![]() ![]() This felt almost completely off the tourist map, for better and worse: The city itself was something of a pit. Our next stop was in Mangalore, known as the Silicon Valley of India. It was a fascinating stop, and, again, one that didn't feel swarming with cruise visitors. You'll also see fishermen dipping wooden nets-a contraption introduced by Chinese traders around the same time-into the sea for their daily catch. In one outing you can see a 15th-century church (that was Dutch, then Portuguese, then English) alongside the oldest Jewish synagogue in India, built in the 1500s. As a result, there's a historically layered feel to the architecture and the cultural influences. From there we stopped for two days in Cochin, India, a city in the southern Indian state of Kerala that was a key hub of the international spice trade for centuries. Although there was another cruise ship at the docks, Colombo felt like an excitingly off-the-radar port of entry, not at all overrun. Tell us more: Where did you go, what did you see? Any ports you didn't like? And how 'bout the shore excursions: Did you take the cruise line's official tours, or did you DIY it?Colombo has rebounded vibrantly in the few years since the country's civil war, and you can visit some lovely Hindu temples, art galleries, and shining examples of Tropical Modernism, the architecture school founded by 20th-century Sri Lankan architect Jeffrey Bawa. During the India leg of the trip, there were closer to 700 passengers, which was a nice amount: convivial but not crowded, both on-board and during excursions. ![]() The Serenity is a midsize ship with a capacity of 1,080. Where did you hop aboard?I sailed on the Crystal Serenity for a six-day leg of their 2018 world cruise, boarding in Colombo, Sri Lanka and getting off in Mumbai, India.
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