Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque

This beautiful 20 year old mosque built by the Sultan Qaboos was the largest in the world until an even larger one opened in Abu Dhabi.   

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We were warned that the dress code was strict.
Nothing tight or sheer and only ankles and hands
could be exposed!   I passed the test!

Our guide, Amend who graduated from college
and was recently married.  

a small portion of the women's prayer hall.  This only holds
about 750 women since many pray at home and not at
the mosque.  The picture doesn't do it justice.

                       

Beautiful, spotlessly clean grounds and gardens.

Breakfast in Muscat, Oman

It is 7:15 and we r arriving in Oman. Note Al's long sleeve shirt! We r off to the huge mosque here and we both must be covered head to toe! I plan to wear socks to cover my ankles. Lovely morning and we are excited to be here as we begin our visit to the Arabian Peninsula.

Lectures at Sea

Before we left home we anticipated long lazy sea days!  Not so, we are kept very busy primarily by the four different lecturers on board.   Two are professors—one from Australia who tells us about the history of the areas we are visiting.  The other (Princeton ’60!) retired from the US State Department, discusses politics and local economies.  The Destinations Manager, Jasmin, tells us about local culture and tour options at each port.  We sailed with her before and she does a super job.   The last lecturer is a scientist who talks about the oceans and our environment.

The captain told us that today we are crossing the Owen Fracture Zone.  This is a fault which runs along the eastern portion of the Arabian Plate where it meets the Indo-Australian Plate.  For us aboard the Sojurn it means that instead of 3 miles under our keel we only have about two miles!

Meet Soso!

Our cabin attendant is a delightful, outgoing and very smart woman by the name of Songezwa (song gez wah!)   Her name means “addition to the family.”  We call her Soso and she is from South Africa.  Soso is on a four month contract and then goes home for two months returning to this ship or perhaps the new Seabourn ship, Encore, which will have her maiden voyage next December.   Soso expects to be promoted to Guest Services.  She definitely has the “Nordstrom” mentality of customer service and anticipating the guests needs before we even ask.

Message to Grands......Every day Soso makes our bed!  We are very spoiled!

More Dhaba Wallah

Dhobi Ghat

At this out door spot, clothing and linens which are collected from all over Mumbai are soaked, scrubbed and pounded in concrete wash tubs and then hung to dry.  After that they are starched and pressed using old-fashioned irons which are heated by filling the inside of the iron with hot coals.   Each dhobi collects the dirty clothes and linens from your home or business, washes, drys and presses each item and returns to you several days later.   Seldom is there a mix up with the items.  

The tubs are filled with water from a central source and the water is infrequently changed.   Somehow the clothes come out clean we were told!

The dhobi's climb on the roof to hang the clothes to dry on lines
which are actually several lines twisted together.  The clothes are
attached between these twisted lines, thereby eliminating the
need for clothes pins!

In the monsoon season the wash is put in some
sort of spinning contraption to get most of the
water out since it is not usually possible to
hand the clothes outside to dry!

Mumbai and the impact of Rent Control

Mumbai was first developed on a series of seven islands which project out into the Arabian Sea.  Eventually these islands were connected so that now it seems seamless.   The city grew inland and now is populated by 23 million people.  While not the capital, it is the country’s main harbor, and chief commercial, industrial and financial centers.  There are over 1000 different dialects spoken in India and each state seems to have its own language.   English seems to prevail and is spoken by many and the primary language in all but the poorest schools.

One cannot help but notice the extreme contrast between very old, dilapidated buildings and smart, new tall ones.   It was explained to us that the primary challenge preventing development is rent control.  The present occupants of the old buildings inherited their space along with the controlled rent.  While they actually don’t own this space, they have gained rights through generations of occupation.   Eventually the building becomes condemned as it is no longer habitable.  (This doesn’t mean the occupants move!)  Then the landlord must go through an elaborate process of “buying/compensating” the occupants using a present day value.  This process takes years.   Eventually the building is emptied and either redeveloped or more frequently taken down and replaced with a brand new building.   The property owner eventually comes out ahead financially but this usually takes years!  

How the Dahba Wallahs Deliver the Tiffin "Lunch" Boxes

On our first day we arrived outside Churchgate Station just in time to see the Dhaba Wallahs arrive.  This is a lunchtime tradition whereby tiffin boxes (aka lunch boxes) are delivered from the suburbs to their recipients in the business district.  The process begins in the home (long after the worker has caught his train to work) when the housewife prepares his lunch and carefully packs it in a series of stacked metal boxes called tiffins.   She places this outside her door where it is picked up by the dhaba wallah and brought to a collection center (aka street corner).  The collected tiffin boxes, many of which are now a days placed inside insulated bags by the homemaker, are packed into special racks and taken by train by other dhaba wallahs to the distribution point at Churchgate Station.   Around 11:30am they come streaming from the station with the boxes.   The delivery dhaba wallahs are waiting.  Each knows which boxes are his and he stacks them into a basket or attaches them to a bicycle and brings them to the lobby where the owner works.   After lunch this process is reversed and by midafternoon each empty tiffin box is returned to the originating homemaker.  For the most part the dhaba wallahs are illiterate and yet they pride themselves on getting the right lunch box to the appropriate recipient and back home again with essentially no errors!  AMAZING!  BTW for those of you wondering about the business plan for this enterprise.   The homemaker pays the Tiffin Collective a fee of about $8-10/month and this is distributed among the dhaba wallahs.

Arriving from the Train Station

Loading the Bicycle to Deliver to the Office

Off to leave the tiffins in a building lobby!

Lunch at Ziya, Oberion Hotel

Riding the train

Millions of Indians enter the city every day by train sometimes travelling as long as 3 hours each way to work.   During rush hour the trains and stations are jam packed.   We went to Churchgate Station during rush hour and boarded an empty inbound train for a trip 5 stations to Mahalaxmi Station.   From there we went to observe Dhobi Ghat!

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The home of Mahatma Gandhi

We went to visit the home where Mahatma (great soul) Gandhi lived when he was in Mumbai.   Gandhi was the preeminent leader of the Indian independence movement during the British rule of India.  And it was here in 1921 that he took a historic fast, precipitated by riots over the Prince of Wale's visit to Bombay (now known as Mumbai!)   Among the many items on display we noted to letters one written to President Roosevelt and the other shown below written to Adolph Hitler urging them both to prevent war.  (Needless to say Hitler was not persuaded!)







  

Crawford Market--mango season

This is the largest wholesale/retail market in Mumbai.  It is very old and looked not only old but dilapidated and dirty!   All sorts of fruits and vegetables are sold here but since this is mango season the predominant business was MANGOES!  When we arrived the mango auction had already occurred. What was not sold was available for retail.   The mango season ends when the monsoons arrive mid June.  We have enjoyed delicious mangoes most mornings for breakfast.  
The retail area was semi-organized and moderately clean while the wholesale area was a filthy mess. 
Al, always wanting to give the benefit of the doubt, thought they were trying to sweep up and tidy!  All over there were huge piles of debris with no one seemingly dealing with it!   Plenty of flies and bugs as well!  Having been fortunate enough to see quite a few markets in pretty poor countries, I can't help but say this was the worst I'd ever seen!  This is a country with RUBBISH everywhere and no seeming interest in collecting and disposing of it!

The retail side was a bit tidier!

Sorting and packing the mangoes

Collecting various orders for a wholesale customer.

Piles like this EVERYWHERE collecting flies!

Fumigating the Crawford Market

Try as he could Al could not escape the cloud!

Right in the midst of our visit the market was fumigated!!!!  Needless to say even the guide was surprised and tried to steer us away from the cloud of chemicals.   If you read my comments about the Mangoes you will know that I did not like this market before the fumigation episode!

Sights of Mumbai from our bus!

On our first day in Mumbai we took a Virtuoso Tour.  Virtuoso is a conglomerate of travel agents and so we along with some other passengers were treated to a special tour which included many popular sites along with a fantastic lunch at Ziva, the Oberoi Hotel's signature restaurant.   Other posts will tell about what we did on this all day tour.

Early in the morning the pollution level was good
but by late afternoon had changed to smokey haze.

Huge Billboards are all over the city and countryside advertising elaborate jewelry with glamorous women.    Gold jewelry remains an important  part of a bride's dowry.   Dowry's are discouraged but still important.   Weddings for even modest families cost tens of thousands of dollars.  

Old and news are side by side all over the city and the countryside.

This cow has an owner who brought him to this site for the day where he remains tethered to the fence.  Cows are revered and everywhere