Our scheduled arrival time was 7 AM. The ship is going to be docked for a few hours. We need to be back on board by 12:30 PM. As usual the ship was already docked by the time we got our coffee from room service.

On first impression, Ketchikan is a pretty city established on Ketchikan creek. It has a beautiful mountainous backdrop.

We had a scheduled shore excursion for highlights of the city and its environs. The excursion lasted about 90 minutes and was via a quaint trolley (looked like a railcar on tires). The driver, a young man, was both the driver and the narrator. He was enthusiastic and had interesting anecdotes to recount. But there was nothing noteworthy. The highlight of the tour was the native village of Saxman a couple of miles off the city. It reputedly contains the largest number of totem poles. What was interesting was the price of totem poles for sale in the local shop peddling trinkets and such. It seemed curious that they would get these totem poles made in China and Laos and get them shipped over here! They also did have the same things made by local artisans. The price difference was extraordinary! The imported ones cost between 5 and 10 dollars for totem poles from 6 to 12 inches whereas the locally made totem poles cost 10 times as much from 50 to 150 dollars. Amazing. But why would anyone want to buy a totem pole from China?

We got back from tour around 11:30 AM. We hurried to shop for more trinkets. For a change it wasn't Sandhya who was the impulse purchaser, it was me! For some reason I had this intense desire to buy a thermometer and a pocket knife. Strange! Maybe I was taken off guard by all this relaxation.