This morning, Eric called customs on the radio at 0830. They told Eric to come and pick them up in 10 minutes. Woo hoo! Off to a good start today! They agents explained the mega yacht pulled in shortly before we did with 19 people on board and it took them a long time to do the paperwork, which is why they didn’t get to us yesterday. The agents wanted a complete inventory of all the personal items we had on board, which kind of made us feel weird. The coast guard’s questions had focused only on equipment. Other than the personal item inventory, all was status quo and by 1000 we had a customs clearance. Eric dropped them off and made an appointment with the harbor master at 1500 (3:00 pm). He also found a taxi driver to give us a tour.
As we were getting ready to head to shore, we noticed the mega yacht had pulled up anchor. It was heading straight towards a tiny fishing boat! The yacht clearly saw the boat because they honked at him, but they didn’t change course. The poor fisherman was terrified and paddled as hard as he could to get out of the mega yacht’s path. The fisherman had the right of way since he had no engine. We were astounded by the mega yacht captain’s behavior.
We left for shore at 1100. We noticed the whole bay has a diesel sheen on the surface. Yuck. We pulled up to the rock pier at Chatham Island. There is no place to tie the dinghy up to, so the standard operating procedure is to hire someone to park and watch your dinghy. They tie it to a line (along with all the other dinghies on the same line) and move the line as the tides and winds change.
Our cab driver was waiting for us in a classic old diesel Mercedes from the 60’s.
Several tuk tuk drivers tried to swoop us away from the taxi driver. We hadn’t seen a real tuk tuk yet, though they have tuk tuks in Thailand. The tuk tuks (also called motorized rickshaw) are tiny little motorized vehicles that have three wheels and handlebars instead of a steering wheel. Behind the driver’s seat is a covered bench seat that will hold two people.
We got in the cab and headed over to the bridge. The bridge is having some work done on it right now. We noticed there are a lot of these classic Mercedes on the road, as well as a lot of Tuk Tuks. We drove through Port Blair from the bay side of the island to the ferry terminal on the seaside. Our initial impression of Port Blair is that it is very similar in appearance to Kupang, Indonesia. Like Kupang, there seem to be no building codes. Some buildings are dilapidated and look like they will collapse if the wind gets over 10 knots There are lots of shacks hastily thrown together that can’t possibly last much longer before falling down. Some buildings are state of the art and beautiful, and of course, there is everything in between. The state of the art buildings are usually next to the shacks. Many of the buildings are under construction, with the bottom floor complete but upper stories still in early stages of building. They look like they will never be finished. The sewers are open. The sidewalks are irregular and erratic, so you weave between sidewalk and traffic as you walk down the street. Road rules seem to not exist you just drive wherever there is space.
What is noticeably different about Kupang is that there are tons of cows and goats meandering along side and in the middle of the road, eating all the garbage left out on the street. Many cows just plop down in the middle of the road and the cars go around them. The cows and goats spread the garbage around, and with garbage everywhere, Port Blair looks that much more like Kupang. Here is a typical street scene. Check out the tuk tuks parked in front of the stores.
Another noticeable difference is the women. The men here were mostly wearing western style clothing, but probably 95% of the women were wearing traditional Indian clothing, the sari or the salwar kameez. The sari is a tight fitting half top with short sleeves coupled with a long, flowy skirt and a huge scarf that gets wrapped over the half top of the body so you can’t really see much of the shirt or bare midriff under the scarf. The salwar kameez is a blouse that goes all the way to knee length coupled with what looks like loose fitting pajama pants. In Fiji, most of the Indian women wore the traditional clothing, as well.
In Fiji, Adrienne and Christi both constantly oohed and aahed over all the beautiful fabrics these clothes are made out of. Today Christi was continuing to ooh and aah. It looks to her like most of the outfits are made of silk, many with intricate embroidery, beadwork, or both. The colors are bright, cheerful and festive. Christi is also amazed that such fancy fabrics are worn as every day wear. The few silk and/or embroidered clothes in Christi’s closet are saved for special occasions.
Our first stop was the New Lighthouse restaurant, just a short block from the ferry terminal. The building is middle of the road in terms of condition. We were directed upstairs, where we were seated on a rooftop patio with a view of the bay and nearby Ross Island. There was a definite odor of animal feces that came with the breeze, which was a huge detraction from the overall dining experience. We are slowly but surely starting to “get” some of the menu items. We have figured out that Masala means a type of spice mix that can be used on anything. Roti means bread, and if you ask for roti you get a tortilla. If you want another kind of bread, you specify roti naan (similar to pita bread) or roti paratha (thinner and lighter than the regular roti). The new foods we tried are Murgh masala, which is a thick, buttery curry that is not too spicy; egg biryani, which is spicy long grain white rice with a hard boiled egg in the middle; vegetable stuffed naan, which had bits of carrot and onion kneaded into the dough rather than stuffed in the middle; and a banana lassi, which is plain yogurt and water with some banana flavor. It is kind of like a smoothie, but thinner, with less fruit and no sweeteners of any sort. Eric liked it. Christi thought it was bitter.
We realized we were going to miss our ferry to Ross Island, so we quickly paid the check and ran out the door before we were done eating. The ferry was late, so it is too bad we rushed off. The ferry is an old wooden commercial trawler with bench seats in the middle. The ride over took only 20 minutes. We had an hour to explore the island before we needed to catch the ferry back for our meeting.
To be continued… [53]