Sunset

From the ship deck

From the deck

I can see some fertilizer ingredient lying around near the conveyor belt on top.

It seems to be phosphorous.

The ship

MS Kavaratti.

Nice little ship, we are on the top deck! Should have nice views!

Can you see the truck unloading the luggage w/o any passengers even being present?

H1N1 checking

Interesting device that measures your temperature and checks for H1N1

Apart from this stroke of intelligence, the overall boarding process was a complete mess.

First they had exactly ONE luggage screening machine for passengers of all 5 ships.

2nd, passengers and luggage travelled separately to the ship and then the luggage had to be manually identified - there were no tags - something that couldve been done since the rooms get allotted at the time of booking!

And third - once luggage was identified they had one porter to carry people's luggage to their rooms - which meant most people ended up just carrying their own luggage.

Ticket office!

Cochin is surprisingly clean.

Collected all tickets for the 11 of us.

This should be fun!! Can't wait to get started!!

The most beautiful landing approach

Cochin seems to be insanely pretty.

I need to visit this place.

The kids in front of me think they are landing in farmville. I hate FB even more now.

More clouds

Mountain through the clouds.

En-route to cochin - can you see the mountain rising above the clouds?

I would kill to be on top of that mountain and see the view.

I think this is probably Munnar.

Ancient shell!

Water rock

This was a mineral rock which had water trapped inside! And it has been this for hundreds of thousands (maybe even millions) of years.

This shop was recommended by lonely planet and its totally worth a visit.

They had an ancient shell as well as a rock from a meteorite!

Jurassic park DNA

Remember how in Jurassic park they found amber with a mosquito inside?

See the stone in the guy's hand? It's amber with a dead mosquito inside!

Dinner at Jaisalmer

The restaurant was nice, had very good food but absolutely appalling service - a trend we noticed even at the Jaisalgarh hotel.

We went w/o reservations (it isn't exactly a 5 star restaurant and even there I seldom go with reservations and have always been accomodated :) )

The manager told us that there was no way they could join 2 tables so the 9 of us could sit together - an attitude we didn't really care for. So we went and asked the travel agent on the ground floor if there were some other restaurants around since this one refused to join tables.

Turns out, he owned the restaurant and was shocked (rightfully) at the refusal. He shouted at someon and suddenly a table for 9 appeared.

I think this bad service is the result of catering to a largely french audience - they generally have lousy service too!

Onwards to cochin

The damn flight keeps getting delayed.
WTF Jet!

First it was at 12:45 then 13:45 now 13:50.

Take off already! I have a ship to catch!!!

Tea stop

50kms before Jodhpur.

There was a group of 20 or so peacocks but the BB cam is too lousy to capture.

But I have some on the dslr.

Will post pics later!

Funny truck message

Jageshwar ki fauj karegi mauj.

More military

Lots of practice going on.

Tornado?

Or dust blown by tank movement.

We are divided.

I think its the tanks.

Enroute

Strangely enough, we saw a TON of army movement today.

4 large convoys with tank carrying trucks - they were empty. We also saw 2 practice ranges for the military with tanks practicing whatever it is that tanks practice.

Tanks

You can just about make out some tanks behind the pole.

Can you?

Goodbye jaisalmer

Hello Jodhpur.

Off to Jodhpur which is the last stop before I head to delhi where vacation part II begins!