First I would like to answer Grace’s question about Japan. We were not scheduled for any stops in Japan as we did 5 or 6 ports of call last year. This is a horrendous loss for the Japanese people and is truly a tragedy.

Captain Olaf has had to change our itinerary again because of the unavailability of port space. This now is our current itinerary:

Mar 24 Dubai
Mar 25 Dubai
Mar 26 Dubai
Mar 27 Muscat, Oman
Mar 29 Salalah, Oman
Apr 03 Aquaba, Jordan
Apr 05 Transit Suez Canal
Apr 06 Ashdod, Israel

Haifa is the port that was not available so I won’t be able to overnight in Israel. We have arranged for a van and a personal guide to take 12 of us to many many places, This will give us the maximum use of our short time. I will give you further details when they are available.

Speaking of tours I had the worse tour yet in Kochi, India. That is Cochin in the English spelling. The tour consisted of taking in as many sites as possible by zipping past them as the guide pointed them out to us. The palace stop consisted of standing up on a portion of a stone wall to take a photo of the steps up to the palace which was not visible because of trees. We passed many interesting churches, mosks, and Hindu temples but the only stop we made was the church founded by Vasco De Gama where he was once buried. We did have a stop at the Chinese fishing nets and a small market.

Kochi is very similar to Mumbai which is to say very dirty and crowded. Our guide kept telling us how the caste system did not apply in Kochi and that it was very affluent because of the education they have at this time. I saw glimpses of this but I don’t think they are there yet.