Finally... INDIA!

 

My apologies if this is posted twice, our email has been screwy and deleting things.

Okay so, sorry its taken me so long to update about India! Its been almost 2 weeks! I feel bad :( but be prepared to have all the Asian countries be delayed until about mid April because starting now we have 5 or 6 days in port and then 2 days on the ship traveling. Its going to be hectic!!!

 

India Day 1: I left the ship for a few hours before my first FDP with Sean, Vanessa, Bev, Jordan, Alex, Laura and Sahar and we went shopping at Spencer Plaza. Because there were too many of us to fit into one rickshaw (THESE WERE SO MUCH FUN) we had to go in 2. Our driver split from the other and proceeded to tell us that Spencer's didn't open until 2pm and we should let him take us to a temple near by. We didn't buy it and told him we were meeting people at Spencer's so we just needed to go there. Eventually we got there and when he demanded 50 USD we freaked out because we thought we were paying 50 rupees (1 USD to 50 Rupees) and we ended up giving him 200 Rs and walking away with him mad at us. While walking away we got stopped by some other drivers claiming the mall didn't open until 12 and for only 1 dollar he would take us shopping somewhere else and then back by noon. We walked into the mall, which was very much open and searched for our friends. We found place after place, shop after shop of traditional India jewelry, silks, pashmena and trinkets. We bought some stuff, people bought saris and in a just bookstore called Landmark I found the new Fray CD for 8USD. WOOOOOOOOOO!!! (This bookstore was like a Barnes and Nobel with a Toys R' Us for a second floor.)

After shopping I went to a house of educated women and professors where we talked to two women writers and ate traditional food. Curries and rice cake things. It was all very good.

After THAT I went the Welcome Reception where they had more food similar to what I ate at the house but because it was mass produced for the 300 SAS kids there, it wasn't quite as good. Along with free henna everyone got the traditional red dot on our foreheads and a lae made out of a carnation and jasmine. We also got to talk to students that were brought from the nearby Colleges. We saw traditional dancing too. Very cool.

 

Day2: Went to 2 cities and visited a TON of temples. They were all very similar and I would pretty much have to show you the pictures before you understand the differences but I'll give you a quick list: 1- OLD, 46 sub shrines, famous because it was one of the first made out of stone and not wood or bamboo. 2- OLD; VERY TALL = TALLEST. 3- Silk Shop. Overpriced. Bathroom stop. LUNCH!!!! (It was at a straight up RESORT which is located in the second town we went to which used to be the port city for the Kings before it was destroyed by a typhoon in the late 1800's. Its a beach town and it was beautiful. The report was weird cause driving up to it there was trash everywhere, poverty and then you turn into the gate and are greeted by manicured lawns, flowering trees and upscale buildings.) Food = traditional and YUMMY. 4- Butterball stone (a giant round stone balanced on a flat, tilted rock surface) and a series of temples all related and home to the largest example of base-relief work in the world. The elephant was larger than life size. One of the stops in this part of the journey we met a bunch of Indian school children on a field trip that got enormous pleasure from high-fives and "one photo." They would get their picture taken, look at it, point and themselves, giggle and run away to another flustered SAS person with a camera. If you tried to take a picture with one or two there were instantly 30 of them around you. As fast as they came, they were gone. Very funny. This was also the start of the Hawkers trying o tell you very over priced stuff. VERY ANNOYING. 5- Shore temple located on the beach. Very pretty.. Lots of kids again. I bought a drum worth MAYBE 3USD for 9. Oh well. Bad mistake on my part. Long day but fun. I also saw a monkey on a leash dressed in drag. Complete with lipstick. It was sad. (but I still got a picture).

 

Day 3:   

Got up early and was out shopping with this girl named Jenna I have some classes with and had met a few times/she was on my trip yesterday. We were supposed to go with Chris and Jordan but they both were too sleepy so we went ourselves. We were feeling pretty good about ourselves because we got a rickshaw taxi for 50Rupees (1US) and I've paid 100Rs before for the same trip. But we got to the mall and almost nothing was open. We found one shop guy who was determined to get us to shop there but I needed cash so he sent us to an ATM where my card didn't work so he told us to go to another one. We wondered around a floor up and found a computer shop that was opening, ended going inside and I got the 160 hard drive for 52 USD. Good deal I thought, another girl I was with got a 720GB for 120USD, which... is also amazing but I didn't need that much memory. So then we were going to pay card for that but he said his machine wasn't working so he lead us to another ATM, which worked, we got back and bought that. Then we got side-tracked in a supermarket store called Nuts & Spices (dad, this was your kind of store!). The funny thing was the first shelf you saw when you walked in was full of Sugar free diabetic friendly snacks. They also had a number of nuts and dried fruits, cereal and I got some of those nature Valley oats N honey granola bars cause they are wheat free. Then we finally made it back down to the first guy, I bought some stuff from him. Then we wandered the entire 3 story floor looking for things such as mens plain undershirts in combo packs (I'm finding that to be a uniquely American concept), sandals for Jenna's fiancé, Vitamin B12 (for Jenna) and ended up with a lot of other things that we got for pretty good prices and I'm happy with all my purchases. I spent 100US but that's including the 50 for the USB drive and lunch (which is actually probably the cheapest thing I bought today. It was only 10Rs (about 20Cents) more than the cab ride there.) We got back to the ship around 3:30 after a stop at the post office and then ate dinner on the ship (the protein choice I had for no gluten was peanut butter and cheese cubes. The jerk pork and the vegetarian lasagna had gluten in it. My other options were pasta, potatoes, salad-which I eat copious amounts of anyway- and pears. Surprisingly pears and peanut butter are very good together). We found some more people to hang out with and we went to the place called Mocha. IT was a local hookah bar and coffee shop. It was SO chill. The decorations were all in jewel colors, it was all outside, the lighting was paper lanterns or lights with colored shawls over them. There were long bar/table things that you could sit at that had fountains at one end, the water traveled down the entire length of the table in a trough, onto the floor and then into a pool with flowers floating in it in the middle of the courtyard. There were covered booths and tables (which we sat at) and the menu had things like "Cookie Espresso- a chocolate chip cookie doused in espresso, milk and topped with whipped cream," "Mexican Crepes- chilies, cheese and deliciousness" they had coffee from all the really famous coffee countries, they had hot chocolate and so much delicious looking food. The shesha was the best part though, I don't think I've ever had more delicious hookah in my life. The flavor was blueberry and none of us wanted to leave it. haha.. the other flavor we got was a combo called Malicious of lemon and orange (I think) it was also good. Uhg it was good. My tea made me sick though. I got Chai and it wasn't chai I was used to and it was made with I think whole milk which while it was already stiflingly hot and I was in long sleeves (stupid? I think so) made me sick.

Back on the boat by 8ish and then hung out at the piano bar with Sandra and Heidi (2 of the bar waitresses) until about 12 when they closed. We just talked about India, I showed them pictures and they gave me food. It was a good trade off.

 

Day 4:

Today at the disabled home, "Samarpana: Home for the Mentally Challenged & Spastics" we played with, interacted with and fed a number of the 45 children and adults 3-65 that live there. They are all really very nice and the people running it (there are only 5 staff members) have hearts of Gold. The main woman had such patience. She was amazing. I got to play with this one girl/young lady who lived there named Pria. She couldn't speak and she was slow with some physical impairments but I played a version of patty-cake with her that was basically me tapping her palms with mine (and vise versa) and counting or making funny sounds. I started doing scales every time I patted her hands and when I got to the top most note I would pat her head and say "BOOP!" She loved it. I eventually got to the point where I would get to higher notes after doing some kind of little "bee-bop-dee-dooby-doo" song I would speed up the pace and pitch of the notes and then pat her head. She would get really excited and laugh when I started with the speeding up and flinch like she was expecting it and then I would hesitate, her not knowing when I would bop her head and when I finally would she would just giggle. She was so cute.  After we served breakfast we did the hokie-pokie, I'm a little teapot and the Itsy bitsy spider as a group for all the "inmates." (We couldn't figure out why there were called inmates, we figured it was just a local custom and nothing like they were implying they were in prison.) I played with Pria then because I noticed she was clapping along while we were singing and she had really good rhythm. Then we split up into groups and a number of jobs they needed getting done. Some kids worked in the kitchen cleaning up after breakfast, I washed clothes and dusted spiders and dead bugs out of windows and window pains, some kids even clipped nails and toe-nails. They served us Cardamom tea and chocolate filled cookies. I politely refused after my experience with the milked tea the night before and I couldn't eat the cookie even though it looked sooo good. They gave us handouts as we were leaving to make donations and they have a website that you should check out- www. samarpana.org. All donations (which to be honest are very reasonable) are tax deductible. I'm suggesting it. ($100 is a teacher's salary for a year or a year's supply of milk.)

After this place, I went out with Jordan, 2 girls I hung out with the night before at Mocha and a kid named Britin and we went shopping and then met up with Heidi, Roshan (another bar worker who is actually from India) and a girl named Whitney at the Mocha again. We smoked and ate the food for dinner. It was SO GOOD.

 

Day 5: I went to another home for mentally challenged children. We wer split up, given tours and my group was put to work in the garden. We cleared an entire garden and then ate our lunch off of banana leaves. After lunch we played with the kids. It was really fun.

 

I have to go eat! Time to leave.

 

Lots of love to everyone!!!    Emily