Seabourn Sojourn 2014 World Cruise Los Angeles to Venice January 4 to May 1, 2014
Segment 3 Hong Kong to Mumbai (Page 2)
March 29th We were docked at the perfect spot in Singapore and walked directly from the ship into a wonderful area named Vivo City, a new upscale mall with several hundred stores, all of which we found to be more expensive than similar stores at home. About 160 passengers disembarked and a similar number of people joined us for our onward journey to Mumbai via stops in Thailand, Sri Lanka and India.
Once again, this is a place we have visited several previous times over the years, using it as a base for travel in this part of the world. Each time we are here we can see more modern buildings and the entire area remains very pristine and incredibly wealthy. We walked through the mall, but other than a few toiletries and a pair of reading glasses to replace a pair I broke, we did not do much to add to the wealth of this wonderful place. I remember the first time we were here I thought I would buy a new camera lens. I went into several camera stores and someone finally asked me where I lived. He told me to wait and get it back in New York at 47th Street Photo! This is not the place for bargain shopping.
March 30th We had calm seas for our day of sailing through the Straits of Malacca. This is one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world and we saw many container and cruise ships from our cabin veranda. The seas have been extremely calm for the last several weeks and it is hard to tell we are even moving.
March 31st The Sojourn was anchored for the day at the North end of Patong on the Island of Phuket. We had been in Phuket many times in the past and unfortunately the area we were located at was devoid of anything of interest so we decided not to take any of the tours.
April 1-3rd Cruising to Sri Lanka. Calm seas and interesting lectures.
April 4th We were docked in Colombo. Sri Lanka was a new destination for us and we took a tour to visit a Buddhist Temple in the nearby village of Kelaniya. This was the last day of the school year so we shared our visit with many young school children who were on field trips to the temple. Unlike India which is primarily Hindu, most of the population here are Buddhists.
Construction was going on though out the area we traveled. The roads were all good and people seemed to drive reasonably. The road we took to Kelaniya was along the coast and people appeared to be quite poor, but cleanly dressed. Lots of new vehicles including tuk tuks and motorbikes
The bus took a different route back to the port and the area was much nicer than along the shoreline. Colombo itself was actually quaint with a nice waterfront and park areas. We will probably just catch a shuttle bus to the downtown area the next time we visit.
April 6th Cochin is located in the southwestern part of India. We had interesting lecturers on this cruise talking about the future of Asia. Long term the economic outlook is very positive. More than half of the world population live in China and India with the majority under the age of 25. Education is a top priority and these countries are graduating many millions of engineers and scientists from the universities each year. The population of India now exceeds 1 billion with more teenagers than the entire population of the US. By 2025 India will surpass China as the most populist country in the world.
Cochin was the first of three ports we will stop at in India on this trip. We decided to take a boat tour of the area which offered great photo opportunities of fishermen and bird life. We also went to a cultural show before returning to the Sojourn.
Once again we saw lots of construction activity. We observed many new vehicles and nicely dressed people, but it was only a short drive to the Taj Hotel where we boarded our tour boat so it was not possible for us to get a better feel for the prosperity of this area.
April 8th Goa is one area of India where Christian churches are common, a remnant of the Portuguese that once occupied this area. Our tour took us to old Goa where we visited the Bom Jesus Basilica and Se Cathedral. We then visited a home where we had tea before returning to the ship. Along the way we saw everything from exclusive mansions to very poor areas. People were for the most part attractive and nicely dressed. The roads were clean and well taken care of, but trash was scattered about in the villages. It definitely is an area on the improve.