Incredible India
3:30 AM
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
- Gandhi
March 11th, 2010. Chennai, India
Waking up on march 11th was a very weird experience. I had a realization: I was in India. India! I never thought that I would ever go to india, let alone see all that I would see in the vibrant country. This was the port where we were officially the very farthest away from home that we could ever be. On the ship, we tried to be prepared as best we could for the huge, overpopulated, exciting country that is India. We studied their history, learned about their many religions and languages, watched slumdog millionaire, listened to interport students who had come on the ship for the time in between Vietnam and india to tell us all about their lives and upbringings, we had debated and discussed arranged marriages and other cultural aspects of Indian life, learned about their customs, and we felt we had a pretty good idea of what we would encounter in india.
Boy, were we wrong.
A friend of trevors told him that he had heard to try not to analyze india as you are exploring it, but rather to wait until you have taken it all in and truly gotten a feel and experience for the country before trying to make sense of it all. And so this is what we did.
Well, at least after a while we learned to do that. The first 15 minutes was a little different. We stepped off the gangway with smiles of anticipation clad on our faces, only to realize that, unlike the cities of shanghai, hong kong, Honolulu, and every single other port we had been to, where in a span of about 5 minutes you could pretty much get to any city center, restaurant, most of the city sightseeing places, as well as countless markets, beaches,and what not to keep you occupied. India was a little different. We stepped out into literally a shipyard. There were train tracks, a lot of dirt in the air, and not much else
Welcome to India.
So, being the naïve American I was that morning, with a smile I tried to get one of the few taxi drivers to just take us to the city center. Unfortunately, in india, taxis aren’t exactly a one-way thing.. in fact Trevor and I spent 15 wasted minutes trying to explain to the guy that we just wanted to go one way.. he didn’t understand, so we decided what the heck were in india and hopped in a taxi, no idea whether the driver understood us or whether we would end up in the slums of india with no way home.. but we hopped in anyways. The driver, without saying anything and without us paying him, dropped us off about a mile up. We were confused and got out, but when we saw all the semester at seaers who were waiting in line there (and had walked all that way in the 100 degree humidity weather) we were like alright, well I guess we got a free ride to the customs place… so we waited in line, did our customs, and ended up on the other side of the gate getting bombarded with auto-rickshaw drivers screaming ONE DOLLA ONE DOLLA (an auto rickshaw is a little open air vehicle that serves as a taxi.. they are fun and riding them is like being on the Indiana Jones ride—especially because the drivers drive CRAZY and dodge around every which way and the auto rickshaw is very rickety and a little chitty chitty bang bang like) anyways they started pulling Trevor by the arm and trying to get him to get in their rickshaws.. meanwhile I was being coerced the complete other way where these guys were trying to get me in their rickshaw (they don’t grab the girls, however, because in india its not customary to touch a woman that isn’t your wife—in fact Trevor and I couldn’t show any affection in public in India. Anyways, one of the rickshaw drivers handed Trevor the keys, so we went with him, as he promised to let Trevor drive the crazy streets of Chennai as much as he wanted. Trev, scared at first, let the guy drive us.. but don’t worry he got his chance later!
Before we get into our day in Chennai let me tell you a few general things about india
1. Women and men both have to wear either capris or pants, it is not customary to show your knees or your shoulders.. this makes the hot weather even hotter needless to say.
2. All Indian women dress in these beautiful sarees.. they are basically this giant long piece of beautiful silk material that can be any color or design and they wrap it all around themselves.. They really are beautiful and it is so cool to see all the colors on the streets as the women walk by. And for all you people picturing islam women who don’t show any skin, its not like that at all, the sarees are really pretty and although they cover arms and legs the beautiful sarees are more like dresses and they are a wonderful part of the culture!
3. India has 28 states within it, we were docked in Chennai which is one of India’s largest cities, although it really is nothing like what we picture as a large city.. there are no tall buildings whatsoever. The southern states are very different from the northern states… and the south tends to be a lot wealthier.. Karula, the state where our second port in India, Cochin, is, is one of the richest states in india and is where a lot of families will live while the father works in the middle east in Dubai, Saudi Arabia, etc. Delhi, the nation’s capital, is much poorer, and all of the rural states within the countryside are the ones with the really dire circumstances.
4. 33% of the world’s poor people live in India.
5. India is the birthplace of four of the world’s major religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Jainism.
6. Despite people assuming every Indian is a hindu, there are actually tons of religions represented throughout the country—Including a lot of Christians! And all Indians are very devout to their religion, as we’ll get into more later..
7. There is the caste system still existing in India today, this is a class system based on social status, family reputation, religion, and many other things. There are very few inter-caste marriages, which increases the incidence of arranged marriages. Because of this, you are pretty much stuck in the caste you are in for your lifetime, thus giving the poor people in india absolutely no hope.
8. India in one word is Contradictory. The caste system has left the country with the widest poverty gap in the world. The rich are extremely rich, and the poor are left with nothing. It is the only country in the world where you can see a blind child holding a baby begging for any spare change, with about 50 more children behind him, all in their rag clothes and many with mutilations and 2 seconds later watch a Mercedes benz drive by.
9. India is dirty! Very dirty, and the smells are indescribably bad at some points.
10. In the U.S., our life expectancy is in the 80s.. in India, it is in the 60’s.
11. Yes, it really is like Slumdog Millionaire. And we didn’t even get to the worst parts.
12. India was owned by Great Britain up until 1947. There is not a lot of british influence, but Indians sure do speak a lot of English
13. there is no national language of india because there are about 20 recognized languages in india!! We learned so many different phrases because even hello is different from north to south and from state to state! Vonnakam is hello in southern india and for you yoga-goers you’ll know northern india’s hello—Namaste. You do both with your hands clasped in front of you with a little bow to the person you are greeting and they do it back to you—its very fun and they love it when Americans speak their language.
14. Indian people are very nice and so eager to talk to Americans. They are very friendly, more friendly than any other country we’ve been to so far.
15. Their Hollywood, Bollywood, which is based in Bombay (Mumbai), makes twice as many movies per year as Hollywood does and they are really good.. usually they are about four hours long though!
16. “Cricket is our religion: Sachin is our God” this is a sign that I saw someone carrying in a picture and it is so true. Cricket is more important to Indians than football in Texas. You constantly see kids playing in parks and they have 24 hour cricket channels (don’t you worry we watched a ton—its fun to watch! Especially the fans! Sachin is the most famous player, and he is most little kids hero. The cultural Indian devoutness definitely carries over to this sport, as well.
17. It is a historically rich, bustling, social, culturally vibrant society and we had so much fun visiting it!
Okay, onto our day in Chennai… We hopped in our auto rickshaw and the first place the driver took us was to the beautiful amazingly long stretch of sandy beach that lines the city of Chennai. People in Chennai gather on the beach every evening, filling up every inch socializing and gathering together. However, during the hot days, the beach is pretty much empty, save a few people who seem to live on the beach in their run down shacks and boats turned upside down.. The tsunami in 2004 had ruined a lot that was on the beach, and the rubble is still there, although I have to say it adds to the character of it. We walked around a bit and put our toes in the water, our driver told us that the beach is “his place” where he likes to hang, and he tried to get us to trev to go in the water with him but he didn’t want to be soaking wet all day (women stay out of the water, because to wear a swimsuit would be unheard of in india as I don’t know of one that covers your knees and shoulders!)
We headed from the beach to a store that he brought us to, which was a nice store with 3 stories, one for all the famous Chennai silk scarves, one for handicrafts, and the top floor for beautiful handmade oriental rugs, where we were taken first. We were immediately enamored by all the gorgeous rugs, with their intricate designs and beautiful quality.. The salesman was very nice, and very good, as he showed us the top quality rugs and the 4,000$ rug he had sold to an American businessman the day before. It was gorgeous, but we told him we’d need to see the slightly smaller, slightly less expensive rugs. And then he started selling, he was showing us the different lighting and how it affects the beautiful cashmere and silk knots in the rug, the quality, the designs, and at last.. the price. Trevor by this time was seriously considering throwing down some major cash for this one rug that we both liked a lot… We were served Indian tea (spicy of course with lots of cinnamon and other mixed spices—it was good!) unfortunately Trevor offered $150 but the guy could go no lower than $330.. So we continued on to the handicrafts, where I bartered with some nice Indian guys for these two gorgeous hand-painted elephants that I loved and they liked me so much that they gave me a hand painted birdie ornament for free (it was worth about 20$ which is more than I paid for both my elephants J) And Trevor got a very cool wooden elephant as well. By the way, the elephant is the animal of Southern India, while the tiger is the animal of Northern India. We went to a bunch of other shops (we pretty much just went wherever our driver took us) and bought some lovely scarves, some handmade bags, etc etc. By the way, as we shopped and talked to the locals more and more we were quickly getting used to what we came to call ‘the sideways headbob of southern india’.. Indians, instead of nodding yes like we do by shaking our heads up and down, will do this funny head bob shaking thing and it looks almost like they’re saying no- or rather contemplating what to answer to you.. and the hardest part is they don’t smile as they do it so you are confused as they do this funny head shake thing and you don’t know that they’re saying yes!!!! Anyways, then we went to the St. Thomas Basilica, which was Christian for a change! It is one of only 3 basilicas in the world where one of Jesus Christ’s apostles was a missionary and was buried beneath it, much like St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. It was beautiful and very weird to see a bunch of Indian people in a church, but, like I said before, there are actually quite a few Christians, we saw a ton of churches in the city and a lot of catholic schools, etc. The cool thing about Indian religion is that no matter what religion somebody is in India, they bring their cultural devoutness to that religion and they are extremely dedicated to their perspective god or gods, with shrines lining their homes and with prayer times at 7pm every night, in a designated prayer room in their house (even if 5 children and their parents and grandparents sleep in the same five by five feet room, there will almost always be a prayer room). After that we got to see the Gandhi statue and then we headed to “city centre” which is a big mall where Trevor got an awesome Cricket jersey of the Delhi Daredevils team, then we were hungry so Trevor found a take out Indian restaurant and he got a yummy skewer plate which came with rice, chicken skewers (one garlic, one tandoori), some spicy random stuff, etc) and I ordered garlic naan. OH MY GOSH the naan in india is delicious. It is their bread, and it’s a little like pita bread only doughier and thicker. It is sooooo good, and garlic naan= best invention ever. We had naan at every meal in india and I swear I would have 10 pieces in one sitting.. I didn’t love the Indian food and wouldn’t eat most of it.. so I sustained myself solely on this wonderful Indian tradition. Trevor loved his skewer plate and took in every spicy bite of deliciousness, then we headed out to meet up with our driver, who took us to a few more shops and sites before taking us back to the ship. When we got back to where he was to drop us off, there were a bunch of other rickshaw drivers there and when our driver tried to charge us 100 dollars for the day they all crowded around and tried to help him get that insane amount of money while Trevor and I shook our heads at the thought of it. We had agreed to get in the rickshaw for one dollar, and of course we didn’t expect to pay that since he ended up showing us around all day, we were sure as heck not going to get ripped off.. so after a lot of back and forth we paid him $15 and were on our way.. it was my second realization of india- some of the nicest people,when it comes down to it, really just need to make a buck. It’s a sad realization, but we are just tourists to them, this is one day in our lives but 2 years from now they will still be there, driving that rickshaw, making a living off of those few dollars per day. Anyways, it was back to the ship, where we showered and changed for our night festivities—we were heading off to a Welcome Reception put on by Semester at Sea where a bunch of students from the local universities would attend and entertain us. As soon as we walked in we got the red dot placed on our foreheads, said vonnakam with a bow, and went in to the outdoor party where there was dinner, some shopping stands, some Indians doing henna on peoples hands and feet, and a stage where some decoratively danced traditional Indian dancers put on a beautiful show for us. One of the best parts of my night was when I went out to try to find a restroom, something very difficult to do in India, and while I was lost I found this guy student from india who was also trying to find the restroom. He and I walked together and he would ask directions in their language, only to get just as lost as I was.. but we talked and he asked me what I was studying, what year I was in school, etc. he was a computer science major (like most of the male collegiate students in india) and he had grown up in northern india, but had come to school in southern india. He was very nice and courteous and when I said thank you for showing me around, he gave me a very pleasant “there are no thank yous in friendship”. This is another important concept of Indian culture, people don’t say please or thank you casually as we do. There is no actual word for thank you or please in Hindi, in fact. It is more of an understanding, an expectation that a friend will do a favor for you, there is no need to thank for small things. There are only words for big meanings of thank you, but are seldom used except in extreme circumstances. Anyways, we went back and I met up with Trevor who was talking to another computer science Chennai student and I left him to go with my friend Toree to watch her and my other friends get their henna done on their hands (it was beautiful but I passed). We had some of the best coffee as we watched the dance show, which was so good it made me worried on my 3rd cup because we had to get up at 3am the next morning!!! But we watched as the beautiful decorated dancers danced to the Indian band to the side of them. It was a great first day in India, and it was on to the next city in t minus 5 hours!
Day 2- Taj Mahal/ Varanasi Group A
We suffered a 3:15 am wake up call, which I had accidentally set my clock for 2:45 pm instead of am, and got a call from Christina at 3:12 asking me if I was walking up to the union yet! Luckily I had already packed, and set out clothes, so without a shower I sprinted upstairs. We set off to the airport of Chennai and took a Kingfisher airplane, which is also the same company who manufactures the country’s most famous beer… so essentially it was as if we were flying Budweiser air comically. And we set off through Delhi to Varanasi airport. We all slept like logs on the 4 hour plane rides, and Christina watched a Bollywood film called Luck. She raved and raved about it so I ended up watching most of it, on a later flight, and it was really, really good. Bollywood is a huge industry out of Mumbai, and all their movies are like 3-4 hours with dancing musical scenes at the beginning and end of the movies. This one was about gambling on a bunch of people who have good luck and this main evil guy makes them have to go through intense tests like Russian roulette and shark diving and parachuting (for example, in one scene he sends 10 of the people with the best luck in the world up in an airplane with 10 parachutes, then tells them that only 7 of the parachutes will open.. and lets their luck decide who lives and who dies) there is also a love story of course and it was a very good movie, very fun to watch. It was in Hindi with English subtitles and if I can I will have to buy it off Amazon.
We arrived in Varanasi, met up with our tour guide Raj, and set off in buses to our Ramada Hotel, which was really nice. Varanasi, recognized as the holy city of India, is located in the North and is one of the oldest cities in the world, having been inhabited longer than any other by people continuously living there from times thousands of years before Christ. It is called Benares by the locals, and is home to Ravi Shankar, as some may know as the famous sitar player who even played with the Beatles. It is a very beaten down city, with cows everywhere, dirt roads, and small dilapidated little sheds as shops and houses. But it is the holiest city and crux of the Hindu religion and is the Mecca destination of devout Hindus (everyone is pretty much devout anyways). We had our first lunch at the hotel, with spicy Indian foods that we couldn’t tell what was what, but the naan is always great. Within our tour group we had a good group of friends including Christina and I, our friend Jose from La Jolla, Graham a guy from Seattle who goes to Gonzaga, and Christina’s ADPi sister Toree from Tennessee who was her roommate during the trip. Christina is good friends with Toree, which is cool because she goes to University of Tennessee as my dad did, and her boyfriend is in the architecture program there. She lives in Nashville, about 5 minutes from my Grandparents and both of her parents were in the same graduating class as my mom at Middle Tennessee State University. Not to mention she is Christina’s sister, an Alpha Delta Pi, so it was cool to have so much in common with one of our friends we met aboard.
After lunch our tour guide took us to a silk shop, where we saw how they handmade silk tapestries, and machine made them. The handmade silk making, two workers work so hard weaving and knotting on a big wooden scaffold and can make only about 3 centimeters of the design in a day’s work. Needless to say, this process is slowly disappearing, and although it is better quality and is really expensive, there are not many people that learn or want to learn how to do it. Then they tried to sell us a bunch of silk products that were very overpriced, and it was a scam place as most of them are, because no matter what, the tour guide always takes his tours there (he makes a commission on how many people he brings to these shops). On the way out, there were a bunch of cute children just curious as to what we were, and we took pictures with them, and I played catch with some of the little boys. They were generally just happy to see us and wanted to play with us, which was really nice. There is a contrast in the people that are generally curious and happy to see you, or the people who want to beg and try to sell you things that persisted throughout the trip. It was really funny because some of the boys were doing this hand motion where they would put two fingers to their lips, with their palms upward, and move them away from their face and back again… it was not any hand motion that translated to us, so our friend José was convinced they were asking him for cigarettes, to which he was like YOU’RE TOO YOUNG and we don’t smoke! They were very confused however, because as our tour guide informed us later they were just blowing kisses at Christina and Toree, its just a different way of blowing kisses than our hand motion!
In the afternoon, we went to Sarnath, to the ruins of an ancient city where Siddhartha Gautama aka Buddha gave his first sermon. In short, Prince Siddhartha was sheltered his whole life from his father because his mother had a dream that she gave birth to a white elephant with seven trunks. This meant to the fortune tellers, that either the young child would become the most important philosopher the world has seen, or the most powerful king the world has ever seen. But eventually the son, who was not allowed outside the palace, escaped on horse, and saw that there was death, disease, and poverty and upon asking his father what these things were, the king tried to make excuses. He ran away from his kingdom and wanted to find out the truth (thus fulfilling the prophecy of becoming the most profound philosopher the world has seen). He sat under a religious ficus tree and went through the stages of nirvana, and enlightenment. He demolished ideas of castes and promoted the middle way to his followers. Sarnath was the ancient city where he gave his first sermon of Buddhism and was quite beautiful with many Buddhist monks there meditating. They also had next to it, a new age temple, with a religious ficus tree that is the 24th generation sapling of the original tree Siddhartha sat underneath. That was really cool to see, such a tree that had so much influence on the world, and we were allowed to touch it, and even take a leaf and a piece of bark from it.
Later that night, we had the treat of taking a 30 minute bicycle led rickshaw (where you basically are in a carriage being carried by a guy riding a bike through the riveting alleys of Varanasi at the hustling bustling nighttime. It was a sight for the locals to see about a 100 rickshaws each with 2 white people in them come through their city. And we had a lot of fun waving and talking to people as we rode by. We arrived at the carts (or the stairs down to the bank) of the Ganges River. Every night, they hold a ritual there called the Ganga Aarti. There are platforms above the river, where Hindu monks burn incense, chant and drum while pulling on bells. There are thousands that come every night to witness this bright ceremony at night, praying to the Ganges the holy river of Vishnu. They buy little flowers with candles on a bowl and set them off in to the river, and make a wish. Our whole group bought some, and Christina and I pushed our little candle and flower off in to the Ganges. It is amazing to see all these little candle lights floating off and down the river in the dark. We stayed there for a long time, to see the ceremony and just feel the craziness of how many people were around, and that it happens every single night. Some men devotees have a loincloth like skirt on, with their bodies painted white, and red streaks on their foreheads, which is like the god Brahma. Some have bald heads, which is like a baptism, or some men have dyed part of their hair reddish orange to signify that they have been to a Hindu religious Mecca. We got hassled the whole time by little children trying to sell us a variety of beads, and postcards. They follow you, and ask you to buy things, and if you say later, they will wait for you. The policeman don’t do anything there, but have huge machine guns, and you can get really close to them in the crowd, and its closer to an uzi than you’ve ever wanted to be before. Walking through the alleys, a group of the army was passing next to us with huge cases of explosives and their guns. But back to the children selling, they are charismatic, hilarious, and can sometimes know up to 12 different languages. Our friend Jose had this girl hang out with him the whole time, she stopped selling things after five minutes and just wanted to be with us and talk to us. She spoke fluent Spanish with Jose for an hour, just walking and following us, and would protect us from the rickshaws and mopeds going by, and would yell at guys in Hindi if they were hassling us too hard. We took our rickshaw back and got back to the hotel at about 9 to have dinner. We opted not to have the hotel food, because it was kind of nasty, so a large group of us got pizza hut, which happens to be a really nice sit-down restaurant in every country except the U.S. It is delicious, Christina and I split a great garlic crusted pepperoni pizza, which was a welcome Americanized treat to our foreign palates. Not to mention they had this amazing sparkling lemonade that 10 of us at the table split a pitcher of. We finally got to sleep around 11:30 which is quite a long day from 3 am.
The next day we had a wake-up call at 4:15 am and headed back to the carts of the Ganges. We got on a small boat, and started to cruise down the river. The thing about Varanasi is that it is the holy river of India, and that if you die in Varanasi, you immediately go to heaven. Therefore, there are huge old palaces, and old houses and building that line the river, and old people come here and wait till they die. Once they die, their family comes up and cremates them next to the river. Our tour guide described it, because his grandfather had come a year before, they arranged a room on the Ganges, a care taker, and he lives out his life with visits from family until his death. A huge percentage of the Indian population goes there to die, they can do up to 400 cremations in one day. The sunrise upon the Ganges was spectacular, with the water extremely serene and calm, at sunrise, hundreds of people come to bathe in the water. They do it with their clothes on, and swim around every morning as a daily ritual. Further down the river, we were prompted to stop taking pictures, because 3 cremations were occurring, there were huge smoke stacks on the bank of the river, and the boat let us off right next to it. Fortunately, we were an hour late, and there were no body forms that we could make out in the fire. We walked the back streets, with the ashes falling on top of us, which was a surreal and eerie experience. Jose’s little sales friend, met us again, somehow they always know where you will be and walked with us until we had to say goodbye to her, and she gave a picture of herself to him and said goodbye in Spanish to him.
We returned to the hotel and had breakfast, used the pool, fitness center, and spa before heading out exploring around the area independently. Christina and I followed the advice of our global studies teacher “Keep your feet on the ground” and walked around and met people. We walked into shops, gave a Hershey bar to two little brothers who inhaled it with a big smile, and generally took in our surroundings. One guy with no teeth, came up to us and said he swore he had seen us in the United States! Then he toothlessly admitted he just loved talking to Americans. He walked with us for awhile and it was really nice. He was also wise and said India has good and bad people, which is like the rest of the world and that you must learn to observe it as whole. He then told me that I was very lucky to have Christina and asked to exchange his wife for her with a laugh, and then I laughed, making sure he was joking.
Sadly, we had to leave from Varanasi and headed to the airport. Funny things about the airports, all the women are separated in a different security check line, and there is a list of people who don’t have to go through security on the wall, with number 1 being the president of India and #29 being his holiness the Dali Lama, somehow I didn’t make the list. We flew into Delhi, which was a nice airport, but still very small. Its weird to compare how small their airports are, because the airports in China are humongous sometimes miles long, because of the population and how many people use it, but India has comparable numbers in population but not enough financial success so many can’t afford to fly. We took a driving tour around New Delhi, which included the embassy row, the presidential palace, and the parliamentary building. It is a lot like D.C. Mall or the Champs Elysees in Paris because it is designed by the same person. They even have an almost identical Arc De Triumph but it is called the War Monument, and it commemorates the 77,000 Indians that died in the Royal Army during World War 1. The presidential palace is huge, made in beautiful red sandstone, and the parliament building is a lot like a modern Roman Coliseum holding the 500 or so parliamentary members of the largest democracy in the world. We also went to see a modern Hindu temple which was very cool, but the coolest was when we were walking from the bus to the temple there was a snake charmer. He was playing the flute while a real king cobra was coming out of a wicker basket and dancing its head. It was like a movie depicted it, and the guy would sometimes even hold the snakes chin up with one of his fingers, it was crazy!!! We arrived at the Ashok Hotel, which is a huge hotel in the embassy district, so it was really nice because that is where all the ambassadors and foreign officials stay. We told a cab to take us to a market that the hotel told us was cool; instead the cab took us to a store that he was obviously one that has paid him to take tourists to. This is of course, is common, and after we went inside and saw that everything was too expensive, and that all of our SAS friends had been taken there by their cab drivers too we decided to head back. We got some dinner at the restaurant, and got dressed up to hit the club/bar at the hotel which is rated the best in all of Delhi.
The next morning was of course another early one, waking up at 4:30; we took a 2 hour train to the Agra, the site of the Taj Mahal. No one rode on the top of train, even though it is usually common for people in the north who don’t have tickets to do so. We arrived in Agra, and visited a deserted city where King Akbar the first Mughal Emperor of India had his capital. It was built in red sandstone and is well kept from 1000 or so B.C. After visiting that, we got some local lunch at a nearby restaurant. The funny thing is that when you order a soda or drink at the hotel, it isn’t included in our meal. The problem is that they usually charge an obscure amount, or a really high amount and don’t give you change. For example: I bought a Kingfisher beer, which on the back of it it states, that the maximum retail price of the beer is 65 rupees, but at the hotel it goes for 145 rupees, so I gave them 160 rupees. The guy takes it and says “No change, no problem” and walks away. I get his attention and I say my change please, and he acts like he doesn’t know what I am talking about, but after persistence he gives me a fed up look and goes to the cashier to give me 15 rupees back. Which although is about 30 cents U.S. it is still my change, and with 15 rupees I could barter for a trinket somewhere. Our friend Graham was scammed 3 times out of change, when his soda was 91 rupees they wouldn’t take 90 but when he gave them 100 they never gave him his change. He lost about 30 rupees in change over the trip haha. But anyway, after lunch we went to a shop that showed us a bunch of really expensive carpets, and marble, and silk. We proceeded to Agra Fort, which was really cool, because it has two layers of defense. A moat that used to have crocodiles, then a wall, then an open jungle area where they had wild tigers and elephants, then another wall before it was the fort: talk about security! This fort was cool and really fun, because Christina got stuck taking pictures with Indian women in their bright sarees, then the Indian men, for about 20 minutes or so.
After the fort, we drove over to the Taj Mahal, a monument of love that Christina will explain the story about. But the story of its building is also cool, because there were 7,000 men who tried out for their design. The King picked one, which is the design we now know with Indian marble which is more translucent and harder than Carrara Italian Marble (I’m partial to the Carrara but hey I’m bias for living there). There were 1,000 of builders who built the beautiful 3 dome structure of the Mausoleum, with one side being a practicing temple, the middle being the holding tomb of his wife, and the other side being a structure with no purpose but symmetry. The Taj Mahal is built on a floating platform of land, with a river behind it, this is why it will survive for a long time, because when earthquakes strike, the water underneath the Taj reverbates the shock but the building doesn’t absorb it and become demolished. After the Taj was finished, it is said that the King cut off the hands of all the thousands of workers, so that they could never build another structure so beautiful. And also, he was going to build an exact replica of the Taj across the river right on line with it, in complete Black Marble as his tomb. They started to build it, but his son took over power, and threw his father in prison and it was never completed. So the King was buried in a tomb in the white Taj, right to the left of his wife. Her tomb is on the center line, and his is to the left of hers, and is the only thing on the grounds of the Taj that is not symmetrical.
The Taj was miraculous, I know it sounds weird, but I never thought I would see the Taj and I always assumed it was over-hyped and would be dirty and a let-down. It superseded any expectations any of our group members could have. It is one of the most spectacular moments or sights any of us have ever seen. We took hundreds of pictures, trying to get Christina and I perfectly with it in the background and people yell at each other to get out of their pictures. Christina and Toree got a couple doing the ADPi diamond, and Jose and I did a jumping picture as well as a pic of us licking the Taj (we didn’t actually make contact). After about 2 hours of just being blown away from this wonder of the world, we had to sadly say goodbye. And reluctantly walking backwards we headed out of the Taj. We did some speed shopping outside while we were walking back to the buses, and Christina got some shoes and t-shirts. The sellers at the Taj were very aggressive and funny, about 10 members of our group, bought t-shirts from people outside of the Taj and when they took them out of the packaging they were way too small. They figured out, that a sticker saying medium or what size they had asked for had been stuck on top of the real tag saying youth small, they were all jipped. I don’t do as much shopping but I like to play around and yell “for free” to whatever their price, and I actually got a beaten down India flag for free, to add to my collection so that worked out. Also I figured out that Indian people always say Yes, even if they don’t know what you’re talking about, so we have a video of me going up to a guy selling marble coasters and when I asked him if they were “Straight out of the ghetto, from Compton?” he says “yes, yes!” excitedly and then continues to try to sell them to me. We came back to the train station and by then it was about 9 or so. That night, it got a little intense/sad because there are always a lot of beggars at the train station.
About poverty/beggars in India: It is a weird thing to witness the poverty and beggars in India. We saw many mothers with their babies, or young children holding babies making the same motion with their hand signaling food. It is very sad, but it is also pushed in your face, and it is a bunch of beggars organized by groups, and they use guilt on tourists to support the group or mafia as our tour guide described it. Many of the children are made by their parents to skip school, because if they go beg they may make a buck off someone feeling bad, maybe one person per hour and it just feeds into children skipping school to beg. There are also people that mutilate themselves to make more money, and there are some who were born like that and can’t get money any other way. So it is a confusing situation between half trying to ignore them all the time, or feeling really sad looking about them, that is very uncomfortable. One man we saw had elephantiasis in both of his feet, so they were swollen and huge and the fact that he wasn’t begging but was just sitting alone in the station, that was heart wrenching and brought some people to tears. There was also this guy with legs that were mutilated, stubbed and skinny and he would scoot along the ground asking for money. We tried ignoring him, but then he just stopped begging and he would grab Jose’s calves and started calling him Champion calves. He would chant champion, Champion! To José, and then he called Graham the villain, and me the sidekick. We started talking to him and joking around about who was champion, so it was less uncomfortable when you actually talk to the person in a non-guilty or begging situation. Again it is confusing, and even while talking with this guy, he is still on the ground with mutilated legs, and some of our friends would be half crying-half joking and talking to him. We were happy to get on the train finally, and take the two hour ride back to the hotel in Delhi, and got back at midnight, another really, really long day, but so full of enriching, incredible sights and experiences.
The Taj Mahal ala Christina Vidal
Waiting in the girls line of security for the Taj Mahal, I had few expectations of what I would see. I knew that it was an “architectural wonder” and I knew that the Indian transluscent marble used was apparently the prettiest and most pristine marble in the world. I knew that it was a grandiose structure of beauty, one of the seven wonders of the world, and a desired tourism spot for people all over the globe. But I had no idea just how amazing this experience would be.
We walked in the East Gate, went straight through a sort of giant courtyard, still unable to see the Taj, and still wondering if it really was all it is cracked up to be.
And then we saw it.
Turning right from the middle of the courtyard we acquired one of the most beautiful views I had ever seen in my life, the beautiful grand entrance building in this courtyard (which was gorgeous on its own by the way) held what was almost like a window into the spectacular Taj Mahal, which laid straight on about 250 yards ahead, its beautiful reflecting pool in front of it, and crowds of people lined up in all directions just to look at it, and just to get “that picture” that every single person dreams of having in front of the Taj Mahal.
It was absolutely, undeniably breathtaking.
Before I go on, I’d love to tell everyone the romantic history of the Taj … In 1631, the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan’s wife, Mumtaz Mahal, was lying on her deathbed when he promised her that he would build her the most beautiful structure that the world has ever seen or will ever see, he vowed to her that he would build an unparalleled structure in her memory, to represent her unmatched beauty and their unparalleled love. It took him 22 years to construct. The layout is gorgeous; symmetrical, with four canals of water leading into the central structure and with ornate gardens in between the canals. The layout clearly symbolizes the Islamic symbol of Paradise, giving his betrothed the center of paradise, with fruitful garden surroundings and continuous water flow, forever. He gave the masterpiece the name Taj Mahal- meaning Crown Palace. The Taj is a monument of love, and a beautiful, romantic vision and memory of Shah Jahan’s beloved wife. It is made completely of beautiful, pristine, white marble which is The building is her tomb, where she is placed in the central dome, in perfect symmetry along with the rest of the perfectly symmetrical structure. The only funny thing is that the emperor was supposed to build an identical completely black structure across from the Taj Mahal, but never got around to it and died before he could finish his plans, so he is buried next to her in the Taj Mahal mausoleum—however, this is the only part of the Taj that is not symmetrical, as she is perfectly centered and he is on her right side. This is the irony, that the man who built the magnificent structure himself is responsible for the asymmetry.
Anways, so that is the romantic story and the reasoning behind why this beautiful structure is nicknamed the Monument of Love.
Walking out of the grand entrance and through to the most perfect, most straight on view of this masterpiece was a little like walking on a cloud. It was unreal. Even from this far away, you just got this feeling like you could sit there staring at the spectacular sight for days and days. We took as many pictures as we possibly could, trying to get some without the mass amounts of people crowding in on them (everybody wants to capture the beauty in a photo- but it truly cannot be done, it is so much more incredible than anything I could have possibly imagined). I took a ADPi diamond picture with Toree and lots with trev, we took some group photos with friends and many Indian men, while Trevor and I were taking a picture, would snap their cell phones pointing only on me… hmmm. It is so funny how they get so excited about Americans, but hey we get excited to take pictures of all the women in their sarees and the men in their Gandhi skirts as well! After our photoshoot, we headed down the side of the reflecting pools and took in the beautiful sight from all angles. Up close, it was even more astonishingly gorgeous. Every piece of marble was so white, with the sun reflecting the brightness of the beautiful building. Every single detailing was spectacular, every piece of the detailed floor a gorgeously cut square of marble, every inch of the 55 meter high dome, as well as the surrounding arched balconies on both sides were immaculate. The inside was just as gorgeous, holding the tombs of both Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal, lying side by side surrounded by immaculate marble detailing creating an interior more beautiful than the ceiling of the Vatican. They are truly buried in the middle of paradise, as the Islamic architect structured it to be. And it is such a sight to see. The type of marble is bright white when the sun is at its strongest on it, however, depending on the sunlight the marble will absorb different hues and take on beautiful shades throughout the day. We saw it at bright white sunlight, and I would love to go back to see it in the moonlight, as I hear it just shines beautifully with the moon.
The whole thing was just indescribably beautiful. It is truly something you just have to see to understand the ‘big deal’ surrounding the gorgeous mausoleum because it is architecturally, historically, romantically, and aesthetically a wonder of the world.
Anyways, after arriving exhaustingly late back to our gorgeous Delhi hotel, we went to sleep, only to wake up five hours later for our flight to Cochin. We slept on the plane and Christina wrote postcards and journaled about India. We got back to the ship in Cochin around 4:00pm, just in time to shower, get ready, grab some dinner on the ship and head out. It was a girl on the ship’s birthday and she rented out a “five star” (not really more like the only hotel in Cochin) hotel in Cochin to celebrate. We had a small convention room which ended up getting filled with Semester at Seaers dancing the night away with their crazy techno lights and music. Before people started to show up we went to the hotel bar where we drank the beer kingfisher and watched cricket with the locals. It was really fun and it was Christina, me, our friend Eric from NY, Jose from la jolla and Melinda from san diego. From there we headed up to the party and it was really fun and a perfect last night in Cochin!
Day 6: Cochin, India
Our last day in India there was one thing on my mind that I needed to do before we left: Ride an Elephant. We had enviously heard of so many people doing it and I knew I needed to! So we hired a rickshaw driver to take us an hour and a half outside of Cochin to the “Elephant College” where they have a bunch of elephants which are basically being trained to be around people. It was a beautiful open-air drive there (an hour and a half on a rickety rickshaw was bumpy but fun) and the sights of southern india were beautiful. The state of Karula, which is the state that Cochin is in in the Southwest of India, is one of India’s richest states and is the home to a lot of wealthy businessmen who work in Saudi Arabia and Dubai and other places in the middle east and have their families live in Karula. So therefore, although it was not very developed by any US means that we would consider it, we did see a lot of actual houses- which we hadn’t seen, which were placed beautifully among all the lush jungle that Karula is. We drove side streets and through towns, where, like always at any time of the day, any day of the week, the streets were crowded and bustling with people socializing. Once we arrived at the Elephant College we were so excited as we saw Sameka, a gorgeous and HUGE elephant walk our way. We had to climb a special ladder elephant-launch thingy in order to get onto her, she was at least a story tall. She was HUGE way bigger than I expected… Oh by the way, the back of an elephants ear is soooooo soft! Sameka is a mother to a baby elephant and she does walks for two hours each day before she gets to play in the water (giving herself elephant trunk showers) with her baby! It was so nice riding the elephant, swaying with her big slow swiftness and just enjoying the amazing moment we were in in India. It was straight out of a scene from Jungle Book. (no literally, that is what southern india feels like—Trevor and I went back that night and watched Jungle Book—one of the 140 disney dvds from the Disney set we bought in Vietnam for $40)
Anyways, after we finished riding and looking at all the cute young elephants that were playing in the dirt (they would pick up the dirt with their trunks and then spray it all over themselves—so cute!) we knew we had to head back—we were cutting it close because we had a trip to the SOS Children’s Village leaving the pier at exactly 1:00 and it was about 11:15. On the long ride back I fell asleep on trevors shoulder and the rickshaw driver actually turned around and asked Trevor “is she sleep?!” because he couldn’t understand how I could fall asleep on the bumpy, loud, bustling streets of india while in a auto rickshaw! But I caught some zz’s and woke up about an hour later.. by this time it was about 12:45 and we were a little nervous. the trip would leave at 1:00 with or without us and I had nooo idea where the heck in india we were. But it didn’t feel close to the ship- at all. Since it was getting too close for comfort, I told the driver we had to be there at 1, which he seemed to understand as he started driving like a MANIAC weaving and rushing and almost killing about 10 people- including us. But after what felt like a autorickshaw chase scene not unlike the mini cooper chase scenes in the Italian Job, we actually made it back at 1:00 on the dot. We ran through customs and gave the bus leader our tickets, to which we got a “wow, we were just about to leave” but the important thing is we made it!
Our bus was headed to the SOS Children’s Village, which is essentially an orphanage but so much more than that. The SOS Childrens Villages were started a long time ago and there are many throughout the world. Basically it’s a village where children live (about 10 children per home) with a mother and a bunch of brothers and sisters. There is a school, a playground, and the village is actually surprisingly very nice. It was a great event as we got a little show from a bunch of the kids (there are 200 in the whole village of all ages!) and they did dance routines which were so cool, then we got welcomed into many homes and got to see where all these children live,meeting their “mother”, their siblings, and getting to see their bedrooms, family rooms and prayer rooms. Every house had a name, and they each shared a distinct religion.. for the Christian homes that we went through their names were Grace, Gift, and some other English word and there were shrines to Jesus in the prayer room, along with a lot of crosses and Christian symbols everywhere. The coolest house we went through was the hindu home as they had huge decorations and shrines everywhere. IT was very interesting to see the different houses but the best part was meeting and talking with all the different families. We got to fish through a wedding album of one sister, who was married just this January and her mother, and all of her brothers and sisters from the village were a part of the ceremony (which actually took place in the village even though they do not live there anymore). Lots of successful people in india have stemmed from growing up in SOS Childrens’ Villages and it is truly a great organization. These kids aren’t sad and they don’t feel like orphans.. they have a loving mother, a family, brothers and sisters who love them, and a house that they can call home. One of the sweetest things we saw was a 30 year old man who showed us around, who was clearly such a huge part of his family still, looking after all of his siblings (the family grows all the time!) even though he is married and has his own toddler now and lives in the city, he was still back, saying hi to his mother and siblings and showing us around.. it was touching. After touring the village, we made our way back down to their play field where a huge game of soccer was being played. One Indian kid was very into it and kept screaming “INDIA 6 AMERICA 3!!!!!” with a fist pump and an excited grin because the Indian children were creaming the Americans. We took a group photo, said our goodbyes and headed back to the ship, exhausted after our long and busy time in india, but with lots of amazing things to reflect on.
I could have spent another month in India. We saw so much, but hearing everyones stories everyone saw different things and you just felt like Oh I wish I could have gone there TOO! But its such a huge country, its almost like we went to visit the United States and only saw a couple places, but with the diversity that exists in huge countries like india or the US that’s never enough. I hope to go back someday and see everything!
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You've done it again. Seen and done more than most of us think is possible in the time frame. Your descriptions of the sights and sounds and smells of India brings it alive and I'm so glad the Taj was so thrilling for you both. Next time by moonlight! Thanks for renewing my India memories so beautifully. Love, Nana
Echoing your Nana's comments thank you for bringing us along on your visit to India (and other places as well) - loved the elephant ride but was anxious reading would you make it back in time :)
Love Grandma
You are both making Jules Verne very proud. The colors, the history, the peoples, their lives, their beliefs. Many thanks for bringing all of it to life for us to read and experience. India seems to be quite the vibrant and lively world and your travels there seem like you have gone right inside it, not just from the outside as a typical tourist. Love the pictures with the locals everywhere you go - they seem like lost family.
Continued amazing travels and thanks for letting us share it with you
Craig