Up at 07:00 hrs., coffee and omelette in the café next door, and hot foot down Lokmanya Tilak Marg to the docks. As we turned on to D’Mello Road we were picked up by a truck. The three of us squeezed into the cab with all our gear and the two drivers, as the truck made hard won headway through the morning chaos of traffic.
We crawled up to a junction near our destination and a traffic cop asked our driver for his license. This looked remarkably like a 2 Indian Rupee note and the copper was unimpressed, indicating with a flurry of hand gestures and shouts that the driver should pull over on the other side of the junction to face the wrath of the law.
At this point we took our leave and proceeded on foot through the stationary mess composed of trucks and taxis. The increasing reek of rotting fish indicated our proximity to our goal. We reached the Departure Shed and got a glimpse of the ship, the “Kokan Sewak”, a Passenger/Cargo Ship that was built in 1964 by TITOVO SHIPYARD - KRALJEVICA, CROATIA. Her carrying capacity was 1876 Gross Tonnage and her length overall (LOA) was 76.92 meters and her width was 13.03 meters.
The gates opened and we surged aboard, jostling with the blue-jacketed porters and the pack of Indians weighed down with excess baggage. Amongst the Indian crowd was the expected quota of trendies and hippies. The pot smoking started immediately and as the pungent smoke wafted around us the hippy-chick behind us offered us a lug on her roach.
We declined and watched the ship cruise slowly out of dock before settling down to read our books. Our seat on the starboard forward was shadowed by a tarpaulin so we moved on to the foredeck amongst the winches and bollards.
The ocean water was calm and the sun was hot. This was the way to travel! Slow, easy and relaxing. We read until lunchtime when we made a short sortie to the lower deck for a varied 4 Indian Rupee vegetarian meal.
Back on the prow, stripped to our shorts, we reminisced on our trip and spouted our travel yarns to Martin. Eventually we drifted back into introverted moods and sat around daydreaming and reading. George moved into the cafeteria to write a letter and Martin joined him, leaving me to keep an eye on our bags.
The tranquillity on the foredeck was shattered by a “westernised” bunch of Indians with their new toys. They cavorted about with their Sony Walkman’s and struck up poses in their fashionable Western garb and sunglasses while they snapped each other with their new pocket cameras.
All the while they talked loudly in pidgin English. A long-haired nipper with elaborate tattoos adorning his legs came out to capture on film the tattooed arms and obscene “BOY” T-shirt of his cropped-haired English punk rocker mate. “BOY” was a fashion store on the Kings Road in Chelsea, London which claims that it was the epicentre of a new dawn in both fashion and music, defining the spirit of punk and birthing the New Romantic scene that appeared in its wake. For more information see https://www.boy-london.com/pages/about.
George and Martin returned, and we wandered about the ship in search of sleeping space. We were out of luck; the ship was literally packed to the gunwales with passengers. After a short-lived spell in the deck chairs of the cabin class passengers we settled back on our original bench from this morning. The dipping sun shone straight under the tarpaulin so Martin and I, already pink from our days dose of sunshine, sought refuge in the canteen.
It was just as hot here and the sweat dripped off us as we sipped tea and cokes. It was getting cooler when we rejoined George after being ejected from our refuge at 17:00 hrs. due to a “Housey Housey” (Bingo) session. Martin and I went in for supper at 19:15 hrs. as we docked at Jaigad, a port which occupies a strategic location on the west coast, as it is situated between the ports of Mumbai and Goa.
It was the same fare as lunchtime and as we ate, the rice and dahl was replenished. We sat next to a Kraut hippy couple who had “gone native” and were cramming it in with their fingers. Back topside we chatted on our favourite subject of past parties and celebrations to come. At 21:00 hrs. all three of us went to the canteen for a lemonade break and returned shortly to try and sleep in our limited space.
A couple of Indians got off at one of the night stops and Martin and George collared a bench each. I lay on the metal deck with my head pillowed on my holdall. It got colder during the night and I awoke to put on my jumper. Despite the hardness of the deck and a metal ditch restricting my space I got a reasonable amount of shut-eye.
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