Miraj to Mumbai

Another morning of a cold dubba bath.  

 

Dr Prabha Quraishi and her husband.  She is the director of the hospital.  

We had very nice masala omelets for breakfast and filter coffee. Apparently Dr Prabha made all of our food.  I did not get a picture.  Darn.

Pastor Shashi Kamble and Rakhi Moreshwar.  The pastor was our driver all day yesterday. We were all packed up by 8 am.  Shashi & Rakhi picked us up.  We went to chapel.  

The choir sang "Blessed Assurance."

Men on the left, Women on the right.

Medical students all drop off their backpacks when they come to the chapel service.

We got to the train station in plenty of time.  I was impressed with the changes.  It was much cleaner, fewer beggers, no coolies (porters), and much quieter with fewer vendors shouting out their products.

What I always called "Temple flowers"

Here comes our train, the Koyna Express.  It was only a little late.  We left Miraj about 9:30 am.  The Inaugural run of the Koyna Express was in 1920. 

We thought we found our seats: 5, 6, and 7, but apparently they were the wrong 5, 6, and 7.  The conductor came and got us to the correct seats.  They were much better because we got our own compartment. We had it to ourselves most of the way.  Then one guy came for seat number 8.  He went ahead and climbed up to the upper berth.  

Sugar cane, grapes, jowar (millet), bananas and coconuts seem to be the crops growing right now.  Maybe wheat also, I'm not sure.  Some other grain.

Gas storage tanks

Gas train cars being filled.

Ah.  Relaxing.  We will be here for 10 hours.

Harvesting the sugar cane

Then they let the goats in to clear more and then they burn the field.

10 rupees for a Dixie cup of tea. Ahh.

When we got into Satara Station around noon.  Compass people had ordered a lunch for us.  I had thought that they said veg biriyani.  I was a little nervous about it being too spicy for me.  I had a text from Compass saying to go to the entrance of the train and someone would hand us our lunch.  

We got 2 Domino's pizzas

Veg 

Cheese

2 pizza was perfect for the 3 of us.

My work station 

I should have a glass of wine while working on my blog.  I guess I will have that tonight when I finish this.  But the Dixie cup of coffee was good.  It was 20 rupees.

Lots of tunnels.  We went through 5 going from Mumbai to Pune by car.  It was 12 tunnels by train.

It was a very relaxing day on the train.  I enjoyed the scenery and we mostly spent time on our devices.  I had a chance to work a bit on my blog.  

We had accidently ordered biriyani, thinking that it was the Compass people taking our order.  George went ahead and paid for it anyway.  He had his for dinner.  But it was too spicy for me.  I have had my chikus and bananas.  

We pulled into Thane (pronounced ton - a) station.  It is the station closest to Rebecca.  It was a big station and we did not have any idea how to connect with the driver.  He was looking for us.  I learned something with WhatsApp you can do a live location.  Rebecca helped us with that.  We just stood still and the driver found us. We apparently had gone the wrong way.  He was a bit put out.  The next thing on the agenda before taking Rebecca back to her place (Marry's place) was to stop at the 7 - 11 where I had bought the wine on Wednesday.  I thought that I had left my credit card there.  Whew!! I had.  That was a relief.  So I feel much better now.  It was a process for them to let me have my card back.  Then we took Rebecca home and then we went to the Country Inn and Suites by Radisson.  It is the same hotel that we were at a few days ago. 

I finally got my dinner

Some interesting spellings

Normal water (did I say this already) is water that is not hot or bottled. In fact in the Villa Retreat one time they felt the the water was too cold so they added some hot water to it. Who would want cold water.

A Depressing Day in Miraj

 First off - no sunrise photos.  I was out looking but just no good view.  

With all of our travels on this trip I have not need to use my little travel tea kettle.  Every place has had an electric water heater rather than a coffee maker.  But here in Miraj I got to use it.  Unfortunately, the only place to plug it in is the place where the plug to the bathroom light is. 

No hot showers here.  I had a dubba bath.  I couldn't face a cold shower.  It was easier to just pour cold water over my head to wash my hair.

Dubbas

 

Our sad house.

Fletcher's home

Fletcher Guest House

Emerick's home (upper level)

A lot of donkeys and dogs rambling around

At 7:30 am they dropped off a tiffin with several hard boiled eggs and some toast.  

Ambulances all lined up across the street from the hospital.  There are 20 of them.  I don't think that they moved at all.  

We did not have time to eat it because we were going to the 8 am chapel service.  They had a choir who helped to sing several songs - one I knew "He Leadeth Me" and one I did not "There Shall be Blessings."  They had a drummer as well.  It felt like the Praise bands in the States.  The service was mostly in Marathi with some translating.  Rakhi Moreshwar spent much of the day with us. She is the one who preached.  She tended to not give the translator time to speak.

After the chapel George and I had a tour of the Physio Therapy school.  In 2016 it was almost completed.  It doesn't look new any more. They start with about 50 students.  It is a 4 1/2 year program.  Usually about 40 students at graduation. 

Vrushali and Dr John Frederick

Some of the classrooms

The library 

We sent Sonu back to Mumbai. The hospital wanted to provide our chauffeur.

We ended out having our breakfast.  I had a chapati roll-up with jelly and egg - totally a non-Indian way.  But it was good.

We then headed off to the bus station to meet Priya  (Rebecca's daughter and also sister to Akshay). Priya came with her mother-in-law and her two young kids.  We thought that they were arriving at 11:30 am but they did not arrive until about 12:30 pm.  But they did arrive.

Rebecca, George, Mother-in-law, Aishwarya, Angel, and Priya. 

All in the way back (Angel is hiding)

They came to our room to relax a bit and have some snacks.  

For the next few things Rakhi joined us.  We went to the cemetery. 

Christian cemetery

It is disappointing that you can no longer read any of the text on the stones. But someone must have recently repainted the names on the cross.  Akshay should be happy since we put the garlands he gave us on the grave stones.

It is a dusty museum.  

Mom's painting

 They do not want to let us take any of  the pictures on the wall or mom's painting, because they are so important to them.  That is why they are keeping them locked up in a dusty place that no one can get in to see them.

Archie Fletcher on the wall of all the directors.  We could not get in           to see the Orthopedic Office because it was locked and in a dark hallway of the main hospital.  We asked if we could come by later.

We drove out to WanlessWadi to the the weaving department.  

That, too, was smaller with fewer looms going.  When we wanted to buy a few things it took them forever to figure things out.  Very disorganized.  

We had the driver drop us off at the Hotel Akshay for lunch.  

Thali plate

George and I shared a vegetarian rice bowl.  I tasted a few things.  It was all good.

Rebecca gave a bag of some gifts for the family. Angel loved her teddy bear.

We had to check out several ATMs to find one that worked.  While George and Rebecca were doing that I bought some chikus (sp?)!!   yummy.  

I only wanted a couple but they gave me a dozen.  

 

We went back to the hospital to try to get into the Orthopedic office.  They couldn't find the right key.  So we drove Priya and family back to the bus stop. They got on ok. It sure was great to meet Priya and the family.  

We went back to the hospital.  This time they tracked someone down who could open the office that is on the main floor in the middle of the day of the hospital.  

Mom and Dad on the right.

Interesting spelling of sandwich.

The day ended on a very nice thing.  Due to social media.  Rakhi posted some pictures of what we did today.  A woman who was a nursing student back when my parents were working and teaching saw the pictures and made her daughter bring her to meet with us.  She (89 years old) also worked at the hospital for years.  She remembered so many people, Fletchers, Donaldson, Emerick, Hilty, Harvey, Bond .... She remembered when we were kids.  So fun to talk with her.  She was thrilled to connect.  Felt so GOOD.  Her English was great and so was her daughter's.  So we could communicate.  This was a real highlight of the day for me.  

Raswanti Chavan and her daughter Neelam.  

The hospital people kept offering us more meals but we had so much sitting around here from previous meals we kept refusing.  We had a good day of meeting a lot of people.  But the hospital itself is very depressing.  Dark, unused, empty, ....  Not alive at all.