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!