Mangalore

We arrived this morning in Mangalore after another very stormy night at sea.  It appears that thunderstorms occur overnight typically around 2am and I fear we might be seeing a pattern here.  The destinations counter of the ship apparently was flooded from the storm and workmen were working to repair the area – nothing major but apparently impacted by the storm.

Before I describe our day in Mangalore, let me relate our dinner last night at Compass Rose.  We were joined by a couple from England, Anne and Vick, and our friends, Rick and Bill from Phoenix.  We had a great time and had some outstanding food.  The menu at Compass Rose has a portion that is available every night and then a separate page which contains the specials and offerings for the evening.  Tonight’s specials included a destination special of Indian prepared Red Snapper and Veal Medallions.  I ended with a pistachio shuffle – magnificent.  Here’s a peek.

Here’s a photo of our dinner group.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, we have grown weary of the excursions arranged by the ship so today we ventured out on our own – well, not exactly alone – we were joined by another couple from Phoenix, Laura and Jim.  The ship provided a shuttle between the pier and the city center so we opted for that alternative.  It dropped us off at the City Centre shopping mall which was very new and much like our shopping malls – well not exactly but it was air conditioned.  Here are a few of the shop displays.

I don’t think that you’ll necessarily find Sari’s and Burkha’s in our malls.  It was very interesting to see the displays.  

After visiting the mall and some of the side streets of Mangalore, we went to the Ocean Pearl Hotel to have lunch.  It was recommended to us by our destinations representative onboard the ship.  We had a wonderful lunch consisting of local specialties – Mangalore Tiger Prawns, Murgh Lahsuni Tikka (Chicken marinated with garlic, Indian spices and cooked in a clay oven), Murgh Tikka Lababdar (Chicken in tomato sweet and sour), and Chicken Grassi, a Mangalore Specialty (Chicken in heavily spiced curry of coconut, chillies, peppercorn and poppyseed).  I wasn’t able to capture photos of the entire spread because we were each served our portions of the meal.  Everything was fantastic and the service was impeccable.  

And here are a few street scenes from Mangalore.

You can see the rickshaw photo above because we took a rickshaw from the restaurant to the port.  It was crazy, unlike anything we’ve experienced thus far.  I captured some videos to give you a sense of the excitement.

Mangalore2

Mangalore1

The ride took 1/2 hour and cost us 200 rupees – that equates to about 3 dollars.  Amazing!

That’s it for today.  We’re off to Goa tomorrow so we’ll see what excitement we can find.  Thanks again for following.