At the very tip of India

On the southern most tip of India was Tamil Nadu’s Kanyakumari. I visited this wind swept pilgrimage destination before the rows of souvenir stalls were constructed. I sheltered under a stone structure erected near the ocean but was interrupted by hawkers selling bottles of sand. Chanting like mantras, they claimed the bottles’ contents came from sand by the three seas—the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean which converged at India’s southern point.

A Taste of India Across the Sea

When I left India by ship from Mumbai, I cruised across the calm Arabian Sea to Mombasa on a week-long journey. Delighting in vegetarian curry on the trip, I thought it would be my last.

Kenya’s Mombasa

The ship docked after a week crawling across the placid Arabian Sea. My foot touched African soil for the first time to the sound of an African greeting, “Jambo.”

As I explored Kenya’s coastal city, Mombasa, sea breezes sailed in off the ocean.