Day 2:
(Still in Bhavnagar, India)
The good thing about India is that when you wake up at 2am because you're still on central standard time, you can rely on getting at least 2 tv stations in English. The bad thing is that they tend to play bad 80s movies on those 2 English stations that have no followable plot. And as much as I enjoy choreographed dance routines, the Bollywood movies are in Hindi and are admittedly harder for me to follow.
(Here's Mikie in our hotel - formerly an actual Palace - climbing some imaginary steps. Our bathroom is also in the photo - shown in blue.... Just kidding, but seriously, do you think they used plastic furniture when the Prince lived here?!?!? 5 star my foot.)
We had breakfast next to an older French couple who were, true to the famed bumper sticker, out spending their kid's inheritance. They recommended we go see the Palitana Temple tomorrow - it's a huge pilgrimage destination and you can climb the 3,800 steps to the top of the Shatrunjaya hills - or pay someone to carry you. I can feel the burn already.
Today, though, we are heading to Alang. The major industries in Bhavnagar are diamond cutting and ship building/breaking. We are here for the ship breaking and Alang is where we import most of our ship salvage from for the nautical shop. It also happens to be the worldwide center of the ship breaking and recycling industry, so it's a pretty busy place.
Unfortunately for us, security at Alang has been pretty tight lately - foreigners aren't allowed. So, under the direction of our guides, we went in the old fashioned way - we hid. In the backseat. Of a van. Which had tinted windows. And we took back roads to avoid checkpoints. This has "international incident" written all over it...
But, it was so worth it. The breaking yard was truly one of the most amazing places and functions I have ever seen. (Sorry for my bad panoramic-stitching efforts - hopefully you can still get the gist - note the 2 workers with yellow hard hats in the far left bottom corner standing next to some scrap...) There were hundreds of ships in various states of dismantlement (if that's a word) beached along the shore - it was like parking at Mardi Gras in Galveston circa 1999 - ships just wedged in so close you could jump from one to the next.
After the Alang visit, our hosts took us to the only public restaurant in the area. This was the location of my very first experience with a public restroom in India. I regret not capturing the moment in a photo, but I'm sure you readers don't. In a nutshell, the toilet is an open stall with no commode - only a slightly graded slab of concrete that leads towards the rear wall towards a hole in the ground. Sometimes I think we expect too much of gravity. That's all I'll say about that.
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