Sunday, April 29, 2007
Friday, April 27, 2007
Monday, April 23, 2007
Vietnam and Cambodia
Hello everyone! I am still alive, happy, and healthy. I am on my way to Hong Kong right now; the MV Explorer just left Vietnam, and is traveling down the Saigon River. As soon as the ship docked in Vietnam my SAS trip left for Cambodia, so I am going to talk about Cambodia first.
This was my first big SAS trip, and I mist admit it was pretty nice to have everything all planned out for you. Our trip leaders were Bob McGowan, a business professor, and Judy Al-Bilali, a theater arts professor. They are two of the “cool” professors on the ship so it was really nice to have them both there because they are laid-back.
We left for the airport at 10am for our flight to Phnom Penh. The flight was only about 40 minutes long, so that was nice. According to our itinerary, we were supposed to go to the hotel to check in when we arrived, but everyone was really hungry, so we went to lunch instead and didn’t check in until later that night. After lunch we went to the Silver Pagoda and Royal Palace. The Royal Palace is where the King of Cambodia lives, and he apparently was there with some guests so that was closed off to us. The Pagoda was really nice though, and I got some pictures. After visiting the Pagoda for a while, and being absolutely disgustingly sweaty, we drove to the Mekong River. We got on little riverboats, and drove down the Mekong as the sun set. It was really beautiful; I love when we go somewhere specifically to see the sunset. On the boat, we drove past what I guess could only be called a neighborhood. It was a whole area of floating homes. It was really amazing to see, and I took a ton of pictures as usual. One of the best things we saw here was a boy going to his neighbor’s house. How do you get to your neighbor’s house when it is in the middle of the river? The boy was sitting in a small tub and using his arms to paddle himself. It was so crazy. After our sunset cruise we went back to the hotel to check-in and get showers and all that stuff. We were supposed to meet in the lobby for dinner with the group, but a few of us decided to do our own thing for dinner that night. We went to this local pizza place, and there were about 10 of us there. The street kids in Cambodia are far worse than we have seen anywhere else. They came into the pizza place and were standing there as we ate asking us to buy stuff from them. A few people bought things from them, but we gave them all of our leftover food, which was a lot. After dinner we all went to bed because we had an early wake up call the next day.
Our wakeup call was at 5am to wake up, eat breakfast, and pack. We had to be checked out of the hotel since we had another flight later in the day. After getting all packed up and everything, we drove to the Toul Sleng Museum. This was S-21 where the Khmer Rouge took people to torture them. Before the Khmer Rouge took over, this was a school building, but they turned it into a place for killing millions of people. There are three separate buildings, each with three stories. We walked around these different buildings going in all of the rooms. Many of the rooms still had remnants of what was there before. Quite a few had the large iron bed that the prisoners were tied to, and the small iron box that served as the prisoner’s toilet. Many of the rooms had bullet holes in the walls and ceiling. Some had pictures of that same room when the Vietnamese found them. There were pictures of that exact bed that I was looking at, with someone tied to it and either cut up, shot up, or beat. The first floor of Building B housed pictures of the victims of the Khmer Rouge. The majority of the pictures were taken before they were killed. There were so many men, women, and children. There were even a few pictures of women holding their infants who were too young. Only 7 people survived S-21. I looked at every single one of the pictures because I felt it would be disrespectful not to. I looked at, I don’t even know how many, people who were tortured and killed for no reason besides being educated. There was one wall of pictures that were taken after the people were tortured or killed. It was really hard for me to look at these pictures, but I felt like I had to. This set of pictures was the one that really made people the most sensitive. I’m not going to go into details about some of the pictures I saw just because I don’t know who is reading this, but I will definitely want to talk about this with people when I get home. When it was time to leave Toul Sleng you could see the difference in people’s attitudes right away. The bus was absolutely silent besides hearing someone’s sniffling due to their crying. Our next stop was the Killing Fields. When we arrived here, we all went on our separate paths and walked around the grounds on our on. Close to the entrance is this building with shelves that go really high up housing skulls of the people who were buried here. Once a year, monks, family members, or anyone really, come to the Killing Fields, and set up a nice little ceremony. They have offerings, candles, and other things. During this one-day a year the people chant and pray that those who did not have a proper burial here could rise up and be free from this place. How lucky am I that I happened to be at the Killing Fields on this day. I didn’t really realize that impact of that on me until we learned about it in my religion class today and I got to share my pictures. After watching the chanting for a few minutes, I started walking around the grounds. I am not sure of the exact number, but there are a lot of mass graves here. Some were specifically for women and children, some were specifically for decapitated people, and then there were other ones. As you walk around the Killing Fields, you have to be especially careful to watch the ground you are stepping on closely. There are remnants of clothes, teeth, and bones stuck in the ground around the mass graves. The Killing Fields is where the people were taken to be put in mass graves after they were at S-21. Being here only emphasized the feelings that all of us had had all day. Again, it was really hard to see all of these things, and then just up and leave. I guess the tour operators know how much those sights affected us, so our next stop was to go shopping at the Russian Market. We got to stay there and shop for about 40 minutes, but I couldn’t even stay in there that long. It was SO hot! Everyone in my group looked like they had just stepped out of the shower that is how hot it is in Cambodia. After the market, we drove to a restaurant for lunch, and then headed to the airport. We took a 30-minute flight to Siem Reap, which is more in the interior of Cambodia. We went directly from the airport to Angkor Wat to watch the sunset. Angkor Wat is a huge ancient temple. It used to be part of the Wonders of the World, and the Cambodians are arguing to make it that again. After visiting Angkor Wat, and getting eaten by mosquitoes, we took the bus to a restaurant that had buffet style dinner and a cultural dance show. A lot of people from our group didn’t stay for this because they wanted to go to the hotel and get showers. I am glad I stayed because the cultural show was really nice. After dinner we went back to the hotel, got showers, and then I met up with Terron, Erik Silk, and Hanaan and we went towards the night market. There were a few shops here, but the SAS’ers were mainly at a few bars. The most popular one was Angkor Whhhaaat. Since I didn’t feel like drinking, Erik and I went to get massages, and then we met back up with everyone else at the bars. As we were sitting at the outside table, I was watching the street kids run around asking people for money. There was this one little boy holding an infant so I got up to go talk to them. I was asking him questions, but I could tell he was not being honest with me. He said that he was 11 years old, and that he was holding his 1-year-old brother. After talking with him for a few minutes and asking him questions he handed me the baby and told me to hold him because he didn’t want to anymore. So I was standing in the middle of the street holding this infant while my friends were at the bar. After a few minutes this Canadian woman came over and was telling me that she had been in Cambodia for a few days, and she has come to this same restaurant every night and has watched the mother of these kids “pimp” them out to the tourists in order to get money. She also said that this is the first time in the last few days that she has seen the baby sleeping in someone’s arms. Another one of the street kids came up to me and was asking me questions. She was a 14-year-old girl who seemed like she would be a lot more honest with me, and she spoke English so she was also my translator. I asked her about the boy and this baby and she said that the boy was actually 8 years old and the baby is only 1 month old. She took me over to the baby’s mother, who is actually the sister of the 8-year-old boy. I was talking to her through a mix of translation and non-verbal communication. I found out that she has 3 kids under the age of 5, and she is only 21 years old. She then said something to my teenage translator that made her look a little nervous. She shook her head and responded as if she didn’t want to tell or ask me whatever it was the mother wanted to say. I told her that it was okay and she could ask me whatever she wanted. She said that the mother wants me to take her baby back to America for her because she doesn’t have enough money to buy milk, and I was very comforting to him. I told her no I could not do that, and handed her back her baby. I said bye to the other kids, and went back to find my friends. After about 5 minutes I said I couldn’t stay there anymore, and everyone else was ready to leave too. The tin-tin ride back to the hotel was pretty hard for me because of all the emotions and “what-ifs” going through my head. Obviously, I would never take a baby like that, but it really makes you think. I know a lot of people were saying before I left to not come back with a Cambodian baby in a joking matter. The one thing I am asking all of you is to not comment either on my blog or directly to me about this incident. Do not make jokes about it or anything because even though you are reading what I am telling you are my experiences, you have NO idea how that felt to me. I will be willing to talk about it when I get home if you want, but just please don’t make jokes about it. Thanks.
The next morning there was an optional sunrise tour of Angkor Wat that met at 5 am. There were about 20 of us that woke up for it. It was a horrible day for it because it was extremely cloudy and it began raining. After it got brighter, which I took to mean the sun rose, I went back to the bus just in time for it to start pouring. I fell asleep on the seats and didn’t wake up until we got back to the hotel. At that point we got breakfast and then headed out to another section of Angkor Wat. During this one, we had the opportunity to climb up to the 3rd level of Angkor Wat, which is the Nirvana level. The steps to get up to this level were extremely steep, and it was really scary to climb up, but I did it. After that tour, we went back to the hotel for a short nap, lunch, and check-out. We got all of our stuff together and headed to Ta Promh to look at more temples. Terron, Erik, and I took a ton of pictures on the different rocks and statues. Also, there were little kids following us around trying to sell us things, so we stopped and had a conversation with them. We all bought these little paper fans from them, and gave them some money. Let me just say that the fans were amazing in the extreme heat of the Cambodian jungle.
That evening we headed to the airport for our flight back to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. This was one of the first times I wasn’t extremely excited to see the ship, because I really didn’t want to leave Cambodia. We all got showers because we were gross, and then met up with Eric for dinner. We went out for a little while, but didn’t stay out too late because we were so tired. The next day I woke up early to go shopping with my roommate, Ashley. We went to Ben Tanh market, which was this inside market with tons of little stands and just so much stuff. We didn’t shop around too much because of the heat and the fact that there was nowhere for us to eat (the food was not so good). We got a few things, and then decided to just go back to the ship and sleep. That night Jordi and her mom were getting back from their Cambodia trip, and we were all supposed to do dinner together, so Terron, Eric, and I all got ready for that and then sat in Eric’s room waiting for them to get back. We watched the entire season 2 of Weeds waiting for Jordi to call us, but she never did. It turned out that their trip got back late, so Jordi decided to go to the hotel with her mom and go to sleep. Terron and I completely understood because we knew how drained we were the night that we got home. The next day, which was also our last day in Vietnam, I had to wake up early for an orphanage visit, which was also an FDP for my HIV/AIDS class. We took a bus to the Tam Binh 2 Orphanage; which is for kids whose lives were affected by HIV/AIDS. Either they are HIV positive or their mothers were. There were 25 students on this trip, and we were all matched up with a child that we were to stay with all day at a local amusement park. All of the children from the orphanage that came with us were HIV positive. They all seemed very healthy and were very friendly. We spent the whole day with them going on rides and walking around. At the end of the day it was hard to leave them back at the orphanage. No one could guess the future of “their kid” as we lovingly called them. After getting back to the ship I went out to the market by myself to get some last minute shopping done. I also walked around the city by myself; which gave me a lot of time for reflection and thinking. In Vietnam, they have cars for taxis, but the most popular means for transportation are motorcycles. There are men with motorcycles waiting on every corner to ask if you need a ride somewhere, and you get on the back and he takes you wherever you need to go for $1. They were so scary! A lot of girls got bad burns on their calves because they didn’t get off of the motorcycles properly and touched the exhaust pipes. After spending the day by myself, I was ready to get back to the ship and see people I knew. When I got home I had a note from Jordi on my door saying that she came to find me because her mom was going to take us to get massages and pedicures, but I wasn’t there. I didn’t see Jordi until after on-ship time, so I didn’t get to meet her mom L. No worries though because we are all going to meet for dinner in Philly. Cambodia was definitely one of my favorite countries that we have visited, and I would love to go back there someday and work with street kids to get them into school. Vietnam was also nice, but the whole time I was there I was thinking about going back to Cambodia. We waited until the next morning to sail back up the Saigon River because of currents, and were on our way to Hong Kong.
This was my first big SAS trip, and I mist admit it was pretty nice to have everything all planned out for you. Our trip leaders were Bob McGowan, a business professor, and Judy Al-Bilali, a theater arts professor. They are two of the “cool” professors on the ship so it was really nice to have them both there because they are laid-back.
We left for the airport at 10am for our flight to Phnom Penh. The flight was only about 40 minutes long, so that was nice. According to our itinerary, we were supposed to go to the hotel to check in when we arrived, but everyone was really hungry, so we went to lunch instead and didn’t check in until later that night. After lunch we went to the Silver Pagoda and Royal Palace. The Royal Palace is where the King of Cambodia lives, and he apparently was there with some guests so that was closed off to us. The Pagoda was really nice though, and I got some pictures. After visiting the Pagoda for a while, and being absolutely disgustingly sweaty, we drove to the Mekong River. We got on little riverboats, and drove down the Mekong as the sun set. It was really beautiful; I love when we go somewhere specifically to see the sunset. On the boat, we drove past what I guess could only be called a neighborhood. It was a whole area of floating homes. It was really amazing to see, and I took a ton of pictures as usual. One of the best things we saw here was a boy going to his neighbor’s house. How do you get to your neighbor’s house when it is in the middle of the river? The boy was sitting in a small tub and using his arms to paddle himself. It was so crazy. After our sunset cruise we went back to the hotel to check-in and get showers and all that stuff. We were supposed to meet in the lobby for dinner with the group, but a few of us decided to do our own thing for dinner that night. We went to this local pizza place, and there were about 10 of us there. The street kids in Cambodia are far worse than we have seen anywhere else. They came into the pizza place and were standing there as we ate asking us to buy stuff from them. A few people bought things from them, but we gave them all of our leftover food, which was a lot. After dinner we all went to bed because we had an early wake up call the next day.
Our wakeup call was at 5am to wake up, eat breakfast, and pack. We had to be checked out of the hotel since we had another flight later in the day. After getting all packed up and everything, we drove to the Toul Sleng Museum. This was S-21 where the Khmer Rouge took people to torture them. Before the Khmer Rouge took over, this was a school building, but they turned it into a place for killing millions of people. There are three separate buildings, each with three stories. We walked around these different buildings going in all of the rooms. Many of the rooms still had remnants of what was there before. Quite a few had the large iron bed that the prisoners were tied to, and the small iron box that served as the prisoner’s toilet. Many of the rooms had bullet holes in the walls and ceiling. Some had pictures of that same room when the Vietnamese found them. There were pictures of that exact bed that I was looking at, with someone tied to it and either cut up, shot up, or beat. The first floor of Building B housed pictures of the victims of the Khmer Rouge. The majority of the pictures were taken before they were killed. There were so many men, women, and children. There were even a few pictures of women holding their infants who were too young. Only 7 people survived S-21. I looked at every single one of the pictures because I felt it would be disrespectful not to. I looked at, I don’t even know how many, people who were tortured and killed for no reason besides being educated. There was one wall of pictures that were taken after the people were tortured or killed. It was really hard for me to look at these pictures, but I felt like I had to. This set of pictures was the one that really made people the most sensitive. I’m not going to go into details about some of the pictures I saw just because I don’t know who is reading this, but I will definitely want to talk about this with people when I get home. When it was time to leave Toul Sleng you could see the difference in people’s attitudes right away. The bus was absolutely silent besides hearing someone’s sniffling due to their crying. Our next stop was the Killing Fields. When we arrived here, we all went on our separate paths and walked around the grounds on our on. Close to the entrance is this building with shelves that go really high up housing skulls of the people who were buried here. Once a year, monks, family members, or anyone really, come to the Killing Fields, and set up a nice little ceremony. They have offerings, candles, and other things. During this one-day a year the people chant and pray that those who did not have a proper burial here could rise up and be free from this place. How lucky am I that I happened to be at the Killing Fields on this day. I didn’t really realize that impact of that on me until we learned about it in my religion class today and I got to share my pictures. After watching the chanting for a few minutes, I started walking around the grounds. I am not sure of the exact number, but there are a lot of mass graves here. Some were specifically for women and children, some were specifically for decapitated people, and then there were other ones. As you walk around the Killing Fields, you have to be especially careful to watch the ground you are stepping on closely. There are remnants of clothes, teeth, and bones stuck in the ground around the mass graves. The Killing Fields is where the people were taken to be put in mass graves after they were at S-21. Being here only emphasized the feelings that all of us had had all day. Again, it was really hard to see all of these things, and then just up and leave. I guess the tour operators know how much those sights affected us, so our next stop was to go shopping at the Russian Market. We got to stay there and shop for about 40 minutes, but I couldn’t even stay in there that long. It was SO hot! Everyone in my group looked like they had just stepped out of the shower that is how hot it is in Cambodia. After the market, we drove to a restaurant for lunch, and then headed to the airport. We took a 30-minute flight to Siem Reap, which is more in the interior of Cambodia. We went directly from the airport to Angkor Wat to watch the sunset. Angkor Wat is a huge ancient temple. It used to be part of the Wonders of the World, and the Cambodians are arguing to make it that again. After visiting Angkor Wat, and getting eaten by mosquitoes, we took the bus to a restaurant that had buffet style dinner and a cultural dance show. A lot of people from our group didn’t stay for this because they wanted to go to the hotel and get showers. I am glad I stayed because the cultural show was really nice. After dinner we went back to the hotel, got showers, and then I met up with Terron, Erik Silk, and Hanaan and we went towards the night market. There were a few shops here, but the SAS’ers were mainly at a few bars. The most popular one was Angkor Whhhaaat. Since I didn’t feel like drinking, Erik and I went to get massages, and then we met back up with everyone else at the bars. As we were sitting at the outside table, I was watching the street kids run around asking people for money. There was this one little boy holding an infant so I got up to go talk to them. I was asking him questions, but I could tell he was not being honest with me. He said that he was 11 years old, and that he was holding his 1-year-old brother. After talking with him for a few minutes and asking him questions he handed me the baby and told me to hold him because he didn’t want to anymore. So I was standing in the middle of the street holding this infant while my friends were at the bar. After a few minutes this Canadian woman came over and was telling me that she had been in Cambodia for a few days, and she has come to this same restaurant every night and has watched the mother of these kids “pimp” them out to the tourists in order to get money. She also said that this is the first time in the last few days that she has seen the baby sleeping in someone’s arms. Another one of the street kids came up to me and was asking me questions. She was a 14-year-old girl who seemed like she would be a lot more honest with me, and she spoke English so she was also my translator. I asked her about the boy and this baby and she said that the boy was actually 8 years old and the baby is only 1 month old. She took me over to the baby’s mother, who is actually the sister of the 8-year-old boy. I was talking to her through a mix of translation and non-verbal communication. I found out that she has 3 kids under the age of 5, and she is only 21 years old. She then said something to my teenage translator that made her look a little nervous. She shook her head and responded as if she didn’t want to tell or ask me whatever it was the mother wanted to say. I told her that it was okay and she could ask me whatever she wanted. She said that the mother wants me to take her baby back to America for her because she doesn’t have enough money to buy milk, and I was very comforting to him. I told her no I could not do that, and handed her back her baby. I said bye to the other kids, and went back to find my friends. After about 5 minutes I said I couldn’t stay there anymore, and everyone else was ready to leave too. The tin-tin ride back to the hotel was pretty hard for me because of all the emotions and “what-ifs” going through my head. Obviously, I would never take a baby like that, but it really makes you think. I know a lot of people were saying before I left to not come back with a Cambodian baby in a joking matter. The one thing I am asking all of you is to not comment either on my blog or directly to me about this incident. Do not make jokes about it or anything because even though you are reading what I am telling you are my experiences, you have NO idea how that felt to me. I will be willing to talk about it when I get home if you want, but just please don’t make jokes about it. Thanks.
The next morning there was an optional sunrise tour of Angkor Wat that met at 5 am. There were about 20 of us that woke up for it. It was a horrible day for it because it was extremely cloudy and it began raining. After it got brighter, which I took to mean the sun rose, I went back to the bus just in time for it to start pouring. I fell asleep on the seats and didn’t wake up until we got back to the hotel. At that point we got breakfast and then headed out to another section of Angkor Wat. During this one, we had the opportunity to climb up to the 3rd level of Angkor Wat, which is the Nirvana level. The steps to get up to this level were extremely steep, and it was really scary to climb up, but I did it. After that tour, we went back to the hotel for a short nap, lunch, and check-out. We got all of our stuff together and headed to Ta Promh to look at more temples. Terron, Erik, and I took a ton of pictures on the different rocks and statues. Also, there were little kids following us around trying to sell us things, so we stopped and had a conversation with them. We all bought these little paper fans from them, and gave them some money. Let me just say that the fans were amazing in the extreme heat of the Cambodian jungle.
That evening we headed to the airport for our flight back to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. This was one of the first times I wasn’t extremely excited to see the ship, because I really didn’t want to leave Cambodia. We all got showers because we were gross, and then met up with Eric for dinner. We went out for a little while, but didn’t stay out too late because we were so tired. The next day I woke up early to go shopping with my roommate, Ashley. We went to Ben Tanh market, which was this inside market with tons of little stands and just so much stuff. We didn’t shop around too much because of the heat and the fact that there was nowhere for us to eat (the food was not so good). We got a few things, and then decided to just go back to the ship and sleep. That night Jordi and her mom were getting back from their Cambodia trip, and we were all supposed to do dinner together, so Terron, Eric, and I all got ready for that and then sat in Eric’s room waiting for them to get back. We watched the entire season 2 of Weeds waiting for Jordi to call us, but she never did. It turned out that their trip got back late, so Jordi decided to go to the hotel with her mom and go to sleep. Terron and I completely understood because we knew how drained we were the night that we got home. The next day, which was also our last day in Vietnam, I had to wake up early for an orphanage visit, which was also an FDP for my HIV/AIDS class. We took a bus to the Tam Binh 2 Orphanage; which is for kids whose lives were affected by HIV/AIDS. Either they are HIV positive or their mothers were. There were 25 students on this trip, and we were all matched up with a child that we were to stay with all day at a local amusement park. All of the children from the orphanage that came with us were HIV positive. They all seemed very healthy and were very friendly. We spent the whole day with them going on rides and walking around. At the end of the day it was hard to leave them back at the orphanage. No one could guess the future of “their kid” as we lovingly called them. After getting back to the ship I went out to the market by myself to get some last minute shopping done. I also walked around the city by myself; which gave me a lot of time for reflection and thinking. In Vietnam, they have cars for taxis, but the most popular means for transportation are motorcycles. There are men with motorcycles waiting on every corner to ask if you need a ride somewhere, and you get on the back and he takes you wherever you need to go for $1. They were so scary! A lot of girls got bad burns on their calves because they didn’t get off of the motorcycles properly and touched the exhaust pipes. After spending the day by myself, I was ready to get back to the ship and see people I knew. When I got home I had a note from Jordi on my door saying that she came to find me because her mom was going to take us to get massages and pedicures, but I wasn’t there. I didn’t see Jordi until after on-ship time, so I didn’t get to meet her mom L. No worries though because we are all going to meet for dinner in Philly. Cambodia was definitely one of my favorite countries that we have visited, and I would love to go back there someday and work with street kids to get them into school. Vietnam was also nice, but the whole time I was there I was thinking about going back to Cambodia. We waited until the next morning to sail back up the Saigon River because of currents, and were on our way to Hong Kong.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Hey everyone! I started my Cambodia blog, but there is so much that happened! I didn't get a chance to finish it before I got to an internet cafe, but I will try to do that soon. You should all be glad to see pictures though!! Currently it is 1 pm in Hong Kong which means it is 1 am at home. At 9 am this morning we had our usual diplomatic briefing. First we were told about the events of Virginia Tech yesterday. We had a moment of silence for those killed and then Archbishop Tutu spoke to us. What he said made everyone tear up a bit because he is so eloquent and just amazing. Basically, it came down to just caring for each person and loving everyone because we all go through hurt. There are a lot of students and staff on the ship from the Virginia area so today is going to be a hard day for a lot of people. So I'm sorry to whoever this is affecting. Tell everyone you love that you love them. Until next time...
Monday, April 16, 2007
Monday, April 09, 2007
A short update
Hi everyone!
I am currently in an internet cafe in Cambodia. This country is amazing so far.. We are waking up at 6 am tommorrow to visit the Toul Sleng Museum and the Killing Fields. It will probably be an emotional day. Hopefully I can get to a phone sometime soon, but if not, I'll talk to everyone as soon as I can. Please please keep e-mailing me, I feel like even though I am traveling the world, I don't know whats going on in it. I just wanted to give everyone an update on that! Also, Jordi's blog is:
http://jordiatsea.blogspot.com
Love you all!
I am currently in an internet cafe in Cambodia. This country is amazing so far.. We are waking up at 6 am tommorrow to visit the Toul Sleng Museum and the Killing Fields. It will probably be an emotional day. Hopefully I can get to a phone sometime soon, but if not, I'll talk to everyone as soon as I can. Please please keep e-mailing me, I feel like even though I am traveling the world, I don't know whats going on in it. I just wanted to give everyone an update on that! Also, Jordi's blog is:
http://jordiatsea.blogspot.com
Love you all!
Saturday, April 07, 2007
INDIA!!!
Hey everyone! I am currently a few miles east of Thailand about to enter the Strait of Malacca, and we arrive in Malaysia in about 16 hours. We only had 2 days of class between India and Malaysia, which is not enough time to get all of our papers and tests done, especially because everyone needed some time to process what they saw and did in India. Again, I don’t really know where to start, but I’ll just do the day-by-day thing, and yes I am leaving some stuff out just because I can’t put everything into words.
When we docked in Chennai we had to visit with the customs officials and get our passports and then get our immigration cards. After we got some lunch on the ship Jordi, Kelsey, and I decided to venture out into Chennai. I could only stay out for a few hours because I was meeting Max to go to the airport at 3:15. We walked off the ship and were greeted by tons of rickshaw drivers wanting to take us to their friend’s shops. We kept walking “past the gate” because that is what Dean Mike told us to do, and were greeted by even more rickshaws. We told them that we wanted to go to Spencer’s Plaza, and a few of them told us that it was closed, but we can go somewhere else. From reading past SAS’ers blogs I knew that they were lying, so we insisted that we wanted to go to Spencer’s. After negotiating a price we got into the rickshaw, and started driving. The driver turned around and said, “Okay I will take you to my friend’s shop, he has very nice”. After telling him no he told us to get out of his rickshaw, and get into another one, so we did that. The next rickshaw driver tried doing the same thing to us, so we had to get out and change rickshaws again. Finally, we found a driver to take us to Spencer’s. When we got to Spencer’s we tried giving him the 100 rupees that we agreed on, but he said that he will wait for us and we can pay him there. We tried telling him that we don’t know how long we are going to be, and we may not find him, but he insisted. So we went shopping for about 2 hours, and I bought some stuff. We left Spencer’s and found our rickshaw driver and made our way back to the ship. One thing that really bothered me in India, probably because of my extreme sympathy for people, is the fact that these small children would stand in the streets, and if you stopped for traffic or a red light or something, they would come up to you and stick their hands in your face and make an eating gesture. It is hard to avoid them when you are in the rickshaws because they are completely open. Our rickshaw driver was very nice, and would shoo the kids away or drive through the red light to get rid of them. It is really sad, and I have quite a few more examples of this kind of thing. I’m sorry I’m not writing this like a novel, there is just so much going on it is really hard.
Okay, so we got back to the ship, and I went to my cabin (4082) to pack my bag for Delhi. Max and I had a flight at 6 pm for Delhi where we were going to meet up with his friend Bharat who is from the US, but has family in India and is spending 6 months there. For now on I am just going to say we, so I will be talking about the 3 of us. Max and I got a taxi to the airport at around 4pm. We drove past the beach on our way there and passed this untouchables village that was one of the saddest things I have ever seen. The houses looked like tents made out of tarps or old billboards. The people were sitting on the ground or walking around with no shoes, and barely half of the people had clothes on. There are no restrooms, so it is quite common to see people relieving themselves on the side of the road. Also, there are goats and cows walking around the streets, and living with these people. In Hinduism, cows are considered to be sacred, so even though these people are starving, they will never kill a cow for food.
Max and I got to the airport, and saw a few of the SAS groups there, so we were talking to them. I was standing in the security line with Max talking to some of the SAS’ers when I was told that I was in the wrong line. Apparently, there are 4 lines for men to stand in, but one line for women. I moved over the women’s line, put my bag on the x-ray, and then had to walk behind a curtain. There were two women security guards standing behind this curtain, and we had to show them our boarding passes, and then they thoroughly checked us for contraband. Not once did they check our ID, wonderful. The airline we took was not as bad as I was expecting. Max sat in the aisle seat, me in the middle, and some older Indian man sat in the window seat. This was my first encounter with something that I would experience a lot in India. Almost the whole entire plane ride, the man’s eyes were glued to me. If he wasn’t sleeping, he was staring at me. I felt so uncomfortable; I just had my head turned toward Max the whole time so I couldn’t see him looking at me. I did read about how Indian men will stare, but it is still really awkward. So we arrived in Delhi at about 9 pm and met up with Bharat and his driver. We drove around to look at a few of the sites, and then went to the Ashok Hotel. The Ashok is where the SAS groups were staying, so we decided it would be best to stay there for a night just to get our bearings and figure out a plan for the next few days. This hotel is absolutely gorgeous; it wouldn’t be my first choice just because of money, but it was okay since we decided it was only for one night. We got a room for a ridiculous price, and then ordered Dominoes because it was really late and we were hungry, and we figured we had every other day to eat Indian food. Max and I looked like little kids in a candy store- pizza, MTV, HBO- it was so nice.
Oh yeah- just in case any of you forgot à I am traveling around the world right now, and it is beautiful. I am loving life, and the people I am with. I can’t speak highly enough of Semester At Sea (what a plug).
Day 2 in Delhi was spent driving around to different historical sites and doing some shopping. We went to Palika Bazaar, Connaught Place, Cottage Emporium, and the Janpath Market. We spent a majority of the time in electronic stores because Max was looking to buy a new camera, so I didn’t have much time to shop for myself. After some shopping we went to Raj Ghat; which is a place on the river where Gandhi was cremated. That was a cool place to see, and there were a bunch of other people there praying to the spot. After that we went to Jama Masjid, which is the largest mosque in India. We had to take these little cycle rickshaws through a market to get there- SCARY! I took a video of us almost getting hit by cars. While I’m on the subject; driving in India- very interesting. To sum it up, let me just say, why step on the breaks when you can just honk your horn? Okay back to the mosque, so we get up to it, take our shoes off, and walk through the arch. As soon as we are inside, I notice that we are being stared at. I wasn’t sure if people thought we were disrespectful because we are blatantly not Muslim, or we are just interesting looking. We had a few people come up to us and ask us for pictures, and Bharat said that they don’t have cameras, so they just want their pictures taken. Then, a boy of about 16 came up to me and said, “Excuse me, excuse me, just one picture please”, so I took my camera out, but he shook his head and took his own camera out. I was really confused for a minute, but then realized that he wanted to get a picture with me. After some people saw him doing that, then a few more asked to get pictures with me. They were all just around me smiling, and taking pictures with me while holding my hand. The same boy got like 4 pictures with me, and then his friends were fighting over whose turn it was next. Max and Bharat were standing there laughing at me saying that apparently the Indians think I am attractive or something, I don’t know. So that was quite interesting to say the least. Although I am not going to lie, it was definitely a confidence booster, haha. After leaving the mosque we walked around this street to get back to the market. Basically the street was just lined with homeless people and families in their little makeshift homes or cardboard and old blankets. This area was mainly Muslim, and, as a woman, I felt very uncomfortable. I know a little about Islam, and I know how women are viewed. For every 50 men walking around, there was 1 woman. Basically, my natural reaction was just to walk behind Max and Bharat and not look anyone in the eye. The boys did keep me in front of them so that they could watch me, but I really have never felt so uncomfortable in my life. It was like I was ashamed to be a woman there, especially an American woman à not a good feeling.
We walked around the market for a little bit, and then went to this restaurant called Parikrama. The word parikrama means revolution, and this was a revolving restaurant so that was cool. We got a bunch of different Indian food to share; naan=amazing. After dinner we went back to the Ashok hotel and just crashed in some other SAS’ers room since we had to wake up at 6 am anyway.
630 am the next day we were on our way to Agra to see the Taj Mahal! We rented a car for the day to take us all around, and as soon as we got in we fell asleep. About 45 minutes or so into the ride we got woken up by people banging on the windows. Actually, it was a monkey banging on Max’s window. A boy had a monkey on a leash, and was hitting it with a stick to make it to tricks for us that we would pay him. For real, I have never seen as extreme animal cruelty as I did in India; anything for some money I guess. The driver had gotten out of the car to show his registration and some other stuff since we were leaving the Delhi city limits. The driver was gone for about 10 minutes, and by the time he got back the whole car was just swarmed with little kids begging, and monkeys on leashes. So we continued on our way to Agra and after about 2 hours we stopped in Vrindivan (I have no idea if that is how it is spelled). This is a village with a ton of temples, and it is believed in Hinduism that this is where lord Krishna was born, so it is a pretty holy place. We walked around here for a little bit and looked at some of the different temples.
When we got into Agra we went to this hotel that some SAS’ers had stayed at. They sell t-shirts that have Taj Mahal India on the front and Welcome Semester At Sea on the back. We had lunch here and bought some t-shirts, then drove to the Taj Mahal! Entrance fees to the Taj are 10 rupees for Indian citizens, and 750 rupees for everyone else. Okay so we walked around the Taj for a while, it is absolutely gorgeous! We also went to this other mausoleum type of place that had all these different animals roaming the grounds. After that we started to head back to Delhi for the night. We went back to the Ashok to see what SAS’ers were staying there for the night. I turned a corner and saw Dannie and got really excited. She told me that I could crash on the couch in her hotel room, so I dropped my bag off there, and then went to the lobby to wait for the SAS group coming from Delhi. As soon as I saw Jordi walk through the door I like jumped on her because I was so excited and then I heard “It has only been 2 days!” and turned around to see Terron, and got more excited! It is so crazy how much you miss people and the ship when your away for a few days. I don’t know what I am going to do at the end of the semester. So I hung out with them for a while, and then went to sleep on Dannie’s couch. The next morning I woke up, went to a few temples with Max and Bharat, and also did a little more shopping. I wanted to try to find a flight home that night, but there weren’t any flights we could get so we just enjoyed our last night. The boys wanted to go to dinner at Spice Route, which is a south east Asian restaurant in the fancy hotel, so we went to the hotel, got a room, and got ready for dinner. I had gotten a dot on my head from one of the temples earlier, so I looked very ethnic with my garb on. I’ll post the picture if I can.
Max and I woke up around 630 am, and left for the airport to catch our flight back to Chennai. When we got to the Air Deccan office we found out that they had pushed the flight back, and we didn’t want to be late for the ship, so we looked for another company to change flights. After an absolutely ridiculous run-around and stress, and spending a ton of money we bought tickets on another airline. This whole thing makes me so angry, so I’m skipping over it. When the flight landed Max, Isaiah, and I got a taxi to Spencer’s Plaza for some last minute shopping, then went back to the ship.
Since it is now over a week since this, I forget if anything else interesting has happened, but I doubt it. Keep reading my blogs, and everyone stay in touch with me. Love and miss you all!
When we docked in Chennai we had to visit with the customs officials and get our passports and then get our immigration cards. After we got some lunch on the ship Jordi, Kelsey, and I decided to venture out into Chennai. I could only stay out for a few hours because I was meeting Max to go to the airport at 3:15. We walked off the ship and were greeted by tons of rickshaw drivers wanting to take us to their friend’s shops. We kept walking “past the gate” because that is what Dean Mike told us to do, and were greeted by even more rickshaws. We told them that we wanted to go to Spencer’s Plaza, and a few of them told us that it was closed, but we can go somewhere else. From reading past SAS’ers blogs I knew that they were lying, so we insisted that we wanted to go to Spencer’s. After negotiating a price we got into the rickshaw, and started driving. The driver turned around and said, “Okay I will take you to my friend’s shop, he has very nice”. After telling him no he told us to get out of his rickshaw, and get into another one, so we did that. The next rickshaw driver tried doing the same thing to us, so we had to get out and change rickshaws again. Finally, we found a driver to take us to Spencer’s. When we got to Spencer’s we tried giving him the 100 rupees that we agreed on, but he said that he will wait for us and we can pay him there. We tried telling him that we don’t know how long we are going to be, and we may not find him, but he insisted. So we went shopping for about 2 hours, and I bought some stuff. We left Spencer’s and found our rickshaw driver and made our way back to the ship. One thing that really bothered me in India, probably because of my extreme sympathy for people, is the fact that these small children would stand in the streets, and if you stopped for traffic or a red light or something, they would come up to you and stick their hands in your face and make an eating gesture. It is hard to avoid them when you are in the rickshaws because they are completely open. Our rickshaw driver was very nice, and would shoo the kids away or drive through the red light to get rid of them. It is really sad, and I have quite a few more examples of this kind of thing. I’m sorry I’m not writing this like a novel, there is just so much going on it is really hard.
Okay, so we got back to the ship, and I went to my cabin (4082) to pack my bag for Delhi. Max and I had a flight at 6 pm for Delhi where we were going to meet up with his friend Bharat who is from the US, but has family in India and is spending 6 months there. For now on I am just going to say we, so I will be talking about the 3 of us. Max and I got a taxi to the airport at around 4pm. We drove past the beach on our way there and passed this untouchables village that was one of the saddest things I have ever seen. The houses looked like tents made out of tarps or old billboards. The people were sitting on the ground or walking around with no shoes, and barely half of the people had clothes on. There are no restrooms, so it is quite common to see people relieving themselves on the side of the road. Also, there are goats and cows walking around the streets, and living with these people. In Hinduism, cows are considered to be sacred, so even though these people are starving, they will never kill a cow for food.
Max and I got to the airport, and saw a few of the SAS groups there, so we were talking to them. I was standing in the security line with Max talking to some of the SAS’ers when I was told that I was in the wrong line. Apparently, there are 4 lines for men to stand in, but one line for women. I moved over the women’s line, put my bag on the x-ray, and then had to walk behind a curtain. There were two women security guards standing behind this curtain, and we had to show them our boarding passes, and then they thoroughly checked us for contraband. Not once did they check our ID, wonderful. The airline we took was not as bad as I was expecting. Max sat in the aisle seat, me in the middle, and some older Indian man sat in the window seat. This was my first encounter with something that I would experience a lot in India. Almost the whole entire plane ride, the man’s eyes were glued to me. If he wasn’t sleeping, he was staring at me. I felt so uncomfortable; I just had my head turned toward Max the whole time so I couldn’t see him looking at me. I did read about how Indian men will stare, but it is still really awkward. So we arrived in Delhi at about 9 pm and met up with Bharat and his driver. We drove around to look at a few of the sites, and then went to the Ashok Hotel. The Ashok is where the SAS groups were staying, so we decided it would be best to stay there for a night just to get our bearings and figure out a plan for the next few days. This hotel is absolutely gorgeous; it wouldn’t be my first choice just because of money, but it was okay since we decided it was only for one night. We got a room for a ridiculous price, and then ordered Dominoes because it was really late and we were hungry, and we figured we had every other day to eat Indian food. Max and I looked like little kids in a candy store- pizza, MTV, HBO- it was so nice.
Oh yeah- just in case any of you forgot à I am traveling around the world right now, and it is beautiful. I am loving life, and the people I am with. I can’t speak highly enough of Semester At Sea (what a plug).
Day 2 in Delhi was spent driving around to different historical sites and doing some shopping. We went to Palika Bazaar, Connaught Place, Cottage Emporium, and the Janpath Market. We spent a majority of the time in electronic stores because Max was looking to buy a new camera, so I didn’t have much time to shop for myself. After some shopping we went to Raj Ghat; which is a place on the river where Gandhi was cremated. That was a cool place to see, and there were a bunch of other people there praying to the spot. After that we went to Jama Masjid, which is the largest mosque in India. We had to take these little cycle rickshaws through a market to get there- SCARY! I took a video of us almost getting hit by cars. While I’m on the subject; driving in India- very interesting. To sum it up, let me just say, why step on the breaks when you can just honk your horn? Okay back to the mosque, so we get up to it, take our shoes off, and walk through the arch. As soon as we are inside, I notice that we are being stared at. I wasn’t sure if people thought we were disrespectful because we are blatantly not Muslim, or we are just interesting looking. We had a few people come up to us and ask us for pictures, and Bharat said that they don’t have cameras, so they just want their pictures taken. Then, a boy of about 16 came up to me and said, “Excuse me, excuse me, just one picture please”, so I took my camera out, but he shook his head and took his own camera out. I was really confused for a minute, but then realized that he wanted to get a picture with me. After some people saw him doing that, then a few more asked to get pictures with me. They were all just around me smiling, and taking pictures with me while holding my hand. The same boy got like 4 pictures with me, and then his friends were fighting over whose turn it was next. Max and Bharat were standing there laughing at me saying that apparently the Indians think I am attractive or something, I don’t know. So that was quite interesting to say the least. Although I am not going to lie, it was definitely a confidence booster, haha. After leaving the mosque we walked around this street to get back to the market. Basically the street was just lined with homeless people and families in their little makeshift homes or cardboard and old blankets. This area was mainly Muslim, and, as a woman, I felt very uncomfortable. I know a little about Islam, and I know how women are viewed. For every 50 men walking around, there was 1 woman. Basically, my natural reaction was just to walk behind Max and Bharat and not look anyone in the eye. The boys did keep me in front of them so that they could watch me, but I really have never felt so uncomfortable in my life. It was like I was ashamed to be a woman there, especially an American woman à not a good feeling.
We walked around the market for a little bit, and then went to this restaurant called Parikrama. The word parikrama means revolution, and this was a revolving restaurant so that was cool. We got a bunch of different Indian food to share; naan=amazing. After dinner we went back to the Ashok hotel and just crashed in some other SAS’ers room since we had to wake up at 6 am anyway.
630 am the next day we were on our way to Agra to see the Taj Mahal! We rented a car for the day to take us all around, and as soon as we got in we fell asleep. About 45 minutes or so into the ride we got woken up by people banging on the windows. Actually, it was a monkey banging on Max’s window. A boy had a monkey on a leash, and was hitting it with a stick to make it to tricks for us that we would pay him. For real, I have never seen as extreme animal cruelty as I did in India; anything for some money I guess. The driver had gotten out of the car to show his registration and some other stuff since we were leaving the Delhi city limits. The driver was gone for about 10 minutes, and by the time he got back the whole car was just swarmed with little kids begging, and monkeys on leashes. So we continued on our way to Agra and after about 2 hours we stopped in Vrindivan (I have no idea if that is how it is spelled). This is a village with a ton of temples, and it is believed in Hinduism that this is where lord Krishna was born, so it is a pretty holy place. We walked around here for a little bit and looked at some of the different temples.
When we got into Agra we went to this hotel that some SAS’ers had stayed at. They sell t-shirts that have Taj Mahal India on the front and Welcome Semester At Sea on the back. We had lunch here and bought some t-shirts, then drove to the Taj Mahal! Entrance fees to the Taj are 10 rupees for Indian citizens, and 750 rupees for everyone else. Okay so we walked around the Taj for a while, it is absolutely gorgeous! We also went to this other mausoleum type of place that had all these different animals roaming the grounds. After that we started to head back to Delhi for the night. We went back to the Ashok to see what SAS’ers were staying there for the night. I turned a corner and saw Dannie and got really excited. She told me that I could crash on the couch in her hotel room, so I dropped my bag off there, and then went to the lobby to wait for the SAS group coming from Delhi. As soon as I saw Jordi walk through the door I like jumped on her because I was so excited and then I heard “It has only been 2 days!” and turned around to see Terron, and got more excited! It is so crazy how much you miss people and the ship when your away for a few days. I don’t know what I am going to do at the end of the semester. So I hung out with them for a while, and then went to sleep on Dannie’s couch. The next morning I woke up, went to a few temples with Max and Bharat, and also did a little more shopping. I wanted to try to find a flight home that night, but there weren’t any flights we could get so we just enjoyed our last night. The boys wanted to go to dinner at Spice Route, which is a south east Asian restaurant in the fancy hotel, so we went to the hotel, got a room, and got ready for dinner. I had gotten a dot on my head from one of the temples earlier, so I looked very ethnic with my garb on. I’ll post the picture if I can.
Max and I woke up around 630 am, and left for the airport to catch our flight back to Chennai. When we got to the Air Deccan office we found out that they had pushed the flight back, and we didn’t want to be late for the ship, so we looked for another company to change flights. After an absolutely ridiculous run-around and stress, and spending a ton of money we bought tickets on another airline. This whole thing makes me so angry, so I’m skipping over it. When the flight landed Max, Isaiah, and I got a taxi to Spencer’s Plaza for some last minute shopping, then went back to the ship.
Since it is now over a week since this, I forget if anything else interesting has happened, but I doubt it. Keep reading my blogs, and everyone stay in touch with me. Love and miss you all!
MALAYSIA!!
Hello everyone..
I am still in the process of writing my blog about India. I need a lot of time to reflect on everything, but haven’t had that time. We arrived in Malaysia just 3 days after leaving India. Now, I am on my way to Vietnam.
Malaysia was beautiful. I’m not sure what kind of expectation I had for it, but it was exceeded. We arrived in Penang at about 8 am on Monday, and I had an SAS trip at 9 am. The dock in Penang is under construction or something like that, so we had to anchor the ship out in the middle of the ocean and take our lifeboats as tenders to the dock. My trip was the Penang Island Orientation. We got on huge air-conditioned buses and drove around the island, stopping at a few different spots. We went to the Penang Butterfly Garden, Snake Temple, a Buddhist Temple, and a few other spots. It was nice getting to hit all the popular attractions in one day. That night I had signed up for the Welcome Reception, so we left the tour a little early to get the tender in time for that. So these tenders leave the ship and the dock about every half hour or so, but the line for them is ridiculous. I really hope we never have to do it again because it was so horrible and HOT. Malaysia is the hottest place we have visited yet. So Eric, Terron, Jaime, and I went to the Welcome Reception, which was nothing but sitting in an auditorium and watching a shadow puppet performance. Every single one of us fell asleep.
Okay, so Tuesday Jordi, Mary, and I went to this huge mall in Penang that is like 7 levels and has all these different hallways and stuff. We went to an Internet café in the mall, but it was about 5am at home, so no one was online L. As we were walking around the mall, Jordi saw a girl wearing these pants that she has been searching for since Mauritius, so she asked her where she got them. The girl said that she had just gotten them from the market in Kuala Lumpur (KL). Well, there was no question; we had to go to Kuala Lumpur in search of these Magic Pants. We stopped off at the bus station and looked at times, then went back to the ship to pack our bags. The bus didn’t leave until 10 pm, so we got some dinner and some snacks from 7-11, and then headed to the bus station around 930. The bus ride to KL took about 5 hours, so we arrived around 330am.
We weren’t even sure if we were actually in KL because we thought we should be getting there around 2:30am so we got off anyway hoping we weren’t in Singapore. So, praying that we were in KL we asked a taxi driver to drive us to a hotel so we could get a few hours of sleep before the long day of shopping ahead of us. We woke up around 11 and walked to the Twin Towers of Malaysia (some of you may know them from the movie Entrapment). We walked into the towers and saw Eric, Terron, Darren, and Lydia; which was so random because, well, we were in KL, and didn’t expect to see any SAS’ers let alone our friends. They said that they had bus tickets for 1 am, but we weren’t sure what time we were leaving yet. So after walking around the towers we got a taxi to a mall, but it wasn’t what we were looking for, so we got another taxi to Central Market. Basically, Central Market is Canal Street in NYC times 1,000. We walked around the market all day buying tons of stuff (I got lots of gifts for people). We were at this stand at the very end of the market, the last shop because Jordi was bargaining for a purse, and I looked across the market at the shop and saw something that resembled Magic Pants. I ran across, and asked the lady and she got really excited that I knew what magic pants were, so she got all the colors together for us. Jordi came running over super excited, and because of this we couldn’t bargain with her haha. So Jordi got 3 pairs of these magic pants, and I got 2 so our mission was accomplished. By the time we were done shopping it was about 730 pm. We stopped at Pizza Hut to get some dinner before heading to the bus station. We saw these really cool buses that had super reclining seats slash a bed so we paid a few extra ringgits to get that bus. The company told us that the bus left at 10 pm, but it didn’t end up leaving until almost 12. This was the most amazing bus ever! The seats were so comfortable, and each seat had it’s own personal entertainment system with movies and music to choose from. We all fell asleep, and when we woke up we were back in Penang. It should have been 4 am right? Nope, it was 6 am. We got a taxi back to the pier, and got in the tender boat, and the boys were already there! They were so surprised seeing us because I guess they thought we would have gotten there about 5 hours earlier.
I got a few hours of sleep before I had to wake up for my orphanage visit that day. We went to St. Joseph’s orphanage in Penang. There are 52 children here between the ages of 5 and 18. Some of the children were still at school, but we had the opportunity to play or talk with the kids that were there. I made friends with a 17-year-old Malay girl named Avita. She talked to me about her family, school, and her hobbies; I told her about myself. We were there for a few hours, and when it was time to leave Avita and I exchanged e-mail addresses, and I took a picture with her that I promised to send to her. Even though I have done other service visits with SAS this one was one of the hardest to leave. I was crying the whole way back to the ship, as were a few of the other students. I got back to the ship at about 530 pm, and decided I was not going to get off again because on ship time was 9, and I knew the line for the tenders was going to be ridiculous. Jordi, Mary, and I watched a movie until 930 when we called our friends to find out who got dock time. Now, I am on my way to Vietnam. We are having a Passover Sedar on the ship tonight, and Easter is tomorrow. Archbishop Tutu is having a sunrise Easter service, but I am not waking up at 6 am. Happy Easter and Happy Passover everyone! Keep sending me e-mails, I love getting them. Happy Birthday Tal if I don’t get to talk to you before then!!
P.S. Check out Jordi’s blog- she posted pictures.
I am still in the process of writing my blog about India. I need a lot of time to reflect on everything, but haven’t had that time. We arrived in Malaysia just 3 days after leaving India. Now, I am on my way to Vietnam.
Malaysia was beautiful. I’m not sure what kind of expectation I had for it, but it was exceeded. We arrived in Penang at about 8 am on Monday, and I had an SAS trip at 9 am. The dock in Penang is under construction or something like that, so we had to anchor the ship out in the middle of the ocean and take our lifeboats as tenders to the dock. My trip was the Penang Island Orientation. We got on huge air-conditioned buses and drove around the island, stopping at a few different spots. We went to the Penang Butterfly Garden, Snake Temple, a Buddhist Temple, and a few other spots. It was nice getting to hit all the popular attractions in one day. That night I had signed up for the Welcome Reception, so we left the tour a little early to get the tender in time for that. So these tenders leave the ship and the dock about every half hour or so, but the line for them is ridiculous. I really hope we never have to do it again because it was so horrible and HOT. Malaysia is the hottest place we have visited yet. So Eric, Terron, Jaime, and I went to the Welcome Reception, which was nothing but sitting in an auditorium and watching a shadow puppet performance. Every single one of us fell asleep.
Okay, so Tuesday Jordi, Mary, and I went to this huge mall in Penang that is like 7 levels and has all these different hallways and stuff. We went to an Internet café in the mall, but it was about 5am at home, so no one was online L. As we were walking around the mall, Jordi saw a girl wearing these pants that she has been searching for since Mauritius, so she asked her where she got them. The girl said that she had just gotten them from the market in Kuala Lumpur (KL). Well, there was no question; we had to go to Kuala Lumpur in search of these Magic Pants. We stopped off at the bus station and looked at times, then went back to the ship to pack our bags. The bus didn’t leave until 10 pm, so we got some dinner and some snacks from 7-11, and then headed to the bus station around 930. The bus ride to KL took about 5 hours, so we arrived around 330am.
We weren’t even sure if we were actually in KL because we thought we should be getting there around 2:30am so we got off anyway hoping we weren’t in Singapore. So, praying that we were in KL we asked a taxi driver to drive us to a hotel so we could get a few hours of sleep before the long day of shopping ahead of us. We woke up around 11 and walked to the Twin Towers of Malaysia (some of you may know them from the movie Entrapment). We walked into the towers and saw Eric, Terron, Darren, and Lydia; which was so random because, well, we were in KL, and didn’t expect to see any SAS’ers let alone our friends. They said that they had bus tickets for 1 am, but we weren’t sure what time we were leaving yet. So after walking around the towers we got a taxi to a mall, but it wasn’t what we were looking for, so we got another taxi to Central Market. Basically, Central Market is Canal Street in NYC times 1,000. We walked around the market all day buying tons of stuff (I got lots of gifts for people). We were at this stand at the very end of the market, the last shop because Jordi was bargaining for a purse, and I looked across the market at the shop and saw something that resembled Magic Pants. I ran across, and asked the lady and she got really excited that I knew what magic pants were, so she got all the colors together for us. Jordi came running over super excited, and because of this we couldn’t bargain with her haha. So Jordi got 3 pairs of these magic pants, and I got 2 so our mission was accomplished. By the time we were done shopping it was about 730 pm. We stopped at Pizza Hut to get some dinner before heading to the bus station. We saw these really cool buses that had super reclining seats slash a bed so we paid a few extra ringgits to get that bus. The company told us that the bus left at 10 pm, but it didn’t end up leaving until almost 12. This was the most amazing bus ever! The seats were so comfortable, and each seat had it’s own personal entertainment system with movies and music to choose from. We all fell asleep, and when we woke up we were back in Penang. It should have been 4 am right? Nope, it was 6 am. We got a taxi back to the pier, and got in the tender boat, and the boys were already there! They were so surprised seeing us because I guess they thought we would have gotten there about 5 hours earlier.
I got a few hours of sleep before I had to wake up for my orphanage visit that day. We went to St. Joseph’s orphanage in Penang. There are 52 children here between the ages of 5 and 18. Some of the children were still at school, but we had the opportunity to play or talk with the kids that were there. I made friends with a 17-year-old Malay girl named Avita. She talked to me about her family, school, and her hobbies; I told her about myself. We were there for a few hours, and when it was time to leave Avita and I exchanged e-mail addresses, and I took a picture with her that I promised to send to her. Even though I have done other service visits with SAS this one was one of the hardest to leave. I was crying the whole way back to the ship, as were a few of the other students. I got back to the ship at about 530 pm, and decided I was not going to get off again because on ship time was 9, and I knew the line for the tenders was going to be ridiculous. Jordi, Mary, and I watched a movie until 930 when we called our friends to find out who got dock time. Now, I am on my way to Vietnam. We are having a Passover Sedar on the ship tonight, and Easter is tomorrow. Archbishop Tutu is having a sunrise Easter service, but I am not waking up at 6 am. Happy Easter and Happy Passover everyone! Keep sending me e-mails, I love getting them. Happy Birthday Tal if I don’t get to talk to you before then!!
P.S. Check out Jordi’s blog- she posted pictures.
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