The Bollywood to South Beach Voyage - Regent Seven Seas Voyager, October 29-December 18, 2009

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Four

(Remember to click "read more" if you're looking at this from the main medary.com page to get the whole article!)

November 4 (Wednesday, Day 7, Cochin, India) -

It was a very festive atmosphere and we were served coconut water in the coconut along with other beverages. The Nehru Pavilion was decorated with fresh palm fronds and every railing was covered in fresh flowers. We found out that the workers worked the entire night getting it cleaned up since it hadn’t been used since August. The two women’s bathroom stalls were made “nicer”, too, although Snookums didn’t notice any upgrade! We also were given box lunches that contained cashews, plantain chips, taro chips, tangerine and a little bag of pulverized rice mixed with jaggery (sugar cane syrup), cloves, cardamom and other spices. It was all tasty although the little bag of the rice mixture was “different”. After the races the men were very thirsty (and hungry) and motioned to the Regent crowd of 250 to throw them their water bottles. At some point some of the men got out of the boats and they were walking through the pavilion and picking up half drunk water bottles and taking them. They were also taking “used” leftovers from the boxes.

On the boat to the Nehru Pavilion

More after the jump . . .

The Bollywood to South Beach Voyage - Regent Seven Seas Voyager, October 29-December 18, 2009

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Three

(Remember to click "read more" if you're looking at this from the main medary.com page to get the whole article!)

November 4 (Wednesday, Day 7, Cochin, India) -

Port call: Cochin

Regent hosted a special event for everyone today in Cochin involving snake boats. The Indian state of Kerala is known for its snake boat races. These are long, skinny boats that hold 100 men.. The annual race occurs in August but Regent organized (i.e paid for it) 9 different boats to race for us. We were bused 1.5 hours away and then took boats to a permanent pavilion in the middle of the backwaters.

More after the jump . . .

The Bollywood to South Beach Voyage - Regent Seven Seas Voyager, October 29-December 18, 2009

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part Two

(Remember to click "read more" if you're looking at this from the main medary.com page to get the whole article!)

November 2 (Monday, Day 5, Boarding Voyager, Mumbai, India) -

Our cruise itinerary

More after the "read more."

The Bollywood to South Beach Voyage - Regent Seven Seas Voyager, October 29-December 18, 2009

Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert

Part One

(Remember to click "read more" if you're looking at this from the main medary.com page to get the whole article!)

October 29 (Thursday, Day 1, Flying to Mumbai, India) -

We left our house at 9:30 AM for KCI. Security was no problem and we had a little bit of time to spend in the Admirals Club. We got on the plane for Chicago and were happy to have the middle seat empty between us. We got to Chicago and now had a 5-hour layover. We spent 2 hours in the Admirals Club and Snookums took a shower right before we left and went to O’Hare’s Terminal 5 for our Air India flight.

Our Air India 777, viewed from the O'Hare Admiral's Club

More after the jump . . .

Flying their Mitsubishis, even!

Mitsubishi A6M "Zero," from Wikipedia

Oh. Airliners. Not Zeros.

Artist's conception of the MRJ, from Mitsubishi

That's OK then.

Flying Mitsubishis possibly coming to the US at the Cranky Flier.

Snookums and I are going to fly to India soon. On Air India.

The Air India that just had a mid-air rumble between pilots and crew which one report I saw said occurred somewhere over Pakistan.

Oh yeah. I'm looking forward to our flight.

It's an AP article, so I can't tell you what's in it. You'll have to go read it in the Kansas City Star:.

Well, OK, a couple of words, I think I can get away with.

Ten dollars. November 29. January 2. January 3.

Just because they can.

Southwest Airlines will no longer serve lemons on board their airliners. According to the Today in the Sky USA Today blog, this will save them $100,000 a year.

That's a lot of lemons.

At least, on SkyWest which operates many United Express flights:

"Read the fine print." That's the advice of Joe Sharkey, the On the Road columnist for The New York Times. He warns us about the danger of putting any of your personal belongings – no matter how small – into the seatback pockets if you fly regional carrier SkyWest. He says on one recent SkyWest flight, a flight attendant enforced that regulation "like a drill sergeant throughout the flight."

Solution? Avoid United, Skywest, US Airways, or any other Star Alliance airline like the plague until they sober up.

BoingBoing: Man hunts for poo-squirting con artist in Delhi

Sam Miller, the BBC's former South Asia correspondent, is looking for the person who squirts poo on his and other people's shoes in New Delhi's Connaught Place. It's part of a scam - foreigners get a squirt of poo on their shoo when then aren't looking and then a shoe shiner down the road points it out and offers to clean off the poo, for a fee.

Not the poo-guy hunter, the poo-squirter--or one of them, anyway. We had a run-in with one of them. I had to get mildly physical with an elbow to shoo him away.

UPDATE: BoingBoing link fixed.