The Bollywood to South Beach Voyage – Regent Seven Seas Voyager, October 29-December 18, 2009
Text by Snookums, Pictures by Filbert
Part Four
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.
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| On the boat to the Nehru Pavilion |
More after the jump . . .
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| A snake boat |
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| The rudder men |
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| The boat crews, on their boats |
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| Pre-race ceremonies |
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| Stirrups |
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| Drummers |
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| The first heat begins! |
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| Crossing the finish line |
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| Halftime entertainment |
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| A photo finish! Not this photo, of course . . . |
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| Post-race celebration |
We ended up taking naps at 4 PM and when we woke up at 8 PM (yep, 4 hours!) we decided to have room service for dinner. Everything was delivered lukewarm so we probably won’t do that again.
We got to set our clocks back ½ hour. With that, we are currently 11 hours ahead of central time zone so I guess over the next 44 days we will gain 10 hours of that back. That sure beats losing an hour every now and then. Yippee!
Next: The Maldives, and the Seychelles!
