

We are staying at the Karma Royal Haathi Mahal resort in Cavelossim, which is about 45 minutes drive from the capital Panaji (depending who is driving!). Goa is one of the smallest states in India with only 1.5 million people, but the one with the highest GDP per capita largely due to the 2 million plus tourists each year, both foreign and local. Our resort reflects this with a mixture of mostly Brits and Indians with a sprinkling of Russians as Goa is so popular with the latter that most signs are in English and Cyrillic script.

We have a nice apartment, though it is looking its age some what, but there is a nice pool, restaurant and TWO table tennis tables and a pub! I have yet to take any photos of the resort, but here are some of the apartment to keep you going.

So far we have filled our days with a bit of breakfast, some table tennis, some swimming for me and the gym for Val, lying by the pool, playing Yahtzee (Val has opened up a 7 point lead) and reading. We usually skip lunch and then wander out for supper at one of the restaurants outside the resort. So far we have tried a couple of small local ones, an Italian (bad restaurant, as Donald T would say), a Greek (good) and a big all-singing-all-dancing one that was good and has live music every now and then. They even ferry you to their beach shack some evenings, which we sort of enjoyed. I say sort of as the location was nice and the food good, but the music was booming and we had fallen in with another couple on the way there in the back of the jeep and agreed to eat together. They (Lester and Linda) were perfectly nice, but we experienced what we are now convinced is a particularly British phenomenon whereby the couple you are chatting with never actually ask you any questions. I honestly think we would have had the meal in silence if Val and I had not kept up a stream of questions. For our part, we know that they live in Weston-super-Mare (though Lester was originally from Birmingham), they were married in 1974, they have a son and a daughter, the former having step children in their late teens, the latter having 3 children, Lester works in. primary school helping with maintenance and IT, Linda in a home for the elderly, they have three websites, one for them, one for their camper van and one for Lester’s model railway. I could also tell you at least six destinations of previous holidays. I could go on! All they know about us is that I once worked in Papua New Guinea. Not one single question about us – why is that? It baffles us.

It has not all been hanging round the pool. We did walk down to the beach and had a drink at one of the many shacks. Goa has a policy of not allowing hotels on the beaches. Nice beach, though swimming can be a bit dangerous. We were bemused that there were red flags to denote where not to swim, but there were still people swimming there. Val asked a lifeguard about them and he just sort of shrugged. I presume that either the flags are placed randomly as a gesture to health and safety or they employ the Darwin Award philosophy that if you are stupid enough to swim there, then it is no bad thing if you remove yourself from the gene pool through your own stupidity.

We have been on one outing so far, to the Anjuna Market, almost 2 hours north of where we are staying. The hotel will call up a taxi off the rank in strict Hobson’s Choice method since the cabbies operate a unionised system with fixed prices for wherever you want to go, though it depends I find you want a small or big taxi. Being only two of us, we went for the small version and so up the ramp to the hotel lobby comes the smallest taxi you are likely to see this side of Lilliput. It was a bit bigger than the old Fiat 600 and at the wheel was 65 year old Anthony. For a moment it looked as though we would not actually leave the hotel as he kept stalling in an attempt to gain the tarmac of the road. Finally we were off and it was nice and steady mostly, though there were certainly some fellow users of the road who incurred his wrath – women bikers, bikers who rode two abreast chatting to each other, speed bumps (not that he always spotted them in time), buses, cars and virtually most of the rest. He was a great grumbler too who basically felt that life was much better under the Portuguese and it was all downhill from when they left (or were kicked out) in 1962. Val tried to snooze and I decided I had better just make agreeing noises and make sure he stayed awake and relatively calm. How Val could sleep when he was on the horn every 5 seconds, I will never know. Especially when he decided that someone needed a particularly long blast! Never dull.

The market was excellent with sellers from all over India. It covers a very large area, but only operates in a Wednesday.

You could have filled a suitcase (indeed we saw someone doing so) with goodies and still not have finished. Of course haggling is demanded -and demanding – aiming to end up at anything as low as 40% of the starting price or better! A few photos of what was on offer….. so much colour.

And then there are the people, both Indian and from abroad. I love the group I snapped on the road with the sign Future Hippie behind them.

And then there were all those things that needed the arty touch…..

And lastly, a couple of snaps of Val. The background wall was such a strong colour I couldn’t resist. I would add that we had just spent a hot session at the market including buying the necklace she is wearing.

Ok, that’s all folks!

More soon from sunny Goa!

9th to 10th March, 2017

Ok, here we are again, with the remains of our day in Mumbai.

On we went, this time to the Mahalakshmi dhobi ghats, the famous and iconic open-air laundry of Mumbai, a miracle of organisation. Laundry is collected from all over Mumbai, tagged, soaped, soaked in caustic soda and pounded and thrashed at the flogging stones by the dhobis. The next day, after being hung out to dry, they are ironed with charcoal irons, folded in newspaper and tied up with cotton thread and returned whence they came, allegedly with few errors. Fabulous colours!

I should just mention another organisational miracle of Mumbai, which admittedly we didn’t witnes, that of the dabbawalas, officially the Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers Charity Trust. First established in 1890, every day they deliver home-cooked food from about 175,000 suburban kitchens to offices in the downtown area. Each lunch is prepared by a devoted wife or mother while husband or son is being crushed on the train. The lunch is packed in the tiffin box or dabba. A collecting dabbawala, usually on bicycle, collects dabbas either from a worker’s home or from the dabba makers. As many of the carriers are of limited literacy (the average literacy of dabbawalas is that of 8th grade), the dabbas (boxes) have some sort of distinguishing mark on them, such as a colour or group of symbols. The dabbawala then takes them to a sorting place, where he and other collecting dabbawalas sort the lunch boxes into groups. The grouped boxes are put in the coaches of trains, with markings to identify the destination of the box (usually there is a designated car for the boxes). The markings include the railway station to unload the boxes and the destination building delivery address. I will admit to cheating here as I have had to filch the photos from the internet, but it should give you an idea of what the operation looks like.

At each station, boxes are handed over to a local dabbawala, who delivers them. The empty boxes are collected after lunch or the next day and sent back to the respective houses. The dabbawalas also allow for delivery requests by SMS. Forbes magazine was rather erroneously attributed as giving the operation a 6-Sigma performance rating which they reserve for companies who attain a 99.9 percentage level of correctness which means only 1 box in 6 million goes astray. However this was an extrapolation of a comment from the dabbawalas’ boss that only one lunch in two months of deliveries goes astray, so you may want to take the statistics with a pinch of salt. Impressive nonetheless.

It was now time for a very different tour, that of the ‘slums’, specifically the Dharavi slum. Note that the tour company asks that we don’t take photos in respect of the people who live there, but they do allow you to download some they took, so I will scatter them about the rest of this part. They give a bit of an impression, though they do not include the rubbish, open sewer and dodgy working safety practices!

I have put ‘slum’ in inverted commas (and I have just done it again) as it needs a bit of definition. It is certainly the term used in Mumbai, but even that is differentiated into legal and illegal slums. Dharavi is legal and is old, going back to the 19th century. Wikipedia defines slums as “A slum is a heavily populated urban informal settlement characterized by substandard housing and squalor. While slums differ in size and other characteristics, most lack reliable sanitation services, supply of clean water, reliable electricity, law enforcement and other basic services. Slum residences vary from shanty houses to professionally built dwellings that because of poor-quality construction or provision of services have deteriorated into slums.”

By this definition Dharavi is not a slum and Rakesh, Val and I discussed at some length what it could be called. We agreed it could be compared to a favella though without the crime levels, but in the end we’d agreed it is simply a neighbourhood, though I shall use the term slum for simplicity. In this case, a very busy, productive neighbourhood with an estimated annual turnover of between $500m to $1bn. It is one of the most crowded slums in the world with between 300,000 to 1 million people crammed into its 200 hectares (1,500 to 5,000 per hectare). By comparison, London has about 53 people per hectare (assuming my maths is correct in converting 5,300 per sq km – corrections welcomed).

Much of the industry is based on recycling plastic with a vast network bringing in sackloads of plastic bottles, car bumpers (makes you wonder a bit where they get them!), computer casing and anything else they can lay their hands on, which is sawn up, chopped into small pellets, dyed, dried on the roof and sold to manufacturers of plastic goods that are not used for food (or so we were assured).

In addition there are leather workers, though not tanneries and pottery makers (including kilns in the middle of the residential area) and a number of other industries.

In the absence of my own photos, I will though try to describe what we saw. The slum is divided into the industrial side and the residential one, though the latter also has some industry. Most of the ‘streets’ were effectively narrow alleyways where two people could barely walk past each other. There is electricity and water (you can see the cables and pipes everywhere), but sewage seems to be a problem as evidenced by a very pungent open sewer that takes waste down to the river. There was the usual amount of rubbish everywhere, but no more than you might find anywhere else in India. The people were friendly, immaculately turned out, especially the children who delighted in greeting us and high fiving (though rather low down ones!) and we saw no sign of begging.

The health and safety inspectors would have a field day, but that is India all over, sadly. All in all a fascinating, sobering and positive experience. There were many good things, but also some aspects that obviously could be a lot better. You do feel here, as in much of India, that with a bit of collective local commitment, much could be done to improve the communal parts of their lives. For example, they will sweep their own doorstep, but no one will sweep the street, where is is presumably seen as okay to leave your rubbish (and I am not just talking litter). What you have to get your head around is that people do not seem to mind enough to do something about it together and the government does not seem well enough organised or committed to step in. It is worth remembering though that many people do actually choose to live here – rent is reasonable, there is a sense of community and for many, it is home.

We had a quick lunch and then a drive to the other end of the city and the social scale, to Malabar Hill, where the British originally set up their leafy suburb. Rakesh showed us a Jain temple which was impressively well-painted and maintained unlike most of the city. Sadly, I think this post is getting a bit lengthy, so I will leave it up to you to do the research on Jainism. They make up a very small part of the Indian religious community, but have a very big impact. We saw some very old Jain temples in Rajasthan last year.

We also visited the Banganga tank, a large tank filled by a spring (said to be from the sacred Ganges, though that would be geographically impressive!) created when Rama shot an arrow into the spot. It was in a bit of a sad state and not as beautiful as what we had seen in Rajasthan, but rather pleasing to see in the middle of busy Mumbai.

We had a quick walk around what are called the Hanging Gardens, due to their altitude above the city which had a great view of the city, but they could have benefited from a lesson or two from some Vietnamese municipal gardeners.

We also stoped by what is called the $2bn house, though ‘house’ is certainly a misnomer for what is a 27 storey skyscraper and some say it is worth ‘only’ $1 billion. It was erected and is owned by Mukesh Ambani, the owner of Reliance industries and reputably the richest person in India. It employs 600 people and has about 600 rooms and is where he and his family live in the 27 floors (very high ceilings mean that it would normally be 60 floors). It was much opposed on a number of grounds, but oddly he  seemed to have managed to persuade the authorities to allow it. It probably helps to be the nation’s richest man. It also has three helipads…. Not, in my opinion, an attractive building and many see it as grotesque spending in a country where there are still so many living in slums. He can’t be too pleased that another taller building is being erected behind his that will overlook it! It is the buildings on the right in the photos below.

Our last stop was a house, Mani Bhavan, which houses the Mahatma Gandhi Museum as it was his base from 1917 t 1934. Fascinating photos and other mementos, including a letter to Hitler suggesting world peace. His simple sitting room/bedroom is also preserved and there are about 25 cases holding a sort of puppet version of famous moments in his life in a sort of tableau. Lots of pictures with many of his writings hang on the wall giving you a taste to discover more about him and his philosophy.

We drove down the famous Marine Drive, past Chowpatty Beach (you do NOT swim in the sea in Mumbai!) and past the gymkhanas, another venue for endless cricket matches. We stopped for a quick photo of the ‘floating’ mausoleum of the Muslim saint and Afghan mystic, Haji Ali Bukhari, which is connected to the mainland by a narrow causeway that is submerged at high tide.

A few few more snaps of once-wonderful buildings from the car, including what I think is the General Post Office, which actually looked in good repair.

We ventured out for a meal in the evening, though only across the road from the hotel and an ‘Italian’ restaurant at that (we have a policy of not eating anything too exotic before a flight, just in case!). A decent enough pizza, though weirdly our drinks, which were not too complicated, arrived about 10 minutes after we had actually finished eating. There was quite a lot of bustle on the surrounding streets due, we discovered the next day, to local state elections, but we retired to our air-conditioned comfort and sleep.

Impressions of Mumbai? I thought the city would have more traffic, but everything seemed to keep moving albeit in the usual Indian laisser-faire manner of finding the tiniest gap and honking at every opportunity. The buildings range from stately Raj fare, through high rise to shanty towns/slums, but almost all of it in some state of disrepair. External paint sales people would never make their fortune in Mumbai. The sad thing is that many fine buildings are just slowly falling to pieces and will probably be demolished and replaced by something in concrete. I would love to come back and explore it thoroughly as there is much more to see. It is certainly NOT dull!

Our adventures continue in Goa!

More soon.

9th to 10th March, 2017

Apparently this is my 100th post! And I am splitting it in two as it seems to have grown into a short travel book. So here is Part One.

We had a pretty uneventful trip from Bali to Mumbai, though Malaysia Airlines does not give you a great deal of legroom and, considering the amount of space you get in the way of elbow room, serving spaghetti was not the best idea! Anyway, we had an ok leg to KL followed by about 4 hours in transit and then the nearly 5 hour flight to Mumbai. This meant we arrived at our hotel at the equivalent of about 3am Bali time (though about 1230am Mumbai time). At least I caught up with The Accountant in the movie channel on the plane, which proved quite diverting, but we were quite tired by the time we got to sleep at something like 1.30am.

Now, I had booked us for a day tour of Mumbai, which was looking a bit daunting after not much sleep, but we were up and ready by 0830 when our guide Rakesh from Reality Tours picked us up. Reality are an unusual tour company as 80% of their profits go to help children in the slum areas, where they run a primary school, girls football academy, cricket team and more. This was obviously an attraction to go with them, but also, they provide a tour of the slum area called Dharavi, which sounded like it would be educational at the very least.

“Wait a minute!”, I hear you cry, “I thought you just said that you had checked into a new hotel. WHERE ARE THE ROOM PHOTOS???” I am SOOO sorry, here you go (and I hope you are impressed considering the time of night we arrived in said room!). It is the Residency Hotel in the Fort area of town, nice and central, reasonably priced and ok for a couple of nights. I like the fact that they give you a complimentary automated foot massage in the lobby, though you are warned to take your shoes off first!

Ok, where was I? Oh yes, the tour. Rakesh was superb, chatty and knowledgeable and passionate about what he is doing. Before we commenced the slum tour, we drove to a few of the famous landmarks of this fairly ancient city, the land on which it stands originally being 7 islands ceded to the Portuguese in 1534. It was then passed to the English as part of Catherine of Braganza’s dowry when she married Charles II in 1661 and it has effectively thrived from there on in especially once the East India Company leased it and it is now the financial and commercial centre of India – and, of course, the home of Bollywood! It is also home to some 16 million people.

The first attraction we saw was possibly the most famous, the Gateway of India, built in 1924 to commemorate the visit of King George V and Queen Mary in 1911 and designed by George Wittet. The original idea was that P&O liners would pull up alongside and deposit their passengers in front, but now it is a bit of a ferry terminal, but it is still very impressive and a big attraction among local tourists.

I was busy trying to get the best angle, when Val became our star for the day and modelled for a family with their less-than-impressed son. The large building in the photo below is the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel, THE hotel in town, built by the original Mr Tata, a Parsi businessman who had been denied access to the ‘whites only’ hotel of choice at the time, Watson’s, which, in a twist of fate, is now a crumbling pile in danger of complete demolition. Parsis are Zoroastrians who originally fled from what is now Iran, but was then Persia in the face of Arab invasion between the 8th and 10th centuries AD. They were (are?) very influential in Mumbai especially and have contributed in wide fields of endeavour way beyond their numbers, not least through a core tenet of their religion, charity. I can recommend a quick look at them in Wikipedia and also about Zoroastrian practices. For example we passed on our tour the Towers of Silence. This where the Parsis bring their dead. Since they believe strongly that earth, water and fire are sacred and should not be contaminated by the dead, they place the corpse on the top of the pillar where the flesh is eaten by vultures. Once done, the sun-dried bones are swept into the central cylinder of the pillar and placed in an ossuary. However, they have a modern-day problem in that there are no more vultures, who have fallen victim to farming practices of feeding cattle antibiotics and diclofenac, both of which are harmful to the birds (you wouldn’t think anything a vulture ate could harm them!). The bodies now take longer to decompose which is annoying the neighbours so they are trying out something to do with solar panels and are thinking of breeding vultures to do the job. Problems, problems.

Back to the Taj, you may also remember that the Taj was the target of 10 Muslim extremists who landed from the sea in 2008 and attacked not only the Taj, but 9 other sites as well, eventually killing 166 people over a 4 day period. Indeed, the Gateway itself made the headlines in 2005 when a car bomb killed 107 people.

Next stop was the Oval Maidan, basically a large open area home to innumerable cricket matches at every hour of the day. There were a few informal ones happening even when we visited early in the day.

Mumbai abounds with sturdy British Raj architecture in a variety of styles usually combined into the same building. Next to the maidan you can find the old Secretariat, described in 1903 as “a massive pile whose main features have been brought from Venice, but all the beauty vanished in transshipment” and the University, established in 1857 and designed in England by Gilbert Scott. I couldn’t get a photo of Flora Fountain, now renamed Hutatma Chowk or Martyrs’ Square. It was originally erected to commemorate Sir Bartle Frere in 1869. My guidebook, as ever, is acerbic in its comment: “It is hard to see quite why they bothered – the Raj architecture expert, Philip Davies, was not being unkind when he said, ‘The fountain was designed by a committee, and it shows'”. I managed to snap some lovely ladies either on their way to or from market too and Prashant, our driver, standing next to his chariot!

One of the highlights of any architecture tour of Mumbai is the UNESCO World Heritage Site that is Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus aka (and still very much known as) Victoria Terminus or VT. The travel journalist, James Cameron, succinctly described it as “Victorian-Gothic-Saracenic-Italianate-Oriental-St Pancras-Baroque”, which pretty much covers it. The sculptures that festoon the exterior were executed at Bombay Art School by the Indian students of John Lockwood Kipling, Rudyard’s father.

The train is, of course, the main commuting choice and is teeming with people. We were there at the end of rush hour, but still had to be careful not to be caught up in the rush and carried off to some unknown destination. The last estimate for the usage of the suburban network is a daily ridership of 7.585 million or 2.64 billion annually, one of the largest in the world. It is also one of the most crowded. In a 9 carriage train , the official capacity is 1,700, but they usually carry around 4,500, defined as Super-Dense Crush Load of about 16 passengers per square metre – and there is no air-conditioning! Women can travel in ‘ladies first class’ or ‘ladies second class’, where men may not travel. Many passengers hang out the door and fall off or sit on the roof and get electrocuted or try crossing the tracks without using the footbridge resulting in many fatalities. And when I say many, I mean many! Over 36,000 were killed between 2002 and 2012, with another 37,000 injured. 17 people every weekday were killed  in 2008. Things have improved when the railway made improvements (e.g. the train will not move if anyone is on the roof!) in 2011, resulting in a 75% drop in fatalities – but there are still about 2,000 a year and this is just on a suburban network! About 28,000 died in railway-related accidents in the whole of India in 2014 (and about 145,000 on the roads!). The numbers are mind-boggling even when you take into account the huge population.

Ok, time to move on and move on we did, to the market, specifically Crawford Market aka Mahatma Phule Market which is the fresh food and domestic animal market. The usual bustle though special mention must go to the meat section, which I entered and rapidly exited as I forgot to hold my breath and I sneaked a couple of pictures in the pet section surreptitiously as apparently they don’t like photos as they have been accused of poor animal welfare, which sadly was probably right.

There is a wonderful area specially for flowers and particularly those used in religious practices, especially the ubiquitous marigolds. Very atmospheric and photogenic (or, to put it another way, I took a lot of photos!).

We continued North passing through Kamathipura, the red light district, a very sad, sorry-looking area and considered by Rakesh as a decided stain on the city where prostitution is legal, but is mostly indentured labour of trafficked women or girls from the countryside with no other opportunities. There was not much to see at the time of day we went, but my, admittedly old, guidebook suggests as many as 25,000 plying their trade of an evening, though as it was written 10 years ago, these numbers may have declined due to the use of the internet. In 2009 a police report estimated 100,000 prostitutes across Mumbai.

Ok, time to post this. Lots in part two including the tour of the slum and the dhobi gats. More soon!