Mauritius!

I'm going to squeeze all of my Mauritius blog into one. Right now I am sitting in the union waiting for the crew talent show to start. It is apparently a really big deal and a lot of fun, so I'm here 90 minutes early and even so probably 50 people beat me here. We really have nothing better to do than sit around waiting for things to start.

Starting last night we could see South Africa off of our starboard side. It is about 6 miles out and looks pretty awesome. It's odd though that we won't be there for another day and a half and we can already see land. We are apparently going to follow the coast around the southern tip of Africa going nice and slow. Hopefully the seas won't be too bad, today was better than yesterday. Some of the rockiest seas are apparently down around the Cape of Good Hope so think good thoughts!

So Mauritius. We pulled in at about 8 am, had the diplomatic briefing soon thereafter that I did not attend, and were cleared to leave by 9:15. We usually can't get off until noon or so and it was a pleasant surprise to be cleared early. We had a group of 14 of us initially and it unfortunately took a half hour to get everyone moving the right direction, but shortly before 10 we were headed off the ship to the beats of some Mauritian musicians. Eric and I arranged a minibus to take the group of us to Blue Bay, a beach area on the other side of the island, because we figured it would be too difficult to get 14 people moving toward a public bus and getting onto it. The ride cost about 7 bucks a person, not too bad at all, and we were there before noon. My mom had booked us two rooms in a hostel, Le Bamboo, to fit 8 people, but we took everyone there anyways in hopes of finding beds for all of them. After finding the hostel with no trouble at all we walked upstairs and met the lady who ran it. She was incredibly nice, spoke perfect English, and though overwhelmed my 14 Americans standing in her presence, was able to find accomodation for everyone. After spending time there drinking coffee and dropping off our stuff, we went in the direction of the bus station to get to Blue Bay. I suppose I wasn't fully clear, we weren't staying in Blue Bay, rather in Mahebourg, a city about 15 minutes away.

The walk to the bus stop was short and on the way we all found ATMs to get out some cash. I pulled out the equivalent of $100 US and told myself that I would spend no more. After paying $5 in ATM fees to take out 30-50 dollars in other countries, I decided it made more sense to pick an amount, take it out, and that's it. We found the bus and snack bar next to it where I grabbed an awesome cheese croissant and water, and took off on our way to Blue Bay. The bus cost us an entire 50 cents, I really love public transportation. We arrived in Blue Bay and immediately were in love with the atmosphere. It was an extremely quiet beach area that did not look even the slightest bit touristy. We saw no one there but local boat drivers and the ocean looked like something out of pamphlet. The first order of business was food. At this point 5 of the 14 had left us to pursue their own agenda, so the 9 remaining ones went to the one restaurant in site which seemed to be some fusion between french and italian. It was also ridiculously expensive unfortunately. Everyone ordered a pina colada, which was pretty bad I might add, at 5 dollars a drink, and even splitting a pizza with someone else ran me 7 bucks. This might not sound like much to you all in the states, but I'm used to paying like 3 dollars for a full meal. Not a big fan of spending over 10. The food was alright and took forever because they wanted us to keep ordering drinks. We finally finished after probably an hour and a half and set off for the beach to figure out something to do in the water.

Eric and Jay wanted to scuba so they went to a hotel nearby and checked on prices. It was only $75 and they had dives for uncertified people so they were both very interested. Unfortunately you had to do it in the morning so they were told to come back at 9 the next day. We ran into the 5 missing members of our group after and the 14 of us decided to go snorkeling. This was perfect because I am snorkeling's #1 fan. We paid 7 dollars a person for a 2 hour excursion, a bargain in my opinion, and hopped into our glass bottomed boat. We went out to a spot that had coral all over the place and tons of beautiful fish. It was really something right out of a brochure, textbook snorkeling as I will call it. I could have stayed out there all day it was so much fun. We tried out another spot that was a bit more wavy and we kept on drifting away from the boat, so it wasn't as fun, but still beautiful. After snorkeling, we headed back to shore and made plans to meet Tolan's group, the 5 rogue ones, for dinner back at the hostel at 7. They left us and we sat in the grass watching a soccer practice for a while. We watched the sunset over the beach which was stunning, hopefully I can get pictures up, talked with some locals for a bit, and then hopped in a cab to go back to the hostel.

We arrived at the hostel, got showered and ready, and set off in search of "Le Gran Creole" which supposedly was lively at night according to our cab driver. We made it to its sister restaurant who offered us a free shuttle to the one we wanted to be at which we took. The food at Le Gran Creole was pretty expensive but not too shabby. I found some super dinner thing which had a little bit of everything. Included in "everything" were two wild boar dishes which were quite delicious. Wild Boar is apparently very tender and melts in your mouth, not what I expected. We finished dinner and found the restaurant to not be as lively as it was billed to be so we let them drive us back to our hostel. We met up with some students from Germany and the Netherlands and headed to the beach to hang out late.

On the way to the beach we saw a sign glowing right next to the road that said "CASINO". Myself and a friend, Ben, were unable to resist ourselves and headed into what was the smallest casino I will probably ever see. It had about 15 slot machines, two tables for cards, and an automated roulette table. We sat down at roulette, I put in 100 rupees, a whopping 3 dollars and wanted to see how much fun I could have. Unfortunately I had no idea how to work the machine and found out that 100 was the minimum bet, so the fun was looking pretty short lived. I spread my rupees over 10 of the numbers at 10 a piece, and low and behold, it hit the 14 which was one of the ones I had money on. I won 360 rupees and being the smart young man I am hit cash out as fast as I could.

So now I'm stuck with this receipt for 360 rupees and wanted to try out the video machines. The only bill I had left was a 1000 rupee one, way more than I wanted to spend, but that was no big deal. I put it into a video poker machine and went to work. Fortunately you could bet 2 rupees a hand so this lasted me all kinds of time, I was down to 900 left and was in a sour mood so I of course did the logical thing and started betting the max, 20 rupees a hand. As luck would have it I was down to about 800, ready to call it quits when I hit something then "gambled" it which is basically a way of doing double or nothing on a game of chance. I did this repeatedly until by some miracle I won about 300 rupees on the hand. I again hit cash out as fast as I could and walked away. We called it a night then because they refused to let us play blackjack (probably for the best) and I walked away up something like 15 bucks. This might not sound like a lot, but I am quite proud of myself considering it represented a 15% increase in my budget and I walked away forever a winner from Mauritian gambling.

We hung out on the beach after that for a while and went back and crashed. The next morning we woke up nice and early, ate a delicious omelette and bread breakfast prepared by one of the people who worked at the hostel and checked out. I really appreciated how nice the people at the hostel were, they made our stay pleasant and were so helpful. The whole thing was ran out of their home and I'm glad we were able to help them out. We hopped on the 9:30 am bus to get back to Blue Bay and were there by 9:45. Unfortunately when they told Eric and Jay 9:00 am to scuba, they meant 9 am, so they did not get to. Instead we sat on the beach for about 2 hours as JulieAnne tried to work out wind surfing for all of us. The guy who was supposed to be bringing boards ended up in Port Louis somehow, which is where SAS was docked a solid 35 kilometers from us, so needless to say he wasn't going to make it. Instead 7 of us decided to go snorkeling again. We went to the same spots, but fortunately the fish were totally different.

Jay and I saw a huge school of bright yellow fish at the second spot which were AWESOME. There were probably more than a thousand of them and they kept on rushing the coral to try and eat it I guess. There were brown fish in the coral that would then rush out and scare the entire cloud of yellow fish away. It looked like an ocean version of the Bloods vs Crypts or Sharks vs Jets. I feel very lucky to have seen it. Feeling fully satisfied with the snorkeling I had done, I got back on the boat and we headed back in. The 5 rogue SASers from the day before had done their own thing, so the 9 of us left were now faced with the trouble of getting back to the ship at Port Louis. Four of them took a cab back and the other 5 of us took the bus back. It was about a 2 hour ride and cost all of a dollar. I really enjoy taking public busses not only because of the price but because you usually drive through cool parts of cities and see locals living everyday life. Jay met all kinds of cool people because he was sitting alone and kept getting seat buddies. I just people watched and talked to Deirdre the whole time.

We finally made it back to Port Louis at 4:15 and knew we had to head in the direction of the ship. We walked for about 20 minutes until we ran into some other SAS folks who directed us to a water taxi that apparently takes us right to the ship. We walked there, stopping only to buy souvenirs and snacks, and made it by just after 5. At this point we were getting a bit nervous, on ship time was 6 pm and if you are even a second late you give up 3 hours in the next port. The boat driver was in no hurry either, but we eventually took off and headed toward the ship. The boat literally did put us right next to it and we emerged from the dock to see a line of about 200 people waiting to get on. We had 40 minutes to make it on so I wasn't worried but some people were freaking out. As it would turn out the line would move pretty quick and we had about 10 minutes to spare. I think quite a few people ended up late though. We ate dinner on the ship and said goodbye to Mauritius, it was time to head to South Africa.

I really liked Mauritius and would recommend it to anyone who can afford the plane ticket in a heartbeat. It is very tourist friendly yet not tourist crowded. There are far more Europeans there than other Americans and it is equipped with every sort of beach and water sport activity you could ever imagine. It reminded me a lot of Hawaii just less crowded and overtouristed. Plus to get to Mauritius you apparently only need a US passport, not even a visa, so it is quite accessible. I wish we would have had another few days there, but they are not the biggest fans of Semester at Sea. Past students have left the island trashed in the past, so it is a wonder we are even allowed to stop anymore. I think our voyage did a better job.

So yeah we will be in South Africa in 2 days and I am going to visit a township, go on a safari, maybe shop and hike a bit and see a rugby game. Every blog from past voyages that I have read has raved about the country so I am looking forward to it. It is sad how fast the voyage is coming to an end though!

For anyone interested, I don't know if other parents creep on blogs like my mom does and want to see their kids names, but the people I traveled with were: Eric, Jay, JulieAnne, Deirdre, Ben, Lindsay, Jose, and Melinda, and the five who stayed at the hostel with us but weren't there the whole time were: Tolan, Sarah, Carson, Michael, and Jill. It was a fun crowd though everyone would be the first to admit that 14 is too much probably.

I don't have an enlightening quote for you, but I will leave you with one from our daily dean's memo from sometime this week.

"Mauritius was made first and then Heaven, and that Heaven was copied after Mauritius"

-Mark Twain

The Waves are Big

Ok my apologies for not having my Mauritius blog up by now but it is going to have to wait one more day. The waves have been ridiculous all day and I have a pretty bad case of seasickness. I've been walking around pretty much out of it all day and it has not been too fun. Tomorrow I will take my meds before I start feeling bad, that's the key :) The seas will probably get rougher between now and South Africa, but I should be fine.

Anyway I just wanted to check in say that I'm still alive and Mauritius was a ton of fun, but the full update won't be up until probably tomorrow. I hope this finds everyone who reads it well!

Thomas

India Part 5 (Final)

We got to the elephant village as it starts to POUR rain. It was the dry season and Bibal informed us that what we were seeing was nothing short of a miracle. Miracle or not, we were frustrated, wanting to see elephants not rain. Fortunately, as if a sign from God, it stopped raining as soon as we got out of the car and walked up to the elephants. We paid our entry fee, a steep 2 dollars, and walked back to see them being trained. One of them, an older one, was being whipped hard with a bamboo stick and it was very very tough to watch. The guy was hitting her as hard as he could and after every hit the elephant would let out a scream of pain. One of them sounded like a lion’s roar, filling up the whole area with sound, it was terrible. We saw three baby elephants chained to trees as well, they were adorable but again it was sad to see them chained up like that. We walked across the camp to another elephant which was chained to a tree by itself. We were allowed to take pictures pretty close to it, but not touch it. Finally Lindsay wanted to know if we could “meet” the elephants, and Bibal asked the camp guy. In a very shady turn of events, the guy wanted 20 rupees each from us in exchange to actually touch the elephants. We paid our 40 cent bribe happily and walked down to the river where one of the elephants was being bathed.

We sat there and watched them bathe the elephant for a while before they started beckoning to us. Apparently we were being asked to enter the river and help. Not thinking about the fact that the water was probably contaminated with God knows what, and there was a wild elephant laying there, we jumped right in and gave the elephant a bath. It was a lot of fun and a pretty darn unique experience. She got up and we high tailed it out of there, but later were allowed to take pictures with her. We were low on time but wanted to ride elephants as a way to finish off the day. Another group of SASers showed up and got to ride before us, but when it was our time we were very excited. We got on the elephant bare-backed and rode down the street and back as she was led by one of the trainers. It was so cool to ride right on the animal instead of on a seat and I got to sit up front. I’m pretty sure I never stopped smiling. I gave one of the guys my camera and he took a million pictures too so I have PLENTY. Afterwards we got off, it started to rain again as a sign that we should leave, and we told Bibal to drive real fast back to the ship. About a half hour in we passed the other SAS group who had a 15 minute head start on us, and ended up making it back in just over an hour. Bibal shared so much about his country with us on the way and we learned a ton. We found out he had an arranged marriage coming up in the summer and that he hadn’t met his bride yet but that he was very excited and not nervous at all. When we made it back we paid him the 1200 rupees he said the cost would be and another 800 as a tip. That 17-18 dollar tip clearly made his day and it was great to see him smile so big. We told him it was a gift for the wedding and for the first time on the whole trip, someone didn’t ask us for more money as we were leaving. We walked through the short line, got back on the ship, and India was over.

People have asked me a number of times since I’ve been on the ship “Would you go back”. I think they ask me because I have had very little positive to say about the country when asked about it. The honest answer to that is that yes I would absolutely go back, there are just about 180 countries that I would choose to visit first. Here are a few things that I learned from my trip though.

1.       In India, everyone is trying to sell you something without fail.

This obviously depends on who you meet and where you go, but everyone we met wanted to scam us and it honestly got tiring. I really miss people helping because they wanted to help. In a sad way it was probably a lot like the US in that regard, we aren’t exactly helpful to tourists either. We really had to learn to question everything everyone was saying to us and assume that they had different motives than it would appear.

2.       It is as far away as is possible from the US.

It was the halfway point of our journey in terms of distance and days, and fittingly so it was as far away culturally as I could imagine. To borrow from the Wizard of Oz for the first time in my life, I really wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

3.       You MUST visit a third world country to appreciate first world life.

I know some would disagree with this, but I don’t believe you can fully appreciate what we have in the US without having seen the level of poverty, hunger, and pollution plaguing India. People in the US are unhappy with minimum wage jobs at $7 an hour, $30,000/year jobs, and 2000 square foot houses. 75% of the country of India lives on less than 2 dollars A DAY and shares a house that is smaller than the average US prison cell with the other 10 people in their family. Pictures really can’t do it justice. I really believe you can’t fully appreciate how good we have it without having seen the “worst” of the world.

4.       Despite all of the negatives, the people in India seem happy.

With the exception of beggars, the people seemed to be as happy as any we had seen. Even if they were clearly poor, wanted your money, and didn’t know where there next meal would come from, they found some level of joy in life or were good at pretending. I think there is a lot to be learned about being happy without the joys of material goods, but it is a hard thing to learn once you have enjoyed a life of luxury.

5.       Logistics are a b_ _ _ h, plan early.

For any family, friends, or future voyagers who are planning on going to India ever, plan everything in advance. If you don’t you will not get to where you want to go or you will overpay for it and have to deal with the hassles of people thinking you are rich and wanting to sell you everything under the sun. Most of our hassles could have been avoided by planning a month earlier, so DO IT. If you are reading this and going on a future SAS voyage, do India independently but start planning it as soon as you get on the ship. Don’t wait until India is the next country up, plan it early and you won’t regret it. You can save a ton of money and have a way better experience. The Taj is definitely worth it, but there is probably a lot to see in southern India too if you want to save money and probably have a more relaxing experience and a more legitimate immersion.

So that’s it for India, I don’t think I’ve whined as much as I could have but at the same time I doubt I did it as much justice as it deserved. I enjoyed my time there and am glad I went, it just wouldn’t be the first place I returned to and is so far my least favorite port. That just goes to show how awesome the others have been.

Now MAURITIUS.

I can’t tell you how excited I am about Mauritius. I’m sitting in preport for it now and Mr. White just read some quote by Mark Twain about how “Mauritius was created first and then heaven was made in the image of Mauritius”. It is supposedly an island paradise off the east coast of Africa which still has pristine landscape and watersports galore.

Our tentative plan is to go to Blue Bay, on the opposite corner of the island that everyone else on SAS is going, rent a boat of some sort or get on a snorkel trip, see some cool fish, float around, maybe jet ski, scuba, or whatever. It looks truly remarkable and I am PUMPED. We are staying the night in a hostel and the next day probably just hitting a beach. We are only there for two days sadly, but it will be fun nonetheless. I look forward to updating you on how much fun we had very soon! (Back from Mauritius, was fun. Will post updates soon J)

Please don’t hesitate to email me. I know these blog entries are all overwhelmingly long, and very few people probably read them at this point, but if you ever make it this far and want to ask me any questions or just say hi I would be delighted to write you back. Tdmalinowsky@semesteratsea.net

-Thomas

"All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it."

-Samuel Johnson

India Part 4

Here is part 4 of 5. Last part will go up in a day probably. Enjoy!

 

We woke up bright and early for our sunrise tour of the Ganges, meeting our boat man in the lobby at 6 am. We walked to the river, found his boat, and took off. This time we headed in the opposite direction, south I believe, to see what the other half of the ghats had to offer. There were plenty of other boats out and about, people bathing in the river, and even young hindu children doing yoga in front of the river. The sunrise was beautiful, I probably took 35 of the exact same picture, but one of them will hopefully do it justice. It seemed far less polluted and certainly less buggy in the morning as compared to the night before. After going down a ways and coming back, we thanked our rower and left the boat behind. We decided to walk in the general direction of the cremation part to see it up close and soon we were there. There is a hospice center literally right next to the cremation area so that people who are on their death bed can come and be close to the holy Ganges when they pass away. A gentleman who worked for the hospice place came out and invited us to come close to the fires and take a look. In one we saw people sifting ashes and we were able to distinguish intestines amongst the flames. I believe most of the fires had been going for a while; it takes 24 hours to fully burn a body, and the bodies are covered in wood, so we did not see any full burning individuals. It was still quite a shock to the senses nonetheless, but I’m glad we went. We finished walking through the grounds and headed back to the main street to catch a rickshaw to our hotel. At the hotel we had a fairly western breakfast which was decent and then went down to meet Babalu, our driver from the day before.

                On the agenda next was a city tour led by our driver. The first stop was to a Hindu temple situated inside one of the four or so universities of Varanasi. The temple was pretty cool looking, and it was neat to see a working temple where people still actively worship instead of a relic of the past. There was a statue in the center of a snake which apparently represents the Hindu god Shiva. Shiva when alive was said to feed on a mixture of milk and marijuana so that is what they were “feeding” the statue. Drugs are illegal, so in place of marijuana was a different herb, but they placed it on the stone in front of the snake statue, covering it with leaves and beads. They then washed it off with the milk while they and a priest both chanted. It apparently is a ritual that is a part of everyday life, not just a weekly or less occurrence like a Sunday worship would be for Christians.

                After the temple we got a delicious mango ice cream bar, or at least I did, bought a gift there for my grandparents, which I can’t specify because ideally they will read this, and left for our next stop. The next thing on the agenda was the monkey temple. One of the lesser Hindu gods is represented by a monkey and this was a temple to worship him. No cameras were allowed in, but there were monkeys EVERYWHERE. They were half ugly, half cute, depends on how you were feeling at the time, but regardless they were awesome. Monkeys fascinate me with how much they move like humans. Their arms and torso for example moves just like ours and it is bizarre to me. There were baby monkeys all over the place too which was eventful and we all wished for our cameras. Jill crouched down to look at one closer and it almost attacked her. She had been telling us non-stop how much she loved monkeys and when she had the opportunity to get embraced by one (or attacked, same thing) she ran away at lightning speed. It was funny but maybe you had to be there. So we walked through the temple which was underwhelming in terms of architecture and stuff, but we were there to see the monkeys. One monkey begged a guy for food which was very strange to see as well. It tugged on the man’s pant leg as if to ask for food. The man gave him food, and the monkey took it before giving him the most disgusted look I have ever seen as if to say “Really? That’s it?” It was pretty much identical to a beggar being unsatisfied with a small gift. We finished up at the monkey temple and got back into Babalu’s car to continue on our way.

                It was getting late so we were running out of shopping time but the girls wanted to find some cheap scarves still. We finally found a driver who knew that we didn’t want to go to a company owned store, so he took us to a wholesale place where a man usually sold scarves and sarees to vendors, who then marked them up and sold them to consumers. Scarves ended up being very reasonably priced and everyone bought some. We wanted to find DVDs after, but there was no time so we headed to the airport instead. At the airport we found it pretty easy to check in. I had the print out for the one and only time so I got a boarding pass without hassle, checked in, and waited to board. The power cut off in the airport which was hilarious, I’ve never seen a rolling blackout in an airport, seems like a terrible place to happen. Particularly when they have to do security checks and they have guards with AK-47s walking around. We got on the plane without trouble and the flight went fine all the way to Bombay.

 In Bombay we had to get off, get our bags and recheck in. When we asked the ticket counter at the airport about checking in we were told to our horror that we were at the wrong airport. We looked at the time and realized we needed to haul ass if we were going to make it before they closed check in. We hopped in a rickshaw that seemed to know where he was going and ended up at the same airport different terminal. We refused to pay him of course, bailed, and got into a car who took us to the right airport. At this point we had 20 minutes to get our tickets, and I knew it would be a problem. I did NOT have a printout, and my gut told me they would have a hard time finding me. I went to the ticketing counter and the lady couldn’t find me looking up any of my information. She had my passport and everything, but it didn’t matter. I told her to just sell me another ticket, I had to be on the flight, but of course she doesn’t accept credit card and I didn’t have the 3000 rupees that it would require in cash. Finally, 3 minutes before check in finished the guy next to her found me, got me a printout and I had to RUN to the check in counter. His computer was running slow, but I managed to get my ticket. Pretty sure I was close to a heart attack and at this point extremely tired of India, but at least I was on. We made it to Cochin where our driver was waiting for us to take us to our hotel. It was terrible actually, we saw the ship on our drive but we weren’t allowed on because we didn’t have our landing card and immigration was closed by then. We got to the hotel which was in an awesome beach-town type of area, grabbed a very late dinner which was pretty good, and went to bed.

The next morning we woke up quite early, I wanted to be at immigration by the time it opened at 9 am. We got to the ferry that took us to W. Island at about 7:45 and were on the island by 8. We grabbed a rickshaw to customs, where we thought we needed to be, and arrived there at 8:15 or so. Turns out that immigration and customs are different entities, so we were on the wrong end of the island without a ride. We had to walk a kilometer or two to immigration carrying our bags and Tolan’s god forsaken instruments, and needless to say by the time we got there at 8:45 I was pouring sweat. Immigration was very well run; they were ready for us and open early. We got through it in less than 10 minutes and they even let us have a free ride to the ship in a company car. We got onto the ship right at 9 where I left the group behind because I wanted to meet up with people to find some entertainment for the last day. Turns out Tolan got his instruments on with no trouble which was a surprise too. I went to the room hoping to run into someone and found Eric and Jay who were going to leave in about 10 minutes. I took a record speed shower, got dressed in non-sweaty clothes, and we took off for Fort Cochin.

Fort Cochin was the area that our hotel from the night before was on, so I was familiar with how to get there and what to expect. We found the ferry there, a different one than earlier but one that worked nonetheless, and arrived shortly thereafter. The first order of business was to find an ATM. I was down to 16 dollars US and like 4 dollars worth of rupees. Eric took out money and I borrowed from him and Jay for the rest of the day so I wouldn’t have to pay the 5 dollar ATM fee or whatever Bank of America robs me for every time. We got money and hopped in a rickshaw to see some sights. We ended up at the synagogue in town which was like 500 years old but not particularly interesting to see. Others shopped for some overpriced nic naks while I watched in poverty, and we left to grab some lunch. For lunch, my last real Indian meal, I had food which was good as always. I am going to have to find Indian food back home, it’s mandatory. If anyone else is a fan we can make a trip of it. Eric was feeling a bit queezy from his previous evening, I don’t know what would cause that J, so he headed back to the ship. Jay, Lindsay, and I, the three left were left deciding what to do. They wanted to see an elephant training camp that was about an hour and a half away. I was hesitant, worried about being late and getting dock time, but I figured if they were going, it wouldn’t hurt to go too. We set off on our trip to the elephant camp with our new driver Bibal.

Update

So I had a dream last night which proved to me that I am having a good time on Semester at Sea.

My dream was literally that the voyage was over and I was back home in Kansas. However, I was extremely sad because I could not remember what I had done in Brazil, Ghana, South Africa or Mauritius. I had convinced myself that the countries had all flown by, I had wasted my chance to see them, the journey was over, and I would never see any of the people here again. Somehow while I was sleeping though I realized that it was a dream and that I am looking forward to Mauritius way too much to possibly forget what I do there. I woke up in my bed in my cabin happy to be on the ship still on the voyage sailing away.

So to get to my point, when my "bad" dreams are "bad" because I am not on the ship anymore, you know that Semester at Sea has to be pretty amazing. I couldn't be more excited about spending two days on Mauritius, which is fundamentally an island paradise, and seeing my third continent in as many months. We have a global studies test today, the class that all 600 students are in, so I won't get my next India installment up until tomorrow probably, but i wanted to post a quick update and say that this trip is really darn awesome.

Thomas

India Part 3

Here is Part 3 in which we arrive in Varanasi. Part 2 is probably necessary before this one so enjoy it first. Thanks for reading!

 

At this point we are sitting in Agra train station expecting our train to roll in at 11:15 and depart shortly thereafter. We went and got some food at the only eatery in the station, a Daahl and Bread stand where they served a Lentil porridge thing and fried pita bread for you to dip into it. It was okay but clearly not sanitary and hardly counted as a meal. There were honestly rats running around between our feet and wild boars, cows, and even a monkey visible from the restaurant so I can only imagine what health risk we were in, but it was literally the only eating option. No one ended up getting sick from it fortunately, the only bad part was when the waiter dumped about half a bowl of the stuff all over Jill’s backpack. So we finished there, paid our 3 dollar total for the five of us and got kicked out for lingering.

We then wait the hour and a half until the train’s time comes, and get our stuff packed up. I walked to the front gate where there was a giant board that told us whether the trains were on time or not, and to my disgust this board now had our train arriving at 12:30 am. An hour late, I guess that wasn’t too bad, so we waited it out. That hour came and went only to have our train delayed another hour. Now for those keeping score at home, this makes no sense. If an hour passed and they delayed the train by an hour, that means that it moved nowhere in that time. Anyways, we were now pretty tired and frustrated, feeling our time in Varanasi slipping away before we were even on our way. To make a long story less long, the train ended up showing up just before 3:00 am, almost 4 hours late. We had a hard time finding the right car and basically had to sprint the length of the train to get to it because even though the thing was 4 hours late, it only stopped at our station for about 35 seconds it seemed. Regardless, we found our car and went in search of our assigned beds. The beds were bunked, in rooms of either two or four beds with a curtain separating us from the walkway. Tolan and Sarah had a two bed nook, Jill and myself were in a four bed one with two Indian men, and Carson was by herself with three Indians. We all fell asleep pretty instantly and actually had a pleasant experience. I slept until 9:00 am and then after using the lavatory got another three hours. Considering that we were sleeping on a filthy Indian train, I will happily take my 9 hours of sleep. After everyone woke up and changed clothes we wandered around the train for a bit as we approached our stop. It was actually a lot of fun to open the door of the moving train and sit there on the floor with our feet hanging out. The countryside was quite impoverished but at the same time beautiful and charming. In many ways it reminded me of Kansas in terms of landscape. The train stopped a few times and we had fun taking pictures during those times. For example Tolan hopped out onto the tracks and took pictures of me hanging out of the door looking ahead and truly dramatic fashion. He then wanted the same picture but the train started to move, so I jumped out, and actually had to run ahead of the train to turn back and get a picture of him as it was moving by. The first one failed, so I ran one more time, saw the train speed up and panicked but my picture turned out perfect. I jumped onto the slowly moving train like a pro and enjoyed the final stretch to our stop.

                We arrived at the stop and were greeted by our driver Babalu who had a sign that said “Mr. Thomas Dresser” since we put the stuff in my name and they used my passport to do it all. It was pretty funny and we all enjoyed a laugh. We found out our poor driver had been there since 8 am, our originally scheduled arrival, and had to wait until we got there at 1:00 pm. The trains are so unreliable that even when it left 3.5 hours late, it didn’t update anyone at the Varanasi station. In fact it did the same thing there that it did to us, it went by half hour and hour delays when it was obviously going to be at least 3 hours late. We felt bad for him, but we were paying him for the day anyway so it didn’t particularly matter in the big scheme of things. He drove us an hour into town and to our hotel where we told him we would be fine for the rest of the day walking around. We set up an appointment to meet someone from his company, Mr. Ramesh, at 5:30 at the hotel to take a boat ride on the Ganges and set on our way.

                Near the hotel was a market where the girls of the group were particularly interested in finding scarves and shoes. Tolan and I were good sports and looked for music and movies while they did that. There were so many awesome movie packs for dirt cheap but they were in Hindi and I was seriously bummed. For example they had all of the Matrix movies and Die Hard movies on one disc for 40 cents. They had a Bourne/Oceans11/12/13 disc for the same price, and even all seven or so American Pie movies for that. If only they were in English I would have gone crazy, but hey, if that’s the worst problem I have for the whole semester, it hasn’t been too bad. Tolan and I were starving at this point having only had one legitimate meal in 48 hours which we weren’t even a fan of. We rushed everyone through their shopping and got directions to a place to eat nearby where we ordered tons of food, stuffed our faces and thoroughly enjoyed it. Local places to eat really proved to be delicious in India and all seemed to be fairly sanitary. The best part was that they all had “mineral water” or bottled water in these huge 1L or 1.5L bottles that were double sealed and charged approximately 25 cents on average for them. Back home at a quick shop, that much water would run 2 bucks every time.

                After dinner we were running late for our boat ride so we grabbed bike rickshaws and headed to the hotel. The bikes were actually pretty slow, and they were none too happy to take our money at the end, even though we paid them what we agreed on. Everyone agrees on whatever price you tell them and without fail at the end asks for more. It is really quite frustrating. We got to the hotel and couldn’t find Mr. Ramesh so we assumed he came and left thinking we stood him up. We decided to take a rickshaw and find a different boat driver to take us on the sunset ride instead. We arrived to the end of the street where the rickshaws could no longer go, paid them, and went looking for a boat. As we were talking to someone and working out a price, this Indian guy runs up to us clearly sweating and out of breath and yells “I am your boat man Ramesh!” I felt TERRIBLE, apparently he had told the hotel to call him when we arrived and they couldn’t be bothered, so he came back to check on us, saw us pulling away in rickshaws and chased us down on foot. As it would turn out, we would all end up hating Ramesh, so the pity wouldn’t last long, but it was still sad that he had to chase us down like that for the grand total of 15 dollars he and the boat driver would get for the evening.

                We walked toward the Ganges, following Ramesh, and arrived at the ghats. The ghats are a series of 80+ sets of stairways that face the sunrise and lead down into the river. They are used for daily live, prayer, bathing, cremation, cows, and god knows what else. There were people all over the place and we made our way through the crowds to our boat. Our rower got us going and Ramesh explained things to us in broken English the whole time. The first direction we headed was north toward the burning grounds where funerals are held. Here is where families bring their deceased loved ones, prepare them for burial and then cremate them in public. There were probably 8 fires going, each one representing one body inside. Apparently they pay almost 5 bucks a kilogram of wood, and they have to have 200 kilograms minimum to have a proper burning. This means families are spending more than a thousand dollars when loved ones die which is a huge amount. Considering that 70% of the country makes less than that in a year and is starving, I don’t know how they manage to save enough. We weren’t able to take pictures up close, but we did get close enough to distinguish the fires and the people surrounding them. We saw no individual burning bodies at this point though. It was amazing though how filthy the Ganges was and how much of a part of their life it was. The water was filled with trash, had a slick slime-like quality to it, and smelled terrible, yet they were bathing in it and drinking it. We asked Ramesh who said the water was perfectly safe and that only the areas with visible trash were unsafe. He said he drank from it all the time and that if you took a bottle of it today, in five years it would be perfectly clear. We looked at him like he was high on something and chose to ignore his comments from that point forward. The boat turned around and headed back to the main ghat where there was a ceremony every evening. Ramesh was pissing us off at this point refusing to give us directions to legitimately inexpensive stores and instead hyping up his tourist trap, company owned ones. We had enough of him, paid the agreed on fee and told him to leave. Having abandoned our boat, we went to the festival on foot. There were thousands of people watching as a few dancers chanted and burned incense. We had the most adorable kid come up to us and try and sell us thing and none of us, the hardened and stone faced, veterans of the word “no” could resist him. I bought a postcard or something I think and got a picture with him that I’ll post as soon as I can. After about a half hour of watching the ceremony and the people around it, we headed out to find some new form of entertainment.

                Back toward the street, away from the festivities of the Ganges we found some small shops to do more shopping. The girls went in pursuit of more scarves while Tolan and I found a music shop that unfortunately had fixed and therefore high prices. He bought a couple of CDs, one of which I will have to steal from him shortly, and I got one called “My Bollywood Dance Party”. I know it sounds terrible, but the beats that go with their music, particularly the Bollywood music, are AWESOME. I haven’t listened to it yet, but hopefully it turns out to be good. At that point some guy came up and started following us, this happens a lot in foreign countries, and overheard the girls talking about wanting Henna. Henna is a temporary skin dye that looks like a tattoo for a while but only lasts a few weeks. The guy said he knew a place and proceeded to take us on a 30 minute walk through the back alleys to god knows where. We were pretty sure we were being led to our death, but it turned out his aunt or something owned a hostel and also did Henna for fun on the side. She got them started, it was going to take an hour or so, and Tolan and I had to find something to entertain ourselves. We told him we wanted DVDs, which he had the hardest time understanding. First he thought we meant CDs, and when we finally convinced him we wanted movies, he thought we meant porn. He insisted I leave the room with him to talk with me privately and then hilarity ensued. He didn’t find it appropriate to clarify porn in front of females and didn’t speak English well, so he made a provocative hand signal. I immediately understood what he thought we wanted and almost lost it laughing. I told Tolan who laughed equally hard and we then clarified to him that we wanted movies such as Avatar or Iron Man. He proved to be no help, but we got a laugh out of it. We ended up letting him take us to a shop that he worked for just so that he wouldn’t want any money from us for taking us to the hostel and we ended up getting some gifts there. I won’t mention what they are because it would be a giveaway J. When we got back to the henna hostel the girls were finished up and we decided to call it a night. We walked toward the main street, on the way getting Samosas, basically a delicious Indian empanada, and headed back to the hotel. Also on the way we were approached by a guy who was soliciting a government approved store. We had no idea what he was talking about until he whipped out a little baggie and started saying “Marijuana, Ecstasy, Opium, Heroin”. We were pretty shocked but continued on our way. We are definitely not in America anymore.

                Back at the hotel everyone crashed pretty hard and called it a night. The next morning we had a sunrise boat tour of the Ganges that we didn’t want to miss.

India Part 2 - Delhi and Agra

Here's part 2 in which I encounter the hassles of travel and the Taj Mahal! In this case reading part 1 first really isn't necessary, this starts a totally different adventure.

I woke up at 5:45 or so to get packed, shower and prepare to go to the Taj Mahal and more. I woke Tolan up who was already packed and we headed up to Timitz Square on the ship to meet the rest of the crew. Sarah and Jill arrived at about the same time but Carson was MIA. After some sleuth work we found her, she packed very fast, and we left. The airport was about an hour away through some rough traffic but we had a suicidal driver who got us there very efficiently. I would NEVER survive driving in India. People are everywhere and no one really obeys traffic laws. There were more than a handful of times when I had to ask myself “why do they even bother putting lines on the street?”. We arrived at the airport where I had to go to the ticketing desk to get an e-ticket printed for me. In India for some reason you have to have an online receipt printed to even get into the airport and get your boarding pass. This time it was no problem for them to find me and print it out, but that would not be the case later. We got on the plane to Delhi, a 3 hour trip, and took off on our journey. We paid for breakfast on the flight which was some not so great combination of rolls and juices, but that’s ok. Apparently there was some Indian breakfast wrap which was delicious but we didn’t choose well. The flight overall was uneventful and we landed in Delhi in the late morning.

                The first order of business was to find a hotel so we talked to a tourist  desk who directed us to one that was about 20 bucks a person. That was a bit more than we would have liked to play, but still doable so we did it. We hopped in a taxi who drove us about an hour to the hotel, where we saw the rooms were to our satisfaction and we checked in. We wanted to figure out how we would get to Agra the next day, so we sat down with the hotel’s travel agent desk. After two hours he had us convinced we weren’t getting on a train to Agra and we weren’t going to get our train to Varanasi either. We panicked a little and paid him about 30 dollars a person to arrange a driver to Agra and decided to deal with Varanasi the next day. At that point we were tired of logistics and wanted to see something, so we hopped in a rickshaw and headed to a handicraft place downtown where we all got suckered into buying stuff. I got a cool Taj painting on velvet and a couple of gifts which I won’t disclose. Tolan spent about 2 hours pondering instruments there and eventually as he was prepared to leave got talked into buying a harmonium and two drums. These would prove to be a giant hassle from that point forward. We wanted to get the instruments shipped home to California for him so we headed to the post office and had them wrapped up. In India to mail a package you have to wrap it in a white bedsheet basically and have it sewn together. It takes FOREVER. We were at the post office for about an hour and a half and they closed before he could mail it. Now we were stuck with two awkwardly wrapped giant instruments with no end in sight. Some guy talked us into talking to the government tourist bureau about logistics so we went to the office and sat down. They told us the hotel we were at was a scam and that they could plan out the rest of our trip for $199 US. We were overwhelmed at that point and took them up on it for the security of knowing it would all be taken care of. The people started booking things for us, ensured we were on a train from Agra-Varanasi the next day, and got drivers and hotels arranged. We called and cancelled our driver we had already paid for and were happy that logistics were all taken care of. We ended up spending 2+ hours in that office meaning our time in Delhi was pretty much shot. We were all frustrated at that point and convinced that everyone wanted to scam us, but content knowing everything was planned. We ended up taking the people who helped us at that office out to dinner which was fun, then saw a Bollywood movie that had no English in it. The seats were super comfortable and I passed out pretty quickly along with everyone else. We ended up leaving at intermission, which they have in India during movies, and went back to the hotel to sleep. A little beggar kid tried to pick my pocket on the way back too and it would turn out to be the only time anyone even tried, so that was a pleasant surprise.

                The tourist office convinced us that we should leave at 7:30 am even though we wanted earlier, and that turned out to be a huge mistake. Traffic was at its worst our whole drive from Delhi to Agra and the trip stretched out way longer than it should have. We were expecting 2-3 hours and instead it took 6-7. We were frustrated with the car, hungry, and ready to actually see something by the time we pulled into Agra. We tried going to the post office there to mail the instruments, but they wanted to cut open the sewn up sheet material. They said to cut it open, inspect, and redo it, it would take 3 hours and we all collectively let out a sigh which tipped Tolan off that we shouldn’t deal with shipping at that moment. We headed to lunch at a tourist trap that was not particularly good but they take all tourists too I guess. We saw some other SAS group who was doing it independently like 3 times because we stopped at the same tourist trap places. Also frustrating. When we walked out of lunch our driver was waiting with some other guy who he introduced as a tour guide. We didn’t need or want a tour guide, but unsure how to say no we just went with it. We left for the Taj Mahal, now more cramped in the car with the addition of this guy but we were really excited to get there because it was pretty much the whole point of the trip.

                We parked a ways from the Taj, as close as cars can get I guess, and hopped a rickshaw heading to the south gate. After paying our 750 rupees, $17 or so, entrance fee and getting x-rayed we were allowed in. You aren’t allowed to bring in Ipods, instruments, books, magazines, or anything that might cause you to linger there longer than necessary. We walked through the gate into a courtyard where we saw the main gate into the Taj. As we walked toward it, it got bigger and bigger, and finally through the archway we could see the Taj Mahal in the background. It was very majestic, very huge, and honestly looked fake. In a similar fashion as the Great Wall and Angkor Wat, it was too huge and surreal to even believe it existed. We took tons of pictures and made our way to the entrance where we waited in about a thousand person long line to go inside. While in line we saw tons of people in beautiful Sarees which everyone took pictures of. Most of the people there were Indian tourists, we were definitely in the minority as foreigners. We finally made it inside and saw the fake tombs of Sha Jahan and his wife who the Taj was built for. The architecture was fantastic, definitely lived up to its hype. The whole thing is marble, and even though it appears to be painted everywhere with decorations, they are all made of carved marble. There is no paint used, which is why it still looks stunning today. We finished up in the Taj and walked outside to the center of the gardens to sit and watch the sunset. Tolan sang a song a capella which he had been doing at every famous site and we took some pretty awesome jumping pictures. It was at this point that our guide lost his cell phone and bailed on us to look for it. We stayed within 50 feet of where he left us the whole time, but inexplicably he couldn’t find us for 2 hours so he went to the gate. As the Taj was closing and we were panicking we finally walked to the exit and there he was. We were all furious, but just let him take us back to the cab and deal with it later. We insisted that we wanted to find cheap scarves and he seemed to understand, but of course he took us to a shop owned by his company that overcharged for everything. We were so tired of people having other motives and pissed off at our guide at this point. We bought a couple of things got in the cab and told him to take us to the train station. Our guide decided to leave us at this point and hit us up for a tip. We all took turns yelling at him about how he all but ruined our day and how we saw nothing other than the Taj because he wasted our time and he quickly retreated. He told us that it was okay if we didn’t tip (how nice of him), but that we shouldn’t be “mooned off” (pissed). We said okay whatever and got him to leave the cab. We were ready to be done with Agra and get on to Varanasi. Our driver took us to the train station, it was about 9:00 pm at this point and we had an 11:30 train. We didn’t know how much of a pain it would be to get our boarding tickets and everything on the streets looked closed, so we decided to just hang out at the station. We tipped our driver, he left, and we went to the waiting room to wait for our train.

India Part 1

Here's India part 1. We are on the ship on the way to Mauritius at the moment, I'm so excited to get there it isn't even funny. India might end up being 5 parts, at least 4. We will see, it isn't all written yet!

 

The sun was set to rise over India at just afte5 6 am, so like the other ports I was up and ready to go. I went up to see it and as always the sunrise was pretty stunning. Unfortunately though we could not see India yet, so it was pretty much a sunrise over ocean. I ate breakfast with some other people who ambitiously woke up and after a couple of hours, Chennai, India appeared on the horizon. The port of Chennai is extremely industrial, there was construction equipment all over the place, trucks going back and forth, and an extreme amount of dirt. The ship in fact put ceran wrap over every piece of outdoor furniture and cardboard down on all of the carpet near the gangway. After a diplomatic briefing and a passport check we were free to go. I went with my roommate Eric in search of a post office to mail a package to a group of 6^th grade pen pals in Connecticut. The ground outside was SO dirty, there was a layer of oil/dirt mixture about 2 inches deep everywhere we went. On top of that the smell was dreadful. It smelled like sulfur and feces about everywhere that we went and I never fully got used to it.      

                We hopped in a Tuk-Tuk (Auto-Rickshaw) and told him to head to the post office which was apparently supposed to be about 1 km away. He took us to a different one which took 30 minutes to get there and the ride was honestly a lot of fun. After dealing with the hassle of the post office and having them open my package and scrutinize everything inside, they sent it for a whopping 9 dollars US. We were going to be late for a SAS trip that we had to be back for so we hopped back in the Tuk-Tuk and told him to hurry. On the way back we saw Jill and Sarah walking and I made the mistake of yelling to them and saying hi. Our driver turned through traffic and went right up to them, insisting they get in. They did and apparently he ended up driving them around for the next 5 hours. We got back to the ship 5 minutes before our trip was supposed to leave and hopped on the bus. The trip was supposed to be a joint venture between SAS and a local engineering school, but the school cancelled so instead we headed to a rural orphanage.  The bus was nice and air conditioned and the ride was long. At least we saw some cool scenery on the way. We finally made it to the general area of the orphanage where we got out and walked. It was here we had our first run ins with the numerous cows that are all over India. They were sitting in houses, around houses, in roads, fields, etc. After a 10 minute walk we were greeted by a sign that said “Home for the retarded and spastic”. Quite a different culture we were in.

                We walked into the orphanage bearing clothes and toys as gifts and prepared to work like we though we would. As it turns out, they didn’t really need us to work, so we just hung out with the people for 3-4 hours. Neither walking up to random kids nor relating with mentally handicapped individuals are strongsuits of mine, so the trip for me was not the best, but we did have fun with them. Some of us ended up helping them clean a bit so we were of some use, and they definitely enjoyed having guests. We colored with them, played cricket, watched them dance, and gave them stickers. It was pretty uneventful, but interesting to see how they were treated in comparison to the US. While the conditions of the orphanage were not nice, it was a place where they were comfortable, well fed, and probably lived in a better situation than millions of others. After a few hours it was time to go so we waved goodbye and got back on the bus. I went back to the ship, changed out of my now dirty work clothes, and got ready to do something that evening. I ended up meeting up with a group of 6, my friends JulieAnne, Deirdre, Tucker, Lindsay, and Amy and we headed out to grab some food and see a movie. We went to an area recommended to us by the Global Studies teacher Don, and when there tried to find a restaurant. The first one we went to was totally empty but apparently had a lot of reservations so we couldn’t eat there. They directed us down the street to a different one which we found with little trouble and ate at. This was my first real taste of Indian food and I liked it a lot. We had a sampler plate thing that had Naan and Roti, fried pita like bread, and rice. You then took one of the numerous sauces they had for you and put them on. It was so different eating mostly with our hands and having so many new things to tried. I definitely am a fan now though. The meal took longer than we thought so we ran out of time for a movie and decided to just head back to the ship. Our Tuk-Tuk driver dropped us off at the complete wrong side of the port so  we had to walk probably 2 miles through a market to get there. On the bright side, I did buy Avatar in blu-ray (or so they say) for less than a dollar, and Angels and Demons, which I just got done reading and wanted to see again, for 30 cents. The quality on Angels and Demons is stellar so far, so I’ve been pleased. We made it back to the ship and I said goodbye, went to the room and crashed. We had to be up for our trip to the Taj at 6:30 the next morning.

Final Day in Vietnam + In India!

We are currently sitting in India! Yesterday was the first day here and I did a service project which I will talk about more in depth in the future. India is very crowded, dirty, overpopulated and dangerous. There are wild dogs, cows, goats, and people for that matter running around everywhere and social order or whatnot appears to be only a dream. That all being said, it is a different world and because of that it is extremely interesting.

 

I leave for the airport in about 10 minutes. We have a flight to Delhi, from there we will take a train to Agra where we will see fort Agra and the Taj Mahal. Somehow, we are going to get to Varanasi from there, the major site of the Ganges river. We are trying to take a train, but if we don't get off the waitlist because it is sold out, we will have to find a private company to drive us. Regardless things will work out and it will be an adventure. I'll be back in Cochin, our 2nd port in India in 4 days. I look forward to telling everyone all about it.

 

Here is my final Vietnam blog. I'm stripped for time so no travel quote at the end. Enjoy!

 

The next day, our final one in Vietnam, I woke up early and prepared to go to the Cu Chi Tunnels with Eric, JulieAnne, Deirdre, and another friend Tucker. We decided to take the public buses there, against all good advice. Apparently the buses often break down and are unreliable. Regardless they are cheap, and it seemed like a good way to see the real essence of Vietnam. Well it turned out to be a very good idea. First of all the buses are insanely low cost. They were coming around collecting our fares, and one person pulled out one US dollar which covered the fare for all five of us. Yes, it was that cheap. We ended up at a bus station an hour later in the middle of nowhere where we had to catch another bus to get to the tunnels. We figured out the right one, hopped on, paid another dollar collectively and were on our way. At this point we were totally out of the city, passing by livestock, farms, and broken down houses. Finally we got off literally on the side of a road next to a sign that said “Cu Chi Tunnels”. We followed the sign for about a half of a mile and we were there. The entrance fee was 4 dollars to do everything, which we happily paid and set off on our way.

                First of all let me say how lucky we were to find two students who were visiting at the same time as us. Both studied in Japan, one was Vietnamese, the other from Colombia I believe. They both spoke very good English, but more importantly, the Vietnamese one spoke…you guessed it. Vietnamese. Our tour guide did not speak a word of English, so for the next few hours, our new friend translated for us and we could not be more appreciative.

                The tunnels were really pretty awesome. It was crazy to see that they had full cities pretty much built underground, out of site of the US military patrolling above. We saw some of the traps set up to catch unsuspecting soldiers as well and it really put the war in perspective. It was clear that the Vietnamese people were very determined and the US had little hope from the start. They had a tunnel network that was roughly 260 km long and was set up so that they would not have to emerge for days or weeks at a time. The display was a bit touristy, but interesting nonetheless. At one point we sat down and watched a video which was blatantly anti-American, something that we obviously are not used to seeing. The video referred to war heroes who were given medals for killing Americans, and talked about the US army as though they were demons. Later in the tour we climbed through a section of the tunnels about 100 yards long, and it was pretty intense. It is super dark down there and pretty cramped. I didn’t have to crawl, I could do the whole thing squatting down, but keep in mind they had widened it by 2 times to make it tourist/American friendly. Inside there were bats hanging out right by our heads, I got great pictures right up in their face too. We made it through safely, but time was getting short so we headed for the exit. They had a firing range where you could shoot AK-47’s too. I wanted to, but it was expensive and time was of the essence so it didn’t happen. Oh well, another time perhaps.

                We hopped the same bus back to the same bus station, then caught our first bus back to Saigon. It was pretty simple and the same price on the way back which was fantastic. It cost us 80 cents total in transportation for the day and 4 dollars to get into the exhibit. For those counting at home that is 5 dollars for a trip SAS charged $36 to get on. Plus we had more fun and experienced more of the real Vietnam in my opinion. I would do it again in a heartbeat.

                Back in Saigon we did some last minute shopping, grabbed some ice cream, and I picked up my suit. Fortunately it fit really well and no alterations needed to be made so I just paid the balance and walked out with it. I’ll have to have at least my parents look at it back home and make sure it looks legit, but I’m pleased. We will also have to see if it holds up to dry cleaning. We grabbed some food and headed to the bus stop to catch the shuttle back to the ship and end our time in Vietnam. At the shuttle stop one of the staff walked up and said if we didn’t want dock time, it would be in our best interest to catch a cab back. Not being one to miss an opportunity, I jumped on a motorcycle of course and told him to get me back to the ship and fast. We weaved in and out of traffic, made it back in record time, and I gave him a 50 percent tip. It was a fun time had by all I would say. There was no line at all to get on the ship, they lied to us, but I wasn’t too concerned. I went inside and met up with some friends, my time in Vietnam had come to an end.

Thanks for Reading,

Thomas

In Kansas and Not Qualified

Thomas asked me to fix his blog because the text wasn't showing up and he is now in India.  I think I did it but I am pretty sure I did it wrong because it re-posted things and they are out of order.   The moral of the story is; you should never send the Mom to do what you know she is not qualified to do. Sorry Thomas.

Cambodia Part 2

Here is part 3 of the Vietnam blog, part 2 of the bit about Cambodia. You should read them in order if you have the time. The final part will come tomorrow from India! We arrive in approximately 8 hours and I am nervous but excited. I will give everyone a rundown of my planned itinerary as well with my final Vietnam blog.

The flight to Siem Riep was on a prop plane, which I am not a fan of, and to get into the plane we had to walk out on the runway. I’ve had to do this once before out of Charlottesville, but it is still odd to do. The flight was loud and gave me a headache, but I sat next to Luke, who worked for SAS and had a good conversation with him.  We landed in Siem Riep after a 40 minute flight, hopped on our bus, and drove to the hotel. On the way we got our first view of Angkor Wat in the distance and everyone was pretty excited. We wouldn’t get a chance to go in until the next day though.  We had an hour or two to kill at the hotel where we all took showers and hung out, meeting up with another SAS trip that was there, and then got ready to go to dinner. Dinner was at a dance show buffet thing where they had traditional Cambodian dance or so they say. The buffet was good, really good dumplings that I had seconds of. The show got old pretty quick and it was about 85 degrees in there, so I was ready to go by the end.

                We left dinner and got dropped off at the downtown area which had a market and a number of bars. The highlight of the night was a fish tank where there are a bunch of minnows that eat dead skin. You stick your feet in and they literally swarm you and bite you little by little. It is a really strange feeling, kind of like being electrocuted slightly on your feet constantly. I don’t know if it helped at all but it was unique. Apparently you can get diseases from it if they bite too hard and make you bleed, but I did not bleed and I’m still alive so we are good to go. Afterwards I hung out with some friends, my friend Jose and I lost in pool to a couple of drunk Australians, but nothing else eventful happened. We hopped in a rickshaw to get back to the hotel, and on the way the driver tried to take us to a brothel saying “Happy Ending? I know good place”. It was pretty funny, but we insisted on being taken to the hotel instead. We went swimming, witnessed some pretty funny drama which is not fit for a blog, and then I went to bed.

                The next morning we were supposed to be in the lobby at 5:15 to see sunrise over Angkor Wat if we wanted. I was there at 5:15 but found out my phone was 5 minutes slow, so I watched the bus pull away without me. About 7 other people did the same thing so we all went back to bed for an hour and a half until it was time for breakfast. The bus made it back and we ate breakfast with the rest of the group. Turns out the sunrise thing was overrated anyways, so I’m not too disappointed to have missed it. It would be a long day at the temples anyways, so I saw plenty.

                Our first stop of the day was the Jungle Temple which was where Tomb Raider was filmed a few years back. It was the filming of that movie in Cambodia that led Angelina Jolie to adopt Maddux I believe, if you wanted an interesting fact. Anyways the temple was awesome, it was our first view of the temples of Angkor Wat, and there were trees and vines growing in and out of the walls. The temple was small and crumbling but awesome nonetheless. We finished up there and got back on the bus to head to the main temple, Angkor Wat itself. We passed monkeys on the way to the temple which excited everyone, but we were all there to see Angkor Wat and it did not disappoint. The complex came into view and towered above us. We entered on one of the corners and learned a bit about it. The carvings were still fundamentally intact and the whole thing was intricately designed, every part of it. As we got to the center, there was a line to get to the top of the temple where only 100 people at a time are allowed up. We waited in the 20 minute line, climbed the steep set of stairs, and found ourselves at the top of Angkor Wat. The view was fantastic from all sides, and the design was really a marvel. It’s amazing that they managed to build it without the use of modern equipment and that even today it still maintains its architectural integrity without having to be reinforced. We climbed down and headed back to the bus to catch lunch before finishing up at the temples in the afternoon.

                Lunch at the hotel was good, and I ran into friends from the other trip again. Part of me really wanted to just hang out at the pool that afternoon, but I came to Cambodia to see Angkor Wat and wasn’t going to miss it. I’m glad I didn’t, the afternoon temple was the coolest. It was smaller, but had these huge faces carved out of stone, more than 50 of them in all. There were all kinds of stone towers and corridors, and the place was fairly deserted compared to the zoo of people earlier. It was a ton of fun and a cool site, definitely a design marvel perhaps moreso than the other two we saw. Afterwards I went to a market right next door and made friends with about 20 kids who wanted to sell me stuff. They were hilarious and I had a hard time saying no, so I depleted my store of US dollars buying bracelets, magnets, a small flute, and anything else they wanted to sell me. I also got a couple more pieces of artwork that look great on my cabin wall on the ship. After running out of dollars I only had a 50, which none of the kids had change for unfortunately, so my shopping spree was done. I got on the bus and zoned out as we went back to the hotel, picked up our stuff, and headed to the airport for our flight back to Vietnam.

                The flight was uneventful other than me realizing that there were 90 students, the academic dean, executive dean, some other dean, and a number of faculty on board and that if the plane went down it would be thorough devastation to the entire program. Fortunately for us all the flight was normal, it was just weird to think about it that way. Honestly it would be the same as having the President, Vice President, Secretary of State, and half of congress on a plane. That’s my analogy and I’m sticking to it. We got back to Vietnam, I dumped all of my stuff on the ship, called Eric and made plans to meet them in downtown Saigon. I jumped on a motorcycle taxi and told him to take me to the night market, which he did. After pacing around it I did not find Eric like I expected, so I went back to the entrance and talked to another motorcycle guy. I thought I was at the wrong place and that there were two night markets, so I told this one “Ben Tanh Market”. He seemed to understand, I hopped on, and he took me there. It turns out he basically took me in a 10 minute circle and dumped me off literally 100 yards from where I started, but that happened to be right next to where Jay, one of my other roommates,  and some other friends, Max, Nick, and Lindsey were all standing. Having met up with at least someone I knew I got them to help me look for Eric and the two girls he was with, JulieAnne and Deirdre. We found them pretty easily, and with the group at a satisfactory size we looked for something to do. We ended up taking a cab across town to some place that someone in the group recommended that happened to be closed. We ended up listening to a pretty good local band nearby, then found another cab and headed to the backpacker’s district to try and find some other SAS people. After watching another band at a place that looked straight out of Texas, we walked down the street to a place called the “Crazy Buffalo” which had a giant, spectacular neon sign. We ended up sitting there and talking for the rest of the evening. At about midnight we called it a night and went back to the ship to catch some rest.

Cambodia Part 1

Here starts part 2, read part 1 first if you have the time. I have the whole thing typed and it will all be up before I leave on my flight to the Taj on the 12th.

My Cambodia trip was through Semester at Sea, which was something I hadn’t experienced in our first three ports so I was pretty excited. As much as I love going off and figuring things out for myself, it is nice to have an officially planned and sanctioned trip where I have to worry about nothing other than packing and making it to the bus on time. For some reason I signed up for the trip that was supposed to have parents participating when my parents weren’t coming. I was nervous that I would be the only one without parents there, but it turned out to be about 50:50 and a lot of fun. There were 37 students on the trip, and we all made it to the union early and headed to the bus to get the trip started. We drove to the airport where our passports and boarding passes were waiting for us already and passed through customs ready to go. The plane was a normal sized plane, what makes it exciting is that it was my first legitimate international flight. Technically Hong Kong is different than China, but I don’t count that J.

As we flew over Cambodia on our whopping 40 minute flight the first thing that surprised me was how much different it looked than Vietnam despite being right next to it. Cambodia was more dry and tropical at the same time. There were more lots covered with dirt, but at the same time more palm trees, flowers, and areas that were covered in vegetation. Cambodia was definitely hotter too. The sun beat down on us the whole time, the humidity felt worse, and I would guess it was roughly 100 degrees the whole time, certainly so with the heat index. We waited in line to get our Cambodian visas, which were a full page sticker similar to China, India, Vietnam, and Ghana. My passport has all kinds of goodies in it now, I’m quite proud of the accomplishment. We made it out of the airport and onto our bus with our tour guide for the day. The first item on the agenda was the national museum of Cambodia I believe. It was this beautifully constructed building with a roof line like nothing I had seen. Hopefully I can get a picture up sometime for everyone to see. Inside were hundreds of Hindu and Buddhist artifacts that were in some cases more than 1000 years old. The building had a courtyard in the center too with a Buddha that was still used and it was a very pretty site.

                At this point the sun was getting low in the sky so it was time to head to the Mekong River to start our sunset river cruise. After struggling to find the right boat for logistical reasons, we made it and everyone rushed upstairs on this double decker to get a good view of the river and sunset. We rode along the river and saw fishermen, houseboats, and a floating village further on. Most of them looked to be living in pretty extreme poverty, but all were smiling. As we turned to head back we got a great view of the sunset over the palace that we would be seeing the next day. As the sun set the temperature became much more pleasant and it was a relaxing ride back. We arrived back on shore and made our way to the bus so that we could have our orphanage visit. The orphanage we were scheduled to see was started by some SAS veterans, one of which is on the ship with us now as a shrink. To qualify the kids must have no living relatives. As far as we could tell there was no real age limit, the youngest looked about 3-4, the oldest was said to be 22. The kids were very cute and very excited to see us. I don’t know if this is because Semester at Sea is probably the main source of labor and donations for the orphanage and they are told to be on their best behavior, or if they were actually that happy to see us, but everyone was beyond excited. A few of the guy orphans in the camp came and grabbed me and took me on a tour. They claimed to be 14, 15, and 18 years old respectively, but I would have guessed 11,12, and 14 tops. Apparently everyone was claiming to be older than they actually were when we got together and talked about it later. The orphanage seemed like a very nice place to live in comparison to the streets we walked through to get there. While they had to sleep with no AC and on hard mats, they had a soccer field, basketball court, volleyball net, instruments, a few computers to use, and classrooms. They all spoke some English, but the language barrier was pretty high. They tried hard though and spoke with a decent level of proficiency. After hanging out with them for about an hour, it was time to go, so we gave them our email addresses and headed back to the bus.

Dinner that night was at a restaurant that was supposedly a fusion of Thai and Cambodian cuisine. When I heard that I was pumped because I assumed we would be having Pad Thai, a slight addiction of mine. Unfortunately we did not, though the food on the whole was good. We had to pay for our drinks, including my bottle of water, and this would turn out to be a pattern through the trip. Honestly I don’t understand how for the grand it cost us to go on this thing, why SAS couldn’t pay for us to have bottles of water with our meals, but oh well. After dinner we went back to the hotel where we were told to be ready to wake up at 7 am. I think everyone pretty much went straight to bed, which is exactly what I did.

                Seven came quick but we were all ready to go. We grabbed breakfast at the hotel and hopped on the bus for a full day of activities. The first stop of the day was to an old Cambodian high school that the Khmer Rouge converted to a prison in the 70s. They had pictures of the nearly 20,000 prisoners that came through there and some of the cells were still set up. They were small, roughly 6 x 3 for the small ones, and the conditions were terrible. It was there that they tortured political prisoners to get information out of them. There was a board that had the rules of the prison which included things such as: Showing signs of pain or disagreeing with the prison staff over anything would result in more torture. We finished up at the museum after about an hour and headed on the bus to the killing fields. I was glad we went to the museum, after the visit I felt like I knew about the events leading up to Pol Pot’s take over.

                The ride to the killing fields took about 45 minutes and we drove through what appeared to be a poorer section of Phnom Penh to the countryside. We did see rice paddies and people farming them which were neat though. The killing fields were completely different than I expected. I knew that millions of people died during the Khmer Rouge and I figured that this being the “killing fields” was where the majority of them died. I figured something like Auschwitz for example. Come to find out it was smaller, just over 20,000 were killed at the site, still a huge number but not what I expected. There were several mass graves where several hundred people were buried at a time, and some of them still had loose bones inside. In the center of the exhibit was a tower that was about 5 stories tall filled completely with skulls, more than 10,000 in all. It was definitely eerie to see. We watched a video there explaining a bit more about the regime of Pol Pot and his justification for killing all of these people. Basically anyone who was educated or lived in cities was considered an enemy of the state because they were set up to be higher in society than the working class. As a result he had them all killed and glorified the people who lived in poverty in the countryside. It meant that Cambodia as a country was left with a generation of very poorly educated people with no upper class. They are just now getting out of it I guess.

                We ate lunch which was again just alright, not near as good as the food from the other countries on the itinerary. We went shopping at a market for a couple hours where I bought a T-shirt, flag, keychain, and patch all for hardly anything. I then proceeded to wander around for another hour of our allotted time while trying to get them to sell me an India Lonely Planet for $5. They wouldn’t go below $7 and I didn’t feel like paying that, so I didn’t get one. I did buy a hand towel for a dollar which was my best purchase of the trip. It was roughly 100 degrees with 90 percent humidity and I sweat plenty. We finished up at the market and made our way to the airport to catch a plane to Siem Riep.