Anchors Aweigh!: India

There was so much to absorb from India that I haven’t even been able to write my blog until a week after leaving. Amazing how time flies on this trip and to say that I left India a week ago feels like it was actually months ago. I am going to split this entry up based on the days spent in India so it will hopefully be easier to follow.

Day 1

    There was a lot of hype building up to India. There were so many rumors about India being so dirty everyone throws away their clothes after, you must wear conservative/traditional clothing or else you will be targeted, you will see dead bodies some places you go, the food will make you poop your brains out, and that the poverty just slaps you in the face. Every night before we get to a port we have preport where you learn last minute things about the country; customs, currency exchange, phrases in other languages, and things about the trips through SAS. There were 2 nights worth of preport for India because there was so many necessary things to know about the country. Let me remind you that we have been learning about each country in all of our classes all semester so we already know a lot about the places but India had a few more necessities than the others. There are 1.2 billion people in the country and 300 million of them live on less than $1 a day. I think everyone was expecting to see a lot more poverty than we did but a country with such a large population doesn’t only have poor people. They also have 1 million millionaires but many people don’t realize that because when a lot of people think of India poverty is one of the first things that come to mind.
    The morning we were coming into India I woke up around 5 am to a very weird smell in our room. I knew it wasn’t something from our room and it had to be something coming through the vents because it smelt like sewage. When we were in Ghana I noticed a smoke smell in our room. This was because they burn all their trash so the air smelled like a forest fire and got in our ventilation system. When we were in Cape Town the port was really fishy smelling and I blame all the sea lions playing around because that was the only part of the shore I was around that smelt so strongly of fish. Before we were even in the port in Chennai it smelt like what I would imagine a slum would smell like. I kept trying to fall back asleep but the smell kept waking me up so I decide to just get up and get ready. The port we came into was industrial so all I really saw when I went outside was 500 mini coopers parked on the dock that I’m guessing had come off the ship before us.
    Hanna, Jill, Drew, and I wanted to go into town to get some traditional clothing before we all went on our trips the next day. We have to take a shuttle to the gate of the port before we can get a taxi or anything. It is the best feeling walking off the ship for the first time and just soaking up everything around you. There is a big line to get out of the gate because each person has to get their passport checked every time we come in and out (India had very strict immigration). We are standing in line and see these little yellow, 3 wheeled, motorized hooptie. We figured out that it was a rickshaw and was the common way to get around. We hopped in one and zipped through the line and made it through immigration in a jif. We couldn’t stop laughing because the situation was so funny. 4 of us were packed in the back of this weird taxi moped and this barefoot Indian man is sitting on one foot and casually weaving in and out of the crazy traffic around us. There were a lot of people out and about but it wasn’t anything compared to what I was expecting. We got through traffic really fast and I was terrified by their traffic system. To me it seemed so unorganized and dangerous but somehow it worked for them. Everyone went so fast, completely ignored traffic signs, and while driving full throttle with people turning from every direction they were inches from the person in front of them. Random cars and people would come right in front of us and it didn’t even seem to faze them. Slamming on their brakes was as common as using a blinker (assuming they used a blinker for half the turns they made). So even though the ride was really scary I had no control so all I could do was sit back and laugh. We went to a shop and got really cool cashmere shawls and a couple things to wear. Girls aren’t supposed to show their shoulders or wear anything above their knees. Everywhere in the country is different but overall it is a conservative country and some places are more traditional than others.
    We got back to the ship just in time to go on an FDP called Socioeconomic Problems in Chennai that was supposed to take us to a slum and show us the way of life in a poor area. Like most Semester at Sea trips it was somewhat organized and unpredictable. We were brought to a place that was government housing for people who were displaced from the tsunami in 2001 and from various slums. It was a poor area but the people were being taken care of and were nothing like a real slum. The community was set up in a way to make itself sustainable. There were jobs created to take care of their community so in order to live there they had to have a job in the area. They had this composte system where they took their trash and made it into fertilizer. There was an interesting story about a lady who had gotten a small business loan to go to cosmetology school and open a barbershop up in their neighborhood. It was a very poor quality of life but they still had water and electricity. Something I saw in more than this neighborhood was random cows walking around on the streets. The cow is a sacred animal in the Hindu religion so they just roam around everywhere and sometimes in the weirdest places. The consequence of hitting a cow on the road is the death penalty. In the northern part of India there is a big Muslim population and the pig is their sacred animal so most of the food is vegetarian. Along with the random cows all over the place there was trash everywhere. It is cleaned up in the street area for the most part but any bare patch of land is covered with trash. They just don’t care as much. We were coming back to the gate one day and my friend had a cup he wanted to throw away so he asked the immigration people where he could throw it away and they pointed behind their desk thing which was an open field. He went back there and was looking around for a trash can and couldn’t find anything. He hesitantly kept looking at them and they insisted him to just throw it on the ground, it was so weird.
    After the FDP we packed for our trip and took it easy because Hanna, Drew, and I were going with SAS on a 4 day trip and Jill had a home-stay in Chennai.

Day 2

   We left the ship at 4 am for the airport to catch our flight to Dheli. I must have woken up on the wrong side of the bed because I was not in a good mood. Of course at the time I didn’t feel like I was in a bad mood but I was extremely irritable. I seemed to only let it out on Drew though who is one of our really good friends. I met him on facebook a few days before I left for the Bahamas because he lives in the same neighborhood as my big sis in my sorority. Hanna, Jill and I met him on our Amazon Explorer trip in Brazil and we have all been great friends since. But back to India, unfortunately Drew was the recipient of my irritation that morning. It had been building up for a couple of days because we had all been getting ready for the trip and to me Drew kept asking Hanna and I the least logical questions I’m assuming because he was a little anxious about the trip. He showed up to the airport with a bag that was equivalent to the size of a body bag. We aren’t allowed to check bags while on SAS trips so I couldn’t even imagine what he had in his bag that couldn’t be left behind. Turned out it was 6 rolls of toilet paper and like 13 outfits of which 2 were worn. I’m sure I am making it sound worse than it was but it was just one of the many things he did that I did not understand. I felt better after the flight and was nicer to him.
    The flight was about 2 hours and we were served a free meal and had free TV. I had no idea what I was eating or most of the things that were on TV but it was still a nice treat. Our trip was nonstop from then on. When we got off the plane we met our tour guide and got on a bus that had a huge TOURIST sticker going across the front of it. So much for trying not to stand out. We headed to a monaument called Qutab Minar, a victory tower of the first Islammic dynasty. It is red sandstone and is decorated with geometric designs and verses from the Koran. We stopped for lunch at this place called Pepper. It was our first taste of India and we all passed pepto around the table to prepare for what was ahead of us. The food was great and the Nan bread so good. For dessert they had these balls of dough that were freid and soaked in a honey sauce with ice cream. They were DELICIOUS! After lunch we stopped at the India Gate which is a memorial commemorating all the soldiers that died in World War I. It looked just like the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. Two of the girls in our group of 30 got lost within the 30 minutes we were there. Our group leader is an Asian Politics professor on the ship. Her name is Margeret Fu and she was one of the highlights of the trip. She is a younger lady from China and she is so awkward and clueless but it makes her so funny! When she thought something was funny she would laugh so hard and was shy about it and you couldn’t help but laugh with her. She made a system that every time we met at a spot we would count off to make sure everyone was there. Everyone had the same number each time so we would know who was missing.
   The girls finally found their way back and our next stop was Ghandi’s memorial. It was a really pretty, green grassy area and was a place I never thought I would be in my life. As we drove from place to place in our bus I tried to study everything that was happening on the side of the road. There were all sorts of shops and people walking around. Things you would never see in the U.S. There weren’t any sidewalks and when I thought we were in the lane closest to the edge of the road motorcycles and small cars still seemed to squeeze by. Another thing that shocked me was a little girl doing cartwheels and all sorts of acrobatic things on the side of the road next to our bus. A teeneage boy that seemed to be her brother was following her playing some instrument and the longer we stayed at the stoplight the crazier her tricks got. She was popping her shoulders out and basically jumping rope with her arms. It was so freaky! When she was done she looked up at us and was making a motion to her mouth like a ‘give me money so I can eat’ gesture. Our last stop was Humayun’s tomb which was this beautiful building that looked like a palace. Then we headed to the hotel after a long day.
    We stayed at a Ramada Plaza and it was so nice! They welcomed us into the hotel with an Indian lei and put a bindhi (red dot) on our forehead to represent peace and luck. I must’ve gotten the peace and not the luck because shortly after we got there our room keys were passed out and it was people to a room. I was supposed to room with a lifelong learner on our trip (one of the adults on the voyage just doing this for fun) but she wanted her own room so I got my own room too. Awesome!....I thought until I find out Dew was paired with a girl named Francis and the hotel must’ve though that was a guy because all girls were with girls and boys with boys. They don’t know each other so that would be really awkward so gritting my teeth I give Francis my room and volunteer to switch places with her so she doesn’t have to be with some guy she doesn’t know. Any other day I probably would’ve willingly switched but of course I had to room with Drew the day that he is driving me insane. We walked up to our room and see a honeymoon suite sign next to our door and I’m like of great this would happen. But it was the room next door to us and we had a different room but still had to share a bed. It ended up being fine and after that day I was in a much better mood but it was just funny how it all happened at once. We feasted with another buffet dinner and went to bed for another early morning.

Day 3

    We had to be in the lobby ready to go at 5 am. The hotel had a breakfast for us before we headed to the train station to take a train to Jaipur. The train station was only 5 minutes from the hotel but when we were dropped off in the dark to cross the street to what I was guessing was the train station I was a little uneasy. It was so dark out and there were so many people around the train station walking around and I had no idea where we were going or what we were doing. I was just following the crowd hoping that the people around weren’t sketchy.
    We got on the train and they fed us another breakfast during our 2 hour ride. I was falling asleep on and off but when I was awake looking out the window I was surprised at how many people I saw popping a squat at the train tracks to take a dump. It was all men and boys that just pulled their pants down and let it go. I had seen a lot of guys peeing on the side of the road the day before but didn’t see anyone squatting. They don’t use toilet paper and the rumor was that men would grow their left pink nail out to use for a scraper. It was inappropriate to use your left hand when gesturing in public because the left hand was used for ‘dirty work’.
    We got off the train in Agra and this train station was as hectic as the one in Dheli. There were people everywhere and I saw a poor girl sitting next to a vendor looking miserable and had flees all over her. When we were walking to our bus people swarmed us trying to get us to take a taxi or buy things from them. It was a little scary because I wasn’t used to it but little did I know that was going to happen to us every time we got off the bus from then on. These poor half naked kids were following us making the same gesture putting their hands to their mouth and then reaching out for us to give them money. We were told from many different people to never give them money because a lot of times they work under a pimp and don’t get the money. Also because some poor people make more money begging than they do from some government systems that are set up for them so giving money is just encouraging their lifestyle.
    We went to another hotel for a 3rd breakfast. Fu, our group leader, thought it was so hilarious that we had three breakfasts and she kept saying “errywhere we go we eat! We have had sri breakfasts already, it so crazy!” (in an Asian giggling accent). After that we headed to the Taj Mahal. I was really excited because this was one of the things I was most looking forward to on this trip. We got dropped off on the other side of the roundabout to the entrance. Crossing the street was a challenge. Cars definitely have the right away. There was never a break in traffic so trying to find a safe time to cross was impossible. I wasn’t going to be the girl that got hit by a rickshaw and didn’t get to see the Taj Mahal so I just waited for someone else to make a move and was going to follow right behind them. We finally got across into the roundabout and stood with a random cow for a minute until we could cross again and get to the entrance.
    There was about a 10 minute walk to the actual gates on a side walk. There were monkeys on the trees next to the sidewalk and once again we were swarmed with kids and people trying to sell us things. I got some funny videos of people trying to sell us a glitter Taj Mahal snow globe for 500 Rupee and then by the time we were leaving they got it to 3 snow globes for 300 Rupee. We tried to politely say no thank you but they would not leave you no matter what. We later learned that you have to act deaf and blind and act like they aren’t there. It felt harsh but it was so much better than them shoving Krishna sculptures and elephant paintings in your face until you basically pushed them away.
    The security getting in was really intense. You couldn’t bring anything in but your camera. There were all sorts of people coming in. Most of the people in my group were wearing traditional clothing (even though we still stuck out like sore thumbs because we were white) and when we were waiting for our whole group to get through security random girls would come up to us and take pictures if we were wearing a similar color as them. It was really funny and they couldn’t speak English so they would just stand next to you and someone would randomly take a picture. We got our whole group together and we had to walk through a palace type thing and as we walked through the passage we say the Taj and it was so beautiful! It was so surreal looking. I know it is cool looking in pictures but something about actually being there was so amazing! We all kept snapping pictures while our tour guide told us the significance of it which is that a man Shah Jahan built it as a tomb for his lover. It’s quite a beautiful monument just for a tomb. Our tour guide was nice enough to get a group picture of all of us and had copies made for everyone. My friends and I took a million pictures within the hour we had to look around. We got to go inside and see the actual tomb too. It was the best feeling being there and I’m so lucky to mark one of the seven world wonders off the list at such a young age.
    We then went to the Agra Fort which is another beautiful monument that the same guy built to imprison his father. It is made of red sandstone, is a mile and a half circumference with 20 meter high double walls, and can only be entered on a drawbridge. We were there around noon so while we were walking around there was a singing that I heard and didn’t realize it was a prayer call being done by the Muslim visitors and they all bowed down towards Mecca, it was very interesting to see. We went to lunch and then took a five hour drive to Jaipur. On our way we stopped at the sacred city. It was a fort type of monument that was kind of in the middle of nowhere. It was really neat but most of my memories of that place again were the hawkers (people forcefully selling us stuff) and the rail thin begging children. We got into the hotel late and had dinner and went to sleep.

Day 4

    We didn’t have to leave the hotel that morning until 7 so we basically slept in! (haha) We were heading to Amber Fort and wanted to get their early so we could ride the elephants to the fort. The elephants can only take 4 trips a day so it was definitely worth leaving early for. Driving up to the fort was beautiful! It was up on a hill and there was a lake at the bottom so you could see the reflection of the fort in the water. The fort was surrounded by a wall to protect it. The fort was built during the Kachchwaha Dynasty. Like I said it was up on a hill and we got on elephants that took us to the top. It was SO COOL! It was one of those moments where I couldn’t believe how lucky I was. Hanna and I were wobbling back and forth on an elephant while looking at the beautiful scenery of an ancient Indian Palace. We got a tour around the fort and one of the coolest things there was a big open room embedded with tiny mirrors in intricate designs so that when a candle was lit at night the walls would twinkle like stars. We walked down to the bottom instead of elephants and while walking down we saw snake charmers. It was just like the movies, men were sitting cross legged on a rug with a snake in a basket. I could only watch for a few seconds and when I saw the cobra popping up I was out of there!
    Our bus was a little late picking us up so of course as our big group stood at the bottom we were swarmed with beggars. I will never forget the women I saw holding a baby that I could’ve sworn the baby was dead. The baby’s skin on its face was spotty, filthy, and lifeless. The kids around us were touching our feet begging for money it was so sad. When we left that fort we went to a rug making factory and printing shop. They had a neat little co-op going. The company made single and double knot rugs which can take from 6 months to a year to make. They give the supplies to people in surrounding villages to give them jobs and they make the rugs for the companies to sell.
    We at lunch and had the same delicious dessert as the first day. They were called Gulab Jamun but it was much easier for us to just call them Indian balls so that was their name to us. Their ice cream was SO delicious. We later found out it was made out of buffalo milk and the other SAS groups were advised not to eat it but our group seemed to be fine. Right as we were talking about how impressed we were that no one from our group had gotten sick Drew spent the rest of the night in the bathroom because he was sick. That afternoon we did some other sightseeing, got henna tattoos, shopped a little bit and had an earlier night at the hotel. Drew made it through the sightseeing but hung out in the hotel while the girls and I in our group of friends shopped. He was feeling better by the time we went to sleep which was good because we were still sharing a room but this point in the trip we are close enough that it wouldn’t be that awkward if he was still sick. I treat him like a brother and I think he sees me as a sister too so despite my bad mood the first day we just got even closer by the end of the trip.

Day 5

The last day of our trip was mostly a travel day. We took a 5 hour bus drive from Jaipur to Dheli. Before we even got out of Jaipur we were stuck in a massive traffic jam. I couldn’t believe this was the first time we were in a traffic jam for the way they drove but it was very interesting to see how it was resolved. It seemed like there were 3 roads leading up to one intersection and everyone had a different plan on where to turn. Our tour guide had to go out and try and direct traffic but there were so many people trying to go different ways and motorcycles were zipping around making it even harder to make a move. I think our guide gave up and our driver resulted in laying on the horn for minutes at a time to see if it would do anything. I forgot to mention that the driver honks as often as he breathes (not a joke). Every time he would pass someone or someone would pass him or he was turning or he was letting someone turn her would honk and that was how every driver was. I got an awesome video of people trying to direct the traffic and thought to myself wouldn’t you think that when kids and homeless people are directing traffic you may want to invest in some traffic lights. There was this homeless guy that I have a video of grabbing a guy on a motorcycle being like “what are you thinking!?!?” it was so great!
    We made It to Dheli a little late but in time for a Hi-Tea they set up for us and we had a flight back to Chennai at 9 pm. Before our Hi-Tea we stopped at a Sikh Temple which was a very interesting experience. We had to cover our heads with cloth or scarves, take our shoes off, and wash our feet before we entered. Sikh is a religion that is a mix of Hindu and Muslim. Men in the Sikh religion never cut their head or beards so they wear turbans and twist their beard and tuck it into their turbans. Before people would enter the temple they would touch their forehead to the stairs and some would bring this special break in as an offering. There was a golden arch thing in the middle of the room where a man was playing some type of music. People would come in and sit on the floor and pray. When exiting the temple you had to walk out of the doorway sideways to show respect. As we walked out you would be given a scoop of some sort of mush that they would eat as an offering. The people serving it scooped it with their bare hands into your hands. It was flour, butter, water, and honey. I tried it but there was no way I could stomach eating the whole thing. We all stood there awkwardly not knowing what to do with it. We finally found a trash can and tried to discretely throw it away. We then got a tour of this dining hall that the Sikhs were welcomed to eat at for free and they showed us how they made the meals. I had a hard time controlling my gag reflex because of the smells and tried not to think about what was on the wet floor that we were walking through barefoot. Let’s just say their sanitation standards are very different from America. After that we went to Hi-Tea and headed to the airport. We made it back on the ship around 1:30 a.m.

Day 6
    The last day I went out with a group of friends and went to a mall to do some last minute shopping. I went to subway for lunch and had a chicken Tandori sandwich and it was very good. Their whole menu was altered to suite the Indian pallet. While we were eating news about the tsunami in Japan was playing on the TVs. We knew it wasn’t good news and we were supposed to go to Japan in a few weeks.
    We aren’t going to Japan anymore and just heard we are now going to Taiwan for 4 days instead. The radiation in Japan is too dangerous for us to be around. We were hoping we would be able to go to our two ports in Japan and head up to the northern part of the country to do a service project and help out but now we aren’t even going there. We have Japan in the itinerary for all of our classes so I think we will still be learning about it but integrating it with Japan where we can.
    But all in all India was a great port that I will definitely remember forever. The build up was all hype because I definitely didn’t see any dead bodies laying around (that I know of), I didn’t crap my brains out, we did stand out even with our traditional clothes, and it wasn’t near as dirty as everyone said.