3-9-06

Chennai, India

We arrived into the port of India early in the morning, but were not able to get off of the ship until 1:30 pm.  The immigration process was slow and seemed to take forever.  It allowed everyone to have a leisure morning before the rush of the rest of our five days here.  For our diplomatic briefing, we had two representatives from the US consulate.  They gave some of their experience and advice to us all before we were allowed to run free.  Also, the night before we left the ship, we had our Pre-port lecture.  At the pre-port, they give us all the health advisories and places to avoid and how to use transportation, and bargaining, a little of what to expect.  It is always very informative, and usually makes everyone very excited to get off the ship.  Well, at this pre-port, they scared us to death with all the horrible diseases you could get from mosquitoes, or from eating foods that were not prepared correctly, or drinking anything but sealed bottle water, and all the other foods you can’t eat, or shouldn’t eat.  I know that after the pre-port, I was wondering if it was even safe to get off the ship!  (I’m still healthy)They also warned us about the driving there.  It was insane!  They weave in and out of traffic, and there were so many times I was sure we were going to get in a bad accident, but we all made it.  Basically they warned us about everything, from beggars to hagglers, to store owners, to the filth of the area, and even the fact that women are considered second class citizens.  Even after all these warnings, I was not ready for what met me as I walked off of the ship. 

            When I woke up that first morning of India, our room smelled like coal.  At first I thought something was on fire, the smell was so strong.  Our ship was actually parked next to the coal yard.  As we walked off the ship, we were hit with a heat wave that nearly sucked the breath right out of you.  The humidity was like a heavy coat just hanging on you in the already stifling heat.  We were warned about the rickshaws, and how you have to bargain for a price, and it can be some what scary if you actually watch where you are going.  They weave in and out of traffic and around busses, cars, motorcycles and animals.  Once we were off the ship (Meghan, Maria and I) there were about 15 rickshaws offering to take us to the gate, which was a 10 minute walk.  They wanted 100 rupies ($1 = 44 rupies), but we had already decided we would just walk it.  They did not like this and continued to try and bargain a price with us, even though we didn’t even want to take the rickshaw.  We just kept walking and once we were half way there, they finally went on to try and get someone else to take their rickshaw. I did not experience anything relaxing about the Indian culture, and this was just the beginning. 

The first day in India was quite a culture shock (maybe every day was a culture shock).  I have never seen people living in so much filth!  There were beggars every where, all shoving their babies in your face, trying to get you to give them money.  It was exhausting just walking down the street.  First the beggars rush you for money, and then the kids (ages 6 to 20) run up to you and try and sell you what ever they have for that day.  Even if you say no, they continue to shove in your face whatever they think they can sell you.  We really did not blend in at all.  It was obvious anywhere we went that everyone knew we were tourist, and they tried to get any money from us that they could. 

This is a street in Chennai, jsut so you can get an idea of the filth

This is the first rickshaw our driver wanted to take us in.  We decided to walk!

This is Maria and I bargining for a good price for our rickshaw ride.

This is the Rickshaw that we actually took.

We got a rickshaw to take us to Spencer’s Plaza so we could do some shopping.  We got our driver down to 50 rupies (a little more than $1) to take all three of us to the Plaza.  The ride took about 30 minutes to get there, was actually a lot of fun.  It is amazing how they weave in and out of traffic and I never saw an accident the whole time I was there.  We were warned that the rickshaw drivers often take detours on the way to your desired destination.  They will take you to a shop, and they will not take you to your destination until you go into the store for 2 minutes.  Sometimes there are like 4 or 5 detours until you finally get to the place you actually want to go to.  So, you have to plan an extra hour in all travel times.  Fortunately, we had no detours (which we were shocked by), and he took us right to the plaza.  The plaza ended up being a huge mall, like over 6 stories tall!  It was more than a little overwhelming!  However, I did find a watch right away when we got there and for only 200 rupies!   I asked the guy if it was going to last me one week or a month.  He said “no, no, good watch, good watch, last long time.  I sell good watch to you.”  So far, it has lasted me through the week.  It is so nice having a watch again!  We were at the mall for about 3 hours and only made it to the third floor.  We all bought souvenirs and gifts for ourselves and all the people at home that we love and miss.   We also found a cookie shop, and after debating over it, decided that it would be safe to eat chocolate ship cookies.  They were just coming out of the oven, almost to hot to even hold.  So, we bought our cookies, and enjoyed every bite of them. 

After spending enough time and money at the plaza, we headed back to the ship to get ready for the Welcome reception that night.  At the welcome reception they gave us flower lais, and the red and yellow dot on our foreheads (yellow is to cool that area of your head because they believe in meditation that part of your forehead is your mind’s eye and it gets very hot with the intensity of meditation.  The yellow keeps is cool, so the meditation is more comfortable, therefore you get more results of the meditation (we did not meditate while we were there).  The Red is to protect you from the evil eye.  The evil eye can only be seen when meditating, but is thought to always be present, so one must always be protected. 

They had a drawing on the ground which everyone was suppose to color a part of it to represent the cultures coming together in harmony, and a welcoming to the new comers. 

They also did a henna drawing for each of us.  I chose to have mine done on my hand.  Henna lasts for about 2 weeks.  (Mine has been on for 5 days and is starting to fade now.)

They had a performer there that did a dance for us, and I’m sure the song told a story, but it was all in their language, so we didn’t really know what she was saying. 

Any of the females that wanted to, they would put a Sari on, so we could really join in the culture.  There were so many people waiting to do this that I decided not to wait in line.  There were also venders there selling us anything they could (everywhere we went, someone was selling us something).  They had jewelry, skirts, shirts, Saris, and more jewelry.

There were about 150 of us there total, and we stayed for about 3 hours.  They fed us our dinner of Indian food (which with each meal I was able to reconfirm that I really don’t like Indian food.  I basically lived off of white rice and fry bread the whole time in India.)  The food was all very spicy, and just weird combinations of flavors that I’m just not accustom to. 

They did serve coffee at the end of the meal, and that by far was my highlight.  The coffee was so good!  (Until I got to the bottom of the cup and saw a few hairs down there, then I was really grossed out).  We had a lot of opportunity to interact with other local university students; all who wanted to take pictures with us. 

This is Meghan, our new friend, Sam and I

This was a very kind lady taht we met.  We were able to ask her any questions we had so far about the culture.  She was so infirmative!!  Definatly the right kind of person to meet!

It was kind of an exhausting night, and every time I leave the ship and come back, I just felt disgusting.  There is just filth everywhere and it is so hot that I feel like the smog just sticks to me.  Also, because the smog is so bad there, just walking around for an hour, I came back with a sore throat.  It makes you feel sick from being outside too long.  When I got back to the ship, I finished packing up for my over night trip leaving at 4:00 am the next morning.  I was going to be gone for 3 nights, and I didn’t really know what I should pack.  I didn’t know if I should pack a lot of bottled water and fewer clothes or lots of snacks to live off of for the next three days, or what kinds of weather we would be having.  I was trying to pack light, but I did pack one big bottle of water, which made my bag even heavier.  I made sure to leave room for souvenirs though! 

3-10-06

On to Delhi, the Capital of India

My overnight trip left the ship at 4:00 am, and everyone made it!  Everyone was soaked in deet to ward off the disease carrying mosquitoes, and anxious to see another part of India.  I was ready to get out of Chennai, our port city.  Our bus ride to the airport took about 45 minutes, and once we got the airport, we only had to wait about an hour before we were boarding our plane, so everything was in good time.  At the airport, they have one line for men, and one line for women.  For some reason, the men’s line always seems to go faster.  We all had to have tags on our bags that get stamped once you go through security, but no one told us about this.  So, a lot of people at the front of the line were sent back to get tags, and they kindly let the rest of us know.  We were allowed one carry on only, and no one was allowed to check a bag.  Our airplane ride was about 3 hours long.  The first beverage service is a juice box to everyone before we even got off the ground.  A lot of us were tired and wanted to just sleep the whole flight, but he flight attendants had other ideas.  When they came around with the meal, they woke up every person and made them put their seat up, even if they didn’t want food.  You had to leave your seat up until everyone around you was done eating.  This was only slightly annoying to all of us sleep deprived travelers.  I tried the food but I defiantly did not like any part of it.  Good thing I brought my own snacks along.  About half way through the flight, it suddenly got really turbulent.  It was the most turbulent plane ride I have ever been on, a little nerve wreaking.  My seat was at the window right behind the wing, so I watched the wing, hoping with all of my might that it wouldn’t just shake off.  I was never so happy to be on the ground again!  Our landing was uneventful.  Once in the airport, there were over 30o semester at sea people there.  There were three different trips that all left at the same time, and then once we were all in Delhi, we had our own plans.  Oh yeah, at the airport we all had to check out batteries out of anything.  So that was the one checked bag.  I couldn’t take pictures or video of the plane or airport because I had no batteries in my camera.  At the airport, a lot of us decided to venture to the bathroom, and then we all had to evaluate how important going to the bathroom really was.  They were squatting toilets (just a hole in the ground with a place to put your feet.)  Our trip leader, Holly Carter (she is also my professor for my healthcare networks class and medical sociology) was in there trying to teach all of us how to use the squatting toilets.  She has lived all over the world, and has a lot of experience in just about everything.  After our bathroom experience, we made our way to the bus.  I was so thankful the bus was air conditioned!  It was not as hot in Delhi as it was in Chennai, but the cool air still felt wonderful! 

We did a little city tour, and I took a lot of video of the streets and the people.  We visited the diplomat building that looks like a giant Magnolia

We then went to the Gandhi museum, which is located where he was assassinated, and learned more history on his life.  It got a little weird at the museum because these Indian men kept coming up to us American girls and asking if they can have their picture taken with us.  At first, I thought this is weird, but ok, so we posed or a few pictures with them.  After a while though, it started to get really uncomfortable.  They were trying to grab my hand or just being to close to our group, and some of them would try to be slick and act like they were taking a picture of a friend when it was obvious they were taking pictures of us.   It really started getting more and more creepy, I was feeling really creepy.  I was in a group of about 30, so it is not like I was by myself at all.  It did not take me long at all before I was ready to get out of there and back safely on the bus.  All around the bus there were hagglers trying to sell us whatever they had (little jewelry boxes, wooden elephants, jewelry, bindis (the decorative dot on the forehead), pens, post cards, books, you name it!  There were also kids dancing and doing flips and then telling you that you needed to pay them for this.  There was a little girl who was manipulating her body through a metal hoop, and then holding her hand out for money.  At every stop there were also old men with a cobra snake in a basket charming them with his sitar.  Our guide (who was an amazing guide, Subee) later told us that they remove the teeth and the organ that produces poison, so they are completely harmless.  So, really, the old guys were not charming the snake, but rather the tourist so they would give him money, not so impressive. 

After our tour of the city, we went to the hotel that we would be staying at our last night in Delhi.  This is where we had lunch.  We ate at the Chinese restaurant (I am in Asia now), which was really good!  (Actually, the Chinese foods that we ate really tasted a lot like the stuff that we have at home, which makes me wonder if our American Chinese food isn’t actually all that far off.  I really hope that I enjoy real Chinese food as much as I do the American Chinese food!)  For lunch I sat with two new friends Sierra and Natalie.  It is always fun learning about new people. 

After our lunch, we went to the train station.  This train station was sketchy from the beginning, and so gross.  The stench of urine was over powering (oh yeah, we had a running tally of how many times we witnessed public urination… the number was high).  We had to cross over tracks and walk in the mud in between tracks to finally get to the station.  At the station we stood on a platform with a narrow over hang.  We were being gawked at by the locals who wanted to know where all these white people came from (there were 70 total in our group, so a lot of people).  Everything was fine until it started to rain.  With the rain, the stench intensified, and everything was all muddy, including the platform, our shoes and the bottom of our pants.  I didn’t even want to think about what kind of mud it actually was that I was now trekking in.  The train ended up being an hour late.  When the train arrived, we had four minutes to try and get our whole group on the train, as well as all the locals that were pushing to get on.  Our guide was yelling at us to hurry up, and to try other doors.  Everyone got on, but then we had to figure out where our seat was and what car we were supposed to be in.  Our SAS group actually had one whole car reserved, so we could all sit together.  When we got to our car, there were about 30 Indian people in our car that were not supposed to be, and they wouldn’t move.   We were in a sleeper car, since the ride was going to be 5 ½ hours long.   I ended up getting stuck in this two person section with an Indian man sitting across from me.  I did not feel comfortable at all.  He kept just staring at me.  I held my bag on my lap and my purse with my camera and video camera between me and the wall and just looked out the window the whole time.  There was no way I was going to fall asleep with this strange man across from me.  The other SAS’ers were not to far away, but I still did not like being separated and stuck with this Indian guy.  So, the train ride was not such a great adventure.  I did like looking out the window, but it was dark outside, and the lights were on inside, and it was raining, so I really couldn’t see very much.  I was so happy when we finally arrived in Jaipur!  It was such a relief to be off of that train!  (The fact that there were bugs, lizards and rats running wild probably didn’t help at all either.)

Once we were off the train (around 10:30 pm) we had to walk about 20 minutes through the train station and up and down these stairs and through this dark alley before we finally came to our tour bus, which would basically be like a second home for the next three days.  When we were walking to the bus, there was a big sign that said “welcome to the Pink City”, I tried to get a picture of it, but it was too dark out for my camera, but I did love that sign!  Jaipur is made out of this pink sandstone (which is really orangey), so that is why it is called the Pink City.  (I really wanted a T-shirt that said Pink City on it, but I couldn’t find any.)  When we got back to the hotel, we checked into our rooms, and then had an Indian dinner (which I tried a little of everything, and settled on the white rice and fry bread).  After dinner, a lot of people went out to explore the night life, but since I had not been able to sleep yet all day, all I wanted to do was sleep!  I went up to my room, took a nice hot shower, tried scrubbing all the dirt, grime and smog off, and then curled up in my bed.  Even after a shower, I still felt gross.  Maybe it has to do with all the warnings about how dirty the tap water is, or that I saw bugs crawling around the room.  I just wanted to sleep.  It was such a long day of traveling.  We were on the bus a total of 4 hours, on the plane for 3 hours and on the train for 6 hours. My bed did feel wonderful.

3-11-06

Jaipur, the Pink City

First of all, I would like to introduce my bus buddy for this trip.  Her name is Tasha.  We just always sat with each other through this whole trip.  It was great getting to know her! 

Our day started with our 6:00 am wake u call. We had to get up and leave the hotel so we could get in line to ride an elephant.  We were on our way to Amber fort, which was just on the other side of the city.  At Amber fort, we were supposed to take elephants to get up to the top.  The elephants start at 8:00 am and stop at 11:00 am, so we did not want to miss our opportunity.  As we were driving through the city of Jaipur, we got our first glance of the Pink City.  It was a very busy city!  There were so many random animals on the street.  They consider cows to be sacred, so they roam free on the street and do what ever they like.  There are also camels and elephants every where.  We were riding in the bus to the fort, and just randomly passing elephants coming both directions.  They use elephants and camels like we do horses, so they are everywhere, hauling all sorts of different loads.  When we arrived at the fort, we were immediately rushed with hagglers, trying to sell us whatever they could.  This was before we even got off the bus.  We then had to wait in line for an hour for our turn to ride the elephant.  The whole hour that we stood there waiting, there were about 12 different guys trying to sell us everything “India”.  Bargaining kind of feels like a sport, it is very competitive; you just always have to make sure that you decided on the final price.  The hagglers always start out way high, so you tell them a price that is ridiculously low, like they try and sell you a t-shirt for $20, and you tell them you will pay 50 rupies (about $1), and you can usually end up with the t-shirt for around 250 rupies ($5).  The trick is walking away.  Even if you do want something, act like you could careless, or that you really don’t want it, and walk away, they follow you and keep bringing the price down.  I feel that I have become very good at bargaining, but I don’t really enjoy it, it is very exhausting.  Some of my friends here on the ship and I were joking about how we are going to go home and go shopping at the Gap, and they are going to say the price is $20, and we are going to try and bargain them down, like, “no, I’ll give you $3”, and the clerks are really going to wonder where we came from!  I have done so much bargaining in the past 5 days than I ever wanted to do, and the bargaining has really only just begun.  I managed to bargain for other SAS’ers in line with me, but I myself did not buy any of there things.  (The one thing I did get from a street seller the day before was post cards.  I got 48 post cards for $2, so that was really good.  It’s too bad I was only able to get 10 stamps, so 10 people will be getting post cards from India!) 

We finally were at the beginning of the line and got to ride the elephants!  There were two people per elephant.  My riding buddy was Nick.  The elephant ride was a definite highlight, probably my favorite thing about India!

Once we arrived at the top of the mountain to where Amber fort was, our guides gave us some history on the architecture, as well as what life was like in the fort.  The fort was to protect the king and Queen and royal family, and they had a few different places to escape to if the fort was ever invaded.  I think you all will really have a better feel of what I am talking about after you see the videos.  We had two hours to take our time and really explore the palace.  Even with all this time, I don’t think I even covered half of it.  There are so many rooms and hallways and tunnels.  Even when we were in the fort, there were people inside trying to get money from you some how.  I was walking through one tunnel and it opened into this other room and these two ladies came up to me and asked me to take their picture, so I got out my camera, and another SAS student saw me.  She quickly warned me that if I take their picture, they would ask for money next.  It was all another ploy to get money, so I put my camera away and told the ladies no thank you.  They just waited for the next American to prey on.  I think that is another reason why this country was so frustrating to me.  I couldn’t just go and enjoy the sites and just think people are being friendly.  Everywhere I turned, and everywhere I went, someone was trying to get money from you.  You can’t trust anyone.  No one is really just being nice to you; it is all another way to get money from you.  I also was really disgusted in how they use kids to try and get money from you.  We saw a little malnutrition baby lying on top of this cardboard box, just crying.  It had a little basket for you to put money in, and we saw someone else put money in, and as soon as they walked away, this man ran out from behind the bush and emptied the contents into his pockets.  When the baby stopped crying, the guy came out and pinched him so he would cry again.  Poor baby!  I can only imagine what the money is going for.  That man probably only feeds the baby enough to keep him alive, so he continues to look like this.  That is the way he makes money, and he couldn’t have the baby actually be healthy.  So sad!  Everything was so deceiving!  We also learned about how some families sell the daughters into prostitution because they need money, and since they consider girls more of a burden, they do not feel as if it is a loss.  It is so sad what these people do to survive, it breaks my heart in more ways than I can name. 

Ok, back to my story… here is a group picture of everyone from semester at sea doing this trip. 

When ever our guide was trying to call us all to tell us more history, or make announcements, he would call “Semester!” and after a while it was just the joke among the group.  When ever we needed to move on to the next thing, or before we got off the bus at the next attraction, he would say “ok, start semestering!” so that was the big group joke of the week (even now on the ship, we see each other and yell “Semester!”  I guess you can say we all bonded through semestering together).  After Amber fort, we drove to the water palace and took pictures and learned about the history of it.  No one is allowed because it is not safe.  The palace is actually half way under water, but the part that you can see is absolutely beautiful! 

We next went to the carpet and textile market.  Here they showed us step by step how they make printed fabrics (everything here is handmade)

How they make the carpets; there are so many different processes that the carpets go through before they are completed.  They have three different levels of quality.  There is the wool, the silk/wool blend and the 100% silk carpets.  The wool carpets have about 600 knots of thread per square inch; the 100% silk ones have 4000 knots of thread per square inch, so significantly more time and labor invested.  To make a 3x5 foot rug of wool would take about one month to make, and a silk one would take closer to a little over a year, in that same size.  These rugs were so beautiful!  It was really interesting to see how they make them.  We also saw other textiles and how they make them.  They had Saris, bedroom sets, silk, tapestries, all sorts of textiles for sale, and all handmade right there!  I really wanted to buy quite a few things, but knew it would be challenging to get it back to the ship on the airplane, so I just got the silk rug (which is so incredibly beautiful!) I tried on a Sari, really for the purpose of a picture, I have no desire to ever buy one of these.  After being in India, and realizing what the Sari represents, I just don’t want to support that.  (It signifies that a woman needs to hide her body because she is not as worthy of a human as a man; not a very rosy picture.)

As we were leaving the factory, this man working on a rug calls me to come over and see what he is doing.  I thought I was being kind by acting interested in what he was doing.  So, he shows me how he ties the knots to make the rug, and then holds out his hand and says, “now money” and smiles.  I just got up and left.  I thought I was being kind, I’m just not use to people constantly trying to get money from us Americans.  I really don’t like how deceiving everything seems to be.  You can’t take anything at face value. 

After the textile market and our many new purchases, we made our way back to the hotel for lunch.  The only really safe place to eat is the nice four or five star hotels.  After lunch we visited the city palace.  The prince of this family line actually still lives there to this day in one of the wings.  They have the court yard open for guests, and one large room is set up as a museum to see the kinds of artifacts and materials that use to be used in the palace.

We were next given the afternoon to explore the market.  The bus dropped us off in the middle of one of those circle turn arounds (they use these instead of stop lights, you enter the circle with everyone else, and then just leave the circle at the exit you want, if you miss your exit, you go around the circle again… talk about going in circles!)  Anyways, we all got off the bus and just had to run to get out of the way of traffic.  It was so crazy!  When I got off the street, I just stuck with the first SAS’ers that I saw.  I actually didn’t know any of them, but I sure wasn’t going to wait around by myself and try and find my friends.  They ended up being great shopping companions. There were four girls and three guys, so a good number.  We spent about three hours at the market.  Everything is so cheap!  We did bargain with the shop keepers and got good prices on everything.  (I was amazed that I was able to fit everything back into my carry on to fly back to Chennai with!  I even fit my new rug in there!)  After the markets we headed back to the hotel for dinner (I once again had my ration of white rice and fry bread) and then we were free to do what ever we wanted for the rest of the night.  I decided to read my book a little and go to bed early.  It had been an exhausting day, and the next day we would be leaving the hotel at 6:00 am on our quest for the Taj Mahal.  

3-12-06

Agra, Home of the Taj Mahal

Our wake up calls came to our rooms at 5:00 am and we were out the door, our bellies full of Indian food and on the road by 6:00 am.  We had a 7 ½ hour bus ride to go from Jaipur to Agra, so we could all visit the Taj Mahal.  The bus ride was fascinating!  I just stared out my window the whole time.  The road was basically a rough paved road that needed some repairs with intermittent spurts of dirt road in between.  It was a rough ride (as you will see in the videos), but it was great to see how these people lived away from the city.  They use camels to hall everything!  Also all of the drivers are honking their horns constantly.  They honk every time they want to pass, as they are passing and when they finish passing, if they think you are going to slow, if they think you need to slow down, if your lights aren’t on, basically if they see another car, they honk their horn a few times.  This made it quite impossible to sleep at all, even if I wanted to.  We learned all about how they use their resources to survive, such as cow dung.  They build houses with in (works like cement), they coat their floors of their houses with it (it makes a hard surface to sweep, instead of sweeping dirt off of dirt), and they burn it for fuel.  They probably have other uses too, those are just the once I remember.  Here is a picture of cow dung (I thought you might enjoy that, but it is a very prominent part of their culture!) 

            The villages were very dirty, but I enjoyed seeing their way of life.  We passed quite a few brick mints, and a logging ground, and a sawdust center.  There are tons of road side stands of fruits and vegetables.  We saw women and animals washing in the river and doing water in the river and on the street, we had lots of beggars and hagglers chase the bus as we slowed down to go through towns.  I had plenty of opportunities to give away my snacks that I had brought with me.  I am not even sure if some of the kids knew how to open a zip lock bag, but I figured they would find out eventually. 

            We did stop at another palace called Fatima Sitka (that is spelled way wrong, but I don’t even know where to start with that name).  This was the “deserted palace”.  It was very big and busy palace but they did not have an adequate water supply, so the empire moved the entire city that was housed in here to a new location where they could get water.  The structure was beautiful.  There were intricate carvings on the inside of all the walls.  A lot of detail was put into this fortress.  When we arrived, we were met by the beggars and hagglers, but we were all getting really good at just not even making eye contact with them and to keep walking.  Once inside, all of these guys kept coming up trying to show us around.  By now, I knew the trick.  They wanted to show you around and tell you whatever, and then they would expect you to pay them.  So, they would come up, and be like, “go over there, nice view, oh look at this, is great picture, look here, come here…” you can’t reason with them or even be kind to them, it only encourages them.  I at first tried to explain to them that I was with a group and already had a guide, but it was like they never heard a word I said.  I had to act like I never even saw them there and continue to walk away until I was in the middle of the SAS group, so they had no access to me.  I hate having to treat another human being like this, but there just seems to be no other way.  These men followed our group around, constantly trying to pull us away and show us something, even though they could see we were in a group wit ha guide.  I guess it just comes with being a tourist here!  The fortress was beautiful though, I did enjoy that. 

            We hopped back on the bus, with the hagglers and beggars still banging on the bus window as we drove away.  Our next stop was a nice hotel to have lunch in.  The lunch was mix of Chinese and Indian food.  I really enjoyed the golden fried potatoes, and that was basically my whole lunch.  Next, we went to the Agra fort.  If you know the story of the Taj Mahal, you know that the king build the Taj Mahal for his wife, who he loved very much.  She died while giving birth to his 14 child.  To show the world how much he loved her, he decided to build the most beautiful building ever.  The prince to the king had a fight with his father and when he was the new ruler, he threw his father into prison.  Agra fort is the prison where the king lived his last days.  At Agra fort, you can still see the Taj Mahal, so the king would sit at Agra and just stare at his beautiful Taj, and morn his wife’s death, and curse his son’s name.  That is the super abridged version, so if you are interested, research it and get the whole story! 

            After Agra Fort, we were off to the Taj Mahal, the moment we had all been waiting for.  We had a one kilometer walk after we got off of the bus until we got the entrance of the Taj.  Kids followed us the whole way, trying to sell us anything they possibly could.  This was actually a really cheap way to get souvenirs, and on the way out, I did get my Taj Mahal souvenir.  Getting into the Taj Mahal was an adventure, at first.  We had to walk through this narrow alley and up these steep dark stairs and down another back street, and then we finally made it to the entrance gate.  We are sure this had to be a back entrance or something.  This is the part where I got really frustrated, and their culture shown through.  They let all of the men walk right in, and all the women had to get in a line and wait.  We had to wait first for all of the men to get in, and then they slowly started letting our line in.  Every time a man came along, they stopped our line and let him walk right in, ahead of everyone.  We had to wait in line for over an hour before we finally got in!  I couldn’t believe that there were still places like this in the world!  There were going through and doing body searches on all the women, like patting us down and going through our pockets and any bags we might have on us.  The men had no security check at all, they simply walked in.  It still surprises me that they think the women are a threat.  I think it was more of a way to show that the men were more righteous or better, more valuable humans than the women.  It was so frustrating to just watch the men push past us and walk in.  (This is another big reason why I have no desire to ever return to India.) 

Once we were inside, it was gorgeous, from every angle, no mater how far away or how close you were, it was still beautiful!  Once we were inside, we were having a good time taking out pictures, pretending like we were holding it from a point, or holding it in the palm of our hand (you have to see the pictures to understand).  We started to notice all these Indian men trying to be sneaky and taking our pictures, which would have been flattering if it wasn’t so creepy.  A bunch of them did come up to us and ask if they could have their picture taken with us, but a lot more with just randomly walk up behind us and their friend would quickly take the picture.  It was like they thought we didn’t know what was going on! 

We were standing in a group of 8 girls, all waiting in line to go inside the Taj Mahal.  We were pretty far along and this Indian guy comes and gets in line right in the middle of our group, like he could blend in or something.  I told him that he was standing in the middle of our group and he really needed to move.  He waved me off like I wasn’t even there, so we all just pushed our way in front of him so he was at least behind us instead of in the middle of us.  This happened 3 more times after that, all with different Indian guys.  I don’t know if they just thought we wouldn’t say anything, or they really thought they were slick, but it got real annoying, really fast. 

We walked out of the Taj through the front entrance, and as soon as we were through the gates, the hagglers and beggars were there waiting.  I did buy some souvenirs from a few little kids.  I just hope that it really does go to help feed them, and not to some other means.  Once back on the bus, we drove back to the same hotel we had lunch at and had our dinner of Pizza Hut.  We then went to the train station for a 2 hour ride back to Delhi, where we would stay for the night, and then fly out the next morning. 

I enjoyed the sites of India, but not the smells, tastes or people.  I am glad that I have seen and witnessed all that I did; I needed to see that to believe it.  I am thankful for this whole experience of India; I just have no desire to ever return.  I think it is good for everyone to see this, and experience this, I just wasn’t prepared for India, and I really don’t know how I could have been better prepared. 

3-13-06

Returning to Chennai, the Port City

We had stayed at a five star hotel the night before.  I was so exhausted from the day that I just wanted to go to my room, maybe watch some TV or read my book, and go to bed.  I got to the room, and I could only get three of the total 14 lights in the room to work.  I decided to try the TV, but that wouldn’t work either.  There was a plastic kettle in the room, so I decided to just make a cup of tea, and read my book, but the kettle didn’t work either.  This was very disappointing considering that we were staying in a 5 star hotel, but I figured maybe I have to call down to the desk for them to flip some sort of switch on or something for that room.  I called down to the desk, and they said they would send someone up.  The guy came up, fiddled with the TV, trying all sorts of different things, and finally got it to work.  He backed out of the room slowly, and that is when I realized he was expecting a tip.  I guess you have to pay to have TV in a five star hotel.  He never did get any of the lights of the tea kettle to work.  I watched the news for a little, read my book a little, and decided to just go to bed. 

            In the morning when I got up, I was down to two lights, the one in the shower, and one in the entry hall as you walk I the door.  Since we were getting up before the sun, this made it very interesting with getting up, repacking everything, and getting ready for another day of traveling.  I went down to the lobby and checked out of my room, and headed to breakfast.  Today they were making omelets for us, which really tasted great

(maybe because it wasn’t rice or bread.)  We all sat in the lobby and waited for our bus to come and take us to the airport.  Our plane ended up being delayed and we didn’t leave the hotel until 12:30 pm. Once we were at the airport, the flight was delayed another hour.  We didn’t end up leaving until 3:00 pm (we were supposed to leave at 9:15 am).  After the flight and the transfer back to the ship, we finally made it back at 6:00 pm.  On ship time was set for 9:00 pm, and I was exhausted and pretty much done with being in India, so I just stayed on the ship, and used those extra three hours to relax and organize my new purchases.   

            The ship is currently conserving water, since the water in India and Myanmar is not safe, we have to live off of our reserves on the ship.  We have all learned about Navy showers, and alternatives for using water.  I have only heard of a few people who have really gotten sick from India.  A few people got really sick, almost hospitalized from eating the wrong food, but each of those people that I have talked to are feeling better and better every day.  A lot of people have come to me because they got colds or are still experiencing allergies from all the smog in India, so I am taking care of them.  They all call me Nurse Laura, but I enjoy it.  I am feeling healthy after India, which I am so thankful for! 

Also a group of 5 of us just started a small Bible study on the ship, and that is going great!  The five of us have decided that we will keep our Bible study group, but we have also all agreed to each start another group on the ship as well.  A lot of people have expressed an interest in having a small group Bible study, but nobody has done anything about it, so we are taking the initiative.  Before I left Marquette, my pastor up there gave me a complete Bible study set on an extension of the Purpose Driven Life.  The set came with workbooks and a DVD, so we are using that one DVD to get all 6 groups going, and passing the work books around too.   Things are looking good there!

We are also learning about Burma or Myanmar, whatever you want to call it.  We have learned about the military regime, and everything that is illegal there.  It is illegal to talk about anything related to politics, to stay over night in a Burmese house, have a satellite dish, to have the internet, to engage in conversation with anyone in any other form unless in dealing with them in a business matter.  Burma sounds really scary, but we all just have to be very careful about who we talk to, and to keep it all very superficial.  No matter who comes up to any of us, we have to just smile, and say “Myanmar is great!”  Basically, we can look, and learn from what we can see.  We have learned about all the places that we can not take pictures of (anything related to the military, whether people or buildings, bridges, or University Avenue. There may not be a whole lot of pictures form this country, or I just may not be able to post very many on line, you will just have to see them when I get home.)  This country sounds more and more interesting all the time.  We have learned that they will take US currency, but no traveler’s checks, ATM’s or credit cards.  Not every place will accept US dollars, so we have to get Kaut (pronounced Chap).  There are so many issues about Myanmar (we must call it Myanmar while we are there, or we risk being thrown into jail, no joke!)  I have been told that women have equal rights here; it is just that anyone that is not military have very few rights at all.  Wow!  What a country!  I am actually getting really excited for Myanmar.  I am better prepared for this port, since I saw India and experienced India (Something good did happen from India).  India, on the poorest countries list, in number 130, where Myanmar is number 164, so 34 spots even poorer than India!  I am glad that I have been told this ahead of time.  I will be at Inlay Lake the whole time that I am there; I was told that it is very beautiful there!  Oh yeah, we also learned that only 2% that all tourist that come to Myanmar is from the Western World, so they will be very curious as to where we came from, and why we are there.  We will defiantly stand out here as well.  I am just glad that I am better prepared (hopefully) this time.  We learned about the healthcare system there as well; basically, don’t get sick, at all!  Ok, that’s all for now!  Next time I will have already experienced this country!

Love Laura