I waited for the face to face and then got off the ship in a random group of people. We had to take a shuttle out of the port because we were not allowed to walk in it. So instead of waiting in the line to get checked out of the port we hopped in a rickshaw to get out quicker. My first impression of INDIA was from a tiny 3 wheeled car that 5 people are and they are weaving in and out of cars. In India there is no lane system on the road…….not that they do not have lanes because they do but they don’t follow them at all. The entire driving system is a free for all and you should expect nothing less than a heart attack. Your rickshaw will literally go head on to a car and then at the last minute swerve out of its way it’s crazy. This was the definition of a clown car.
What we wanted to do was get to the stadium because the cricket world cup was currently going on; however, every driver has a different plan for you. They want to take you to their “brother’s shop” that has “cheap prices” yeah not so much! They brought you to all the Americanized nice air conditioned stores that had nothing that was culturally relevant to India and if they did it was a giant wooden statue of a god that you would never be able to afford let alone carry out of the store.
Let me tell you, some semester at sea kids ruin it for everyone. I watched a girl try and bargain. The store owner asked her for 3000 rupees for 2 scarf (total rip off that about 60 USD). So she gave him 2500 she had in her pocket and as she went into her bag to get more money asks the shop owner can you do it for 2500. The guy obviously said no because she was willing to pay the high price from then on out people in this shops tried to rip us off and we couldn’t buy anything from them. Some people puzzle me. So instead of standing there watching people get ripped off I went over to a Shiva temple took off my shoes walked through the streets of India barefoot and into the temple. I was blessed with ashes which after I was blessed I learned the ashes were cow dung ashes. We walked around one of the shrines, as that is how you praise the gods, and found out where the cow poop comes from. There were 5 cows sitting in a pen just hanging out. Steph and I started cracking up while our friend Kevin and Miller had no clue why.
We finally got the guy to bring us to the stadium and he tried over charging us saying the price we agreed on earlier was not the same….ect….. ect. So we got to the stadium and started asking around for tickets. People just kept saying the same thing and pointing in a direction, so we kept proceeding in that direction finally running into Nitin, A man who led us in the right direction finding us tickets. We were offered tickets by many people, but then a man came up to me and said “my brothers not coming you can have his ticket” so I got in free!!!
Now cricket is like watching paint dry! Don’t get me wrong the atmosphere awesome but the actual sport very boring we left within 45 minutes after we could not bear the heat any more. Nitin, our new india friend, showed us a place to eat which was a little more expensive than I would have like but that’s on Indian standards. I could have never gotten that much food for that price in America.
After that we went to a mall, we wanted to go to a market, but when we went in there there was a Indian Gillette razor promotion. My friends Kevin and Miller got their beards (or faces) shaved I stayed and watched as the other girls went and shopped eventually when we walked away from the stand I see Stephanie hanging over the railing yelling where are you going…she couldn’t take what I avoided in the first place any more…..girls shopping. So we went to a stand that was giving free henna out and a woman gave me designs on the 4 of our hands. Its amazing how fast and good they can do these designs, it literally took her 30 seconds to do this design on my hand!!!!!
After that we left to go back to the port but Nitin wanted us to stop for more food!!! So he had us stop at this one place and bought us a bunch of really good Indian dishes. I LOVE INDIAN FOOD!!!!!!!!!
Day 2 - ARE WE THERE YET
We woke up at 330 in the morning all packed and ready to head out to the air port! This day was a day of mostly all traveling and layovers… we flew from Chennai to Delhi had lunch (more curry!!!!!) then flew to Varanasi. When we got out of that air port and went to our hotel. We put our stuff down and came back down to go to the River Ganges. When we came down we figured out that we would be going not by van but by bike rickshaws. I learned that this is the best way to see the city. You really get to experience the city this way, you get to experience the people, the smells (good and bad), the crowed roads…and so much more. I don’t really know how to describe the streets of India you can’t really understand unless you have been there (Thomas I need some help here). There is so much going on people selling stuff, to people preaching, to seeing old men with ash all over their faces because they have been blessed so much. On our way to the river Ganga (as the people from Varanasi call the ganges river) we heard the call to worship. I am not entirely sure what they were saying because it was in whichever language they speak. I know this sounds culturally unaware but they speak so many different languages in different parts of the country.
So we finally got to a point where we couldn’t ride on our bike rickshaws anymore because the streets were too crowded with all the people going to river for the ceremony. This happens every night not all the people who live in the city go every night mostly only on Sundays, but people from all around come to this city for the holiest of holy places. So we went to the river and I got a pile of flowers that you send into the river with the center candle lit. When you send the candle into the water you make a wish and Hindus believe that no matter what your wish it will come true. We then went to a balcony, where monkeys were crawling all over, and watched the ceremony of the 5 priests. It was quite the experience although I don’t really know how to describe everything and Im sorry. Their way of life is unrelatable to anything I know; however I can tell you it is very beautiful!
After having dinner and going to a hooka bar we went back to our hotel room and prepared to wake up early for the morning ceremony.
Day 3 –
We were down in the lobby at 5 ready to go. We are basically racing the other 2 groups because we don’t want to be traveling with so many people. You draw a lot of attention to yourself in bigger groups. So we got in our van and drove to a point where we couldn’t drive anymore so we got out and walked the rest of the way. When you are walking down these roads you see people sleeping on the side of the road. These people are homeless and most of them are missing some sort of limb or have a disease and this isn’t the half of it. This wasn’t anything for what was to come in the next few days.
So we walked to the river and our guide got us a boat so that we could go down the ganga river and see the burning of the bodies ceremony. In the Hindu religion they believe that when you die you soul immediately goes to nirvana or your next life and your body is just a body. So they burn it and throw it into the Ganges River. The river Ganges is the holiest of holy water, they believe that the gods created from the Himalayas, and that this is the proper way to dispose of the body. We saw a ceremony of this going on. Women are not allowed to be present at these ceremonies because they cry and the ceremony is not supposed to be like that it is supposed to be happy and joyous not sorrowful. When there are too many bodies to burn or if a family does not have the money to spend on the wood for the fire the body is simply thrown into the river. Because there are so many bodies lined up to burn some bodies are only burned half way then thrown into the river. After this we went back up the river and walked through the alleys of India with our guide we went and saw another temple, it is some time disappointing because you have these amazing temples that non Hindus are not permitted entry which really stinks but they do this because of attacks on some Hindu temples.
After this we took a breather and had the best chi tea ever made. (we didn’t know it at this point but we would search for “Street chi” the entire rest of the time we were here. We then made our way the van to go to the college and see the temple at the college. We went back to the hotel for breakfast collect our stuff as we had a jammed packed day and then a flight.
We went to Sarnath which was an awesome place for me to go because I have been studying it in class. We were able to see the Sarnath Stuppa and the Sarnath museum which held the Bala Buddha which I had a test on the last day in class. We went to a series of Buddhist temples here which were all beautiful in their own way. After all this we went to the airport for our decent to Delhi.
We got to the air port said good bye to Makesh, the best tour guide ever, and then waited for our plane. When we got to Delhi we went to our new hotel, which took us forever because of the outrageous traffic that occurs in India. We all wanted to go to the Ice lounge that was not 2 far away. None of us had a clue what it would be like, so we needed to go. It was a entire bar/ room made entirely of ice. It was so cool…haha excuse the pun. It was –10 degrees inside we had to wear parka jackets and gloves inside. Everything…I mean everything was made of ice, the chairs the cups the decorations. It was really cool we didn’t stay to long but it was awesome to experience.
Day 4 – The taj!!!!!!!......AGRA
We woke up early in the morning to go to the train station to Agra. When we got there was a bus waiting outside to take us to the TAJ MAHAL!!!!!!!!! There was a little confusion with our guides so we had to wait a little bit but then we finally got into the grand complex. It was incredible Like nothing I had ever seen before. Luckily we had gotten there in the morning so it was not as packed as it would normally be at mid day.
There is something that I am learning though this trip and it is that other countries do not run on the same time regulations that the US does. When they say 30 minutes they usually mean 45. When a rick shaw driver says you will be somewhere in 10 minutes you add an extra 30 minutes to stop at 3 of “his brother’s” shops. So if you go to the Taj Mahal early in the morning there won’t be as many Indians there because they are a half hour late.
So when our tour guide got there we went in and she told us the story of the Taj and how it was a monument build for Shaw Jahan’s , the fifth mogul, wife. When one of Shaw Jahan’s wives was about to die, after she gave birth to their 14th child, she asked for 4 wishes.
1) Never marry again
2) You will take care of our 14 children
3) You will take care of my parents
4) You will make a monument for me that will let generations to come know how much we loved each other.
He followed through on all these promises he made and there for we get the Taj Mahal. It is a remarkable structure everything about it is grand and breath taking (especially if you’re an architecture major and live for this kind of stuff)
After this we went to the red fort and a series of other temples that were remarkable to see the only thing about this day was it was so structured we were all worn down by the end so we went to a mall and had India McDonalds I only tried other peoples food but it was only chicken and veggies because they don’t eat beef. Then we went to an open market where we discovered that steph is a great bargainer and I am horrible at it. You can see straight throw me and steph nope just puts on a stern face and gets what she wants. I stuck with her for the rest of the time and she dealt with the people I just dished out the cash when I wanted something. I will never travel without her, we are each other’s side kick, it works!
Then we went to the Agra train station where I saw something’s I’ve never seen before. There was a man in a shopping cart outside our bus and he had elephantitus in his foot. When we were waiting at the station I ran into my friend Ben and started having a conversation with him. We could not look away from each other or else we would make eye contact with the beggers coming up to us. Ever other minute there was a new begger coming up to us and our train was delayed for 30 minutes. It is something I could not describe in full because the disabilities these people have are indescribable and most of their begging is fuelled by masters giving them drugs. A guide told us that when we give them money they are forced to bring the food or money back to their “masters” which may or may not be their parents. So even to give a small child food would just fuel a higher power. We went home on the train and just went straight to bed as we had not gotten more than 3 hours of sleep in the last few nights.
DAY 5 –
We woke up after a refreshing 5 hours of sleep ate breakfast and we were off to tour Delhi. We went to a Hindu temple first which was a temple like none of the others we had seen. The floors were made of marble and you had to take off your shoes as usual. There were different spots where you could be blessed by different gods. It was a remarkable temple made of red and yellow painted stones.
After that we went and saw the parliament house and the arch. The arch had all the names of war victims engraved on it.
After this we went to the air port so that we could get through security only for our plane to be delayed. We got on the plane and flew back to Chennai.
Day 6 –
This morning the intention was for Eric, Erin, Audrey, and myself to go to Mamallepotum which is about an hour and a half away. Well after being transferred from rickshaw to rickshaw 5 times with the driver saying my brother will take you and then changing the price we finally got out of that ricksaw in to another and off to spencers plaza. This was a day of shopping and relaxation as well as getting lost and shoved into different rickshaws.
India The End
Im sorry that this is the briefest blog I have as this was my favorite port yet. There are just some things that hard to explain and India is one of them.
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