Day #160 in lockdown in Mumbai, India hotel…The frightening reality…

Day #160 in lockdown in Mumbai, India hotel…The frightening reality…

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Today’s photos are from this date in 2014 while wrapping up our final day in South Kensington, London, England. You’ll find our total expenses for the 15-nights in a hotel below:

Here are our expenses for the 15 nights in London:

Hotel:              US $3,312.26, 1,995.40 pounds
Transportation:          455.29,    274.28
Tours:                        451.81     272.18
Groceries:                 240.34     144.79
Restaurants:              850.46    512.34

Grand Total:     US $5,310.16, 3,198.99 pounds
Daily Rate:         US $354.01, 213.27 pounds

Yesterday, we walked down this road toward Bobo’s Bubbles to do our final two loads of laundry.

Each hour, while walking, I listen to podcasts on my phone. At this point in time, I am not interested in much other than those podcasts that are educational and informational, often a variety of videos from immunologists from all over the world. I do so in an attempt to determine which countries we may possibly visit when we’re able to leave India.

Of course, leaving India is entirely predicated on how India is doing with COVID-19, their infection and death rates which at this point are increasing like a raging fire. Yesterday, by happenstance, I stumbled across this India generated video with a immunologist from Harvard, born in India and interviewed by an Indian news/podcaster.

Occasionally, we spotted a brick building mixed among the white buildings.

This video, found here at this link, This is not a conspiracy theory-type podcasts but a well researched and highly informative report on the statistics for COVID-19 for India and the projections by this highly qualified medical professional. The prospects for us leaving are not looking good.

In essence he’s stating that the reported cases in India, with a population of 1.3 billion, is only reporting 15% of the actual cases when many get the virus, don’t test, and subsequently don’t report their case. In reality, based on statistics gleaned from countries and researchers throughout the world, this could mean there are currently 200,000,000 to 500,000,000 cases in India.

This was the shortest (height) car either of us has ever seen. I can only imagine that getting out of it would require rolling out the door onto the street and then standing up.

This threw me for a loop. I can see why our hotel doesn’t want us to go outside. There is a very high percentage of contagion in Delhi and Mumbai, the two largest metropolises in the country. Opening the airports for international flights is highly unlikely anytime in the near future.

One might think, “Why would they be so cautious for flights leaving India?” The answer is logical. The international airlines are not about to send empty planes to India. To warrant the resumption of international flights it must be a two-way process. India is not about to allow international travelers into the country. It certainly makes sense when worldwide, so much of the virus has been brought into countries via flights from highly infected countries.

South Kensington consists of one pretty street after another with parking always at a premium.

Citizens of the US, regardless of where they’ve been, are on “no fly” lists all over the world and will continue to be so for an indefinite period. The prospect of us leaving India anytime soon is grim.

We accept the fact that if at any point, we cannot stand being here another week or month, most likely we can find a way to get on one of the repatriation flights for US citizens to return from India back to the US. Finding an affordable holiday home in a nice area in the US at this time is impractical and costly, far more than we’re paying here. Also, we’d need a rental car which is outrageously priced in the US for extended periods.

In London, there are no large trash bins for residents in which to place their garbage.  Instead, they place the bags on the sidewalk or street where they’re picked up a few times a week from what we’ve seen.

The alternative would be to find a hotel comparable to this hotel in the US which most likely will be more costly than here. Plus, the travel required to get to a location we’d prefer could result in numerous flights at numerous airports with added risk of contracting the virus. We’d simply be trading one confined location for another. The US is still in the #1 position of most cases of the virus in the world. We don’t want to go to the US due to my high risk status.

At least, here and now, we are as safe as we can possibly be. There hasn’t been a single case of the virus in this hotel. We don’t go out to grocery stores, pharmacies and other shopping. We can get most of what we need from Amazon India which items are sprayed with disinfectant when they arrive and are delivered to our room. We wait a few days to open any package.

Wildwood had a comfortable ambiance, but the food and service was mediocre. See the post here for food photos and prices.

Breakfast is included in our room rate and our dinners are never more than US $20, INR 1463, per night. There is nowhere in the world we’d be able to eat for this low cost. Besides, during these lockdown conditions throughout the world, we can’t justify paying more than what we’re paying now.

Complaining? No. Observing. Reality. Safe. Healthy. We’d OK

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Photo from one year ago today, August 30, 2019:

Look at the numbers of sailboats moored in this bay! For more photos, please click here.
Day #158 in lockdown in Mumbai, India Hotel…Cleaning up old posts…

Day #158 in lockdown in Mumbai, India Hotel…Cleaning up old posts…

Note; We hope everyone can find our site. I have no way to get a message to our readers who may be having trouble getting our usual link to load due to the necessity of emptying the cache on your browser. Your computer remembers our old hosting site, Blogger, and not our new hosting site, Hostinger, making it impossible for you to log in. If you clear your cache, the problem will be resolved, and no harm is done to your other settings. I have contacted our web developer to see if there is a way we can handle this on our end, but I don’t think there will be. We only hope you’ve found a way to find us. We still are at www.worldwidewaftage.com.

Enjoy our photos, yet again from South Kensington, London from this date in 2014, and found at this link. There are numerous food photos on this particular post from dining out in the area.

A prehistoric creature, at the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, London.

Since our new site went live, a few issues occurred that prompted me to make a tough decision to go back through every one of almost 3000 posts to correct any errors. There are 147 pages of 17-18 posts each. I will have to go through each post, one by one. I started yesterday from the first post on March 15, 2012, and have completed two of the 147 pages. I plan to do one page per day.

This is referred to as a Football Fish.

Another issue is that all old posts show a duplicate of the main photo at the top of each page. I’ve contacted our web developers today to see if they can correct this. Hopefully, soon this will be resolved. Please be patient with us as we work through this issue and a few other remaining issues.

More fish from rivers, lakes, and streams.

At this rate, if I do one page of 17 posts per day, I will complete the editing process in about five months. I finished this same process of correcting old posts about four years ago. However, with the recent transition to the new site, many lines and paragraph issues occurred. Also, in reviewing old posts, I’ve realized I’d missed many grammar and spelling errors in my past mission to correct the mistakes. Now, my goal is to correct everything. No doubt, it’s a daunting task which each day will take about an hour.

A lizard that puffs up the frill around the neck to scare off predators. This could not be very safe.

At first, I thought I’d do this each day before preparing each new post. But now, two days later, I realize I’d instead do it first thing in the morning. It’s not a pleasant task, like preparing a new post is for me. I’ve always been one to get the complex functions out of the way first thing in the morning, leaving me free to enjoy the remainder of the day’s tasks.

“Jaws!”

I was very disappointed to see how many errors there were in the old posts. I had no control over the line and paragraph spacing going wonky in the transition. But, the typos and grammar errors were all on me. It’s frustrating to face a 3,000 post string of errors when I think back over how hard I’d tried at the time to prepare each post correctly.

Komodo Dragons are found on the Indonesian islands of Komodo, Rinca, and Flores. We’ll be spending four months in Bali, Indonesia, in 2016, where tourists have spotted Komodo Dragons on occasion. Komodo Dragons are of the species of Monitor Lizards, two of which lived in our yard in Marloth Park, South Africa. Please see this link to see our photos when they made a rare appearance by the pool.

I do not doubt this new process; I’ll still miss a few corrections; Fortunately, WordPress, as opposed to Blogger. Is more aggressive in reminding writers to type correctly and avoid making errors. This is a tremendous help. I’ve been using the apps Gingerly and Grammarly the past few years, but even they have missed several mistakes I’d made.

More marine life.

I give myself a break on this because I realize I am preparing the equivalent of an essay 365 days a year, at times during challenging and stressful periods, comparable to those most recently. These scenarios are a breeding ground for making errors.

We saw a smaller version of similar crabs at the beach in Kenya which is on the eastern coast in Africa.  They moved so quickly. We couldn’t get a photo.

I laugh when texting family and friends over spellcheck changing words to unintelligible words and phrases, often leaving me in stitches. Then again, I usually type incorrectly since I’m slow when texting on my phone. I bet many of you relate to this laugh-worthy scenario.

Many of us lobster enthusiasts would appreciate a lobster of this size on a platter.

We love technology. But, technology is only as good as our skills to use it. I am not adept at web development, although I played a significant role in designing our new site. I am slow at typing, even after all these years of banging away on a keyboard. I pick away at a keyboard in a meager attempt to avoid typing errors. Even that hasn’t worked so well.

After many visits by Zebras in our yard in South Africa, seeing this lifelike rendition made me miss them.  Click this link to see Zebras that visited us in South Africa.

I am hoping to get done early enough today to watch an episode of The 100 on Netflix before 3:00 pm when Tom and I try to have time to start streaming a few shows together. We’ll see how it goes. Of course, whatever I do is interrupted by the necessity of walking every hour for at least ½ mile, .8 km,  to reach my daily goal of 5 miles, 8 km.

We saw Rhinos in the wild in Kenya. Some of the displays of Rhino were taxidermy.  There was a sign stating that the horns had been removed and replaced with man-materials. Please click here for a few of our Rhino photos from Kenya.

Through all this recent sadness over the loss of my sister and the stress of getting this site up and running, I’ve never missed a day of walking. Knowing this may be beneficial for my heart is my sole motivator. Consistency is important.

Ah, my heart did a flip flop when Tom spotted this warthog.  The first time either of us had ever seen a warthog was in October 2013, in the Masai Mara, Kenya, while on safari.  Of course, later in South Africa, we joyfully saw them each day.  Click here for the first time we saw a live warthog (scroll down the page).

Have a healthy and peaceful day!

Photo from one year ago today, August 28, 2019:

While on a walk in the quaint town of Falmouth, Cornwall, England, we encountered these vegetables for sale in a front garden. We selected a zucchini and a small pumpkin. We left the money in a jar sitting on the table. For more photos, please click here.
Day #157 in lockdown in Mumbai, India hotel…A lovely meeting in London in 2014…Terror in our favorite place in the world…

Day #157 in lockdown in Mumbai, India hotel…A lovely meeting in London in 2014…Terror in our favorite place in the world…

Note:  If you are able to read the posts on our new site on your smartphone, but not on your computer, laptop, or tablet, please empty your cache and you’ll be able to see us on those devices. If you don’t know how to do this, please email me with the operating system you use (Windows, Chrome, Safari, etc) and I will send you easy step by step instructions. Voila! The problem will be solved!

Today’s photos are from August 27, 2014, while in South Kensington, London from this link.

My lunch salad in the hotel dining room on a very small plate was US $10.77, 6.50 pounds.

Hello, again! Wow! I’m learning more and more each day about using WordPress and I’m liking it. No doubt, I could spend months learning every aspect of it. But, for what we do each day, it’s proving to be a relatively easy and enjoyable process with less system-generated errors than we previously experienced with Blogger.

I’m noticing most of our old posts, moved over from Blogger, are seriously impacted by inadequate paragraph spacing. I am contemplating going back over each of our almost 3,000 posts and correcting them, one by one. If I do 10 a day, I could finish in less than a year.

Liz’s vegetarian lunch in the hotel dining room.

No offense intended to Blogger. Good grief, they served our needs for over eight years since our first post on Match 15, 2012. (See the link here). Overall, it handled the massive size of our site without an annual hosting fee, whereas we now have to pay for hosting. With confidence and optimism, we signed up with Hostinger, a web hosting company for 48 months, hoping good health and mobility will keep us on the move and able to continue posting.

We continue with our plan of posting photos from years past and right now we are working our way through the 16 nights we spent in South Kensington, London in August 2014, thoroughly embracing English culture, art, and dining. The old notion that English food wasn’t palatable has changed dramatically over the decades.

How thoughtful of Liz for this useful set of organic products to prevent and treat insect bites, always my nemesis.

We found English food to be delicious, interesting, and often gourmet with a wide array of international flavors. We particularly enjoyed the popular local “Sunday roast” which generally consisted of meat, beef, pork, or lamb, falling off the bone with au jus, along with a plethora of various roasted vegetables. I skipped the potatoes and other starchy root vegetables and savored every Sunday’s treat, as did Tom.Liz’s husband Dave sent this bottle of beer for Tom.  Tonight, we’ll chill it on ice and he’ll drink a toast to Liz and Dave for their thoughtfulness.

It was a year ago we spent over two months in England and we never hesitated to partake of Sunday roast at local pubs and restaurants. A few times, we prepared our own Sunday roast, using selected pot roast cuts of beef, a meal we’ve always enjoyed with carrots, onions, whole portobello mushrooms with big chunks of fresh garlic and spices. What a treat!

My mouth is watering as I write this. We haven’t had a morsel of beef since we arrived in India seven months ago, five of which we’ve spent in lockdown, dining on the exact same meals over and over again. Not only do we miss an occasional glass of red wine or a cocktail, but also such simple meals as a bun-less burger, topped with crispy bacon, sliced tomato, and onion, lettuce with homemade sugar-free ketchup. We haven’t had a salad in months.

Tom’s Calzone at Bella Italia in the neighborhood.

And this reminds me to get on with the story about today’s photos when six years ago, we met a devoted reader and new friend Liz, who took a two-hour train ride from Bristol to South Kensington to meet with us at our hotel. Again, here’s the link to that post with today’s photos.

Not only was it utterly delightful to meet Liz on that date and share both lunch and dinner with her, later walking her to the train station in the dark, but the continuation of that friendship over the years since that time. Last year, in October, while staying in Wales for 11 days we had an opportunity to see Liz once again, this time with her husband Dave when we all dined at a fabulous restaurant along the river. More on that in October.

My dinner at Bella Italia of two small chicken breasts in a pot of red sauce with a side of grilled vegetables.

Please excuse today’s main photo for being blurred. Guess who took the photo? Speaking of photos, I’m chomping at the bit to be able to take and share new photos. Who knows how long it will be before its possible? It could be many months from now.

As for the above mention of “terror in our favorite place in the world,” we’re referring to yesterday’s fire in Marloth Park that totally destroyed three bush houses and damaged a fourth, supposedly from the cigarette of an installer of a thatched roof. High winds caused the fire to rage so quickly, nothing could be done quickly enough to save the bush houses. Due to the dry terrain during this time of year, there’s always a high risk of fires. We were always mindful when cooking outdoors to ensure safety. A fire could destroy the entire conservatory with horrific consequences.

Liz’s dinner of vegetarian cannelloni and a side salad.

Not much happening today. After a good night’s sleep last night, today I feel refreshed and more energized than I’ve felt in many days. Hopefulness prevails.

Be well.

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Photo from one year ago today, August 27, 2019:
                                     Sunrise over the bay in Falmouth, Cornwall, England. For more, please click here.