<P> Vasco da Gama continued north, arriving on 14 April 1498 at the friendlier port of Malindi, whose leaders were having a conflict with those of Mombasa . There the expedition first noted evidence of Indian traders . Da Gama and his crew contracted the services of a pilot who used his knowledge of the monsoon winds to guide the expedition the rest of the way to Calicut, located on the southwest coast of India . Sources differ over the identity of the pilot, calling him variously a Christian, a Muslim, and a Gujarati . One traditional story describes the pilot as the famous Arab navigator Ibn Majid, but other contemporaneous accounts place Majid elsewhere, and he could not have been near the vicinity at the time . None of the Portuguese historians of the time mentions Ibn Majid . Vasco da Gama left Malindi for India on 24 April 1498 . </P> <P> The fleet arrived in Kappadu near Kozhikode (Calicut), in Malabar Coast (present day Kerala state of India), on 20 May 1498 . The King of Calicut, the Samudiri (Zamorin), who was at that time staying in his second capital at Ponnani, returned to Calicut on hearing the news of the foreign fleets's arrival . The navigator was received with traditional hospitality, including a grand procession of at least 3,000 armed Nairs, but an interview with the Zamorin failed to produce any concrete results . When local authorities asked da Gama's fleet, "What brought you hither?", they replied that they had come "in search of Christians and spices ." The presents that da Gama sent to the Zamorin as gifts from Dom Manuel--four cloaks of scarlet cloth, six hats, four branches of corals, twelve almasares, a box with seven brass vessels, a chest of sugar, two barrels of oil and a cask of honey--were trivial, and failed to impress . While Zamorin's officials wondered at why there was no gold or silver, the Muslim merchants who considered da Gama their rival suggested that the latter was only an ordinary pirate and not a royal ambassador . Vasco da Gama's request for permission to leave a factor behind him in charge of the merchandise he could not sell was turned down by the King, who insisted that da Gama pay customs duty--preferably in gold--like any other trader, which strained the relation between the two . Annoyed by this, da Gama carried a few Nairs and sixteen fishermen (mukkuva) off with him by force . Nevertheless, da Gama's expedition was successful beyond all reasonable expectation, bringing in cargo that was worth sixty times the cost of the expedition . </P> <P> Vasco da Gama left Calicut on 29 August 1498 . Eager to set sail for home, he ignored the local knowledge of monsoon wind patterns that were still blowing onshore . The fleet initially inched north along the Indian coast, and then anchored in at Anjediva island for a spell . They finally struck out for their Indian Ocean crossing on 3 October 1498 . But with the winter monsoon yet to set in, it was a harrowing journey . On the outgoing journey, sailing with the summer monsoon wind, da Gama's fleet crossed the Indian Ocean in only 23 days; now, on the return trip, sailing against the wind, it took 132 days . </P> <P> Da Gama saw land again only on 2 January 1499, passing before the coastal Somali city of Mogadishu, then under the influence of the Ajuran Empire in the Horn of Africa . The fleet did not make a stop, but passing before Mogadishu, the anonymous diarist of the expedition noted that it was a large city with houses of four or five storeys high and big palaces in its center and many mosques with cylindrical minarets . </P>

Who reached the west coast of india at calicut port