Indian Ocean days

Monday 2nd March

Two warm humid days at sea; we have been drenched with monsoon rains, sprayed by choppy waves and rocked to sleep at night. We have seen one bird and heard another; one circled and circled the ship and was called an albatross but George saw its red feet and said 'No no no... a Booby', and, being George, ran down to the library grabbed the "Birds of the Islands of the Indian Ocean" and discovered it was a Red Footed Booby. The book was passed round the faculty lounge until all were convinced! I don't need to insert a photo of George do I? Can't you clearly see him doing all this? The second bird we only heard; it had a high pitched distressed song and seemed to be crying for help but we couldn't see it....strange and bizarre in the middle of the empty ocean, no land or other birds to be seen. Birds are company and bring a sense of comradeship in this large expanse as do the odd passing freighters and tankers. Mostly though there is just the Explorer all alone, ploughing her way to India.

Our Global Study lectures now are all about India: culture, food, customs, languages and geography. When we arrive in Chennai alot of the students and others are flying to Delhi and on to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. We have opted to stay in the area and drive to Pondicherry via Malallapuram and Kaachipuran: the former a town with many interesting temples, sculptures and rock paintings and the latter a centre for buying silk saris in particular. That's today's plan anyway! I love pouring over The Lonely Planet's India and seeing all our choices.

We met some of our 'family' in our cabin last night which they seemed to enjoy. We heard about their travels in Namibia and South Africa....they too are 'sold' on Africa and two of them are making plans to attend the World soccer in Cape Town next year. South Africa has been the 'hit' of the voyage so far; they have started to realise that there are other countries in the world which are exciting, interesting, vital and stunningly beautiful apart from the good old US of A!

Have been watching Ghandi on our TV so shall now go to sleep feeling calm and spiritual and very glad indeed not to be living on an ashram and having to clean the latrines!!