of course

Hey to everyone that reads my blog. Sorry I am such a slacker. I'm approaching exam week. And I've been having fun catching up on papers. haha

I realize I haven't written about China, South Africa, or Ghana. And I'm very sorry.

I will try and do that.

 

I return to the states on May 5th. But I will be in Florida until the 10th.

Soooooo you are more than welcome to visit me at my house in Roseburg after May 11th. :)

 

See you guys soon!

Cape Town

So, we finally hit a new continent. Africa. I remember cruising along the shore line a few nights before we arrived, we could see the African lights in the distance.  I spent a lot of time outside that day because I was having a “trapped” day. Being outside and seeing Africa was a huge breath of fresh air almost. I stood on the deck trying to imagine what South Africa had waiting for me. Although I know that I go into every port with zero expectations, as I looked at South Africa from a distance I felt anxious. The only movies I have seen about Africa (besides The Lion King) have been pretty violent. It didn’t exactly help that the entire administration on the ship was warning us about the violence and pick-pocketing. They didn’t mention how incredibly warm the people were. They didn’t mention the gorgeous scenery. (Not until pre-port at least; which is the night before we arrive in a country.) They didn’t mention that our ship would be pulling up to a huge expensive mall. There were a lot of things that would have been really nice to know before entering the country. Like… how not to get ripped off by the taxi drivers for example. Or “don’t worry! You’re probably not going to get stabbed while in Cape Town.”

 

South Africa is beautiful. The people are so loving. I believe it is my favorite port so far. I really don’t like saying that, because each country I have seen is completely different from the next. And I absolutely loved each country for completely different reasons. I’m just gunna go ahead and say that it is by far my favorite African country I have seen so far. Ha-ha Alright so here is how I spent my time in Cape Town, South Africa…

 

Day1 – Before getting off the ship, we were introduced to a special guest speaker; Amy Biehl’s mom, Linda Biehl. Usually I throw a couple grunts at the very thought of sitting through another pointless diplomatic briefing (we have these right before we clear the ship.) Not this time. In fact, I showed up 30 minutes early just so I could get a great seat in the union (the big meeting hall.) I’m not sure if you know anything about Amy Biehl, so let me sum it up. Amy was an activist (from the states) living in Cape Town who was stabbed 200 times in 1993 (during the apartheid years.) Linda Biehl started a foundation in Cape Town called the Amy Biehl Foundation. It’s an after school activities foundation for youth in townships. So, at this diplomatic briefing I was privileged enough to be able to sit through Amy Biehl’s amazing story, and shake Linda Biehl’s hand.

After that briefing ended, my friends and I quickly left the ship and took our first steps in Africa. First stop= Table Mountain. We jumped in a taxi and headed for the cable car that would take us to the top. (We totally would have hiked it but we only had so much time.) We were completely shocked when we arrived because we hadn’t realized that table mountain was a huge tourist attraction. There was a huge line to get on the gondola. We waited for an hour!! It was ridiculous. We finally got to the front, and bought our tickets (my friend Julie Anne told the lady at the desk that she was 17 years old and got away with a child’s ticket. I couldn’t believe it. Her ticket was half price!!!!) The gondola ride was really weird. It fit like 65 people in it at a time and the floor spun around so we could get a panoramic view. Well… everybody except me. I wasn’t standing by a window so I didn’t really see much. Except Eric’s back. haha The view from the top was so magnificent though! In the distant there was a small fog cover over the ocean that actually looked like it was connecting the blue sky to the blue ocean. The sky and ocean were one. It was absolutely gorgeous. The fog wasn’t covering the city or anything though. It was just far out in the ocean. It was really pretty just walking the pathways through all the rocks. We strolled for a bit and snapped some pictures before we found a restaurant and ordered lunch. We literally only had an hour on top of Table Mountain, which is not long enough at all!! After lunch we quickly headed back to the gondola to make the trip down. I got to stand by the window this time. It was delightful. So we then jumped into a taxi and sped back to the ship. (They drive so fast in South Africa. Even on sharp turns. It’s really quite scary.)

Back at the ship, the friends I was with had to run to catch a township trip. That’s when I was really confused on what to do with myself, but I ran into my friend Helen and decided to head to the District 6 museum with her and her crew. It was definitely interesting learning about these unfortunate townships that were burned down. We spent a good amount of time there before we decided to stroll down the street to the random castle in the middle of Cape Town. Apparently it was built by the Dutch, but I don’t actually know all the details about it because it closed 15 minutes before we got there. We hung out in the grass outside of the castle. It was a lot of fun. From there we walked towards this huge square in front of the town center. There we met 2 older women, an older gentleman, and a small child. They were so nice to us. One of them invited us over to her house the following day but none of us could make it! I talked to the older gentleman for a while. Turned out he was a priest, and had 4 wives and 19 kids. I asked him if he had any grandkids and he said he had too many to count. He told me this as I stood there and stared at him with a blank look on my face. Ha-ha I didn’t know what to say! After a couple minutes he had me read some of his sermons. I literally could not understand anything that we had written down. I don’t know if his sermons were just too smart for me to read, or if he just wrote down every big word he knows and threw random periods in there to make it look like a bunch of sentences. It would have been super interesting to talk to him about his beliefs, but I legitimately couldn’t understand his sermons. Ha-ha. Whatever; he was nice anyway.

Alright so we left there, and headed back to find some taxis. We stood at the corner we were dropped off at for about 30 minutes. There were a bunch of teenagers playing soccer in the street right next to us. That’s when Max got out his video camera. Sooner or later everybody in the group was making faces and dancing in front of the camera. I’m sure it is a great video. I have yet to see it. So, our taxis never came back to get us. We ended up waving down a taxi and asking the driver if we could cram 7 people in there. Ha-ha he was so against the idea, because it would be a fat ticket if the cops found us. Me, being the little one got to lay across everyone’s laps. It was actually quite cozy. I was pretty cramped up by the time we got back to the waterfront though. It was funny watching the faces of people watching us unload out of the taxi. They were laughing because more and more people kept coming out of the taxi. It was a fun time. We all started singing Indiana Jones at one point in the taxi. Anyway, the taxi didn’t drop us off right at the ship. There was a huge fancy mall between us and the ship, so we all ran through the mall. My friends had to make it back in 5 minutes to get on the pirate ship trip. I just ran thru the mall for kicks and giggles. Ha-ha.

Mauritius

Alright everyone. Here I am. I know I have been a complete slacker. I don’t remember if I finished writing about India yet. Probably not. But I’m going to move on to Mauritius. (We just left South Africa. Haha So I’ll write about that after)

We spent two days in Mauritius. It was the perfect relax vacation spot. I really no plans or ideas of what I wanted to do in Mauritius, so I just jumped on the train of 14 people going to Blue Bay. It was the biggest group I have travelled with yet. And it was messy. We hired a taxi to take us there. It was about 45 minutes to an hour away. And it was absolutely gorgeous. My good friend Thomas had his mom book a hostel for us before we got to Mauritius. It was a beautiful tucked away house with enough room for all of us. Actually I figured most of us would be spooning, because looking at the house from the outside… you wouldn’t believe the hostel could sleep 20+ people. So we dropped all of our stuff off at our little hostel (which by the way had an amazing view of a brown river behind the house) and headed for the bus station. Somehow on our walk to the station, we lost half of our group. Haha Ridiculous how that happens.

Note- it rained most of the morning. But the weather cleared up and was gorgeous by the time we made it to the beach, where we were bombarded by men asking if we wanted to snorkel. In fact we did want to snorkel, but we decided to eat something first. We sat down at this chill restaurant directly across the only huge resort on the beach. Having been travelling the world, eating foreign foods, we all decided to order pizza. Haha With pineapple of course! I really questioned how good the pizza was going to be. But we really hadn’t eaten pizza in so long. I feel like they could have dumped ketchup on a cracker and we would have enjoyed it the same. It was actually really good! Actually it was almost better than the pizza in the states. Haha nahh I don’t know. Enough about Pizza. We also ordered our fair share of cocktails. Most of us got Pina Coladas (is that even how it’s spelled? I don’t know. Spell check doesn’t even know!) I didn’t though. I ordered something else. I can’t think of the name right now. Haha But it was blue, and very strong, and delicious all the same. Anyway, so we finished up our lunch and crossed the street to look for some snorkeling. We jumped in a glass bottom boat at 3(ish) dollars a piece and went snorkeling. It was a definite struggle at first (for me at least.) I definitely think I drank more salt water than I did cocktail. Haha Just kidding. It was so beautiful cruising the coral reef along the island, and chasing the fish around, trying to catch them. I swam down closer to the bottom of the reef until my feet decided that they couldn’t breathe anymore. (I was wearing size 5 flippers. My feetsies are size 7 and a half. Yeah, I couldn’t feel my feet anymore, so I swam back to the boat.) Our captain took us to 2 different snorkeling spots. The second one more gorgeous than the first, which I didn’t think was possible. The water was so crisp and clear. Against the beach and its white sand, the water was light green and as I got deeper in the ocean the water turned light blue and then darker and darker. But out aways from the beach there were big light green areas where you could see down to the white sand at the bottom. I’m sure you have seen those annoying Sandals, Jamaica commercials that talk about it being the perfect vacation spot and then it shows a couple rolling around in the beautiful white sand (but not really.) Well… picture that, but a lot better, and there were no people rolling around in the sand, so that was great. Mauritius is gorgeous.

After snorkeling we all just hung out. Our plan was to head back to the hostel, shower, and then go find a restaurant. That didn’t happen. Across the road we spotted a soccer team of strapping young men so we went and watched them run lines. Haha There was a perfect grassy field right next to their practicing area, so we sat in a circle and just talking. It was perfect. Everybody had a beer in hand, and something to share with the group. We sat there for a long while. Until sunset, actually. I remember this because the sunset was gorgeous. We all got up and ran to the beach to see it. The sky was every color of the rainbow, and the clouds radiated the colors even more. So, the sunset, and everyone began to franticly search for a taxi, except me. I stood there and enjoyed the beauty of being there, and the easiness of knowing we will make it back to the hostel. Haha And we did. Of course it took 2 taxis. As we waited for the second taxi, Jay and I talked with an older man with crazy dreadlocks sitting on the side of the road. He was so incredibly nice and funny. He had a bag of live prawns and got them out. At that point I was almost standing at the other side of the road. Haha Jay thought it would be funny to chase me around with a prawn. Definitely wrong. Finally the taxi arrived to take us back to the hostel. Or rather, the bus stop. We had to walk from the bus stop to the hostel, which is not a far walk, but it definitely was for me because I had to pee so bad. Anyway, got back, peed, showered, prettied myself up, and then we all headed to dinner. We ended up at this really nice restaurant right on a river (I think.) I table and everything was set up really nice, but there were deer heads all over the walls. It was ridiculous. I just loved that it was an outdoor restaurant. I think I ordered some vegetarian noodle dish. It was really yum. So then we were 14, but we met some other foreigners there. 2 of them were from Holland, and 1 was from Germany. There were all so incredibly nice. I told them all about my adventures in Europe and that I was going to be living in Italy for a couple months. We got along so well! So I invited them to cram in our van and come with us. We didn’t know where we were going. No bars were open, because it was a Wednesday or Thursday night I think. We ended up back at the hostel. But the night was still young. Our Dutch friend asked around to see where we could buy some beer. The new plan was to buy some beer and walk to the beach. So that’s what happened. We found a neighboring house that was selling beer, and we each made our purchases. We stood there in the street for a while. I beat up Jay while we waited for everyone, and then we all walked to the beach. Apparently I was walking too fast or something, because somehow I beat everyone to the pier. When I got there I collapsed down on the pier, and stared into the sky. It was the most beautiful moment. Everything was quiet around me, except for the water rushing towards the beach underneath me. It was the first time I’ve had real alone time, since I got on the ship. As I laid there I memorized all of my surroundings so that I could later come back to the moment. If I close my eyes now, it’s as if I am there. After a couple minutes, everybody found me and we all sat in a circle on the pier, and just talked. It was so peaceful. A night I will always treasure. I’m not sure how long we were there, but it felt like a century. We finally trekked back to the hostel (coincidentally our European friends were staying at the same hostel. I think I am the only one that didn’t know that. Haha)

Next morning- headed back to the beach to find wind surfing. We spent most of the morning looking for a place to wind surf. It never worked out, which was a bummer. Jay and Eric couldn’t find scuba diving either. So, we all ended up snorkeling again. This time it was a much smaller group, because 5 of our friends had left early that morning to go exploring somewhere else. Snorkeling was more fun in a smaller group. Haha Or maybe it was because I had practiced breathing through that tube the day before. Haha I didn’t drink as much salt water. It was another great day of snorkeling. We left the beach early afternoon via bus. We were headed back to Port Louis. The bus ride was very nice. I sat with Julie Anne, and we listened to music most of the way back. Thomas and Deirdre sat across the pathway from us, and Jay sat behind us. As you can see, our group really dwindled down. A lot of the group chickened out and took a taxi back to Port Louis. We were the more adventurous group that jumped on the 2 hour bus ride. When we got back to Port Louis we then had to adventure to find the ship. We had no idea how to get there, so we asked around. It took about an hour to find it. We made it on the ship 15 minutes before “On Ship Time.” (Basically if we arrive after “on ship time” then we get dock time in the next country. We would have to sit on the ship for 3 hours after everybody has already gotten off.) It was a close call.

So, Mauritius was gorgeous. And I suggest you see it. It would be a nice Honeymoon spot. ;)

 

Some more India

oh me oh my im such a slacker. i know. haha We left Mauritius last night. I still must catch up on India.

 

Awww ok, where did I leave off?

I believe I stopped writing after I described the awkward arguements with Thomas on the beaches of Alleppey. Alright.. So we headed back to the hostel. We all laid on our beds (Jay, Tuck, and I) and we just laid there.. for a good 2 to 3 minutes, before we decided to go eat food. But our power nap was glorious. haha Best 2 minutes of my life. So we jumped in a rickshaw (which by the way are the PERFECT size for a group of 3. Any more than 3, and we are all completely squashed. Any less, and theres tooo much room and the rickshaw flys around everywhere.) We were all sandwiched nicely in this little rickshaw. We wanted to eat dinner at this really fun place that Tuck read about in Lonely Plant.. So the rickshaw guy drove us around for like 20 minutes just looking for this place. Fail. We ended up at this really expensive hotel. I actually dont know if it was that expensive, but it was called the Royal Palace or something. haha I guess I just assumed. Ok so we were the only ones in the restaurant. We got there at like 6ish.. And then I realized that Indians dont eat dinner until like 9 or 10pm. hahah So we had the whole place to ourselves. All the menus were not in english. haha so we pointed at a crazy word and adventured into our platters. The most awkward thing though (well not so much to me, because I was sitting with my back towards them) were the waiters that stood in the corner watching our every move. I really noticed that they do that alot. hahah Almost every restaurant we went to. (Side note= that family restaurant in Chennai was funny because the waiter had 2 sidekicks. haha They stood and breathed down his neck as he took our orders. hahah)

Ok hmm what did I order. I think it was the veggie "meatballs" and they were sooooooooooooooo good. I think they were my favorite thing that I ate in India. I dont actually remember the real name of them.. But they were heaven in some goop. haha Ontop of rice. oh yum. Now im hungry.  haha ok anyway, so we hung out there for a little bit and then decided to go find beer somewhere. The chairs we were sitting in were the loudest chairs ever. Getting out of them was so funny. They screached across the floor and the rest of the room went silent (by this time there were like 4 families eating in the room with us) and they all just stared at us. haha I started crying at that point. . from laughter of course. It was the funniest thing ever. First Jay got up... Screeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaachhhhhh, and then Tuck and I got up at the same time.. Scrreeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaccccccchhhh. haha alright im done talking about that.

So from the restaurant we just walked towards downtown. Hoping to find a bar or something. Nope. no bars. There was this one shop filllled with men all buying bottles and bottles of alcohol. So we stopped in there. haha There was a hugee line of men.. and I was kind of scared to stand on that side of the street, but as soon as the guys working at the liquor store saw me they like waved us inside. It was awesome. haha I didn't go all the way inside, I just pushed the guys towards them. haha We had to stock up on beer for the houseboat we would be on the next day. We walked out of that liquor store with a huge box of beer. haha We got so many laughs walking back to the hostel. Some really nice guy actually walked with us almost all the way back, and was just hanging out with us and talking with me. And then he tried to get us to open a beer and share it all around. haha We were told not to drink on the streets though. So we didn't. haha no worries! Finally made it back to the hostel, put a couple beers in the freezer and hung out with some Germans. They were really funny. There was a guy from Bombay there too,. He was hilarious. He was just soo corny, and then he get all philosophical. haha It was ridiculous. we were up pretty late before konking out.

 

Day 4 - The sleep at the hostel was prettyy... . HOT. haha We had a fan and everything, but I definitely just passed out on top of all my covers. Woke up all sweaty and gross (sorry you probably didnt need to read that).

Houseboat day!! We loaded up on the houseboat at like 11am I think. Met the crew and then took off. When we first got on we were sitting on the top deck (in the amazing hammocks and lounge chairs) and they brought us coconut milk.. in the coconut. haha It was the coolest thing. Except I didn't really like the milk.haha   Cruising around drinking from a coconut was absolutely amazing though. There were so many houseboats. At the beginning we all drove in a little line until we reached the main lake. It was gorgeous though. There were coconut trees lining the river, and then huge rice fields behind those. There were also many small villages along side the river. We made a couple random stops to pick up prawns and ice cream (not together.) And they let us walk around the villages for a little bit. But it was just so nice chilling on the top deck talking with my two amazing friends (Tuck and Jay.) oh at one point we were just hanging out and I decided to go downstairs to ask the chef and captain a couple questions. Soon as I went down there they sat me down in the captain's chair and had me drive the houseboat around. it was so funny.. they were like yelling at me to turn left and turn right.. and I could hardly understand them haha so they just continued yelling at me. And then the chef started braiding my hair. It was super random. So there i was sitting, driving a houseboat while a chef braided my hair and the captain played with my ears/earrings. It was really funny actually. And then they started asking me if I had a boyfriend and if I was looking for one. hahaha And i got a little creeped out so I went back upstairs. hahaha. I told Jay and Tuck that if Im gone for more than 10 minutes next time.. go find me. haha So that was really nice having them watch over me the next couple of hours.

Lunch consisted of Fish (not my favorite), rice, beets(which were actually amazing), and that weird green vine plant thingy that i thought we didnt have in the states but apparently we do. I loved the meal though. It was delicious. Its so fun eating with my hands. ok so lunch was great. we hung out there for a reallllllly long time, just talking and then we relaxed upstairs some more. It was beautiful. After a long while, the captain parked the houseboat and we got to wander around the villages for a bit. So we did that, and then when we came back they all decided to jump in the river. I didn't jump in, but I documented all of it. haha And then we followed a dirt path all the way to this random cement building with plastic chairs inside. We were going to drink some coconut beer. It was too hot inside so we took all the chairs outside. And they brought out a huge white table (at the time I didnt really understand why.) The captain apparently had a couple musician friends who came over to meet us and sing/play some music to us. I didn't expect it at all! So at that point we were maybe 10 people. Everybody drinking coconut beer (which is nasty by the way. I struggled to enjoy it. haha) and the musicians began using the table as a drum, and singing to us. It was absolutely beautiful. They sang us a couple christian songs, and then some Hindu songs. They then asked us to sing to them. HA what a joke. Im a terrible singer. Jay whipped out some Bob Marley though. haha So that was really fun. And then they tried to teach us how to sing. You know how they sing in The Sound of Music.."Doe Rea Me...etc" Well.. they have there own version in India. Im sure they do everywhere. So they taught us how to sing like them. It was really fun. I video taped it. I'll show you later. anyway, that was really fun. I got creeped on by the captain while we were sitting there. haha I think he wanted me to be one of his 5 girlfriends. haha He was silly. Ok anyway, by the time we left, there were 12 bottles of coconut beer on the table, and a full bladder in Lindsay Bogan. haha So we rushed back to the houseboat.

I had completely forgotten about dinner. Which was amazing again. They cooked up some prawns. I tried them, but they werent my favorite either. But everything else was glorious.

After dinner, we just hung out again. I love hanging out late at night. We just talked... about everything. We talked alot about everybody back home though.

oh my gosh, i went to the bathroom at some point, and there was a HUGE cockroach just chillin on the door. I was so scared. haha I couldnt get out of the bathroom until it scurried away. haha

 

ok ok so that was that night/day 4. So great. and perfect.

and now im out of time, so i'll have to write you later about the rest of India, and start Mauritius. And plus I still have to write about China. haha dannngg

 

okay I hope all is well at home! Love you and miss you all!

India the great. You can really tell you love a country, when it pains you to say goodbye. That’s how I’m feeling right now. I had such a fantastic time in Kerala, India… I didn’t want to get back on the ship. It’s rough having to say goodbye. Let me tell you about my love affair with India.

Day 1. Our first port was Chennai, India. I wouldn’t say this was my favorite port. In fact, I wasn’t a huge fan of the city at all. A lot of the time I felt like people just wanted my money. I had to really dig (or build) to find the beauty of India. As soon as we were let off the ship, I jumped on a bus. I was headed to a Dalit Village. (There is a caste system in India. Dalit is also referred to as “the untouchables.” It is a “lower class.”) It was the first service project I have done on Semester At Sea. And it was such a beautiful experience. The bus dropped us off at the end of a dirt road that ran along a trash filled river. Soon as we got off the bus we were bombarded by dozens of older women wearing incredibly colorful Sarees. Some of them holding babies. Each woman was holding a flower necklace that they handed out to everyone. They were so excited to have all of us in their village. They all had the biggest smiles on their faces. I really didn’t expect a huge welcome party, but there was a full on band and parade there waiting. The band started playing all kinds of instruments I just had to start dancing. So that’s what I did. I was one of the first off the bus, so I was kind of at the front of the parade. I was right up there with the band. I just broke out in dance, and a couple of the Indian women surrounding me joined me. It was so much fun. Dance is a universal language. We danced all the way to the village. It’s pretty rough dancing in thousand degree weather, so I inhaled a bottle of water afterwards. Haha The village people sat us down and some of the children got up on a small stage and performed for us. I was really surprised at how sexual the dances were. These children were between the ages of 6 and 15 it looked like. One of the kids actually knew how to break dance. It was funny to see. It was even funnier that he was break dancing to a song by Akon. Haha I got a kick out of it. After a good half hour, it was time to get to work. Our project was to build a small storage area for everyone in the village. Out of brick. Haha There were a couple of men who were showing us how to lay the brick, and slap on the cement. Some of us collected the cement, and some collected water, and some collected bricks. We built that sucker up in a good 3 hours. Working in the brick collecting line was mighty difficult because I was recovering from a cough at the time. I decided brick dust isn’t a good remedy for a cough. I was coughing my lungs out. By the time we finished the building, my face and clothes and lungs were covered in brick dust. I felt so haggard. It was so much fun working with the village people though. Some of the little kids would help us collecting bricks, but they would mess around while passing the bricks. They would like bow or stick their tongues out and make faces at us. They were adorable. I really just loved working alongside the community. It was such a great experience. After we finished working on the building we walked down the street a little bit and went into a small school where we meditated by candle light. It was a perfect way to finish off the service project. There was an older man that sang to us while we meditated. Some of the songs were Christian, and some were Hindu. So basically … He was putting me to sleep. It was great. After meditating it was time to load back up on the bus. Sad. In conclusion I had such a great experience working in the dalit village.

Got back on the ship. Showered. Put my face on. And some clothes. Headed out for dinner. A bunch of us rickshawed to central Chennai to find some good Indian grub. We found this cute family style restaurant inside a random building on the 3^rd floor. I can’t actually tell you what I ordered, because I couldn’t pronounce the  name of it, but I can tell you it was super spicy! They gave us a plate of naan surrounded by a bunch of cups filled with sauces. One had garbanzo beans in it, and was super spicy and delicious. Another had yogurt in it, just in case your mouth is on fire. And the other cups were filled with mystery sauces, but everything was incredible. I absolutely loved eating amazing food with my hands. The restaurant was so cute. The music they were playing was hilarious. The cd had “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” on it, as well as “Happy Birthday.” It was definitely a family restaurant. Haha When we all finished consuming heaven. The waiter brought us bowls filled with water and lemon. We all sat and looked at each other, because we didn’t know what to do with it. We were very unsure if we were supposed to wash our hands in it, or drink it like tea. Haha and we didn’t want to feel stupid sticking our hands in tea. Or drinking the water that was supposed to wash our hands. So I asked. It was for our hands. Haha The waiter laughed when I asked. Haha It was great.

So after din dins, we decided we were all too exhausted to go to a Bollywood movie, so we jumped in rickshaws to head back to the ship. Our drivers dropped us off at the wrong entrance, so we ended up walking 2 miles before actually getting back. I was dead.

Day 2: Still in Chennai. We really didn’t have too many plans for day 2. Tucker, Dani and I ended up going to a market/mall thingy where we were looked around in different stores. Tucker hunted down a book store while Dani and I adventured to find some Indian attire. We went into this one market filled with tapestries, shirts, blankets, jewelry, pretty much everything. We destroyed that shop. The man working there was a delight to work with. He brought us Indian tea while we looked around. He laid out maybe 50 tapestries for us to look at. There was literally a mountain of tapestries in the middle of the floor. It was fun digging through. Every tapestry was unique. They were covered in colorful patches. It was like quilt work, but the shape of each patch was distinct. They are brilliant pieces of art. I had to purchase a couple. I made a nice deal with the guy.

After the market Tucker and I headed to a hotel so we could book a room for that night, because we had to fly out early morning the following day, and the ship was leaving that night. We found this really comfortable place called Hotel Pandian. It was a Christian run hotel, and located nicely in central Chennai. After booking a room for 3, Tucker and I headed back to the ship, and basically just hung out for a while. Packed our bags, and waited for Jay to get back from the disabled children’s home.

We experienced the funniest rickshaw ride of our lives. Half way to the Hotel Pandian, our rickshaw runs out of gas. So the driver and his friend get out and begin to push the rickshaw out of traffic. They don’t tell us what is going on. We just sit on the side of the road for a while. I figured we were just letting the engine cool off or something. After a couple of minutes the driver tried to start the engine, and it starts, and we go about 20 feet before the engine stops again. So the driver and his friend get out and start pushing us. They pushed us really far and through heavy traffic. I definitely thought we were going to get hit, so the entire time I am laughing my head off. Finally we see a gas station ahead, and the driver pushes us in there. Jay got out and tried to help push but he got yelled at by the driver. Haha I think he was scared that Jay was going to walk away. It was funny. So finally we got back on the road, and the driver was haling ass. I was seriously scared for my life, so I closed my eyes. I swear we were going to tip over or hit someone at any moment. We finally made it, after like 45 minutes. Or more. Haha And then the driver wanted an extra tip!! I couldn’t believe it. He should have been tipping us. Haha He pulled the “tomorrow’s my daughter’s birthday. What am I supposed to give her?” And I responded with “Love. Just give your daughter love.” He wasn’t happy with that answer. Haha. He wouldn’t let go of my hand. I finally just pulled away as hard as I could and went inside.

So we got our room. No A/C, but it was perfect. 3 beds. 3 towels. Running water. Some TP. That’s everything I could have asked for. After a quick peek at the room, we decided to hit up the “Permit Room” (It means bar. Every hotel had a permit room.) Ok. Women don’t drink in India. So, when I walked in to the permit room, I got a good staring at. Haha I felt mighty awkward. We ordered a couple beers. At first we kind of questioned if we should because Semester at Sea told us not to drink Indian beer. But we said hell, let’s give it a whirl. We ordered King Fisher premium. It was pretty good. I was a fan. So, the three of us just hung out and told great stories to each other. Tucker told us all about his adventures in the Dominican Republic. It was really chill. There was a cricket game on T.V. (Cricket is really big in India.) Oh my gosh! Ok. I was sitting on a couch right next to the door that leads outside. And we were just hanging out, finishing up our beers, and some guy walks by and I didn’t really notice him but right before he walked out the door he threw a piece of paper at me. It hit me in the arm. I kind of looked down and saw the paper on my lap. Picked it up. On it was a name and a bunch of numbers right under it. Hahahaha I just looked at Jay and Tucker and was like “hahah I think I just scored some digits!” Funniest thing ever. I didn’t even see this guy really. We contemplated calling him (as a joke) and then decided not to. Haha

Anyway, we finished our beers and decided to go wander around, maybe go into some shops. So, we walked down the street a couple blocks, and Tucker decided it was time for his dance video. Every city he visits he tries to get a video of him dancing for at least 10 seconds. So at the end of this trip he’s going to make a giant dance video, which I’m really excited to see. Haha So there we were in the middle of the street, and Tucker just starts dancing with a rickshaw in the background. After I recorded it, everybody standing around wanted to see the video. Haha So everybody just surrounded us. It was really funny.

After that we entered another bar along the same street as our hotel. The place was packed (with men of course) and there was a huge screen with a cricket game on. We went upstairs because there was nowhere to sit downstairs. I was literally the only girl in there. Soon as I walked up the stairs, everybody was looking at me. It was super awkward. I didn’t drink anything in there though. I just watched the boys sit and enjoy some scotch. I was watching the cricket game for a little bit, and trying to understand it (still don’t) and I didn’t realize there was a guy sitting right in front of it. I think he thought I was staring at him. Hahaha I stopped watching the game after that. We finally trekked back to the hotel and got ready to konk out because we had to wake up at 330am the next morning.

Our flight to Cochin (where the ship was going to meet us) was at 6am, and it took approximately an hour to get there from our hotel. I was kind of worried that they wouldn’t let me on the plane because the name on my ticket doesn’t match the name on my passport (because Jay spelled my name wrong. Damn him. Haha) But they didn’t even look at my passport really. The flight was fine. I was kind of worried about who I was going to be sitting by. Because I didn’t particularly want to sit next to a man on the plane, just because I’ve noticed how segregated the men and women are when it comes to transportation. I didn’t want to make anybody uncomfortable. You know? I ended up sitting next to Tuck. Haha It was nice. He passed out soon as we left the ground. I bobbed my head around for a while, but mainly just looked out the window at the beautiful landscape. It was a really short ride. Jay sat across the aisle.

Soon as we landed at the airport in Cochin we asked the tourist desk how to get to Alleppey where we would rent our houseboat. He told us there were two options. 1- we could jump on the public bus for 48 rupees (one dollar) but it would be really uncomfortable and bumpy. Or 2 – we could get a taxi which would cost a lot more. Us being poor college students, jumped on the bus with a bottle of water and a bag of mango cookies and enjoyed the 2 and a half hour ride. It wasn’t uncomfortable at all. He must of thought because we are Americans, we must be high maintenance. So wrong. Haha Actually, I wasn’t feeling so hot for the first half hour on the bus because of my damn Malaria medicine. I sat in my chair, closed my eyes, listened to the world, and just breathed. I was so in the moment. Trying to ignore my stomach. I was worried I was going to get sick, but after a while of meditating, the pain went away. It was a fun ride. Kind scary, but fun. The drivers are insane. I felt like I was back on that bus going through the mountains in Colombia. I couldn’t watch the driver, because I was scared but also because I was too short to see over the really tall benches. Hahah So I meditated for most of the ride. Listened to some Slightly Stoopid and Beastles with Jay, and just looked out the window (not actually glass. There are no windows on the bus. It’s all natural air conditioning. It was beautiful.) Apparently Jay and Tuck saw an elephant walk by… haha Jay saw it and he just looked over at me, and smiled, and was like “Did you see the elephant?” I almost cried. No I didn’t see the elephant. I just had to close my eyes for one minute… It was so upsetting. They definitely rubbed it in my face that they saw an elephant. Those bastards. haha 

When we arrived in Alleppey, a guy came up to us and asked us what we were looking for. We told him we were looking for a place to stay for the night, and he immediately pulled out a card and told us that we could stay at his house. His home was converted into a hostel kind of. We asked him how much (thinking he was going to try and rip us off.) Only 400 rupees. Which is about 8 dollars. We agreed to go look at his place and decide there. His place was perfect. It had 3 beds in a big room with a fan, and a huge bathroom with a shower and a toilet. For 8 dollars total? It was amazing. So we stayed at the “Dream Nest.” We then told him we wanted to find a houseboat and cruise the backwaters the following day. His family apparently has 3 houseboats, so he gave us all the info on them. It was about 30 dollars for each of us. The houseboat had an upper deck (with hammocks and lounge chairs; basically a hang out place), one bedroom (with room for the 3 of us to sleep), a bathroom, a kitchen, a place for the crew to sleep, and a nice dining table. It was perfect. When you rent a houseboat, it comes with a chef and the captain of course. So we definitely signed up for that. Haha The plan was to leave the following day at 11:30am. After booking all that stuff (we were relieved at how easy it was) we headed for the beach. It was a very long walk. I fried. Especially because I was wearing black Capri’s and a flannel long sleeved shirt (even if it was rolled up to the elbows, it was hot!) Finally arrived at the beach and decided it was time to consume food. Actual food. Not cookies. So we found this cute restaurant right on the beach and ate. I don’t actually remember what I ate, but I know it was delicious and vegetarian. I love Indian food. We also ordered some Fosters (Australian for Beer.) It was alright, but kind of warm and gross to drink after a while. Apparently it’s best to drink beer fast in India, because if you don’t it gets really hot. Haha learned my lesson. When we first walked in, Jay noticed this guy sitting right behind me. He was enjoying a beer himself, and apparently every time we laughed really loud, he would laugh a little bit too. So after we finished eating, we decided to invite this guy over to sit with us. He was an interesting fellow, Thomas. His English wasn’t the best, but he asked us questions none the less. What we were doing in India, where we were from, what we knew about India, what religion we were. I really struggled to understand him, so mainly the guys responded to him. He then wanted to look through our pictures on our cameras. When he was going through mine he kept saying how I was a horrible photographer, and that the pictures I took had no life. It was quite rude. I wasn’t happy with him. And then the topic of women drinking came up. He gave us a whole spiel on how women shouldn’t drink before the age of 55, because he believed it affects babies. We told him that obviously it’s not okay for a woman to drink while she’s pregnant, but its fine if she’s not. He believed that if a woman drinks when she’s young, her babies have a better chance of being disabled. The whole time listening to his reasoning, I was sitting there drinking a beer. He then asked me if I believed in God. I told him yes of course. I am a Christian. He said if I believed in God then I wouldn’t be drinking. Haha Then I told him I was Catholic. Hahaha I don’t think he understood. I was really quite offended by Thomas. I understood it was just a huge culture clash, but I really didn’t want him to lecture me. It was a huge conversation. It was great of Jay to defend me too. Hahah But I was ready for that conversation to be over. We literally sat in that restaurant for 3 hours I think. We finally decided to walk out on the beach. Thomas joined us on our trek. When we got out to this rusted broken down pier, Thomas thought it was a good idea to show me how to take a picture with life. Because apparently I didn’t know how. (I joke about this every time I take a picture now. Haha I’ll be like “Oh man, this picture has so much life!!”) I was getting really annoyed so I took my camera back. Haha I stood on the sidewalk taking pictures of Jay debating with Thomas about women drinking, and Tucker playing Frisbee with 2 young Indian boys. It was quite relaxing. I took pictures of people playing in the water, and playing soccer on the beach. I also took a picture of a man standing with his bicycle in the middle of the beach. I looked at that picture yesterday… There were 2 camels in the background!! I didn’t even see them!! If I had seen them I totally would have gone to ride one. I’m so bummed I didn’t. Anyway, after hanging out on the beach for a while, we decided to head back to the hostel and then maybe go out and get some grub.

Alright this is all you are getting for now. I’ll pick up from where I left off, when I can.

oooops

sorry to everyone who is reading my blog. I just posted that last one like 4 ish times. My bad.

Vietnam

Alright, im very sorry it is taking me a year to blog about Vietnam. And I still haven’t blogged China yet!!! Damn, I have a lot of catching up to do. I’ve just been so incredibly busy on the boat. We just finished up midterm week. Ehhhhh It wasn’t too bad. My music midterm was a piece of cake. Yeah I say that now, and then I get my score back and cry a little. Haha

We had the Sea Olympics the other day. Let me attempt to explain this: Every hall of cabins on the different decks is named after a sea. For example my hall is the Aegean Sea. Our team color was baby blue (*vomit*). I really dislike that color I decided. So basically on Sea Olympics day, people ran around in their team colors and competed in a number of different activities. Activities such as: Tug-a-war, Salty whistle (eat a bunch of saltines and try to whistle. Haha), Crab soccer (everybody had mad blisters on their hands after this activity, because the deck was so hot.), Synchronized swimming, lip syncing, etc. I performed in the lip syncing competition. Of course, when I signed up for it I didn’t realize the entire ship was going to be watching. Pfffff. My group was really fun though. We danced and sang to “Don’t Stop Believing” originally done by Journey, but we did the Glee version. Haha I hadn’t even heard of Glee. I still don’t really know what that is. But anyway. It was really fun and scary being up there in front of everybody… dancing. Actually I thought about it, and I can’t recall any time I’ve done that before. I have mad stage-fright. So it’s difficult to even give speeches. And I danced in front of everyone. Oh geez. Yeah our team didn’t win. But there were soooo many good performances, so I didn’t really expect to win. In fact, I think our sea did pretty awful in everything, except for in Extreme Musical Chairs. Haha Anyway, so that was like 2 or 3 days ago.     

 

Alright alright so let’s talk Vietnam- My first real day in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.. The big plan was to find my friend Andrew in the dining hall and then go to a bus station and get on a bus and go somewhere. We didn’t know where. It was going to be somewhat spontaneous. And I was really pumped for it!  Yeah didn’t happen. Andrew got caught up at the Mekong Delta and there for stood me up. Haha I didn’t even think about having a back-up plan in case something happened. I ate breakfast, and went to my room and walked around all confused. Haha I paced. After like 3 minutes I was like ehhh I’ll call Jay to see what he’s up to. Lazy bum was still sleeping!! So I woke his butt up and made him hang out with me. Haha We jumped on mopeds and went to the local market and looked around. It was a huge market! There were food stands, and clothing stands, and souvenir stands. People were selling everything you can imagine! It was super harsh on the nose walking through the food stands. Everything they were selling stunk horridly and that stench mixed with the stench next to it. I definitely held my breath through there, and walked at a quick pace. It was definitely an adventure walking through there. It was so incredibly packed in there. Every two steps I took I ran into someone. I was rockin the flat fanny pack that day though, so I didn’t have to worry about pickpocketers. Did I tell you how much fun it is trying to dig through your pants to find your passport or money? Its mainly fun because nobody around you know what’s going on. I just get dirty looks as they walk by. Even at like airports. They should know what you’re digging for by now! My passport!!! Hellllooo!! I brought this up because I purchased a couple DVDs at the market, and in the process got some awkward stares. What DVDs did I buy you ask? I bought Avatar, The Time Traveler’s Wife, Whip It, and the first 5 seasons of Weeds. : ) I think all together I paid 18 dollars. I’m a pretty big spender. ;)

After cruising the market for a while, Jay had to take off for a FDP working at the Disabled Hospital I believe. Luckily I ran into my friend Dani at the market. We hunted down a restaurant that served Pho. It was the most delicious meal of my life. The restaurant was called Pho 24. I think. I ordered the vegetarian Pho. Pho is noodle soup. They give you a plate of vegetables that you can put in your soup if you’d like. Also on the plate that they gave Dani and I were these orange reddish peppers. I dared Dani to try it in her soup. She almost cried after biting one and spitting it back on the plate. Haha It was the funniest thing ever. I definitely didn’t try it after that. I was already crying from how delicious the meal was… haha Alright so after heaven in a bowl, we treated ourselves to manicures and pedicures. They treated us like queens in there. It was the nicest nail salon I’ve ever seen in my life. I guess I really haven’t seen too many though. I don’t really get manicures on a regular basis. But seriously there were 5 thrones lined up with bowls and faucets in front of them. They each had 2 velvet red pillows sitting on them. I felt guilty just sitting in those seats. And then I realized I wasn’t paying as much as I felt I was paying (if that makes any sense.) In total I paid 5 dollars.

So, after the nice lady with the doctor’s mask made us pretty, Dani and I decided it was time to get ripped off. We planned to head back to the ship, but we wanted to take a new form of transportation. So, we found these two guys with weird bike contraption thingys. It looked like a reverse rickshaw, but totally different. There were 2 wheels in front with a seat (like a chair) sitting on top and then one wheel in back and a taller bicycle seat. We kindly asked them to take us back to the ship, and they refused and said they would show us around for a little bit and then take us back. Dani and I said alright just for 2 dollars though. Of course the guys agreed with us, because that’s what they do. They don’t listen to what you are saying. They just agree with everything! So they pedaled us around in the scorching hot sun for a little while. It was such a scary ride. They were pedaling next to mopeds, motorcycles, cars, semi-trucks, you name it. We definitely almost got T-boned by a bus. I almost peed myself. So after a while we can start to see the ship in the distance. It’s like across this busy busy bridge and up a couple streets. So I’m like alright cool we’re almost there. All of a sudden these guys just stop on the side of the road and are like ok you walk. Haha I was super confused, because they didn’t even take us to our destination, first of all, and then second of all the guy asks me for like 20 bucks! I flipped a bitch and gave him 2 dollars, and one of the guys got mighty upset and was like “Hey, I deal with tourists all the time. 20 dollars is a normal price!” And I’m like “oh ok so you rip off tourists all the time. I understand. Here have 5 dollars I’m outa here.” Haha Dani ended up giving the other guy 20 dollars. I wasn’t about to do that. I could have easily taken a moped or a legit taxi back and it would have been 2 dollars or less! They didn’t even take us to the ship!!! They made us walk 10 minutes to get there! Those guys seemed so incredibly nice talking with us and asking us questions and joking around with us. I swear it’s the people that speak perfect English that you can’t trust. It’s not like I was out 100 bucks or something, but it was still mighty upsetting. So, in conclusion, if you ever go to Vietnam, stick to the legit taxis called “Vinasun” or find a moped and tell the guy you’ll pay him 2 dollars. Don’t waste your time on the other guys.

Nothing exciting happened until after dinner. I think Dani and I just went back and napped for a while and then had dinner. A bunch of us went out after dinner though. We all took the shuttle bus to the night market, and then split up into smaller groups from there. The guys I was hanging out with (Jay, Honey bear, and Max) hadn’t eaten dinner yet, and really wanted to try Pho, so we went to Pho 24! Haha I tried the spring rolls and had a cold Tiger. The spring rolls were heavenly and quite greasy. For some reason, I figured that the spring rolls in the states were only greasy because they were Americanized, and all American food is greasy. But actually the spring rolls in Vietnam were A LOT greasier. Delicious the same, I just didn’t expect it. After they inhaled their Pho we headed back to the night market to meet back up with people. There we ran into Thomas. It was so random. We were just standing there on the sidewalk and Thomas rides up on the back of a moped. Haha It was awesome. Soon as we gathered our group, we trekked to the Rex hotel. Along the way people in our group (including me!) kept stopping to buy beer from the random vendors on the sidewalk. It was ridiculous. They are just so much cheaper on the street than they are in the bars. It was fun just walking down the street drinking a beer though. Only in Vietnam. We hung out at this park right across from the Rex hotel. (The Rex Hotel is the nicest hotel in Ho Chi Minh City. It’s very ritzy. It’s also where the shuttle bus to our ship is located.) I didn’t realize it until people started taking pictures and showing them to me, but we were sitting in front of this huge gorgeous building with a big fountain in front of it. Haha I thought it was endless garden behind us, but apparently there was a huge hotel back there. It was really funny. It was a very cool chill spot. People kept walking by that we recognized (because the shuttle bus was right there) so we’d just sit and yell their names, and they’d come over and talk with us for a while. After a while of sitting on the curb we decided to load up in taxis and try to find this bar that had a live band that only plays John Lennon songs. The bar was definitely 20 to 30 minutes away, and out in the boonies, and closed. So we unloaded from the taxis, stood around looking at each other and decided to stroll down the street. We found this random bar called “Metallic,” decided to check it out. They had a live band, so that was fun to watch for a little bit. They mainly played older songs by U2 and other older bands. We weren’t there for too long. Drank a beer, used the bathroom, and split. We ended up back at Apocalypse Now again. It was a lot of fun though! It was super packed with semester at sea peeps, so it was a little weird, but I enjoyed seeing friends and meeting new people, and dancing. It was a long night. After a while, Jay and I jumped on some mopeds and headed back to the ship. We raced. It was so much fun. They were going so incredibly fast. It was scary, but I just closed my eyes, let the wind run through my hair and helmet, and laughed with all my heart. It was sucha thrill.

 

Last day in Vietnam- I would have loved to go to the War museum in Ho Chi Minh City but I just didn’t have enough time in Vietnam. I had to make it to the Mekong Delta, because I heard it was an incredible experience. So we hired a driver. It was Me and 4 other girls that piled into this car. It was 1 and a half hour drive. The bumpiest ride of my life. The driver decided to take us the rural way. Pothole next to pothole next to pothole is what that meant. Finally we made it there, where we jumped on a small boat with a personal tour guide. I actually don’t remember his name right now, but he was awesome. Our little boat took off through these canals filled with brown water. The Mekong Delta is the brownest river I’ve ever seen. As we cruised along the shoreline, our guide pointed out all the fish farms. They were like the floating houses I saw in Cambodia but there were huge nets in the water with huge yellow and orange fish in them. They were legitimately raising fish right there in a big net in the Mekong Delta. They don’t just catch fish. They raise them themselves. I found that fascinating. So then we got dropped off on this small island where there were bee farms. We didn’t actually get to see the farms, but we were able to try this honey tea. It was sooooooo yum, but also very scary to drink because bees were flying at us. They wanted the honey just as much as I did. From there we got on an even smaller boat. The boat held 3 of us plus the paddler. They had us wear those Vietnamese hats that you see pictures of people working on the farm. It was fun. The canals were so small. They kept squeezing 3 small boats through these canals. I was terrified we were going to tip and fall in to the brown water. But apparently those guys were pros. I liked watching the person paddle the boats. They squat right at the edge of the boat and paddle. You definitely have to be little in order to do that. It’s probably sucha work out. The canals were lined with short palm trees. A lot of the branches looked as if they had been torn off or cut off. I think maybe some of the people that paddle the boats around hang on to them and rip them off. Anyway, it was amazing cruising those canals. The tour guide then took us to a coconut candy making island. The coconut candy was very delicious. They showed us how they make it too. I stocked up on coconut candy for friends and family back home! So you better be expecting some. Basically when you go to Vietnam (because you must someday before you die) be sure to experience the Mekong Delta.

The ride back to Ho Chi Minh was a delight. We slept for most of the way.

 

 

So now,

I’m done with Japan, China, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Next stop India. I’m docking today. I still can’t believe it. After India, I will be half way done with my trip. That’s really depressing. It has been the absolute time of my life. Thanks mom and dad!