Off to Cambodia...

Yesterday (which was Monday), I took a ferry boat over to Fort Cochin, and, as expected, we passed by the Taj Malabar Resort where we had all eaten dinner the day before. As it turned out, the second largest cruise ship in the world...the well-known QE-2 (owned by Cunard)...was also docked in the Cochin harbor for the day. After our ferry pulled next the dock, I headed south from the wharf and quickly managed to hook up with some of the English-speaking Europeans from the cruise ship who were on a land tour of the area around "Jew Town." Since they were all thoroughly white, I managed to blend right on in and simply "piggy-backed" onto the tour that they were taking of the Dutch Palace and the Jewish Synagogue. It was extremely hot and humid and everyone from the ship looked decidedly uncomfortable and even distressed. Obviously, these folks had been used to staying in their steel cocoon of relative comfort and safety. After being driven around town in ultra-modern (and very air-conditioned) buses that served to both isolate and insulate them from the smells, sounds and vibrations that are experienced down here at street level, they were periodically released from their mini-mothership in order to bargain with the locals for their wares and to, I suppose, then be able to accurately say to their friends back in London that they had, indeed, "been to southern India." (OK, OK. Enough of this rambling pseudo-cynicism. Let's move on.) Tonight I'm pulling an all-nighter. After first flying to Sri Lanka (Colombo), I have to handle a 3.5 hour wait at the airport before finally getting on the plane for Bangkok at 2:30 A.M. After that, there's another flight over to Cambodia, and if all goes as expected, I'll be landing in Phnom Penh around 9:30 A.M. local time. At that point, I'll be 15 hours aread of California time. See you next on Serendipity Beach in Sihanoukville, Cambodia.