After two days in Mumbai, it was time to board our ship, a sleek French beauty called Le Levant, and embark on our cruise around the subcontinent.  The trip had been organized by the expedition cruise company Zegrahm Expeditions, and our 60 passengers were accompanied not only by Le Levant’s outstanding staff (including several French chefs), but also by an expedition leader, cruise director, cultural geographer, art historian, and last but not least, two naturalists.  A dull moment there was not.

Our first port of call was the former Portuguese enclave of Goa.  Following a visit by Vasco da Gama in 1498, Goa became the center of the rich Portuguese spice trade in India, and Portugal managed to keep hold of this tiny colony for over a decade after India gained independence from Britain in 1947.  That came to an end in 1961, when India assimilated Goa in a one-day “war of liberation.”  Today, Goa is known for its beaches and its colonial-era mansions and cathedrals, and so our passengers divided up for sun-bathing and cultural excursions. I accompanied the cultural folk, and received my first  taste of how we naturalists would be doing our job on this trip:  through the windows of tour buses.  In fact, later in the voyage I gave a presentation on “Birds of Indian Roadsides and Wires” that covered the common species that we glimpsed as we bounced along at 80 kilometers an hour.  Many of these birds were exotic and lovely, like the graceful little Green Bee-eaters, the fish-tailed Black Drongos, and the White-throated Kingfishers with their vivid blue wings.  I was grateful for every temple garden that allowed more than a fleeting look at these beauties.

But this was first and foremost a cultural trip, and the antiquity, richness, and complexity of Indian culture was apparent at every stop.  India is the birthplace of four major religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism, and is also home to significant communities of Moslems, Christians, and Parsi (Zoroastrians).  Our voyage took us to many of the most important Hindu historical sites and temples of south India, as well as to several important temples and shrines of the Jain religion.