13.08N 65.42E
JENNY
Alan Franklin/ Lynne Gane
Sat 7 Feb 2009 08:50
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Hi everybody.
No prompts but I think its been a while since the
last Blog. We are currently mid Arabian sea heading for Salalah, Oman from
Cochin,India, about 700 miles from anywhere solid we hope! We hope to
arrive in Salalah by 12th, wind and tide willing! Salalah is a refuelling stop
where we combine with other BWR boats for security for the duration of our
trip across the Gulf of Aden, to Djibouti.
We've had 2 interesting stops since Phuket and the
Similan Is. these being Galle, Sri Lanka and Cochin, India.
A lot of the time in Sri Lanka was spent on a
5 day arranged trip inland to see the sights. Our itinerary took in the "Temple
of the Tooth" with the aforementioned relic being a prime place for pilgrimage
for Buddhist people. Quite fascinating and very crowded, prompting an
interest in Buddhism form one or two of us! The temple of the Gold Buddha was
also seen. Another treat was the sight of 100+ elephants from the
elephant orphanage in Pinnawala being taken down to the water to bathe
and cool off - It was like a wild west stampede - we all cowered from high
vantage points or doorways as these massive beasts hurried down to the river- we
watched them play, young and old as we eat our lunch! Absolutely
delightful.
A 4WD safari was great too, spotting wildlife in a
national park - elephants in their family groups and much more- kingfishers, sea
eagles and other wildlife. Up into the high hills for a tea plantation and
factory visit, The tea fields scenery was amazing, the factory, well -
health and safety - forget it! Most of the machines still used must be getting
on for 100 years old!!
Next in Kandy we took in a cultural show, mainly
local dancing, but fire walking too - note - no volunteers from the
audience!! The Hill Club hotel gave us a taste of history - unchanged for
60 years oak panelling and waited on hand and foot, very much a step back into
the past with a dress code to boot - jackets and ties really stretched some
peoples resources!!!
Last but not least - a climb up to the Sigiriya
Rock fortress - A world heritage site 183 metres above the surrounding jungle -
not for the fainthearted - half steps fixed into vertical faces included - but
everyone who could made it too the top to see the fabulous views and sunset,
before a quick descent!!
A fair amount of time was spent by all getting
Indian visas - a lengthy frustrating process achieved at a cost of 2 days -
trips from Galle to Columbo and back - twice - you'd think tourists to
India would be encouraged!! On the second trip we used a taxi, but
we took the local train at first -
100km took over 4 hrs - the express took "only" 3 hrs on the return trip.
I mention this as the infrastructure is still pretty backward and ramshackle,
with much evidence of the not so long ago Tsunami obvious - in fact you can
see part of the railway that was washed away from the train, together with
extensive "flotsam housing" literally that alongside the track, with no water or
sewage disposal, electricity seems to "Patched in" to street lights or non
existent. Many organisations are here still helping, but this and the
civil war against the Tamil Tigers in the north make this a very poor
nation. Having said that, again we found that the people were delightful -
happy and friendly and would do anything to help us, some very emotional
when the time came to say goodbye.
After 9 days we left for Cochin - only 360 miles
but a rough trip with strong headwinds - we were certainly glad to arrive
although nearly being rammed by "enthusiastic" fishing boats dampened our
enthusiasm as we came in. We arrived just at the start of a long public
holiday (always seems to happen!!) but we managed to clear in OK , but not get
permission to move the boat to a more secure anchorage for 3 days! Successful
"negotiation" by P resolved this so we moved the next morning.
We spent a fair amount of time looking round Cochin
- which consists of a large town spread over many islands - Fort
Kochi was for the sight of things as they were 50 years ago,the Dutch
Palace and Cemetery, and the Chinese nets - immense timber
cantilever constructions that lowers what is best described as a giant pond net
to the sea bed, waiting, and then lifting it up to catch anything that has
been stupid enough to swim over it! Lines of these dot the foreshore at
the harbour entrance - we watched fascinated for 30 mins and saw nothing
caught!! Also in Fort Kochi we visited the cultural centre to watch the
artistes make up faces and later watch the traditional Kathkali
dancing.
We booked an overnight trip to see the "backwaters"
on a lovely thatched houseboat which was great fun, but showed how primitive
living conditions were outside the towns, washing and doing washing along the
riverbanks. Another trip up to the hills took in tea plantations and some took
the chance to play golf at one of the oldest golf clubs in southern India - just
like the Hill Club hotel. Others visited the national park and "echo
point" - on our way back to Cochin we all took "Tiffin" served
on the golf club terrace as we watched others play a tournament,
We found India very bureaucratic (Our fault - we
should have known from Sri Lanka!) there seems to be six ways of doing the same
thing - clearing out! One person says do it this way, and then
its wrong so he says do it that way - wrong - and so on.... I think
immigration, customs and harbourmasters conspire!!!
The upshot is that we left a day late for Salalah,
but we've been lucky, only two days motoring and now fair winds so
hopefully the 12th is achievable. The boat's going well and only a few
niggling problems still bug us, but hopefully Peter brings yet another
watermaker spare when we meet up in Salalah.
Guess that's all for now
Crew of Jenny
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