Every day we are graced with the wonderful Dean’s Memo in our e-mail inbox. It is basically just a newsletter full of updates about the shipboard community. Meetings, important notices, events, announcements, and the TV schedule is listed in the memo. I like to call the memo “Daddy’s Memo” since my adoptive father on the boat is the dean. However my point of sharing this with you is that every memo there is a daily quote. Some of them are too great to pass up and I particularly felt today’s quote was very fitting, so I have decided to share it with you all as I feel it is a perfect testament to my personal thoughts lately!
“For whatever we lose (like a you or a me) it’s always ourselves we find in the sea.”
-e.e. cummings
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Our AMAZING Cabin Steward
I must mention that Amber and I have the best cabin steward. Every day he comes in and makes our bed and leaves us fresh towels. His name is Joel and he makes me smile every day. Whenever I come out of my room early in the morning he always screams my name and subsequently wakes me up with a smile. He can be found singing songs such as “Shake Your Booty” or various versions of a song in which he says our name over and over. We even saw him out on the town in Penang once. He is the best! We have a crew talent show tonight and encouraged Joel to sing a song, hopefully we will see him on stage in a bit.
Mes Amies (My Friends) :)
I thought I would give a brief update about “my friends” on this voyage. I often refer to them in my blog and they are a large part of my wonderful experiences during these past few months. We already talk about how hard it will be when December rolls around and we all venture off the boat back into our lives at our individual universities. We try not to think about that dreadful day and rather enjoy all of our adventures on the boat (and plan trips to see each other at our respective schools come next semester). With this said, I have met such an amazing group of people on this boat, a list which would go on forever. However below are brief descriptions of a few of my close friends that I am constantly with and who I typically refer to in this blog.
Amber: Well many of you obviously know Amber but just to introduce her to all of you who do not know her, Amber and I were roommates at USD last year. She is from Newport Beach, California and after spending a summer apart we could not have been more excited to start on our journey around the world.
Sarah: Sarah and I had actually met before Semester at Sea, one of her friends from high school goes to USD with me (Amanda Shaffer). Sarah has visited Amanda at school and I had met her then, thus when we found out we were both coming on SAS we were excited but we did not know each other well. Now we are quite close, the crew always asks if we are sisters or cousins. Sarah is from San Diego and goes to school at Santa Clara University.
Allison: Allison and Sarah knew each other before as they both go to school at Santa Clara. Allison is from Santa Barbara, California. I met Allison the first day on the boat randomly when Amber and I were exploring the MV and I saw Sarah who was with Allison. Since then, we have all been inseparable. I am constantly in Sarah and Allison’s room laughing, watching DVDs, or just hanging out.
Darcy: Darcy is from Wyoming and goes to school there. Allison and Sarah met Darcy randomly while we were in Brazil and we all hung out a lot in Cape Town and ever since then. We can are all commonly be found in Sarah and Allison’s room (laughing, watching DVDs, or just chit-chatting about our experiences) or on the 7th deck hanging out with our favorite crew members like Lazlo, Edguardo, and Miserm.
Lots of Love,
Maggie
Amber and I @ Amber Fort
Allison, Me, Sarah, and Amber @ the Taj
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Allison, Me, Sarah, Darcy & Jenny @ the "Gods & Godesses" dance on the boat
Allison, Me, & Sarah @ a beach party in Namibia
The Long Journey From Cape Town to India
Hello…so this boat must have made my mind a bit loopy, but I forgot to post this brief entry updating you all on life at sea. I wrote this before we got India…enjoy.
Hello All:
I just thought I would give a quick update before we arrive to India. This has been the longest stretch on the boat thus far and is the longest time we will have to be on the boat, it has been 11 days. It has gone by really fast thanks to all the midterms we have had this week. We have spent this stretch studying and writing papers it feels like, but now we will have a nice break. Classes on the boat have proved to more challenging than expected, but we are still “making it work.”
On our day off we had the Sea Olympics which basically is a day full of relays, games, and competitions. Your team is determined by your “sea” or floor that you live on. Our sea name is the Caribbean Sea. The whole day was lots of fun and we all dressed in orange to support our team color. I (Maggie) competed in the orange pass (where you can’t use your hands and have to pass an orange down the line)…naturally I dropped the orange but I was at the beginning and our team still managed to win. I also competed in the paper boat contest where we had 4 sheets of paper, a spoon, and a 10 inch piece of tape to make a boat. Our boat did really well. The pool had to be drained that day so we had to float our boats in buckets. Our boat lasted 30 minutes, at that point we had to add water and a spoon to the boat and our boat sadly got 2nd but I was still proud of my boat making skills!
That night we had a “Gods and Godesses” dance on the 7th deck which provided us with a nice excuse to get dressed in our best goddesses-esque clothing. Needless to say our options were limited to the clothes we brought with us but we still managed. The dance was lots of fun except it was on the 7th deck when it was extremely rocky so dancing basically consisted of us running into one another.
Right now Amber is reading a book called Shantram. It was recommended to us in Namibia and now all of our friends are reading it. I have just started but I would recommend it if you are looking for a read. It is set in India so it has made us very excited to get to the city!
That is all for now, expect to hear from me again very soon!
Love,
Maggie
Hello All:
I just thought I would give a quick update before we arrive to India. This has been the longest stretch on the boat thus far and is the longest time we will have to be on the boat, it has been 11 days. It has gone by really fast thanks to all the midterms we have had this week. We have spent this stretch studying and writing papers it feels like, but now we will have a nice break. Classes on the boat have proved to more challenging than expected, but we are still “making it work.”
On our day off we had the Sea Olympics which basically is a day full of relays, games, and competitions. Your team is determined by your “sea” or floor that you live on. Our sea name is the Caribbean Sea. The whole day was lots of fun and we all dressed in orange to support our team color. I (Maggie) competed in the orange pass (where you can’t use your hands and have to pass an orange down the line)…naturally I dropped the orange but I was at the beginning and our team still managed to win. I also competed in the paper boat contest where we had 4 sheets of paper, a spoon, and a 10 inch piece of tape to make a boat. Our boat did really well. The pool had to be drained that day so we had to float our boats in buckets. Our boat lasted 30 minutes, at that point we had to add water and a spoon to the boat and our boat sadly got 2nd but I was still proud of my boat making skills!
That night we had a “Gods and Godesses” dance on the 7th deck which provided us with a nice excuse to get dressed in our best goddesses-esque clothing. Needless to say our options were limited to the clothes we brought with us but we still managed. The dance was lots of fun except it was on the 7th deck when it was extremely rocky so dancing basically consisted of us running into one another.
Right now Amber is reading a book called Shantram. It was recommended to us in Namibia and now all of our friends are reading it. I have just started but I would recommend it if you are looking for a read. It is set in India so it has made us very excited to get to the city!
That is all for now, expect to hear from me again very soon!
Love,
Maggie
Monday, October 27, 2008
More Red Feather Stories...
I just thought I would give a brief update on the adventures of my red feathers. In my previous blog post about the red feathers, I had dropped feathers in Brazil, Namibia, and South Africa. Now I can add 2 more places to my list…I am getting close to having red feathers all around the world!
4) India: I left my red feather in India at the Taj Mahal, I let go of it in the air and it landed in of the crystal clear pools that surround the Taj.
5) Malaysia: After travelling all around the city of Kuala Lumpar, I decided to let my feather go on the busy streets of this city. I let my feather go with the famous KL Tower behind me and it landed in the midst of all the traffic in the “city of lights.”
Peace and Love,
Maggie
4) India: I left my red feather in India at the Taj Mahal, I let go of it in the air and it landed in of the crystal clear pools that surround the Taj.
5) Malaysia: After travelling all around the city of Kuala Lumpar, I decided to let my feather go on the busy streets of this city. I let my feather go with the famous KL Tower behind me and it landed in the midst of all the traffic in the “city of lights.”
Peace and Love,
Maggie
My Journey in India
Hello All! Hope all is well back in the states, I just wanted to give you all a recap of my time in India.
My journey in India started about 2 weeks ago when we arrived in Chennai early morning on October 14th. Usually when we get to the dock it is a scramble to jump off the boat by way of the gangway but for Chennai we had a SAS sponsored trip planned so I decided to stay on the boat since my meeting time was at noon. Therefore the city of Chennai was pretty much a mystery to me until I returned from my journey around India on the last day. We did have an hour drive to the airport from the boat where we got a little taste of Chennai. At first, India was pretty much what I expected...there were lots of women in saris and insane traffic. We saw a group of Indian students on the bus next to us and they waved to us, making us feel welcomed by their warm smiles. Before arriving to the port, SAS had stressed that we dress modestly while in India. While I had no problem with this, as I saw it as a sign of respect for the Indian culture, I was still surprised to see how modestly all the people dressed. Sometimes SAS tends to exaggerate the cultural norms that exist in these countries but for this norm, SAS prepared us well. Even on the hottest of days all the women were covered in beautiful saris and there were little traces of Western fashion trends such as jean shorts and tank tops flooding the streets. It was a nice change of pace and I liked the challenge to make my wardrobe modest yet still comfortable in the heat for a week.
Arriving to the airport in these various countries is always exciting to me. I feel like airports are the one thing that I can rely on in all these countries to be the essentially the same. I feel like it is a safe haven in a sense yet there are still subtle differences in the variety of airports, such as the bathrooms as Amber talked about in her India recap (no toilets, no toilet paper, just holes in the ground!). Before we knew it we boarded our plane to Mumbai, then deplaned and loaded onto a bus that drove us literally in a circle and then to the plane directly next to our first plane. It seemed pointless but was a fun little adventure. We boarded our plane to Delhi; at this point I could not sleep anymore so Allison and I played an intense card game of Spit. In between our intense games we read Shantaram (a book that takes place in India). In fact everyone in our row on the plane was reading the same book. The flight attendants were so nice and insisted on getting us beverages or food. After a long flight we got off the plane and walked to our buses. Along the walkway to the buses there were hundreds of Indian men who were waiting for people to get off the plane, they stood with signs with people’s names on it and had the biggest smiles. We felt like we were thrown into the India culture immediately and it woke us all up with excitement. When we got to our buses we were given beautiful yellow-flowered leis. We drove to our hotel and our tour guide Sanjay introduced himself to us. He was very nervous about his English but we kept assuring him that we could understand him. Once arriving to the hotel red ash was placed on our forehead to welcome us into the hotel. We stayed at the Intercontinental which was very luxurious, somewhat unnecessary since we were only there for 6 hours but we took time to enjoy the luxurious bed, flat screen tvs, showers, and delicious food buffet (probably the best meal I have ever had...besides Mom's Santa Fe Pasta and Nanna and Pop-Pops spaghetti, of course). After having dinner, a group of us went to the hotel bar to unwind for a little before hitting the hay at around 2:00 am. I fell asleep watching an old episode of Grey's Anatomy which put me in touch with American culture.
My night sleep turned into a nap as we woke up at 4:00 am. We got dressed, modestly of course, and headed to the train station. When we walked onto the bus in the morning it was still dark making us all more aware of how early it was so on the way to the train we all dozed off a bit. However we were abruptly awaken when in the middle of traffic (which included rickshaws, buses, motorcycles, cows, dogs, people, and more) Sanjay announced that we would be getting off the bus and walking to the train station. It was crazy and immediately woke us all up. I was walking and staring at the gorgeous moon when all of the sudden someone yelled my name and as I turned around there was a car right behind me that was not going to stop. I quickly jumped out of the way and made it out clear. There were people everywhere at the train station; there were people sleeping and people carrying big bags. It was my first real sight into the poverty that I would begin to get used to. At that point I remember being so tired but so shocked at the same time. I felt uncomfortable and just wanted to get on the train but at the same time I was extremely curious to how that amount of people could be living on the streets without any sort of patrol.
The train ride was a pleasant surprised, I took advantage of my sleep mask for part of it but woke up just in time to see the sun rising over giant wheat fields, making me feel like I was in Kansas for a brief second. As we arrived to the train station we saw goats just grazing the fields and cows walking all around. When we got off the train we were immediately bombarded by children asking for money. One man bent down and started washing Allison’s shoes with his hands without her asking, she tried to walk away (because he would want money), but he just kept following her, it was a bit amusing and she gave him some money after. As we got on our bus, children would come up to the door just pointing to their mouths and asking for money. The emotions that this brings are unexplainable. I felt a strange reaction of both sympathy and uncomfort of which I would grow accustomed too. We stopped by a hotel for a quick lunch complete with the delicious nan which is toasted unleavened bread that you eat with curry sauce and it is delicious.
Then it was time for the....TAJ MAHAL. This was the site that I most looked forward to on Semester at Sea so I was itching with excitement. When you enter the Taj area there are huge red stone buildings with gorgeous tile work and then all of a sudden you enter one and you can see the giant white Taj through the archway. Once arriving to the Taj I stood there in awe, it was more beautiful then I could imagine. Sanjay organized a photographer to take a group and individual pictures in front of the Taj, and then we got to roam the gardens that lead up to the Taj. You have to put shoe covers on to enter the Taj, when you walk in it is dark, dimly lit, cold, and there are tombs that sit in the middle. We only spent a few minutes inside because the glory of the Taj is the outside architecture. After exploring it was time to let go of my red feather, which I did right in front of the Taj. It fell in a pool of water so my bright red feather tainted the perfectly kept grounds and crystal clear water that surrounded the Taj. I was a little nervous about getting in trouble but I think my little red feather added some color to the area. When leaving the Taj we were approached by some Indian woman whose husbands asked if we would take a picture with them, this was a common event during our week in India. When leaving the Taj we were bombarded by people selling everything from Taj Mahal t-shirts, key chains, Kama Sutra books, postcards, and bracelets. It is one of the most frustrating things because they come up to you and literally walk with you for a mile telling you to buy their things, after a while you can either get annoyed or just roll with it. When the kids came up to me I would always tell them to go ask my friends behind me or I would just talk to them for a little and joke around. Walking back to the bus, we say woman with their naked babies or children begging for money, It was moments like these that made India "India." As poor as these people were they had such richness to them that was beautiful. Once getting on the bus the sellers all poke their way through the door like sardines until the bus driver decides to close the door (once someone got stuck into he door!) and drive off.
By this point it was not even 12:00 and we had seen the Taj, I felt satisfied but knew my day was not complete. Then we headed to the Red Fort which was a beautiful fort made of red sandstone and featured large columns. It was very nice to walk around and mediate. One of my most prominent memories of India happened here. On my way in I had bought this fan made of peacock feathers, I’m not really sure what compelled me to buy it right there but I do love peacocks and thought it would be a good decoration and possibly keep me cool so I went for it. While walking around the fort (a bit tired) a little girl came out of the blue and asked us to take a picture with her. At first I thought the group of parents next to her was her family, but I later found out she was all alone. I was with my friend Kelly and we each took a picture with her and I showed her my peacock fan. She held it in the picture and then I took it out of its plastic covering and let her play with it. She became so happy and just kept giggling and smiling. I noticed as she was holding the fan that she was in clothes that were too small and dirty, her pants were not even zipped. But she just loved the peacock feathers, she kept tickling her face with the feathers and then she would come to Kelly and me and tickle our faces with the peacock feathers. She was so generous and sincere. After a while Kelly and I had to go, and I decided to give the girl the feather. We got up to start walking away and she immediately gave it back to me but I told her she could have it. Her eyes lit up even greater than before, she gently placed the fan back in the bag, and hugged it close to her body. She said thank you and gave us a hug, as she we walked away I realized she was by herself. She walked away down the long pathway towards the red building alone clutching the feather. As we walked away she looked back at me still smiling and skipping. I got a little teary-eyed after and when I look at the girl’s picture, I still get tears in my eyes. As poor as this child was, she had this wonderful joy and glorious happiness that radiated from her, she reminded me of a little peacock in her own right. I still can’t stop thinking about her. There are these powerful encounters that I have with children or people in these countries and then we leave and I can’t help but think what happens to them in 3 years or when they are my age. It is my deepest hope that they find happiness and comfort at some point but I am not naive to believe that this can always happen.
After this excursion we started our 6 hour drive to Jaipur. On our way there we stopped at another temple area. We were given free time so we just explored but then some local students, one of whom loved Michael Jackson, came up to us and told us to go with them to this mosque where we could make a wish. A big group of us followed the students who insisted on each being a tour guide to a specific individual. We had to take our shoes off and cover our hair in the mosque. They kept taking us all around this mosque area, it was crazy! They would lead us to one area and then lead us to another and we would say we wanted to go where our friends where and they would lead us in the complete other direction. We finally got to the wish wall and then wanted to head back to the bus but at that point they would not leave us alone and they wanted money but we did not bring any off the bus. We literally had to run with all our might to get away front hem and get back to the boat. It was on of the most intense but interesting experiences of the trip.
Afterwards we got on the bus and started our drive to Jaipur. After a while we stopped at a gas station and afterwards we started karaoke in the bus. We had iPod speakers and Sanjay gave us his microphone. After a while, we finally arrived to our hotel and enjoyed dinner. After a nice shower, we went to the lobby and got henna on our arms. Henna is a temporary tattoo (it only lasts for 20 days) that is brown and it usually wraps around your arms and is on your fingers. It was just one of the parts of the Indian culture we began to adopt during our adventure.
The next day we woke up early but it was well worth it because we got to ride elephants! Amber and I rode the same elephant named Mundi. Our elephant guide was really kind and he let me wear his turban and we all sang songs on our way up making our ride even more memorable. We took the elephants up to Amber Fort. The Fort was gorgeous; the outside was decorated in the most gorgeous floral design made from pastels. There was a giant Ganesha (one of the gods commonly found all around India that we all became obsessed with) and a whole wall full of mirrors. The Fort was so fun to play around in and explore, I felt like a little kid at Leaps and Bounds. Later that day we were taken to local markets so that we could shop. It was a neat experience because we got to see how all of our purchases were made. First we went to a jewelry store and we got to see how the gems were carved from the stones, then we got to walk around and look and try on all the fancy jewelry. Next we went to a rug store, right when we walked in one of the workers making the rug signaled for me to come sit by him and he taught me how to knit an Indian rug. It was so cool, but the man's hands worked fast so I had to make sure to pay attention so I could learn how to keep up! After a man showed us how they get images printed on fabric by using a series of these huge wooden stamps. Then we got to see all the steps it took to make a rug. After we were taken to a huge room where they laid out all the beautiful rugs so that we could see them and potentially make a purchase. Next they took us to this huge room with tons of fabrics, saris, scarves, pashminas, and sheets all made from the most beautiful Indian fabrics. Needless to say, I loved this experience of seeing clothing and fabric from a completely different country. By the end of the excursion we were all decked out in scarves and bindis...we almost blended right in to the Indian culture. Next on our list of activities was a trip back to the hotel for lunch, and then we went to two more sights. One was a sight where there were giant sun dials to tell the time and then we went to a king's palace that had the most beautiful painted doorways and there were monkeys climbing all around the palace. We got to venture into a quick exhibit that featured a variety of traditional Indian outfits; it was like a fashion museum for the history of India. Then we went to a smaller market that featured jewelry, paintings, shoes and much more. This art work was done by the handicap or the proceeds we spent went to the handicap people of India. Afterwards, our tour guide Sanjay informed us that we had the option to go to a traditional Indian street market, we all wanted to have a taste of the traditional market that people in India experience daily, so we decided to go, not knowing what we were about to experience. We basically got dropped off on our bus in the middle of the street and were told to cross the street. I would compare it to crossing the street in Times Square, if all the traffic lights and signs were not working, there were cows roaming the streets aimlessly, and bikes and rickshaws and motorcycles everywhere. Crossing the streets of this roundabout to the market was so intense, one wrong move and we could have been hit by a cow or worst, however local men helped us cross the street and we spent an hour or so at the market picking up pashminas, bindis, and a box of henna. After this we headed back to the hotel to get ready for a traditional Indian dinner. I decided to put my purchases to use and wore scarves, bindis, henna and lots of bangles.
The next morning, we had an early morning wake up call to start our drive back to Delhi, where our plane would leave from. Along the way to the airport we stopped at a few sights. One of which was the monument that the Taj Mahal was molded after, we called it the fake Taj Mahal or the "Faj Mahal." Even though really the Taj Mahal copied this monument. We also got to see the oldest monument in India which was a large minaret. Then we headed to the airport where we met up with some other SAS groups that had traveled to the Taj and Delhi, our plane was basically full of SAS students and faculty. On our way back to the boat we asked our bus drivers to listen to music and they ended up playing music videos for us which I found very interesting because I got to learn a bit about Indian pop culture through these videos. Finally, we arrived back to the boat and I could not have been more excited to take a shower and sleep in my bed. A lovely package from home was waiting for me on my bed which made my return to the boat even better.
The next day was our last day in India; I decided to sleep in a little. Then around 10:30, I went to an FDP in the Union on the boat that discussed Human Rights in India, it was lead by a female lawyer from India. After I decided to leave the boat so that I could venture into the streets of Chennai as I had not had the chance to do so since we left for out Taj trip the first day. We decided to go to this mall/market, it was supposed to be an easy and relaxing afternoon but it turned out there was this huge political rally going on in the streets, so it took almost an hour to get to the mall. However, it was the most stressful time in the cab, I was sitting in the front so I had to witness all the quick turns we made and all the people we almost hit, it was intense to say the least. Once getting to the mall, I was thrilled to find a shop with Ganesha statues. All along, I had wanted to find a giant Ganesha statue; needless to say I found one that is about a foot tall. After leaving the mall, we had an even more intense ride back because we decided to take a rickshaw and I again sat in the front with the driver. It took us an hour to get back and we were worried about not making it for on ship time, but we made it with a few minutes to spare which was a great relief.
Once returning to my room, Amber and I transformed our room. We put Ganesha under our window, sitting proud and tall. I draped my new sheets on my bed and Amber hung scarves from the ceilings. Now we like to call our room the Ganesha Palace and encourage people to say Namaste when they enter and then we hand out bindis or henna our visitors. It is our little Indian palace!
My journey in India is hard to put into words, I saw a lot, experienced a lot, and got a lot out of it. One of my teachers told us before going to India that while we are there to just take everything in and not try to figure it all out. That’s what I focused on; I wanted to just take time to notice all the people, the art, and the culture that surrounded India. The days on the boat between India and Malaysia were my time to digest everything I saw. Those days following my time in India proved to be a bit emotionally challenging as I rediscovered and reanalyzed everything I saw. I came to realize that India is a wonderful place of tremendous contrast; it is like nothing else I have seen in my life. I saw the most poor I could imagine seeing, yet I saw such richness through the people of India's smiles. I saw some of the most beautiful sights, and then saw some of the poorest areas. I smelled the most wonderful smells of incense and curry then would walk on the streets smelling like cows and more. It is indescribable yet one of the most fantastic places I have ever seen.
Well thanks for reading my short story about my time in India. Have a wonderful day all!
Love from Across the Sea,
Maggie
My journey in India started about 2 weeks ago when we arrived in Chennai early morning on October 14th. Usually when we get to the dock it is a scramble to jump off the boat by way of the gangway but for Chennai we had a SAS sponsored trip planned so I decided to stay on the boat since my meeting time was at noon. Therefore the city of Chennai was pretty much a mystery to me until I returned from my journey around India on the last day. We did have an hour drive to the airport from the boat where we got a little taste of Chennai. At first, India was pretty much what I expected...there were lots of women in saris and insane traffic. We saw a group of Indian students on the bus next to us and they waved to us, making us feel welcomed by their warm smiles. Before arriving to the port, SAS had stressed that we dress modestly while in India. While I had no problem with this, as I saw it as a sign of respect for the Indian culture, I was still surprised to see how modestly all the people dressed. Sometimes SAS tends to exaggerate the cultural norms that exist in these countries but for this norm, SAS prepared us well. Even on the hottest of days all the women were covered in beautiful saris and there were little traces of Western fashion trends such as jean shorts and tank tops flooding the streets. It was a nice change of pace and I liked the challenge to make my wardrobe modest yet still comfortable in the heat for a week.
Arriving to the airport in these various countries is always exciting to me. I feel like airports are the one thing that I can rely on in all these countries to be the essentially the same. I feel like it is a safe haven in a sense yet there are still subtle differences in the variety of airports, such as the bathrooms as Amber talked about in her India recap (no toilets, no toilet paper, just holes in the ground!). Before we knew it we boarded our plane to Mumbai, then deplaned and loaded onto a bus that drove us literally in a circle and then to the plane directly next to our first plane. It seemed pointless but was a fun little adventure. We boarded our plane to Delhi; at this point I could not sleep anymore so Allison and I played an intense card game of Spit. In between our intense games we read Shantaram (a book that takes place in India). In fact everyone in our row on the plane was reading the same book. The flight attendants were so nice and insisted on getting us beverages or food. After a long flight we got off the plane and walked to our buses. Along the walkway to the buses there were hundreds of Indian men who were waiting for people to get off the plane, they stood with signs with people’s names on it and had the biggest smiles. We felt like we were thrown into the India culture immediately and it woke us all up with excitement. When we got to our buses we were given beautiful yellow-flowered leis. We drove to our hotel and our tour guide Sanjay introduced himself to us. He was very nervous about his English but we kept assuring him that we could understand him. Once arriving to the hotel red ash was placed on our forehead to welcome us into the hotel. We stayed at the Intercontinental which was very luxurious, somewhat unnecessary since we were only there for 6 hours but we took time to enjoy the luxurious bed, flat screen tvs, showers, and delicious food buffet (probably the best meal I have ever had...besides Mom's Santa Fe Pasta and Nanna and Pop-Pops spaghetti, of course). After having dinner, a group of us went to the hotel bar to unwind for a little before hitting the hay at around 2:00 am. I fell asleep watching an old episode of Grey's Anatomy which put me in touch with American culture.
My night sleep turned into a nap as we woke up at 4:00 am. We got dressed, modestly of course, and headed to the train station. When we walked onto the bus in the morning it was still dark making us all more aware of how early it was so on the way to the train we all dozed off a bit. However we were abruptly awaken when in the middle of traffic (which included rickshaws, buses, motorcycles, cows, dogs, people, and more) Sanjay announced that we would be getting off the bus and walking to the train station. It was crazy and immediately woke us all up. I was walking and staring at the gorgeous moon when all of the sudden someone yelled my name and as I turned around there was a car right behind me that was not going to stop. I quickly jumped out of the way and made it out clear. There were people everywhere at the train station; there were people sleeping and people carrying big bags. It was my first real sight into the poverty that I would begin to get used to. At that point I remember being so tired but so shocked at the same time. I felt uncomfortable and just wanted to get on the train but at the same time I was extremely curious to how that amount of people could be living on the streets without any sort of patrol.
The train ride was a pleasant surprised, I took advantage of my sleep mask for part of it but woke up just in time to see the sun rising over giant wheat fields, making me feel like I was in Kansas for a brief second. As we arrived to the train station we saw goats just grazing the fields and cows walking all around. When we got off the train we were immediately bombarded by children asking for money. One man bent down and started washing Allison’s shoes with his hands without her asking, she tried to walk away (because he would want money), but he just kept following her, it was a bit amusing and she gave him some money after. As we got on our bus, children would come up to the door just pointing to their mouths and asking for money. The emotions that this brings are unexplainable. I felt a strange reaction of both sympathy and uncomfort of which I would grow accustomed too. We stopped by a hotel for a quick lunch complete with the delicious nan which is toasted unleavened bread that you eat with curry sauce and it is delicious.
Then it was time for the....TAJ MAHAL. This was the site that I most looked forward to on Semester at Sea so I was itching with excitement. When you enter the Taj area there are huge red stone buildings with gorgeous tile work and then all of a sudden you enter one and you can see the giant white Taj through the archway. Once arriving to the Taj I stood there in awe, it was more beautiful then I could imagine. Sanjay organized a photographer to take a group and individual pictures in front of the Taj, and then we got to roam the gardens that lead up to the Taj. You have to put shoe covers on to enter the Taj, when you walk in it is dark, dimly lit, cold, and there are tombs that sit in the middle. We only spent a few minutes inside because the glory of the Taj is the outside architecture. After exploring it was time to let go of my red feather, which I did right in front of the Taj. It fell in a pool of water so my bright red feather tainted the perfectly kept grounds and crystal clear water that surrounded the Taj. I was a little nervous about getting in trouble but I think my little red feather added some color to the area. When leaving the Taj we were approached by some Indian woman whose husbands asked if we would take a picture with them, this was a common event during our week in India. When leaving the Taj we were bombarded by people selling everything from Taj Mahal t-shirts, key chains, Kama Sutra books, postcards, and bracelets. It is one of the most frustrating things because they come up to you and literally walk with you for a mile telling you to buy their things, after a while you can either get annoyed or just roll with it. When the kids came up to me I would always tell them to go ask my friends behind me or I would just talk to them for a little and joke around. Walking back to the bus, we say woman with their naked babies or children begging for money, It was moments like these that made India "India." As poor as these people were they had such richness to them that was beautiful. Once getting on the bus the sellers all poke their way through the door like sardines until the bus driver decides to close the door (once someone got stuck into he door!) and drive off.
By this point it was not even 12:00 and we had seen the Taj, I felt satisfied but knew my day was not complete. Then we headed to the Red Fort which was a beautiful fort made of red sandstone and featured large columns. It was very nice to walk around and mediate. One of my most prominent memories of India happened here. On my way in I had bought this fan made of peacock feathers, I’m not really sure what compelled me to buy it right there but I do love peacocks and thought it would be a good decoration and possibly keep me cool so I went for it. While walking around the fort (a bit tired) a little girl came out of the blue and asked us to take a picture with her. At first I thought the group of parents next to her was her family, but I later found out she was all alone. I was with my friend Kelly and we each took a picture with her and I showed her my peacock fan. She held it in the picture and then I took it out of its plastic covering and let her play with it. She became so happy and just kept giggling and smiling. I noticed as she was holding the fan that she was in clothes that were too small and dirty, her pants were not even zipped. But she just loved the peacock feathers, she kept tickling her face with the feathers and then she would come to Kelly and me and tickle our faces with the peacock feathers. She was so generous and sincere. After a while Kelly and I had to go, and I decided to give the girl the feather. We got up to start walking away and she immediately gave it back to me but I told her she could have it. Her eyes lit up even greater than before, she gently placed the fan back in the bag, and hugged it close to her body. She said thank you and gave us a hug, as she we walked away I realized she was by herself. She walked away down the long pathway towards the red building alone clutching the feather. As we walked away she looked back at me still smiling and skipping. I got a little teary-eyed after and when I look at the girl’s picture, I still get tears in my eyes. As poor as this child was, she had this wonderful joy and glorious happiness that radiated from her, she reminded me of a little peacock in her own right. I still can’t stop thinking about her. There are these powerful encounters that I have with children or people in these countries and then we leave and I can’t help but think what happens to them in 3 years or when they are my age. It is my deepest hope that they find happiness and comfort at some point but I am not naive to believe that this can always happen.
After this excursion we started our 6 hour drive to Jaipur. On our way there we stopped at another temple area. We were given free time so we just explored but then some local students, one of whom loved Michael Jackson, came up to us and told us to go with them to this mosque where we could make a wish. A big group of us followed the students who insisted on each being a tour guide to a specific individual. We had to take our shoes off and cover our hair in the mosque. They kept taking us all around this mosque area, it was crazy! They would lead us to one area and then lead us to another and we would say we wanted to go where our friends where and they would lead us in the complete other direction. We finally got to the wish wall and then wanted to head back to the bus but at that point they would not leave us alone and they wanted money but we did not bring any off the bus. We literally had to run with all our might to get away front hem and get back to the boat. It was on of the most intense but interesting experiences of the trip.
Afterwards we got on the bus and started our drive to Jaipur. After a while we stopped at a gas station and afterwards we started karaoke in the bus. We had iPod speakers and Sanjay gave us his microphone. After a while, we finally arrived to our hotel and enjoyed dinner. After a nice shower, we went to the lobby and got henna on our arms. Henna is a temporary tattoo (it only lasts for 20 days) that is brown and it usually wraps around your arms and is on your fingers. It was just one of the parts of the Indian culture we began to adopt during our adventure.
The next day we woke up early but it was well worth it because we got to ride elephants! Amber and I rode the same elephant named Mundi. Our elephant guide was really kind and he let me wear his turban and we all sang songs on our way up making our ride even more memorable. We took the elephants up to Amber Fort. The Fort was gorgeous; the outside was decorated in the most gorgeous floral design made from pastels. There was a giant Ganesha (one of the gods commonly found all around India that we all became obsessed with) and a whole wall full of mirrors. The Fort was so fun to play around in and explore, I felt like a little kid at Leaps and Bounds. Later that day we were taken to local markets so that we could shop. It was a neat experience because we got to see how all of our purchases were made. First we went to a jewelry store and we got to see how the gems were carved from the stones, then we got to walk around and look and try on all the fancy jewelry. Next we went to a rug store, right when we walked in one of the workers making the rug signaled for me to come sit by him and he taught me how to knit an Indian rug. It was so cool, but the man's hands worked fast so I had to make sure to pay attention so I could learn how to keep up! After a man showed us how they get images printed on fabric by using a series of these huge wooden stamps. Then we got to see all the steps it took to make a rug. After we were taken to a huge room where they laid out all the beautiful rugs so that we could see them and potentially make a purchase. Next they took us to this huge room with tons of fabrics, saris, scarves, pashminas, and sheets all made from the most beautiful Indian fabrics. Needless to say, I loved this experience of seeing clothing and fabric from a completely different country. By the end of the excursion we were all decked out in scarves and bindis...we almost blended right in to the Indian culture. Next on our list of activities was a trip back to the hotel for lunch, and then we went to two more sights. One was a sight where there were giant sun dials to tell the time and then we went to a king's palace that had the most beautiful painted doorways and there were monkeys climbing all around the palace. We got to venture into a quick exhibit that featured a variety of traditional Indian outfits; it was like a fashion museum for the history of India. Then we went to a smaller market that featured jewelry, paintings, shoes and much more. This art work was done by the handicap or the proceeds we spent went to the handicap people of India. Afterwards, our tour guide Sanjay informed us that we had the option to go to a traditional Indian street market, we all wanted to have a taste of the traditional market that people in India experience daily, so we decided to go, not knowing what we were about to experience. We basically got dropped off on our bus in the middle of the street and were told to cross the street. I would compare it to crossing the street in Times Square, if all the traffic lights and signs were not working, there were cows roaming the streets aimlessly, and bikes and rickshaws and motorcycles everywhere. Crossing the streets of this roundabout to the market was so intense, one wrong move and we could have been hit by a cow or worst, however local men helped us cross the street and we spent an hour or so at the market picking up pashminas, bindis, and a box of henna. After this we headed back to the hotel to get ready for a traditional Indian dinner. I decided to put my purchases to use and wore scarves, bindis, henna and lots of bangles.
The next morning, we had an early morning wake up call to start our drive back to Delhi, where our plane would leave from. Along the way to the airport we stopped at a few sights. One of which was the monument that the Taj Mahal was molded after, we called it the fake Taj Mahal or the "Faj Mahal." Even though really the Taj Mahal copied this monument. We also got to see the oldest monument in India which was a large minaret. Then we headed to the airport where we met up with some other SAS groups that had traveled to the Taj and Delhi, our plane was basically full of SAS students and faculty. On our way back to the boat we asked our bus drivers to listen to music and they ended up playing music videos for us which I found very interesting because I got to learn a bit about Indian pop culture through these videos. Finally, we arrived back to the boat and I could not have been more excited to take a shower and sleep in my bed. A lovely package from home was waiting for me on my bed which made my return to the boat even better.
The next day was our last day in India; I decided to sleep in a little. Then around 10:30, I went to an FDP in the Union on the boat that discussed Human Rights in India, it was lead by a female lawyer from India. After I decided to leave the boat so that I could venture into the streets of Chennai as I had not had the chance to do so since we left for out Taj trip the first day. We decided to go to this mall/market, it was supposed to be an easy and relaxing afternoon but it turned out there was this huge political rally going on in the streets, so it took almost an hour to get to the mall. However, it was the most stressful time in the cab, I was sitting in the front so I had to witness all the quick turns we made and all the people we almost hit, it was intense to say the least. Once getting to the mall, I was thrilled to find a shop with Ganesha statues. All along, I had wanted to find a giant Ganesha statue; needless to say I found one that is about a foot tall. After leaving the mall, we had an even more intense ride back because we decided to take a rickshaw and I again sat in the front with the driver. It took us an hour to get back and we were worried about not making it for on ship time, but we made it with a few minutes to spare which was a great relief.
Once returning to my room, Amber and I transformed our room. We put Ganesha under our window, sitting proud and tall. I draped my new sheets on my bed and Amber hung scarves from the ceilings. Now we like to call our room the Ganesha Palace and encourage people to say Namaste when they enter and then we hand out bindis or henna our visitors. It is our little Indian palace!
My journey in India is hard to put into words, I saw a lot, experienced a lot, and got a lot out of it. One of my teachers told us before going to India that while we are there to just take everything in and not try to figure it all out. That’s what I focused on; I wanted to just take time to notice all the people, the art, and the culture that surrounded India. The days on the boat between India and Malaysia were my time to digest everything I saw. Those days following my time in India proved to be a bit emotionally challenging as I rediscovered and reanalyzed everything I saw. I came to realize that India is a wonderful place of tremendous contrast; it is like nothing else I have seen in my life. I saw the most poor I could imagine seeing, yet I saw such richness through the people of India's smiles. I saw some of the most beautiful sights, and then saw some of the poorest areas. I smelled the most wonderful smells of incense and curry then would walk on the streets smelling like cows and more. It is indescribable yet one of the most fantastic places I have ever seen.
Well thanks for reading my short story about my time in India. Have a wonderful day all!
Love from Across the Sea,
Maggie
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
People, Please!
Hey Ya'll,
We would love to hear from you just as much as you love to hear from us. Leave us some comments!!!
You must have some thoughts about our travels and experiences...
Monday, October 20, 2008
Overwhelming India- HOLY COW!
I will preface this blog entry by saying, it is almost impossible, or at the very least extremely difficult, to put into words my experience in India. It’s one of those things that has to be done first hand or else it won’t make sense or come off in the right way. That being said, here is how my week in India went:
Tuesday, October 14th:We arrived in Chennai on the morning of Tuesday October 14th, excited, nervous and itching to get off the boat to see what the culture and life of India was all about. For most of us, at least for me, India was a mystery. We have all heard of Bollywood and seen people, if not at least pictures, dressed in brightly colored fabric and the busyness and craziness of India. I had an SAS trip scheduled to take me to the north of India where I would see one of the 7th Wonders of the World, the Taj Mahal. Our trip left at noon, and while looking around the room we all met up in, I immediately got a sense of adventure that I would be sharing with the 65 other people in the Union.We got off the boat at 12:30 and loaded into motorcoach buses that would take us to the airport for our flight to Delhi. The two-minute walk from the gangway to the bus was barely enough for us to get a first taste of Chennai. However, the bus ride to the airport (about an hour and a half) provided the sights that we expected to see in India- people everywhere riding in rickshaws (Tuk-Tuks) and on motorcycles. When people on the street saw our bus drive by, they waved frantically. They were probably so taken aback by all the fair-skinned and blonde people that had just infiltrated their city. My first glimpse into India was when I saw a man and his wife ride by on a motorcycle. The woman was dressed in a tradition bright red sari sitting side-saddled behind her man on the motorcycle. This might not seem strange to you all reading this but when our bus passed them a little further, it became apparent that the wife was holding their 9-month old infant on her lap! That would definitely not fly in the US. There were many shocking moments like this and I will try to explain them as best as possible so you can get the idea of what India is really like.Finally, after a long ride, we got to the airport. All of us, naturally, had to go to the bathroom, so we headed straight there and quickly left because toilets in India are very rare- holes in the ground are much more common (shock #2). Not to mention the lack of toilet paper in this country….Our flight went from Chennai to Mumbai and then onto Delhi. Indians do things very differently than how Americans would, and a perfect example of this is switching planes at the airport. So once we arrived in Mumbai, we had to get off the plane and go to another one for our flight to Delhi. We all deplaned with our luggage, got onto buses on the tarmac, and went off to the next plane. However, the new plane was the one right next to our old one. Yet, the bus traveled about a mile away, made a huge u-turn and came back towards our plane. We were all pretty confused on why we couldn’t just walk the 30 feet between the planes…Needless to say, we took a 20 minute, hot and sweaty bus ride to our next plane and finally arrived in Delhi.We were really lucky with the weather situation in India because we were told there would be thunderstorms the entire time we were there. But, we didn’t have any rain, just heat and humidity all the time. We were all big, sweaty messes for 5 days.We arrived in Delhi late at night because of the layover in Mumbai and it was well worth the wait because the Grand Intercontinental Hotel that we stayed at was absolutely amazing and spectacular. The food alone at the Indian buffet was superb. The beds were queen size with huge down comforters. Unfortunately, we only got to spend about 6 hours there because we had a 4:00am wake-up call the next day in order to get to the Taj Mahal. Let me tell you though, that was the best 6 hour “nap” I’ve ever had in a hotel.
Wednesday, October 15th:Wednesday started off bright and early with a wake-up call at 4am. We had tea and coffee at the hotel before we had to say goodbye to Delhi. One of the girls, Victoria, was still in her room when all of us were waiting downstairs to checkout and get on the buses. I decided to run up to her room, key in hand, to see if I could move her along quicker. When I got to her room, she was still all snuggled up in the bed of clouds. I tried everything to wake her up- shouting her name, shaking the bed, shaking her. Finally, Diego, one of her friends, came to the rescue, throwing Victoria over his shoulder and carrying her out of the room, into the elevator, and out into the lobby. After that debacle, we loaded onto busses to go see the much anticipated, Taj Mahal.We had to take a two-hour train ride from Delhi to Agra, the home of the Taj. Even at 5am, there was an enormous amount of traffic on the way to the train station. Our bus came to a point where it literally could not pass because of all the people, rikshaws, and cars that were populating the street. Our guide, Sanjay, decided that we needed to get off the bus in order to make it on the 6:15am train. “Let’s go! We’re getting off!” he shouted. All of us, with our mouths agape, thought he was joking that he would lead 65 kids with luggage through the crowded streets and a half km to the station. But, needless to say, we unloaded onto the street and dodged traffic until we got to the train station. When we got to the station, we realized we were missing 2 boys, Jerry and Dave. It became apparent that we left them at the hotel! They never woke up and never made it to breakfast! Gar, our SAS trip leader had to go all the way back to the hotel to retrieve them. 30 minutes later, Gar, Jerry, and Dave were seen sprinting through the train station and just barely made it onto the train in time.Many people slept on the two-hour journey to Agra, but I decided to stay up and look out the window. I saw the sun rise over the many slums of India, highlighting them in a beautiful way, taking away all the trash and poverty that the slums usually hide behind. I saw children and men playing on the train tracks, people starting to wake up to get started on their daily routines of begging for money, and dogs wandering the fields in search of some sustenance.Finally, at around 9am, we made it to the gates of the Taj Mahal. To get to the Taj, which is at the end of a large piece of land, we had to walk through the gardens of the Taj Mahal. Everything was made of red sandstone, giving the buildings a wonderful rosy pink color. After about 15 minutes of walking, we reached the last pink archway that led us to the Taj Mahal. Through the archway, you could see the Taj in all of its white marble glory. It was more beautiful that I had imagined, much more so than what I had seen in pictures. The reflection pool that leads you there gives it a majestic look and it just takes your breath away. You can believe that the second the Taj came into view, people’s cameras started snapping away like crazy.Sanjay took the group over to the side of the last sandstone archway and told us the story of the Taj Mahal while we admired it from a distance over Sanjay’s shoulder. The story went something like this:“It was during the Mughal period (16th and 17th C) that Agra first gained prominence as a capital city. For many years, travelers from around the world have visited this historical city to gaze upon what many believe is one of the worlds most breathtaking sights – the Taj Mahal. The Mughal Emperor, Shahjahan married Mumtaz Mahal in 1612 when she was 21. It is said that tales are still told of her generosity and wisdom. She bore him 14 children and it was in childbirth that she died when Shahjahan was waging a battle campaign. Grief stricken, he vowed to build her a memorial surpassing in beauty anything the world had ever seen. It was this love that built the splendid Taj Mahal.”After touring inside to see Shahjahan and Mumtaz’s tombs, it was time to leave to go to the Agra Fort, where Shahjahan was held captive for seven years, where he eventually died. He wanted to build a black Taj Mahal for himself, but he died before it ever could be constructed. You can still see the spot that it was supposed to be in across the Yemin River from the Taj Mahal.We pulled up to the Agra Fort a few minutes after leaving the Taj Mahal and walked up this steep incline to the gates of the palace. Agra Fort was the flourishing center of the Mughal dynasty, created by 4 successive emperors. Agra Fort was a perfectly preserved Mughal City at the height of the empire’s splendor. There are many fascinating buildings inside the massive 20-meter thick walls of the fort that stretch for 2 ½kms. It was here that Shahjahan’s son, Oranze, kept him captive for seven years so that he could rule the empire until he died. It was really cool- the architecture was spectacular.We also went to Fatehpur Sikri on our way out of Agra to Jaipur. Fatehpur Sikri is a silent and petrified sandstone city where time has stood still for the last 400 yrs. According to legend, Emperor Akbar was without a male heir and made a pilgrimage to this spot to see the saint Shaikh Salim Chisti. The saint foretold the birth of Akbar’s son. In gratitude, Akbar names his son Salim and transferred his capital to Sikri. He built a new and splendid city, which later was abandoned, probably due to difficulties with the water supply. Its red sandstone palaces are still in a remarkable state of preservation. You can feel the haunting presence of the Mughals. Because busses can’t make it up the steep hill to Fatehpur, we took Tuk-Tuks to get to the top. A young boy, Ashika, helped load 5 of us into this tiny little car. Surprisingly, like most locals in India, he was able to speak French, Spanish, Italian, German, English, and a dialect of Hindi. I spoke Spanish with him all the way up. We got to the abandoned city and just had time to walk around, snap some photos and learn about its history. It houses a mosque and a school for men and women. The red sandstone architecture was, again, amazing.Funny story insert: This girl and I were sitting on a wall enjoying the view that looked out over all of Agra, when we noticed down below next to a green “pool” there was a man whistling and trying to get our attention. The second we looked down at him, he started undressing! We were shocked! Once he was down to his skivvies (thank God he didn’t get entirely naked), he wanted to show us how he could do a back flip into the pool, for 100 Rupees, of course. I was so taken aback by his semi-nudity that I had to walk away before he could jump into the disgusting green muck.On our way back to the bus, Ashika found me again and complimented me and all the girls on how beautiful American girls were. He asked is we had an “American” souvenir to give him and we told him that we would give one to him once we got back to the bus. Well, souvenir soon translated to money, which I didn’t want to give him. Down the dirt path that we had to take to get to the bus, the children started to multiply, following us, in hopes of getting food or money or something. They literally were climbing all over the bus begging for money, some even came on the bus, while others were being shoved and thrown away by a large Indian man begging as well. It was the most terrifying and uncomfortable feeling ever to be sitting there, ignoring starving children, and watching them fight over the bananas we threw from the windows.After that scary incident, we started on our 6-hour bus ride to Jaipur. For the first half of the ride, we all slept. After that early wake-up call, none of us even had the energy to talk to the person we were sitting next to. At the halfway point, we all were able to enjoy the bathroom stop and get a bit of food and drink at the little restaurant attached to the bathrooms. Our leader, Sanjay, got some food and I was sitting with him and another guide at a table and got to sample some pretty spicy fried Indian tasties. It was delicious, but super hot! My mouth was burning for at least 30 minutes after eating the fried chilies. The second half of the bus ride was drastically different than that of the first. We discovered that we had iPod speakers on the bus and so we plugged in the tunes and began to do some karaoke, had ourselves a little dance party that incorporated loud, obnoxious singing. The time flew by and we were in Jaipur in no time. Jaipur is known as the “Pink City” and the capital of Rajasthan state, because of the pink-colored sandstone from which the buildings in its old, walled city are constructed. At night, this isn’t noticeably visible- we had to wait till morning to witness all the pink for ourselves. We checked into Hotel Mansingh which was disappointingly not as nice as the Intercontinental, but had a traditional Indian décor with a Sikh doorman at the front hall welcoming us with a bow and “namaste.” After a hearty dinner of Indian delicacies, we headed to the bar for a nightcap and then upstairs to bed because we had yet another early morning wake-up call.
Thursday, October 16th:Bright and early at 5:30am, we were all up and in the hotel restaurant grabbing a quick bite to eat before we got onto our beloved busses and headed to the….AMBER FORT! I was especially excited about this site because, well, do I really have to explain? And the other reason was because we got to ride elephants up the mountain road to the top of the hill where the fort is situated. We got to Amber Fort at 7:30am, where immediately we stood in line to get our assigned elephants. The Fort was constructed on the top of a hill and looking up the slope at the spectacular “amber-colored” fort was a site that is hard to describe in words. While in line, the hawkers and street vendors fled to our side attempting to sell us all sorts of stuff from turbans to postcards to AA batteries to paintings. After warding off the throng of vendors, Maggie and I made it to the top of the stairs where we gracefully climbed on top of our elephant, Mundi, to make the journey up the hill. It was so much fun! The elephant, despite its size, can actually walk with quite a lot of poise, swaying slightly from side to side. After about 20 minutes, we reached the top of the hill and passed through an archway to the center of the Fort where we had to disembark from our elephant.The story of Amber Fort: Amber was originally built by the Meenas in the town they consecrated to Amba, the Mother Goddess, whom they knew as `Gatta Rani' or `Queen of the Pass'. Built over the remnants of an earlier structure, the palace complex, which stands today, was commenced under the reign of Raja Man Singh, in 1592. The initial structure of the fort was entirely completed by his descendant, Jai Singh. Amber was modified by successive rulers over the next 150 years, until the Kachwahas shifted their capital to Jaipur during the time of Sawai Jai Singh II.We spent about an hour or so at the Fort and got to run through all its secret passageways, getting lost in the never-ending sets of staircases, and even managing to see a snake charmer get bitten by his cobra.Funny/sad story having to do with Amber Fort: about 4 years ago, there were 4 Japanese tourists all sitting atop one elephant going up the hill. Alongside of the cobblestone road up to the Fort there’s a short 4-foot high wall preventing people from falling over it and down the steep grade hill. Well, one of the male elephants decided to get frisky with the one that the tourists were riding. Needless to say, the girl elephant was having none of it so the boy elephant nudged the girl until she went toppling over the wall, killing one tourist, injuring the other three, and unfortunately, killing the elephant. Now, they space out the elephants and make sure that the males are a far distance from the females.At around noon, we left the fort. This day was our big shopping day! Jaipur is known for its great shopping so our Sanjay was going to take us to all the hot spots. Our first stop was a jewelry store where they sold many semi-precious and precious stones. What’s cool about it is that you can pick out what stone you want (ruby, sapphire, emerald, topaz, diamond, etc) and they will literally take the rock and cut it right there in front of your eyes, fit it to a band of your choice in gold, white gold, or silver. It was amazing! We walked inside and were so taken aback by what we saw. It was a complete contrast from the dirty, busy city outside. In the store it was serene, calm, and air-conditioned. There were about 20 or so employees that were there to help us pick out some nice jewelry to take home. After walking about the two story, Tiffany-esque like shop, I decided on a blue sapphire and silver ring. I was so surprised to find that it cost only 4,000 Rupees ($80 U.S. dollars)! What a steal! Most of the girls got silver and semi-precious rings. None of us splurged for the ever-coveted star ruby or sapphire that would put you back about 17,500 Rupees ($350). Once everyone had found nice bling, we headed to our next stop- the textile factory. I was looking forward to this stop because I had been itching to buy some beautiful Indian material, whether it be a sari or in some other form. I ended up spending a lot of money at the textile store. After getting a demonstration on how they make cashmere and wool rugs and seeing how the beautiful block printed fabric is made, we headed upstairs for a “carpet show.” While sipping our delicious chai tea, the men who worked at the store rolled out carpet after carpet while the owner talked about the different materials used and the patterns that were created.I bought a rug. I was suckered into it. Then I bought about 15 silk scarves and some other gifts for people in their store. At one point, I was so overwhelmed by the amount of fabric in the one room that I had to walk out to get a breather. After our exhausting shopping experience, we headed back to Hotel Mansingh for lunch. Again, very delicious. The food never ceased to amaze me in this country.After lunch we headed to the Jantar Mantar Observatory and the Maharaja City Palace. The observatory was designed by the astronomer Prince Maharaja Jai Singh, who founded the city in the 1700s. He was chosen to be a Maharaja by Emperor Oranze (remember him? He was the son of Shahjahan, the guy who built the Taj Mahal) one day when Oranze was asking his people at a public forum what he should do about reuniting the land after a great war. He grabbed Jai Singh by the wrist and asked what he should do and the little boy responded, “You will protect your people just as a bridegroom protects his bride.” Oranze thought this was so clever that he gave the title of Sawai to the boy, meaning that he was very intellectual. Well, it turns out that he was because he invented a ton of sundials that are all housed on the outdoor observatory’s property. They can tell time to the millisecond. It was really interesting to see that it actually worked. We marked where the sun was hitting on the huge sundial and compared it to our watch and it was the exact time! There were even astrological devices that predicted your future accompanied with a sundial specific to your “sign” (mine’s a Leo).After that, we went to the Maharaja’s palace where he actually lives in. Unfortunately we’re not allowed in when he is physically at his residence, so we just got to see the outside of it and the courtyard and the little monkeys that were scrambling and climbing all over the outside of the palace.Our last stop in this area was an indoor market that supports handicap people of Jaipur. It allows those who are physically handicapped to sell their goods at this market. There was a plethora of art, jewelry, and clothing housed in one room. It was overwhelming but I picked up some pretty good stuff.We all decided that we wanted to get a real taste of Indian culture and life so we had Sanjay drop us off at an outdoor bazaar market. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Remember how bad the traffic is in India? Well, busses are not allowed to stop on the main roads so our driver, Ramu, had to pull over and basically just let us out while the bus was still moving. Sanjay led us out of the bus on the side of the street into a crowd of people. We were standing on the edge of the sidewalk and Sanjay yells, “OK! We cross now!” All of us were like, “WHAT??!? CROSS THE STREET? You’re crazy, Sanjay!” But he wasn’t joking. He walked out into the middle of traffic, pulling a Heisman trophy-like move to stop traffic. Surprisingly it worked pretty well and we ran across four lanes of traffic dodging bikes, motorcycles, rickshaws, cows, people, and cars. I swear I almost died like ten times. And we did this six more times to get to the bazaar. The bazaar was CRAZY!!! It was: scary, terrifying, beautiful, crazy, overwhelming, chaotic, wonderful. There was more stuff than I had ever seen in my entire life packed into the smallest areas ever. We were only given 45 minutes to shop, but that was plenty of time because by the end of it we were so overwhelmed by beggars, bangles, fabric and hawkers. We were definitely ready for dinner- another traditional Indian buffet at a gorgeous resort. After dinner, all the girls got henna at the hotel before heading up to bed.
Our guide, Sanjay, had a wealth of knowledge about the Indian culture, being a native from Delhi. I asked him a lot about Indian practices. We were discussing marriage and the idea of arranged marriage. He shared with me that he was betrothed three times before he actually married a woman. It was an arranged marriage. I’m glad that it isn’t popular in the Western culture because he said that he doesn’t love his wife, it’s more for political and social reasons that one marries – a union of two families from the same caste. He is in the Brahmin caste, the highest in the hierarchy and his wife is naturally a Brahmin too. Most of the people on the street however are either sudras (the working class) or the untouchables (the homeless, beggars, and those who work with social “pollution”). It was interesting to hear that the caste system is still very prevalent in their society even though it is centuries old and we are in the 21st, modern century. Sanjay also told me about his friend who has a wife and two girlfriends. Polygamy is illegal in India, but that doesn’t stop the men from having mistresses.All the girls were also extremely obsessed with bindis, the decorative dots that go between the eyebrows. I originally thought that only married women wore them, but SJ told me that it is just a mark of beauty, like make-up. Women who are married put a red line in the part of their hair and wear a large dark red bindi on their forehead. Needless to say, once I heard that it wasn’t a mark of marriage, I bought TONS of bindis and now they are a part of my everyday accessories.
Friday, October 17thOn our last day of our trip, we had to head back to Delhi in order to catch our flight back to Chennai. Our wake-up call was 4:30am and we had a 6-hour bus ride ahead of us. Unlike the fun we had on the bus to Jaipur, we slept the entire way back. It was much needed and well deserved. Thirty minutes after we crossed through the toll booth at the entrance to Delhi, Sanjay woke us up by saying, “Well guys, there’s been an accident on bus #2 and we have to wait a little bit for them to catch up. The driver was hit and knocked unconscious and needed to be taken to the hospital. So, the company had to send another driver.” We were all pretty sleepy and didn’t really understand what was going on. It wasn’t until lunch that we heard the real story, first-hand from those on bus #2.Here it is: Bus #2 pulls up to the tollbooth to pay the 500 rupee fee and he needs a receipt so he can get reimbursed from his company when he gets back there. Well, the receipt printer was broken at the booth the bus went to. When the driver asked for a receipt the security guard at the booth said it was impossible to get one. The driver got out of the bus to see if he could go to another booth and get a receipt. When he did that, the guard and the driver got into a verbal argument. The guard pulled out a broomstick and started whacking the driver in the legs. Then he picked the driver up and body slammed him onto the hood of a car where he slipped and fell and hit his head on the ground, cracking it open, and knocking him unconscious. There was an EMT SAS trip leader on bus #3, right behind bus #2, but they wouldn’t let him get off the bus to help the poor driver. Eventually, an ambulance came and took the driver to the hospital. Luckily, the police arrested the guard who did all this and Sanjay says he will be in jail. So there is some justice.Now back to the blog…When we finally got into the city of Delhi we went and saw two monuments before heading to lunch and heading back to Chennai.The first place we went was Hunaymun’s Tomb. It was a tomb built by a wife for her husband during the Moghul Empire. It looks exactly like the Taj Mahal because the Taj was modeled after this building. However, Hunaymun’s Tomb is made of red sandstone and white marble. It was gorgeous- a mini version of the Taj.The next and final monument was Qutub Minar, a 12th century Muslim minaret that was built for the mosque. It was basically a large area with a ton of cool looking ruins. The minaret is 72.5 meters tall, a pretty spectacular site. It is the oldest monument in India.Then we went to lunch at a large banquet hall and got back on a plane for our three-hour trip to Chennai. Once I saw the ship in the distance from our bus, I was soooo happy! I love going back to the ship. By the end of this trip I was definitely ready to be done with India. It’s a beautiful country but very overwhelming at times and sometimes frightening.Only one more day, Saturday, until we left.
Saturday, October 18th:I went shopping all day on Saturday with my friends Dan and Whit. There is a huge shopping mall in Chennai called Spencer’s where we bought tons of scarves (just what I needed, more scarves…), some jewelry, and CDs of Indian music that local teenage boys helped us pick out. After that we ate lunch at Pizza Hut and tasted all their Indian inspired pizzas- delicious and spicy!We decided we wanted to go to a bazaar market to spend the last of our rupees, so we headed to Pondi Bazaar- a place where local Indians buy their stuff, as well as tourists. It was the most authentic place I had been to in Chennai. I bought gorgeous fabric to make stuff out of. I don’t know what yet, maybe some pillows. After just about all our rupees were spent, we got into a rikshaw that took us back to the ship. The second I got back to the boat, I headed to the 6th deck for some food. A burger. It was the best tasting burger ever. After being in a country that doesn’t eat beef, I was really craving me a burger.And that was my whole India trip in a nutshell….a pretty big nutshell, I might add.
Tuesday, October 14th:We arrived in Chennai on the morning of Tuesday October 14th, excited, nervous and itching to get off the boat to see what the culture and life of India was all about. For most of us, at least for me, India was a mystery. We have all heard of Bollywood and seen people, if not at least pictures, dressed in brightly colored fabric and the busyness and craziness of India. I had an SAS trip scheduled to take me to the north of India where I would see one of the 7th Wonders of the World, the Taj Mahal. Our trip left at noon, and while looking around the room we all met up in, I immediately got a sense of adventure that I would be sharing with the 65 other people in the Union.We got off the boat at 12:30 and loaded into motorcoach buses that would take us to the airport for our flight to Delhi. The two-minute walk from the gangway to the bus was barely enough for us to get a first taste of Chennai. However, the bus ride to the airport (about an hour and a half) provided the sights that we expected to see in India- people everywhere riding in rickshaws (Tuk-Tuks) and on motorcycles. When people on the street saw our bus drive by, they waved frantically. They were probably so taken aback by all the fair-skinned and blonde people that had just infiltrated their city. My first glimpse into India was when I saw a man and his wife ride by on a motorcycle. The woman was dressed in a tradition bright red sari sitting side-saddled behind her man on the motorcycle. This might not seem strange to you all reading this but when our bus passed them a little further, it became apparent that the wife was holding their 9-month old infant on her lap! That would definitely not fly in the US. There were many shocking moments like this and I will try to explain them as best as possible so you can get the idea of what India is really like.Finally, after a long ride, we got to the airport. All of us, naturally, had to go to the bathroom, so we headed straight there and quickly left because toilets in India are very rare- holes in the ground are much more common (shock #2). Not to mention the lack of toilet paper in this country….Our flight went from Chennai to Mumbai and then onto Delhi. Indians do things very differently than how Americans would, and a perfect example of this is switching planes at the airport. So once we arrived in Mumbai, we had to get off the plane and go to another one for our flight to Delhi. We all deplaned with our luggage, got onto buses on the tarmac, and went off to the next plane. However, the new plane was the one right next to our old one. Yet, the bus traveled about a mile away, made a huge u-turn and came back towards our plane. We were all pretty confused on why we couldn’t just walk the 30 feet between the planes…Needless to say, we took a 20 minute, hot and sweaty bus ride to our next plane and finally arrived in Delhi.We were really lucky with the weather situation in India because we were told there would be thunderstorms the entire time we were there. But, we didn’t have any rain, just heat and humidity all the time. We were all big, sweaty messes for 5 days.We arrived in Delhi late at night because of the layover in Mumbai and it was well worth the wait because the Grand Intercontinental Hotel that we stayed at was absolutely amazing and spectacular. The food alone at the Indian buffet was superb. The beds were queen size with huge down comforters. Unfortunately, we only got to spend about 6 hours there because we had a 4:00am wake-up call the next day in order to get to the Taj Mahal. Let me tell you though, that was the best 6 hour “nap” I’ve ever had in a hotel.
Wednesday, October 15th:Wednesday started off bright and early with a wake-up call at 4am. We had tea and coffee at the hotel before we had to say goodbye to Delhi. One of the girls, Victoria, was still in her room when all of us were waiting downstairs to checkout and get on the buses. I decided to run up to her room, key in hand, to see if I could move her along quicker. When I got to her room, she was still all snuggled up in the bed of clouds. I tried everything to wake her up- shouting her name, shaking the bed, shaking her. Finally, Diego, one of her friends, came to the rescue, throwing Victoria over his shoulder and carrying her out of the room, into the elevator, and out into the lobby. After that debacle, we loaded onto busses to go see the much anticipated, Taj Mahal.We had to take a two-hour train ride from Delhi to Agra, the home of the Taj. Even at 5am, there was an enormous amount of traffic on the way to the train station. Our bus came to a point where it literally could not pass because of all the people, rikshaws, and cars that were populating the street. Our guide, Sanjay, decided that we needed to get off the bus in order to make it on the 6:15am train. “Let’s go! We’re getting off!” he shouted. All of us, with our mouths agape, thought he was joking that he would lead 65 kids with luggage through the crowded streets and a half km to the station. But, needless to say, we unloaded onto the street and dodged traffic until we got to the train station. When we got to the station, we realized we were missing 2 boys, Jerry and Dave. It became apparent that we left them at the hotel! They never woke up and never made it to breakfast! Gar, our SAS trip leader had to go all the way back to the hotel to retrieve them. 30 minutes later, Gar, Jerry, and Dave were seen sprinting through the train station and just barely made it onto the train in time.Many people slept on the two-hour journey to Agra, but I decided to stay up and look out the window. I saw the sun rise over the many slums of India, highlighting them in a beautiful way, taking away all the trash and poverty that the slums usually hide behind. I saw children and men playing on the train tracks, people starting to wake up to get started on their daily routines of begging for money, and dogs wandering the fields in search of some sustenance.Finally, at around 9am, we made it to the gates of the Taj Mahal. To get to the Taj, which is at the end of a large piece of land, we had to walk through the gardens of the Taj Mahal. Everything was made of red sandstone, giving the buildings a wonderful rosy pink color. After about 15 minutes of walking, we reached the last pink archway that led us to the Taj Mahal. Through the archway, you could see the Taj in all of its white marble glory. It was more beautiful that I had imagined, much more so than what I had seen in pictures. The reflection pool that leads you there gives it a majestic look and it just takes your breath away. You can believe that the second the Taj came into view, people’s cameras started snapping away like crazy.Sanjay took the group over to the side of the last sandstone archway and told us the story of the Taj Mahal while we admired it from a distance over Sanjay’s shoulder. The story went something like this:“It was during the Mughal period (16th and 17th C) that Agra first gained prominence as a capital city. For many years, travelers from around the world have visited this historical city to gaze upon what many believe is one of the worlds most breathtaking sights – the Taj Mahal. The Mughal Emperor, Shahjahan married Mumtaz Mahal in 1612 when she was 21. It is said that tales are still told of her generosity and wisdom. She bore him 14 children and it was in childbirth that she died when Shahjahan was waging a battle campaign. Grief stricken, he vowed to build her a memorial surpassing in beauty anything the world had ever seen. It was this love that built the splendid Taj Mahal.”After touring inside to see Shahjahan and Mumtaz’s tombs, it was time to leave to go to the Agra Fort, where Shahjahan was held captive for seven years, where he eventually died. He wanted to build a black Taj Mahal for himself, but he died before it ever could be constructed. You can still see the spot that it was supposed to be in across the Yemin River from the Taj Mahal.We pulled up to the Agra Fort a few minutes after leaving the Taj Mahal and walked up this steep incline to the gates of the palace. Agra Fort was the flourishing center of the Mughal dynasty, created by 4 successive emperors. Agra Fort was a perfectly preserved Mughal City at the height of the empire’s splendor. There are many fascinating buildings inside the massive 20-meter thick walls of the fort that stretch for 2 ½kms. It was here that Shahjahan’s son, Oranze, kept him captive for seven years so that he could rule the empire until he died. It was really cool- the architecture was spectacular.We also went to Fatehpur Sikri on our way out of Agra to Jaipur. Fatehpur Sikri is a silent and petrified sandstone city where time has stood still for the last 400 yrs. According to legend, Emperor Akbar was without a male heir and made a pilgrimage to this spot to see the saint Shaikh Salim Chisti. The saint foretold the birth of Akbar’s son. In gratitude, Akbar names his son Salim and transferred his capital to Sikri. He built a new and splendid city, which later was abandoned, probably due to difficulties with the water supply. Its red sandstone palaces are still in a remarkable state of preservation. You can feel the haunting presence of the Mughals. Because busses can’t make it up the steep hill to Fatehpur, we took Tuk-Tuks to get to the top. A young boy, Ashika, helped load 5 of us into this tiny little car. Surprisingly, like most locals in India, he was able to speak French, Spanish, Italian, German, English, and a dialect of Hindi. I spoke Spanish with him all the way up. We got to the abandoned city and just had time to walk around, snap some photos and learn about its history. It houses a mosque and a school for men and women. The red sandstone architecture was, again, amazing.Funny story insert: This girl and I were sitting on a wall enjoying the view that looked out over all of Agra, when we noticed down below next to a green “pool” there was a man whistling and trying to get our attention. The second we looked down at him, he started undressing! We were shocked! Once he was down to his skivvies (thank God he didn’t get entirely naked), he wanted to show us how he could do a back flip into the pool, for 100 Rupees, of course. I was so taken aback by his semi-nudity that I had to walk away before he could jump into the disgusting green muck.On our way back to the bus, Ashika found me again and complimented me and all the girls on how beautiful American girls were. He asked is we had an “American” souvenir to give him and we told him that we would give one to him once we got back to the bus. Well, souvenir soon translated to money, which I didn’t want to give him. Down the dirt path that we had to take to get to the bus, the children started to multiply, following us, in hopes of getting food or money or something. They literally were climbing all over the bus begging for money, some even came on the bus, while others were being shoved and thrown away by a large Indian man begging as well. It was the most terrifying and uncomfortable feeling ever to be sitting there, ignoring starving children, and watching them fight over the bananas we threw from the windows.After that scary incident, we started on our 6-hour bus ride to Jaipur. For the first half of the ride, we all slept. After that early wake-up call, none of us even had the energy to talk to the person we were sitting next to. At the halfway point, we all were able to enjoy the bathroom stop and get a bit of food and drink at the little restaurant attached to the bathrooms. Our leader, Sanjay, got some food and I was sitting with him and another guide at a table and got to sample some pretty spicy fried Indian tasties. It was delicious, but super hot! My mouth was burning for at least 30 minutes after eating the fried chilies. The second half of the bus ride was drastically different than that of the first. We discovered that we had iPod speakers on the bus and so we plugged in the tunes and began to do some karaoke, had ourselves a little dance party that incorporated loud, obnoxious singing. The time flew by and we were in Jaipur in no time. Jaipur is known as the “Pink City” and the capital of Rajasthan state, because of the pink-colored sandstone from which the buildings in its old, walled city are constructed. At night, this isn’t noticeably visible- we had to wait till morning to witness all the pink for ourselves. We checked into Hotel Mansingh which was disappointingly not as nice as the Intercontinental, but had a traditional Indian décor with a Sikh doorman at the front hall welcoming us with a bow and “namaste.” After a hearty dinner of Indian delicacies, we headed to the bar for a nightcap and then upstairs to bed because we had yet another early morning wake-up call.
Thursday, October 16th:Bright and early at 5:30am, we were all up and in the hotel restaurant grabbing a quick bite to eat before we got onto our beloved busses and headed to the….AMBER FORT! I was especially excited about this site because, well, do I really have to explain? And the other reason was because we got to ride elephants up the mountain road to the top of the hill where the fort is situated. We got to Amber Fort at 7:30am, where immediately we stood in line to get our assigned elephants. The Fort was constructed on the top of a hill and looking up the slope at the spectacular “amber-colored” fort was a site that is hard to describe in words. While in line, the hawkers and street vendors fled to our side attempting to sell us all sorts of stuff from turbans to postcards to AA batteries to paintings. After warding off the throng of vendors, Maggie and I made it to the top of the stairs where we gracefully climbed on top of our elephant, Mundi, to make the journey up the hill. It was so much fun! The elephant, despite its size, can actually walk with quite a lot of poise, swaying slightly from side to side. After about 20 minutes, we reached the top of the hill and passed through an archway to the center of the Fort where we had to disembark from our elephant.The story of Amber Fort: Amber was originally built by the Meenas in the town they consecrated to Amba, the Mother Goddess, whom they knew as `Gatta Rani' or `Queen of the Pass'. Built over the remnants of an earlier structure, the palace complex, which stands today, was commenced under the reign of Raja Man Singh, in 1592. The initial structure of the fort was entirely completed by his descendant, Jai Singh. Amber was modified by successive rulers over the next 150 years, until the Kachwahas shifted their capital to Jaipur during the time of Sawai Jai Singh II.We spent about an hour or so at the Fort and got to run through all its secret passageways, getting lost in the never-ending sets of staircases, and even managing to see a snake charmer get bitten by his cobra.Funny/sad story having to do with Amber Fort: about 4 years ago, there were 4 Japanese tourists all sitting atop one elephant going up the hill. Alongside of the cobblestone road up to the Fort there’s a short 4-foot high wall preventing people from falling over it and down the steep grade hill. Well, one of the male elephants decided to get frisky with the one that the tourists were riding. Needless to say, the girl elephant was having none of it so the boy elephant nudged the girl until she went toppling over the wall, killing one tourist, injuring the other three, and unfortunately, killing the elephant. Now, they space out the elephants and make sure that the males are a far distance from the females.At around noon, we left the fort. This day was our big shopping day! Jaipur is known for its great shopping so our Sanjay was going to take us to all the hot spots. Our first stop was a jewelry store where they sold many semi-precious and precious stones. What’s cool about it is that you can pick out what stone you want (ruby, sapphire, emerald, topaz, diamond, etc) and they will literally take the rock and cut it right there in front of your eyes, fit it to a band of your choice in gold, white gold, or silver. It was amazing! We walked inside and were so taken aback by what we saw. It was a complete contrast from the dirty, busy city outside. In the store it was serene, calm, and air-conditioned. There were about 20 or so employees that were there to help us pick out some nice jewelry to take home. After walking about the two story, Tiffany-esque like shop, I decided on a blue sapphire and silver ring. I was so surprised to find that it cost only 4,000 Rupees ($80 U.S. dollars)! What a steal! Most of the girls got silver and semi-precious rings. None of us splurged for the ever-coveted star ruby or sapphire that would put you back about 17,500 Rupees ($350). Once everyone had found nice bling, we headed to our next stop- the textile factory. I was looking forward to this stop because I had been itching to buy some beautiful Indian material, whether it be a sari or in some other form. I ended up spending a lot of money at the textile store. After getting a demonstration on how they make cashmere and wool rugs and seeing how the beautiful block printed fabric is made, we headed upstairs for a “carpet show.” While sipping our delicious chai tea, the men who worked at the store rolled out carpet after carpet while the owner talked about the different materials used and the patterns that were created.I bought a rug. I was suckered into it. Then I bought about 15 silk scarves and some other gifts for people in their store. At one point, I was so overwhelmed by the amount of fabric in the one room that I had to walk out to get a breather. After our exhausting shopping experience, we headed back to Hotel Mansingh for lunch. Again, very delicious. The food never ceased to amaze me in this country.After lunch we headed to the Jantar Mantar Observatory and the Maharaja City Palace. The observatory was designed by the astronomer Prince Maharaja Jai Singh, who founded the city in the 1700s. He was chosen to be a Maharaja by Emperor Oranze (remember him? He was the son of Shahjahan, the guy who built the Taj Mahal) one day when Oranze was asking his people at a public forum what he should do about reuniting the land after a great war. He grabbed Jai Singh by the wrist and asked what he should do and the little boy responded, “You will protect your people just as a bridegroom protects his bride.” Oranze thought this was so clever that he gave the title of Sawai to the boy, meaning that he was very intellectual. Well, it turns out that he was because he invented a ton of sundials that are all housed on the outdoor observatory’s property. They can tell time to the millisecond. It was really interesting to see that it actually worked. We marked where the sun was hitting on the huge sundial and compared it to our watch and it was the exact time! There were even astrological devices that predicted your future accompanied with a sundial specific to your “sign” (mine’s a Leo).After that, we went to the Maharaja’s palace where he actually lives in. Unfortunately we’re not allowed in when he is physically at his residence, so we just got to see the outside of it and the courtyard and the little monkeys that were scrambling and climbing all over the outside of the palace.Our last stop in this area was an indoor market that supports handicap people of Jaipur. It allows those who are physically handicapped to sell their goods at this market. There was a plethora of art, jewelry, and clothing housed in one room. It was overwhelming but I picked up some pretty good stuff.We all decided that we wanted to get a real taste of Indian culture and life so we had Sanjay drop us off at an outdoor bazaar market. It’s not as easy as it sounds. Remember how bad the traffic is in India? Well, busses are not allowed to stop on the main roads so our driver, Ramu, had to pull over and basically just let us out while the bus was still moving. Sanjay led us out of the bus on the side of the street into a crowd of people. We were standing on the edge of the sidewalk and Sanjay yells, “OK! We cross now!” All of us were like, “WHAT??!? CROSS THE STREET? You’re crazy, Sanjay!” But he wasn’t joking. He walked out into the middle of traffic, pulling a Heisman trophy-like move to stop traffic. Surprisingly it worked pretty well and we ran across four lanes of traffic dodging bikes, motorcycles, rickshaws, cows, people, and cars. I swear I almost died like ten times. And we did this six more times to get to the bazaar. The bazaar was CRAZY!!! It was: scary, terrifying, beautiful, crazy, overwhelming, chaotic, wonderful. There was more stuff than I had ever seen in my entire life packed into the smallest areas ever. We were only given 45 minutes to shop, but that was plenty of time because by the end of it we were so overwhelmed by beggars, bangles, fabric and hawkers. We were definitely ready for dinner- another traditional Indian buffet at a gorgeous resort. After dinner, all the girls got henna at the hotel before heading up to bed.
Our guide, Sanjay, had a wealth of knowledge about the Indian culture, being a native from Delhi. I asked him a lot about Indian practices. We were discussing marriage and the idea of arranged marriage. He shared with me that he was betrothed three times before he actually married a woman. It was an arranged marriage. I’m glad that it isn’t popular in the Western culture because he said that he doesn’t love his wife, it’s more for political and social reasons that one marries – a union of two families from the same caste. He is in the Brahmin caste, the highest in the hierarchy and his wife is naturally a Brahmin too. Most of the people on the street however are either sudras (the working class) or the untouchables (the homeless, beggars, and those who work with social “pollution”). It was interesting to hear that the caste system is still very prevalent in their society even though it is centuries old and we are in the 21st, modern century. Sanjay also told me about his friend who has a wife and two girlfriends. Polygamy is illegal in India, but that doesn’t stop the men from having mistresses.All the girls were also extremely obsessed with bindis, the decorative dots that go between the eyebrows. I originally thought that only married women wore them, but SJ told me that it is just a mark of beauty, like make-up. Women who are married put a red line in the part of their hair and wear a large dark red bindi on their forehead. Needless to say, once I heard that it wasn’t a mark of marriage, I bought TONS of bindis and now they are a part of my everyday accessories.
Friday, October 17thOn our last day of our trip, we had to head back to Delhi in order to catch our flight back to Chennai. Our wake-up call was 4:30am and we had a 6-hour bus ride ahead of us. Unlike the fun we had on the bus to Jaipur, we slept the entire way back. It was much needed and well deserved. Thirty minutes after we crossed through the toll booth at the entrance to Delhi, Sanjay woke us up by saying, “Well guys, there’s been an accident on bus #2 and we have to wait a little bit for them to catch up. The driver was hit and knocked unconscious and needed to be taken to the hospital. So, the company had to send another driver.” We were all pretty sleepy and didn’t really understand what was going on. It wasn’t until lunch that we heard the real story, first-hand from those on bus #2.Here it is: Bus #2 pulls up to the tollbooth to pay the 500 rupee fee and he needs a receipt so he can get reimbursed from his company when he gets back there. Well, the receipt printer was broken at the booth the bus went to. When the driver asked for a receipt the security guard at the booth said it was impossible to get one. The driver got out of the bus to see if he could go to another booth and get a receipt. When he did that, the guard and the driver got into a verbal argument. The guard pulled out a broomstick and started whacking the driver in the legs. Then he picked the driver up and body slammed him onto the hood of a car where he slipped and fell and hit his head on the ground, cracking it open, and knocking him unconscious. There was an EMT SAS trip leader on bus #3, right behind bus #2, but they wouldn’t let him get off the bus to help the poor driver. Eventually, an ambulance came and took the driver to the hospital. Luckily, the police arrested the guard who did all this and Sanjay says he will be in jail. So there is some justice.Now back to the blog…When we finally got into the city of Delhi we went and saw two monuments before heading to lunch and heading back to Chennai.The first place we went was Hunaymun’s Tomb. It was a tomb built by a wife for her husband during the Moghul Empire. It looks exactly like the Taj Mahal because the Taj was modeled after this building. However, Hunaymun’s Tomb is made of red sandstone and white marble. It was gorgeous- a mini version of the Taj.The next and final monument was Qutub Minar, a 12th century Muslim minaret that was built for the mosque. It was basically a large area with a ton of cool looking ruins. The minaret is 72.5 meters tall, a pretty spectacular site. It is the oldest monument in India.Then we went to lunch at a large banquet hall and got back on a plane for our three-hour trip to Chennai. Once I saw the ship in the distance from our bus, I was soooo happy! I love going back to the ship. By the end of this trip I was definitely ready to be done with India. It’s a beautiful country but very overwhelming at times and sometimes frightening.Only one more day, Saturday, until we left.
Saturday, October 18th:I went shopping all day on Saturday with my friends Dan and Whit. There is a huge shopping mall in Chennai called Spencer’s where we bought tons of scarves (just what I needed, more scarves…), some jewelry, and CDs of Indian music that local teenage boys helped us pick out. After that we ate lunch at Pizza Hut and tasted all their Indian inspired pizzas- delicious and spicy!We decided we wanted to go to a bazaar market to spend the last of our rupees, so we headed to Pondi Bazaar- a place where local Indians buy their stuff, as well as tourists. It was the most authentic place I had been to in Chennai. I bought gorgeous fabric to make stuff out of. I don’t know what yet, maybe some pillows. After just about all our rupees were spent, we got into a rikshaw that took us back to the ship. The second I got back to the boat, I headed to the 6th deck for some food. A burger. It was the best tasting burger ever. After being in a country that doesn’t eat beef, I was really craving me a burger.And that was my whole India trip in a nutshell….a pretty big nutshell, I might add.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Long Sail to India
Finally, we have all come to the end of midterms! This eleven-day stretch at sea is coming to a close as well, only one more day until we arrive in Chennai, India. Sorry for the lack of updating the blog- it’s been really busy on the ship for the past week and a half. I’ll try to recap it all as succinctly as possible.After taking three midterms and turning in all my art projects for drawing class, life has gotten back to normal on the ship. It’s back to reading for classes, wandering the halls in search of entertainment, watching countless movies and documentaries on our Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV), and playing the ever popular card games. It’s a very comforting feeling to have all the norms replaced in our lives again after spending many hours locked in our rooms or with study groups.
There were a few fun events that happened during the trek to India: the Sea Olympics and the Gods and Goddesses dance as well as the Caribbean Sea Social.
Sea Olympics:Remember living in resident dorms at college? Well, here on the ship we have “dorm”-like residence halls too. Except we’re separated by deck and side and have assigned “sea” names. My sea is the Caribbean Sea. It is led by our beloved LLC (Living – Learner Coordinator, otherwise known as an RA). There are 8 “seas” on the ship as well as a faculty/staff/family sea, called the Silver Stars. We all competed against each other in hopes of becoming the best sea on the ship and early departure from the ship when we arrive in Miami- that was 1st prize.Wednesday, October 8th, the whole shipboard community gathered in the Union – the main theatre on the ship- to witness the Opening Ceremonies of the Sea Olympiad! Each sea presented their flag, cheer, and colors proudly! We are the Pirates of Caribbean (clever, huh?) Yo ho, Yo ho, the Caribbean Sea for me! It was quite comical to see everyone dressed up in their colors (ours was orange, disgusting!) and the mascots were hilarious. For some reason we had a Pig Pirate. Don’t ask.The actual games didn’t start until Thursday, the next morning, bright and early at 9:30am. Games included: volleyball, the Olympic relay, pictionary, a spelling bee, tug-of-war, a workout relay, paper boat float, hula hoop contest, dodgeball, hot dog eating (3 people puked!), twister, Jeopardy, pizza making, human knot, flip cup, limbo, pie eating, sudoku, and synchronized swimming. Needless to say, the day was jam packed with events to participate in and watch. At the closing ceremonies that evening, the Caribbean Sea learned that we got 3rd place overall. Our prize was unlimited cheese cubes and peanut butter in the dining halls! Which is funny because those are pretty much a staple for every meal on the ship.
The Sea Olympics ended with closing ceremonies followed by the Gods and Goddesses dance. Because I forgot to pick up fabric in South Africa in which to make a costume, I just picked a dress from the closet which made me resemble more of a flapper from the 1920s rather than a Greek Goddess. Oh well. It was a lot of fun. We danced the night away on the 7th deck outside. The only down-side was that the outside temperature and humidity has really gone way up since South Africa, making the dance floor just one big sweaty mess.
The other event to note was our Caribbean Sea Social. Every sea gets the chance to throw a party up in the Faculty/Staff lounge, which is really awesome because they have like a full bar, a DJ, and a dance floor with strobe and colored lights. It’s at the forward part of the ship on the highest deck so it reminds one of a disco club on a real cruise liner. The invitees to this party are the Caribbean Sea residents and the adult population on the boat. It’s a great opportunity to mingle with the Life Long Learners (old farts who decide they want to spend their retirement on a cruise around the world with 750 college students), professors, staff, and crew. It was really fun to meet new people and not to mention the dancing that ensued. Who knew Dorris, the 81 year old token grandma (with a walker) on the ship could out-dance us all?
Only one more day of classes until India. It’s so exciting. This day is also a little bittersweet because we’re pretty much half-way through our voyage and I definitely don’t want it to end. I’m having so much fun and meeting so many great people- definitely friends I will have for the rest of my life.
Hope this entry appeased our readers.
Xoxo,
Amber
There were a few fun events that happened during the trek to India: the Sea Olympics and the Gods and Goddesses dance as well as the Caribbean Sea Social.
Sea Olympics:Remember living in resident dorms at college? Well, here on the ship we have “dorm”-like residence halls too. Except we’re separated by deck and side and have assigned “sea” names. My sea is the Caribbean Sea. It is led by our beloved LLC (Living – Learner Coordinator, otherwise known as an RA). There are 8 “seas” on the ship as well as a faculty/staff/family sea, called the Silver Stars. We all competed against each other in hopes of becoming the best sea on the ship and early departure from the ship when we arrive in Miami- that was 1st prize.Wednesday, October 8th, the whole shipboard community gathered in the Union – the main theatre on the ship- to witness the Opening Ceremonies of the Sea Olympiad! Each sea presented their flag, cheer, and colors proudly! We are the Pirates of Caribbean (clever, huh?) Yo ho, Yo ho, the Caribbean Sea for me! It was quite comical to see everyone dressed up in their colors (ours was orange, disgusting!) and the mascots were hilarious. For some reason we had a Pig Pirate. Don’t ask.The actual games didn’t start until Thursday, the next morning, bright and early at 9:30am. Games included: volleyball, the Olympic relay, pictionary, a spelling bee, tug-of-war, a workout relay, paper boat float, hula hoop contest, dodgeball, hot dog eating (3 people puked!), twister, Jeopardy, pizza making, human knot, flip cup, limbo, pie eating, sudoku, and synchronized swimming. Needless to say, the day was jam packed with events to participate in and watch. At the closing ceremonies that evening, the Caribbean Sea learned that we got 3rd place overall. Our prize was unlimited cheese cubes and peanut butter in the dining halls! Which is funny because those are pretty much a staple for every meal on the ship.
The Sea Olympics ended with closing ceremonies followed by the Gods and Goddesses dance. Because I forgot to pick up fabric in South Africa in which to make a costume, I just picked a dress from the closet which made me resemble more of a flapper from the 1920s rather than a Greek Goddess. Oh well. It was a lot of fun. We danced the night away on the 7th deck outside. The only down-side was that the outside temperature and humidity has really gone way up since South Africa, making the dance floor just one big sweaty mess.
The other event to note was our Caribbean Sea Social. Every sea gets the chance to throw a party up in the Faculty/Staff lounge, which is really awesome because they have like a full bar, a DJ, and a dance floor with strobe and colored lights. It’s at the forward part of the ship on the highest deck so it reminds one of a disco club on a real cruise liner. The invitees to this party are the Caribbean Sea residents and the adult population on the boat. It’s a great opportunity to mingle with the Life Long Learners (old farts who decide they want to spend their retirement on a cruise around the world with 750 college students), professors, staff, and crew. It was really fun to meet new people and not to mention the dancing that ensued. Who knew Dorris, the 81 year old token grandma (with a walker) on the ship could out-dance us all?
Only one more day of classes until India. It’s so exciting. This day is also a little bittersweet because we’re pretty much half-way through our voyage and I definitely don’t want it to end. I’m having so much fun and meeting so many great people- definitely friends I will have for the rest of my life.
Hope this entry appeased our readers.
Xoxo,
Amber
Monday, October 6, 2008
Red Feathers
While preparing for my Semester at Sea travels, I decided that I wanted to get one consistent object from each port. After a while of trying to determine what this was I altered my plan a bit and decided to leave one object in each country. The object that I am leaving is a red feather. It is hard to describe or reason why a red feather was the chosen object, but I felt it fit the part. In the end, I will have left red feathers all around the world. I have left 3 feathers as of now. Below is a list of the spots I have left them, I will update the list as we travel to each port. I try to leave the feather at one of my favorite spots in the country.
1) Brazil: On the steps by the Christ the Redeemer Statue in Rio
2) Namibia: Sadly I left my feather on the boat in Namibia, so while we were sailing away I let it go off the boat so hopefully it will fly all across Namibia
3) South Africa: On top of Table Mountain
Have a wonderful day!
-Maggie
1) Brazil: On the steps by the Christ the Redeemer Statue in Rio
2) Namibia: Sadly I left my feather on the boat in Namibia, so while we were sailing away I let it go off the boat so hopefully it will fly all across Namibia
3) South Africa: On top of Table Mountain
Have a wonderful day!
-Maggie
CAPE TOWN ADVENTURES
Cape Town did not disappoint. Every good adjective I could think of would not be enough to describe how amazing my time in Cape Town was. It not only is a wonderful place to visit but it is the type of place that I hope to live someday. The culture, the people, the history, and the tradition of the city and country of South Africa made it all the more memorable.
We arrived to Cape Town and were very lucky to be docked right on the V&A Waterfront. This basically meant we had direct access to one of the most popular areas of Cape Town. There are hundreds of restaurants, shops, and hotels that all surround the Waterfront. Not to mention there was even live music that was always being played on the streets. The MV sat proud all week long right at the end of the Waterfront.
The first day we arrived, Amber had a FDP so I ventured off with some friends. The first mission was to find the House of Parliament in hopes of seeing the new president sworn in. However the president was sworn in the day before but we were still able to see the building from the outside. Our cab driver gave us a brief breakdown of the city and told us where to go to eat and where to stay. We took her advice for lunch and headed to the wonderful Long Street. It was one of the main streets in the city and was a center for both daytime and late night. We sat down and had a wonderful lunch. We ate on the sidewalk of the street which was the perfect opportunity to get a feel of the people of Cape Town. After, we decided to do our best to find a place to sleep for the night. It felt like a good idea instead of having to take a late night cab back to the boat. After reading in my Lonely Planet travel guide, we found the perfect hotel. The description was that it was an art gallery hotel meaning each room was designed by different local artists. The name of it was Daddy Long Legs. We ran up to the hotel and it was gorgeous but it was nice and small so it had that hostel type feel but it felt safe. We got to look through a book and pick which room we wanted, all the rooms were amazing but we ended up picking a room that was designed by a music group called Freshly Ground. The hotel was great though; it had an outside balcony, free high speed Internet, and the cutest courtyard in the middle of the hotel that was full of bird cages and such. After booking our room we had some time to kill before we could check in so my friend Sarah and I went shopping and exploring along Long Street. We even found a cupcake shop in South Africa. We went to a music store and got a CD by the group that designed our room Freshly Ground. After we checked back into our room. It was amazing! There was a CD player with all the CDs by Freshly Ground and the shower door had their lyrics written on it. The whole hotel was such a great concept. They had a small art gallery where you could buy art by local artists and proceeds were donated to local organizations so my friends and I decided to get our artwork for Cape Town from there. After a quick break at Daddy Long Legs we headed back to the boat to meet with a larger group and pack up for our night at Daddy Long Legs. That night we talked to our concierge and he got us a last minute reservation at a local restaurant called Café Royale. It was such a great dinner and there were all locals at the restaurants. After we all hung out on Long Street till the wee hours and then crashed at our hotel room.
The next day we got up pretty early and indulged in the free Internet. At about 1030 we checked out of Daddy Long Legs and headed to the wine lands of South Africa. We headed to a town called Stellenbosch. It was a quaint little “college” town; the University of Stellenbosch was located there. We went to two wineries. At the second one we had the most breathtaking view overlooking the lush, green, wine lands. It was magnificent; we all just sat and talked for hours. Then we headed to a college rugby game, lots of people from SAS were going to go because it was a big game. It was University of Cape Town vs. University of Stellenbosch. Right when we walked in the game we were attacked by Stellenbosch students who wrote “Maties,” their school mascot, on our arms. Therefore we knew who we were going to cheer for. It was fun to be back on a college campus. The game was really intense but so amazing. Afterwards we went to a local bar where lots of students went after the game, then headed back to Cape Town. It was fascinating to see how similar these college students were to college students in the US.
The next morning we had an early wake up call. We are sending pictures home to our parents from this event so once they get them we will explain exactly why we had to get up early that day. But later in the day we decided to conquer Table Mountain. This mountain is one of the main attractions of Cape Town. You can take a cable car up or down, but we wanted to hike up. The hike was intense but so rewarding. You basically hiked up this huge gorge, where at the end only one person could fit through the pathway at a time. But once you got to the top it was breathtaking. Once reaching the top, I got a little teary-eyed. It was one of my most proud accomplishments and was the best reward ever. After climbing to the top we took the cable car down because it was starting to get late. We rushed back to the boat and took a much needed shower. We then headed to Mitchells (our favorite hangout spot on the Waterfront) and then all a big group went to Quay Four which was right by the water and had a live band that played the Beatles and other great songs. All we could do while relaxing at dinner was say to ourselves that it was quite literally the perfect day.
The next day was one of my favorite days in Cape Town. Amber and I went on an FDP through Operation Hunger. We visited two different townships. In each one our purpose was to go and weigh the children and then after we would examine and chart if they met the required weight for their age. If they did not, Operation Hunger would then go through the townships and visit the child’s home to find why there were not getting enough nourishment. Arriving at these townships is quite difficult at times, we roll up in these huge buses and all come out with our cameras and take pictures of these people’s lives. It is a struggle to not be invasive but to still be curious. But when we arrived at this school the children were jumping up and down and yelling for us. It was the best way to lift our spirits. For the next 2 hours we got to play with the students while they were weighed. I brought stickers for the children and they loved them. By the end of the day the kid’s faces were covered in stickers of stars and basketballs and lions. One little girl sat by me the whole time, she was a bit older, but quiet and was the sweetest girl. I would give her a sheet of stickers and then she would give them to other kids or put them on my face. She was so quiet and I just kept telling her how nice she was. After we went to another township. At this one, we passed out food to the children. The person in charge of the food was gone when we got there so fortunately we all had extra food leftover from lunch so we divided it up by 45 and handed it out to the kids. Before we started passing out the food this little girl as sitting on my lap and holding my hand. After passing out the food, I turned around and saw her come around the corner with the saddest look in her face, I asked her if she got food and she said no. She was tearing up so I quickly got her some food and she just ate it in silence. The kids all ran after our bus as we left. It was a great experience to actually get to interact with the people of Africa. We left our tourism ways and just became a part of the community for a day. That night we went back to the boat to hang out with friends into the night along the Waterfront . Again all we could say that night is that we had such a perfect day.
The next day we decided to catch up on some much needed sleep. Afterwards we walked around the Waterfront and had a great lunch in the middle of the Waterfront with a local jazz band playing Frank Sinatra and such. After we walked around Long Street for a while and just enjoyed a relaxing day.
The next day we had the earliest morning yet…5:50 AM. But it was for good reason because we were going SHARK CAGE DIVING (Amber stayed behind on this day and made another trip to the wine lands with a group of friends). However, I decided I wanted to swim with the sharks, quite literally. I went with my two friends Allison and Sarah, and a big group of SASers were with us as well. We drove for 2 hours. We all slept most of the drive but whenever I opened my eyes we were in the middle of the most beautiful land. We arrived at this cute little office that was basically a house that overlooked the ocean. We had breakfast then put on huge orange jackets and headed on the boat for our day with sharks. We took the boat out for about 10 minutes. The skipper throws our bait (tuna and a piece of Styrofoam shaped like a seal) and within 30 minutes a shark was right by the boat. It was insane. Then we all got dressed in wet suits, goggles, and weights and quite literally jumped in this long rectangular cage in the freezing ocean. You can basically stand in the cage, but when the skipper yells SHARK TO THE LEFT you go under water and hold onto this bar and are face to face with a shark. When I first went under water I freaked out a little, my goggles were not working and the cold was such a shock. I thought I was going to have to escape the cage, but after a bit I got used to it and loved it. It was the biggest adrenaline rush and immediately woke us up. We were in the cage for about 10 minutes and at the very end when he yelled SHARK TO THE RIGHT, I went under water and the shark was right in front of me! It thrashed against the cage and I could see inside his mouth. After getting out for a bit, I went back in for about 15 minutes and got to see more sharks in touching distance. When we were leaving the area, all of a sudden a seal started swimming by the sharks and this shark attacked it and got it. The skipper said he had never seen that for 14 years so we all felt very special. It was such a great day! I was thrilled to say I survived shark cage diving. After a lovely drive home, we decided to enjoy our last night in Cape Town. We started the night at Mitchells then headed to a place called Hemisphere which was located on the 32nd floor of a building and had the most gorgeous view of the lights of Cape Town. After visiting this location for a while, we went back to Long Street to enjoy our last night in the wonderful city of Cape Town.
On our very last day in Cape Town there was still lots we wanted to do. We were possibly going to go to Cape Point to see penguins on the beach, but decided we were pushing our time to get back for on ship time. So instead we decided to just enjoy our last day on the Waterfront. In the morning I went to the South African National Gallery. I needed to go for one of my classes, but it was well worth it. After going there we headed to the Waterfront . We just reminisced about our wonderful Cape Town adventures, discussed how we were going to come back and where we wanted to live and where we could get jobs in Cape Town, and even shed a tear or so about leaving the wonderful city.
After every family trip we take, my family always asks me to name a High and a Low. Well my high for Cape Town would have to be a few things. First off, the “surprise” was one of the most amazing things I pushed myself to do. Table Mountain was one of my most proud and rewarding accomplishments. Sitting with the quiet girl at the township for an hour was one of my most grounding moments. And our nights out at Mitchells and Long Street were the most fun I had, more fun than I could ever imagine. Shark cage diving was probably the most surprising thing I did. All in all, all of these moments worked together to make the whole trip amazing. In the spirit of positivity, I really did not want to name a low. It would be hard to name a low though, even the early morning wake up calls were memorable and we were always excited for what the day had in store. Leaving the kids in the township may have been a low but at the same time the smiles we saw all day were enough to keep our spirits up.
Well sorry that I just wrote a novel about my adventures in Cape Town. All these words and stories are not enough to describe how perfect it was! I can’t wait to share my pictures when I return.
We arrived to Cape Town and were very lucky to be docked right on the V&A Waterfront. This basically meant we had direct access to one of the most popular areas of Cape Town. There are hundreds of restaurants, shops, and hotels that all surround the Waterfront. Not to mention there was even live music that was always being played on the streets. The MV sat proud all week long right at the end of the Waterfront.
The first day we arrived, Amber had a FDP so I ventured off with some friends. The first mission was to find the House of Parliament in hopes of seeing the new president sworn in. However the president was sworn in the day before but we were still able to see the building from the outside. Our cab driver gave us a brief breakdown of the city and told us where to go to eat and where to stay. We took her advice for lunch and headed to the wonderful Long Street. It was one of the main streets in the city and was a center for both daytime and late night. We sat down and had a wonderful lunch. We ate on the sidewalk of the street which was the perfect opportunity to get a feel of the people of Cape Town. After, we decided to do our best to find a place to sleep for the night. It felt like a good idea instead of having to take a late night cab back to the boat. After reading in my Lonely Planet travel guide, we found the perfect hotel. The description was that it was an art gallery hotel meaning each room was designed by different local artists. The name of it was Daddy Long Legs. We ran up to the hotel and it was gorgeous but it was nice and small so it had that hostel type feel but it felt safe. We got to look through a book and pick which room we wanted, all the rooms were amazing but we ended up picking a room that was designed by a music group called Freshly Ground. The hotel was great though; it had an outside balcony, free high speed Internet, and the cutest courtyard in the middle of the hotel that was full of bird cages and such. After booking our room we had some time to kill before we could check in so my friend Sarah and I went shopping and exploring along Long Street. We even found a cupcake shop in South Africa. We went to a music store and got a CD by the group that designed our room Freshly Ground. After we checked back into our room. It was amazing! There was a CD player with all the CDs by Freshly Ground and the shower door had their lyrics written on it. The whole hotel was such a great concept. They had a small art gallery where you could buy art by local artists and proceeds were donated to local organizations so my friends and I decided to get our artwork for Cape Town from there. After a quick break at Daddy Long Legs we headed back to the boat to meet with a larger group and pack up for our night at Daddy Long Legs. That night we talked to our concierge and he got us a last minute reservation at a local restaurant called Café Royale. It was such a great dinner and there were all locals at the restaurants. After we all hung out on Long Street till the wee hours and then crashed at our hotel room.
The next day we got up pretty early and indulged in the free Internet. At about 1030 we checked out of Daddy Long Legs and headed to the wine lands of South Africa. We headed to a town called Stellenbosch. It was a quaint little “college” town; the University of Stellenbosch was located there. We went to two wineries. At the second one we had the most breathtaking view overlooking the lush, green, wine lands. It was magnificent; we all just sat and talked for hours. Then we headed to a college rugby game, lots of people from SAS were going to go because it was a big game. It was University of Cape Town vs. University of Stellenbosch. Right when we walked in the game we were attacked by Stellenbosch students who wrote “Maties,” their school mascot, on our arms. Therefore we knew who we were going to cheer for. It was fun to be back on a college campus. The game was really intense but so amazing. Afterwards we went to a local bar where lots of students went after the game, then headed back to Cape Town. It was fascinating to see how similar these college students were to college students in the US.
The next morning we had an early wake up call. We are sending pictures home to our parents from this event so once they get them we will explain exactly why we had to get up early that day. But later in the day we decided to conquer Table Mountain. This mountain is one of the main attractions of Cape Town. You can take a cable car up or down, but we wanted to hike up. The hike was intense but so rewarding. You basically hiked up this huge gorge, where at the end only one person could fit through the pathway at a time. But once you got to the top it was breathtaking. Once reaching the top, I got a little teary-eyed. It was one of my most proud accomplishments and was the best reward ever. After climbing to the top we took the cable car down because it was starting to get late. We rushed back to the boat and took a much needed shower. We then headed to Mitchells (our favorite hangout spot on the Waterfront) and then all a big group went to Quay Four which was right by the water and had a live band that played the Beatles and other great songs. All we could do while relaxing at dinner was say to ourselves that it was quite literally the perfect day.
The next day was one of my favorite days in Cape Town. Amber and I went on an FDP through Operation Hunger. We visited two different townships. In each one our purpose was to go and weigh the children and then after we would examine and chart if they met the required weight for their age. If they did not, Operation Hunger would then go through the townships and visit the child’s home to find why there were not getting enough nourishment. Arriving at these townships is quite difficult at times, we roll up in these huge buses and all come out with our cameras and take pictures of these people’s lives. It is a struggle to not be invasive but to still be curious. But when we arrived at this school the children were jumping up and down and yelling for us. It was the best way to lift our spirits. For the next 2 hours we got to play with the students while they were weighed. I brought stickers for the children and they loved them. By the end of the day the kid’s faces were covered in stickers of stars and basketballs and lions. One little girl sat by me the whole time, she was a bit older, but quiet and was the sweetest girl. I would give her a sheet of stickers and then she would give them to other kids or put them on my face. She was so quiet and I just kept telling her how nice she was. After we went to another township. At this one, we passed out food to the children. The person in charge of the food was gone when we got there so fortunately we all had extra food leftover from lunch so we divided it up by 45 and handed it out to the kids. Before we started passing out the food this little girl as sitting on my lap and holding my hand. After passing out the food, I turned around and saw her come around the corner with the saddest look in her face, I asked her if she got food and she said no. She was tearing up so I quickly got her some food and she just ate it in silence. The kids all ran after our bus as we left. It was a great experience to actually get to interact with the people of Africa. We left our tourism ways and just became a part of the community for a day. That night we went back to the boat to hang out with friends into the night along the Waterfront . Again all we could say that night is that we had such a perfect day.
The next day we decided to catch up on some much needed sleep. Afterwards we walked around the Waterfront and had a great lunch in the middle of the Waterfront with a local jazz band playing Frank Sinatra and such. After we walked around Long Street for a while and just enjoyed a relaxing day.
The next day we had the earliest morning yet…5:50 AM. But it was for good reason because we were going SHARK CAGE DIVING (Amber stayed behind on this day and made another trip to the wine lands with a group of friends). However, I decided I wanted to swim with the sharks, quite literally. I went with my two friends Allison and Sarah, and a big group of SASers were with us as well. We drove for 2 hours. We all slept most of the drive but whenever I opened my eyes we were in the middle of the most beautiful land. We arrived at this cute little office that was basically a house that overlooked the ocean. We had breakfast then put on huge orange jackets and headed on the boat for our day with sharks. We took the boat out for about 10 minutes. The skipper throws our bait (tuna and a piece of Styrofoam shaped like a seal) and within 30 minutes a shark was right by the boat. It was insane. Then we all got dressed in wet suits, goggles, and weights and quite literally jumped in this long rectangular cage in the freezing ocean. You can basically stand in the cage, but when the skipper yells SHARK TO THE LEFT you go under water and hold onto this bar and are face to face with a shark. When I first went under water I freaked out a little, my goggles were not working and the cold was such a shock. I thought I was going to have to escape the cage, but after a bit I got used to it and loved it. It was the biggest adrenaline rush and immediately woke us up. We were in the cage for about 10 minutes and at the very end when he yelled SHARK TO THE RIGHT, I went under water and the shark was right in front of me! It thrashed against the cage and I could see inside his mouth. After getting out for a bit, I went back in for about 15 minutes and got to see more sharks in touching distance. When we were leaving the area, all of a sudden a seal started swimming by the sharks and this shark attacked it and got it. The skipper said he had never seen that for 14 years so we all felt very special. It was such a great day! I was thrilled to say I survived shark cage diving. After a lovely drive home, we decided to enjoy our last night in Cape Town. We started the night at Mitchells then headed to a place called Hemisphere which was located on the 32nd floor of a building and had the most gorgeous view of the lights of Cape Town. After visiting this location for a while, we went back to Long Street to enjoy our last night in the wonderful city of Cape Town.
On our very last day in Cape Town there was still lots we wanted to do. We were possibly going to go to Cape Point to see penguins on the beach, but decided we were pushing our time to get back for on ship time. So instead we decided to just enjoy our last day on the Waterfront. In the morning I went to the South African National Gallery. I needed to go for one of my classes, but it was well worth it. After going there we headed to the Waterfront . We just reminisced about our wonderful Cape Town adventures, discussed how we were going to come back and where we wanted to live and where we could get jobs in Cape Town, and even shed a tear or so about leaving the wonderful city.
After every family trip we take, my family always asks me to name a High and a Low. Well my high for Cape Town would have to be a few things. First off, the “surprise” was one of the most amazing things I pushed myself to do. Table Mountain was one of my most proud and rewarding accomplishments. Sitting with the quiet girl at the township for an hour was one of my most grounding moments. And our nights out at Mitchells and Long Street were the most fun I had, more fun than I could ever imagine. Shark cage diving was probably the most surprising thing I did. All in all, all of these moments worked together to make the whole trip amazing. In the spirit of positivity, I really did not want to name a low. It would be hard to name a low though, even the early morning wake up calls were memorable and we were always excited for what the day had in store. Leaving the kids in the township may have been a low but at the same time the smiles we saw all day were enough to keep our spirits up.
Well sorry that I just wrote a novel about my adventures in Cape Town. All these words and stories are not enough to describe how perfect it was! I can’t wait to share my pictures when I return.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
We don't want to leave the Cape...
Sorry that we have not updated in a while but it’s been quite busy over here on the other side of the world. We are currently traveling to India, so I’ll update you on our time spent in beautiful Cape Town, South Africa.
friday we arrived and I had an FDP at 2pm so i couldn't stray far from the boat, but luckily the dock for our ship is at this place called the V&A Waterfront which has a lot of cool shops and restaurants so it kept me pretty busy. I went on a Township and District 6 tour. The townships are an amazing site- in a different way. Basically, right outside of the wealthy portion of Cape Town are shanty towns all over the place. The people who live there literally build their houses out of whatever they can find- wood, cardboard, tin, etc. It's crazy. It's mind blogging and eye-opening to see that people live that way. We walked around the township and played with the kids (whom i am falling in love with quite quickly and at this rate I might smuggle an orphan onto the ship with me). I have already distributed all my stickers- i need to go buy more. You should see how much they LOVE stickers!Then saturday we woke up early and went to the winelands which are breathtaking. It was about a thirty minute drive to the winelands to this college town called Stollenboche. It was picturesque, quaint and so much fun. We went to two vineyards where they had all you can drink wine tasting for free. And at this one called Beyerskloof they had the most delicious cheese platter that our group ordered 4 of them haha! then we went to the Uni. of Cape Town vs. Stollenboche rugby game which was SO much fun!!!! We met a lot of (cute) locals who took us to their afterparty at some bar when Stollenboche won the game. GO MATIES!!! We immediately fit in with the college crowd and it made me miss USD. We even put on face paint and wrote MATIES on our arms to show support for Stollenboche University.Sunday- I can't tell you about. Just so you know- I survived ;) whatever it is that I did and you, dad, and I are going to do it again sometime because it was the most amazing experience I have ever had in my entire life. So get excited!!! We also hiked table mountain yesterday which had the most amazing views of the city ever. It was the most difficult thing physically i have ever had to do. The trail was pretty much straight up the entire mountain and all rocks and boulders that you had to climb. It was basically rock climbing. Today we went on a trip sponsored by Operation Hunger. We went to two different townships- Los Angeles and Green Park. It took all day from 9am to 5pm. Operation Hunger is an organization that assesses the malnutrition of South Africa's younger population. We arrived in Los Angeles for our first stop and were informed that we were going to the school there, called a "crash," where the little kids between infants and 8 years old stay during the day while their families are working or older brothers and sisters are at work. Our job was to not only play and interact with the children but also weigh all of them and chart their weights on a graph to see how the township is doing with nutrition. Again, Maggie and I brought packs of stickers to give out to the kids and needless to say by the end of our time with them, the kids' faces were covered in little star, heart, and animal stickers. It was so funny to see that thats the first place they stuck a sticker. The balloons were a big hit too. It was sad to say goodbye to the kids so that we could move on to the next township. We all had formed strong bonds with one or two of the children who parked themselves on our laps or in the piggy-back position so as to keep us from leaving. Even just after an hour, we all felt so attached to the children. However, we moved on to Green Park community which was a little worse-off than Los Angeles. We learned upon arrival that the school house that we were going to had just been broken into and robbed the night before. Nevertheless, we proceeded through the mud and rain to the little schoolhouse in the back of the community. Once inside the dark little room, the shy and wary kids at first started to warm up and find a "companion" among our group. We weighed these kids too and found that they were more malnourished than the last community. At this community we were supposed to feed the kids from food provided by Operation Hunger in a big kitchen that they had on-site but the person in charge of that forgot to go grocery shopping. Now we had a dilemma. What food we re we supposed to give to the starving children? Well, provided to us, we had packed lunches from the ship- sandwich, cookies, cake, chicken, apple, and juice. It wasn't appealing food to us so we gave all of our lunches to the kids. When the 45 children were maneuvering through the food line, the smiles on their faces lit up the gloomy day and warmed our hearts. Those smiles and laughs made the long day worth it. Leaving Green Park, the children chased our bus and waved wondering when the next white people would venture into their neighborhood. Little did they know that it would be in only a day or so.We had absolutely nothing planned for Tuesday, September 30th, so we decided to sleep in and use that day as a shopping day! At noon, we ventured out of the ship and had lunch at this great little cafe that had amazing food! The pizza around the world is phenomenal. After our long lunch, we headed to Long Street to hit up the stores. I won't bore you with the details of our shopping adventures but it was a very successful day. I wasn't feeling too well that day so after a late dinner at Mitchell's Pub and Grill, I went back to the boat for a long, overdue and refreshing night's sleep.Wednesday I was all rested and rearing to go. While Maggie, Sarah, and Allison decided to go cage shark diving, I decided to go back to the winelands for a lazy day of wine tasting and relaxation. I went to one vineyard called "Spier" and got to play with and pet baby cheetahs because they foster a rehabilitation center there. It was so cool!
Then, there was an especially unique opportunity that only Semester at Sea participants were able to partake in. Desmond Tutu, one of the most influential leaders during the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, boarded the MV Explorer to meet and discuss certain global issues with the students on board. It was an amazing experience and I even got to introduce myself and shake his hand as he was leaving. He is a great public speaker and had a lot of knowledgeable advice to give to students living in the United States. After he spoke to the crowd, two other African men stood before us. They were Amy Biehl’s murderers. Do you know the story of Amy Biehl? She was a white exchange student in the early 90s who was studying at UCT (university of Cape Town). She was brutally murdered while she was dropping a friend off at home in the township of Gugulethu. Everyone says she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time because on this particular day there was an anti-white protest and mob going on in the township. It was interesting to hear the story told first hand by the evil people who had committed this crime. However, after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission granted them amnesty, they have made a complete 180 on their feelings towards white people and on racism and apartheid in general. The two men now run the Amy Biehl Foundation which helps to promote awareness and acceptance of the mixing between white and black cultures in South Africa.
Needless to say, Cape Town is now my new favorite place and I can’t wait to bring my family there!
Only 8 more days til we arrive in Chennai, India!!
friday we arrived and I had an FDP at 2pm so i couldn't stray far from the boat, but luckily the dock for our ship is at this place called the V&A Waterfront which has a lot of cool shops and restaurants so it kept me pretty busy. I went on a Township and District 6 tour. The townships are an amazing site- in a different way. Basically, right outside of the wealthy portion of Cape Town are shanty towns all over the place. The people who live there literally build their houses out of whatever they can find- wood, cardboard, tin, etc. It's crazy. It's mind blogging and eye-opening to see that people live that way. We walked around the township and played with the kids (whom i am falling in love with quite quickly and at this rate I might smuggle an orphan onto the ship with me). I have already distributed all my stickers- i need to go buy more. You should see how much they LOVE stickers!Then saturday we woke up early and went to the winelands which are breathtaking. It was about a thirty minute drive to the winelands to this college town called Stollenboche. It was picturesque, quaint and so much fun. We went to two vineyards where they had all you can drink wine tasting for free. And at this one called Beyerskloof they had the most delicious cheese platter that our group ordered 4 of them haha! then we went to the Uni. of Cape Town vs. Stollenboche rugby game which was SO much fun!!!! We met a lot of (cute) locals who took us to their afterparty at some bar when Stollenboche won the game. GO MATIES!!! We immediately fit in with the college crowd and it made me miss USD. We even put on face paint and wrote MATIES on our arms to show support for Stollenboche University.Sunday- I can't tell you about. Just so you know- I survived ;) whatever it is that I did and you, dad, and I are going to do it again sometime because it was the most amazing experience I have ever had in my entire life. So get excited!!! We also hiked table mountain yesterday which had the most amazing views of the city ever. It was the most difficult thing physically i have ever had to do. The trail was pretty much straight up the entire mountain and all rocks and boulders that you had to climb. It was basically rock climbing. Today we went on a trip sponsored by Operation Hunger. We went to two different townships- Los Angeles and Green Park. It took all day from 9am to 5pm. Operation Hunger is an organization that assesses the malnutrition of South Africa's younger population. We arrived in Los Angeles for our first stop and were informed that we were going to the school there, called a "crash," where the little kids between infants and 8 years old stay during the day while their families are working or older brothers and sisters are at work. Our job was to not only play and interact with the children but also weigh all of them and chart their weights on a graph to see how the township is doing with nutrition. Again, Maggie and I brought packs of stickers to give out to the kids and needless to say by the end of our time with them, the kids' faces were covered in little star, heart, and animal stickers. It was so funny to see that thats the first place they stuck a sticker. The balloons were a big hit too. It was sad to say goodbye to the kids so that we could move on to the next township. We all had formed strong bonds with one or two of the children who parked themselves on our laps or in the piggy-back position so as to keep us from leaving. Even just after an hour, we all felt so attached to the children. However, we moved on to Green Park community which was a little worse-off than Los Angeles. We learned upon arrival that the school house that we were going to had just been broken into and robbed the night before. Nevertheless, we proceeded through the mud and rain to the little schoolhouse in the back of the community. Once inside the dark little room, the shy and wary kids at first started to warm up and find a "companion" among our group. We weighed these kids too and found that they were more malnourished than the last community. At this community we were supposed to feed the kids from food provided by Operation Hunger in a big kitchen that they had on-site but the person in charge of that forgot to go grocery shopping. Now we had a dilemma. What food we re we supposed to give to the starving children? Well, provided to us, we had packed lunches from the ship- sandwich, cookies, cake, chicken, apple, and juice. It wasn't appealing food to us so we gave all of our lunches to the kids. When the 45 children were maneuvering through the food line, the smiles on their faces lit up the gloomy day and warmed our hearts. Those smiles and laughs made the long day worth it. Leaving Green Park, the children chased our bus and waved wondering when the next white people would venture into their neighborhood. Little did they know that it would be in only a day or so.We had absolutely nothing planned for Tuesday, September 30th, so we decided to sleep in and use that day as a shopping day! At noon, we ventured out of the ship and had lunch at this great little cafe that had amazing food! The pizza around the world is phenomenal. After our long lunch, we headed to Long Street to hit up the stores. I won't bore you with the details of our shopping adventures but it was a very successful day. I wasn't feeling too well that day so after a late dinner at Mitchell's Pub and Grill, I went back to the boat for a long, overdue and refreshing night's sleep.Wednesday I was all rested and rearing to go. While Maggie, Sarah, and Allison decided to go cage shark diving, I decided to go back to the winelands for a lazy day of wine tasting and relaxation. I went to one vineyard called "Spier" and got to play with and pet baby cheetahs because they foster a rehabilitation center there. It was so cool!
Then, there was an especially unique opportunity that only Semester at Sea participants were able to partake in. Desmond Tutu, one of the most influential leaders during the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, boarded the MV Explorer to meet and discuss certain global issues with the students on board. It was an amazing experience and I even got to introduce myself and shake his hand as he was leaving. He is a great public speaker and had a lot of knowledgeable advice to give to students living in the United States. After he spoke to the crowd, two other African men stood before us. They were Amy Biehl’s murderers. Do you know the story of Amy Biehl? She was a white exchange student in the early 90s who was studying at UCT (university of Cape Town). She was brutally murdered while she was dropping a friend off at home in the township of Gugulethu. Everyone says she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time because on this particular day there was an anti-white protest and mob going on in the township. It was interesting to hear the story told first hand by the evil people who had committed this crime. However, after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission granted them amnesty, they have made a complete 180 on their feelings towards white people and on racism and apartheid in general. The two men now run the Amy Biehl Foundation which helps to promote awareness and acceptance of the mixing between white and black cultures in South Africa.
Needless to say, Cape Town is now my new favorite place and I can’t wait to bring my family there!
Only 8 more days til we arrive in Chennai, India!!
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