Greetings from Cochin, India. November 11, 2008
From Goa, we sailed south the last day and a half, about 25 miles off the SW coast of India, among dozens of fishing and shrimping vessels working this coastline. We arrived in Cochin late this morning and we’re taking the afternoon off from the ship’s organized shore excursions, to catch up on uploading our blog posts and photos, and to check email and phone messages. We’ve been surprised at how difficult it has been for us to get to an Internet shop ashore in the recent ports that we’ve visited, so this is our first communication with you since our first post sent October 20. The ship’s satellite Internet server has been out of service since we left Greece. Hopefully this will bring you up-to-date with our travel news.
We’re staying in Cochin overnight, and tomorrow morning, we’ll take a canal-boat tour of Cochin and its “Backwater” areas, which we’re told is a popular tour. After that, we depart tomorrow afternoon, but we have a change of itinerary.
We were scheduled to sail for Colombo, Sri Lanka. However, another security threat has reared its head, and we will bypass Sri Lanka. You may have seen the news about two bomb attacks in Sri Lanka about two weeks ago by the Tamal Tigers terrorist group. This is a radical group that seeks to overthrow the government of Sri Lanka and demands independence for one of the country’s islands. The U.S. State Department and the foreign ministries of Germany, Britain, and several other European countries have strongly advised the Star Clipper management that we should avoid entering Sri Lanka at this time. So, the management and Captain Jurgen yesterday made the decision to bypass Sri Lanka and sail on for the Similan Islands in Thailand. The Captain says we’ll spend this extra day in a beautiful island group called Patong Bay that lies between Phuket and the mainland of Thailand. Sounds good to us. :-))
We hope all’s well with you.
Love,
Betty and Bill
