Curry. Cows. Caj Majal.

Back on the boat for our ONE DAY between India and Myanmar. These two weeks are pretty nuts, but I am loving it. Not having class is amazing; I wish we could go at this pace the entire time.

Anyway, INDIA. Oh man. More than any other blog entry, I feel that I just will not be able to convey what I just experience. For the first time on the trip, I really experienced culture shock. Let me first tell you what I did during my 5 days there, and then talk about my thoughts.

The first day in port was kind of a bummer, mainly because we were not allowed off of the boat until noon. I had woken up early and was all pumped to see Chennai before I went off on my SAS trip. The port we were in was heavily industrial; the dock was essentially just a big concrete slab surrounded by tankers and cranes and shipping containers. I was really eager to get off the ship and explore the city, but immigration took forever and I ended up just having 2 hours before I had to meet for my trip. Once I finally did get off the ship, I took a motor rickshaw into town with my friend Mimi to at least have some real Indian food for lunch. The rickshaw ride was an experience in itself; we sat on a small bench that was attached to a motor and a bicycle. The drivers were incredibly aggressive in trying to get you to ride with them, but we eventually fight through the masses and headed off into the city. Driving in India is fucking nuts! Cars, bikes, rickshaws, buses are all just weaving in and out of each other, honking ALL of the time. There were really no discernable rules of the road; on at least one instance, we were definitely going directly AGAINST the flow of traffic on a major road. On the way to lunch, the regulator cap popped off our motor. Our driver pulled over, got off the bike, and ran into the middle of oncoming traffic to retrieve the cap. Mimi and I just watched, flabbergasted. We had lunch at the Indian equivalent of a diner, and it was everything I had hoped for. I ordered one of the few things on the menu I recognized, Aloo Gobi Masala with Nan, and it was sooo good. And the whole meal cost two dollars.
After lunch we got back on our rickshaw to head back to the ship, but our driver kept insisting that we go to his shop first. We were like “NO. JUST TAKE US TO THE SHIP,” and were literally screaming at the driver before he reluctantly agreed. We lost the regulator cap again on the way back, and at that point I thought “we picked the wrong rickshaw.” Finally, just to top it off, the driver shafted us at the end of the trip. We had agreed that we would each pay one dollar for the round trip, and the driver tried to charge us double that. When we initially refused, he then refused to take any of our money. Feeling bad, I shelled out the extra two dollars, because I felt bad and it was only two dollars, but I felt shitty that we had just been jerked around like that.
Anyway, we got back on the ship, met up with our trip, and took a bus to the airport for our flight to Delhi. Nothing too unusual here, except the security was really tight; I had my bag checked and was wanded three separate times, which I guess is a good thing. The plane was a pretty standard 737, which was nice to see. After a few hours, we landed in Delhi and drove to the Ashok Hotel where we were staying. We got a cool welcome from the hotel staff; we were dotted with red paint, leid, and given some welcome drinks. After dropping off my bags in the room and exploring the hotel a bit, I went with a few friends to a Lebanese restaurant to chill out and smoke some hookah before bed. This was really fun, just sitting around for a couple hours, talking, smoking hookah, having my first taste of Indian beer, eating some tasty pita and hummus, and watching some pretty hilarious Indian music videos that they had up on a screen. I went to bed around 11 because we had a crazy next day.

The wake up call for Day 2 came at Oh-fuck-hundred, also known as 4 AM. After going through the motions of showering and getting dressed, I headed down to the bus for our short ride to the Delhi train station. From there, we took a two hour train to Agra for the day. The train was, um, no Amtrak. We did have individual seats, but it was pretty nasty dirty. The toilet was a hole in the bottom of the train car that opened up onto the tracks. Delicious. Whatever, it was a well-needed two hour nap. Walking from the train to the bus to take us around Agra for the day, I saw the first of many cows, just sitting in the parking lot, hanging out. I thought to myself, “Yup, we’re definitely in India.”
After an hour bus ride and an hour nap, we arrived at Fatepuhr Sihkri, a city built in the 15th or 16th century. It was very cool, all the buildings were made entirely out of red sandstone; I felt like I was in an Indiana Jones movie and all of a sudden I would lean on a rock and a tunnel would open to a bunch of guys ripping out hearts and chanting “Madaram Sidaram.” Didn’t quite happen, but it was cool nonetheless; pictures are definitely better than words here, I’ll show you guys when I get back. After checkout out the Sihkri, I walked over to a nearby enormous mosque built in the same red sandstone style. As I was walking over, I was approached by a 16 year old Indian boy, who introduced himself (can’t remember the name) and said that he was a student and wanted to practice English with me and would show me around the mosque. At this point in the trip, I am naïve and stupid and friendly and think “Ah, cool! Sure I’ll talk English with someone, make friends, try to show him not all Americans suck.” Oh, Evan, Evan, you moron. Anyway, we head into the mosque which was really impressive; the gates to the entrance were easily 200 feet tall with incredible carvings and architecture. Inside the large main courtyard was a small white building made of white marble; this was erected to the memory of a wise man who once preached there. As I am walking around with my new friend, initially I am quite pleased; he speaks decent English, seems to know a fair bit about the history of the mosque, and is very friendly. I buy a piece of cloth and some flower petals to make an offering in the white building, and tie a thread of cloth around one of the window carvings in the temple for good luck. As we continue along, I find myself being kind of rushed by my new friend; I am just kind of standing around talking pictures and observing, but the kid keeps pulling me along, anxious to get to the next building. I don’t really see the need for the rush, UNTIL we get to some peddlers in one of the corners of the mosque courtyard my friend is like “This is my family’s shop.” AH HA. Practice English, MY ASS. It all comes clear. Whatever, I needed some Indian souvenirs anyway, so I buy two little stone carved elephants for probably 10 times what they are worth. I keep walking around with my “friend” who wants to “practice English,” and 20 minutes later, he obviously asks for a tip. Feeling bad, I tip him, but I make a mental note not to believe people who want to be your “friend” here. After the rickshaw driver and then this kid, I am wizening up a little.
We left the mosque and stopped at a factory outlet store before lunch. The stuff was really nice, and it was not the high pressure sales environment of the outdoor markets, but with a small marble box costing about 100 bucks, it was pretty ridiculous. Next stop was lunch at a hotel in Agra. I was kind of disappointed that the lunch wasn’t really traditional Indian food, but more of a European style buffet but whatever. One shop in the hotel had made t-shirts with the Taj Majal on the front and “Welcome Semester at Sea” on the back, and for 2 dollars, I had to get one. Next stop for the day was the Agra Fort. This was a pretty cool structure in itself, essentially a big castle. There was plenty to explore and take pictures of, but maybe the coolest thing about the fort was that it was really close to the Taj Majal and you could look out the ramparts of the fort and see the Taj really clearly. More cool pictures, and the realization that I was about to go and see the Taj Majal in person hit me here. I mean, you see pictures and you read about it, but the fact that I was IN India really hit me then. I was like “Damn. India. Too cool.”
Ok , so after maybe an hour of checking out Agra Fort, we finally headed to the Taj Majal. We walked through the main arch and saw the Taj Majal, and I was just like “Whoa. I am standing in front of the Taj Majal.” Seriously, books, pictures, movies, they just don’t really do this justice. It is huge and built entirely out of white marble and perfectly symmetrical. Sunset was an awesome time to see it too, because the white marble reflects the red light of the sunset and it is absolutely beautiful. I ended up getting jilted around here a bit too; an Indian guy started showing me cool places to take pictures and the next thing I know I was following him around taking pictures of the Taj from all of these angles and half way through I realize I am gonna have to pay the guy for this, crap. But to be honest, I was on such a high from being at the Taj Majal, I didn’t really care. After the photo session, I just walked around on the upper terrace of the Taj and drank it all in. Before you are allowed to walk on the marble of the Taj Majal, you have to either take your shoes off or wear blue paper booties they use in hospitals. I opted to take my shoes off, and when I came back, they were gone. Yes, someone stole my sneakers at the Taj Majal. I was so happy at the time I didn’t even care, but come on people, wtf. Fortunately, I had a pair of those little bootie things and my sandals were on the bus, so I was ok.
After the Taj, we stopped at a Pizza Hut for dinner. Yes, Pizza Hut. Not good, delicious, tasty Indian food with curry and nan and spiciness, Pizza Hut. Apparently, SAS had told the tour operators that a lot of kids didn’t like Indian food and they should try to find other options for us. Are you kidding me?! I mean, Pizza Hut is not BAD, but that was pretty ridiculous, in my opinion. We had a bit of time in Agra to do some shopping before we had to head back to the train station, and the sellers flocked to us like white on rice. Seriously, I was even sitting on the bus waiting to leave and the peddlers were banging on the windows trying to get me to buy shit. GAAAH! I had to close the blinds to finally get some peace. We went back to the train station, where I saw a man with the worst elephantitis I had ever seen—well, really, the only case of elephantitis I had ever seen. His feet were the size of ski boots, and the toes were still normal size, sticking out of the top at weird angles. Very sad, I don’t know what else to say. Passed out on the train back to Delhi, quick bus ride back to the hotel, shower, and bed.

Got up for Day 3 at 7:30, which was a nice change. Ate breakfast at the hotel, before getting on the bus to see a couple of temples before heading to Varanasi. First, we visited a traditional Hindu temple. Very cool, with tons of statues of gods and goddesses. I was a bit taken aback when I saw swastikas all over the temple, but our tour guide explained that this was an ancient Hindu symbol for power and peace, and that the Nazis had stolen the symbol and distorted it. After exploring this temple, we headed to a Sikh temple. Sihkism is an offshoot from Hinduism, but does not worship any idols. We had to put on bandanas to cover our heads before we could go into the temples; I have some hot pictures of me in a pink jeweled bandana. All Sikh followers wear orange robes or head coverings, which was pretty cool. The temple was much more austere than the Hindu one; basically, just a big room with a raised platform for the priest in the middle and people kneeling and praying on the periphery. There was also a big coy pond outside with people feeding the fish.
After the temples, we got back on the bus for our flight to Varanasi. Nothing unusual here, and we got into the city of Varanasi at about 3 in the afternoon. Our first stop was at Sarnath, where the Buddha gave his first sermon. This was really cool, to see the remnants of the ancient Buddhist temples that had been destroyed by the Islamic invaders. You could just picture Buddha and his followers walking around this large park contemplating the mysteries of the universe. There was also a deer park on the grounds, as Sarnath literally means “deer haven.” After Sarnath, we were supposed to just go back to the hotel and relax and have dinner, but we did something much cooler. We were already going to visit the Ganges River, the holiest place in the world for the Hindu religion the next morning, but our guide suggested we go that night at well so that we could witness the night worship ceremony and also the funeral pyres on which people were created so their ashes could be committed to the river. We got off the bus about a mile away from the river, and took rickshaws down to the river banks. This was our first real taste of Varanasi. Varanasi is unlike any city you have ever seen. It the exact antithesis of a modern city; the roads are all dirt and mud, small shops line both sides of the street, there are people absolutely everywhere, along with cows and goats and dogs and WHOA. Since it was night, there were really no tourists around, so we got a really authentic picture of the city. Simply amazing. And depressing too, the poverty here was some of the worst I have ever seen. Children and adults alike live on the sides of the streets, eking out a marginal existence. We arrived at the banks of the Ganges, where priests were performing the nighttime rituals and the prayers were being broadcast over a massive PA system. We had to fight our way through throngs of people, to finally get down to the paddle boats. Once we were out on the water, though, everything was very peaceful. I participated in an ancient Hindu ritual of lighting a small lamp and letting it float away on the river to remember my ancestors. Then, we paddled up the river a short ways to see the massive funeral pyres. We actually got very close to the temple where they were performing this ceremony and, surprisingly, there was no smell; our guide told us this was because the body was covered in sweet-smelling oil before it was burned and special wood was used for the fire. Very cool, to see such an important ceremony to the Hindu religion. We headed back to the river bank where we had gotten on the boat, took our rickshaws back to the bus, and then went to our hotel for dinner. Again, passed out early because we had to be up real early for our next trip to the Ganges.

Day 4 started at Oh-dark-thirty, or 4:30. This time, there wasn’t even the opportunity for a long nap on the train. We piled back onto the bus, and headed to Ganges for a second time. This time, we parked the bus closer to the dock, and just walked down to the boats. Even at 5 AM, the peddlers were out in force; by this point I was getting REALLY sick of people offering me cheap wooden chess sets. Another weird this was that guys would come up to you, offering to shake your hand. Being nice, I shook one person’s hand, and he proceeded to grab my hand and give me a hand massage. WTF. NO. Again, I thought this was really shitty, taking advantage of a friendly gesture by an unsuspecting tourist to try and make a buck. Whatever. Ganges. Yeah, it was absolutely nuts to see hundreds of people on the banks bathing in this holy river. The river was DISGUSTING. Trash, human waste, any kind of contamination you could think of, the Ganges had it. At one point I saw a half decomposed body floating on the side of the river, with a stray dog chewing on one of the exposed leg bones. And people were GARGLING with this water. The things people do in the name of religion. An interesting thing about the Ganges was that while one bank was heavily developed with temples and apartments, the other was completely barren, untouched beach. This is because worship had to be done in the direction of the sunrise; it would have been cool to see the sun rise on the Ganges, but unfortunately, it was a cloudy day. We paddled around on the river for about hour, just observing the rituals of the Hindu pilgrims and learning about the religion from our guide who was Hindu himself. Visiting the Ganges, like seeing the Taj Majal, is something that needs to be seen with one’s own eyes. I had seen it many times in videos before, but they just didn’t compare to the actual experience.
After our river tour, we got back on the bus and went back to the hotel. Lunch was good; had some goat and vegetable curry with nan and rice. To end the trip, we returned to Sarnath to visit and archeological museum with ancient remains of Hindu and Buddhist statues. Pretty cool, to see idols from as far back as 2200 years ago. Then, we headed to the airport to fly to Delhi, where we took another flight back to Chennai and finally a bus back to the ship. What a trip. At this point I was absolutely dead tired, showered, and passed the fuuuck out.

Compared to the rest of the trip, Day 5 was pretty boring. Just woke up, ate some breakfast, and took a rickshaw into downtown Chennai to do some souvenir shopping. We went to a mall because we thought we would be hassled less than in a street market, but we were wrong. I think I heard “My Friend! My Friend!” about 798,304 times. This was definitely not a mall in the American sense. It was essentially just a large collection of shops selling the same stuff as the street vendors, except inside a building with 4 stories. Bought some souveniers, including some Indian Bhangra CDs which are fricken sweet (Dahler Mendi is in there), and then had one final meal of Indian food before heading back to the ship. I had something called mysore masala dosa, and it was so good, but SO SPICY—I was definitely sweating hardcore by the end of the meal.

So yeah, that was India. This entry is a bit late—I just left Myanmar yesterday, but the one day between India and Myanmar was definitely not enough time to get everything down. India is a crazy place—somewhere I could never live, but was very glad I had visited. This was the first country where I really experienced my first Culture Shock—despite all you hear about India catching up to the West technologically and economically, it still has a long way to go. In the cities I visited, poverty is still a major problem; perhaps in tech cities like Bangalore, it is different, but I don’t know. Hinduism is a MAJOR part of everyday life—even in Delhi and downtown Chennai, you could see shrines to the different Hindu gods and goddesses and see priests and monks walking around in their robes. India is also a DIRTY place—the streets are dirty, the water is dirty, and people just don’t put as high of a value on personal hygiene as we have in the US. I know this is a cultural thing, but I just have to think that it must lead to the spread of many diseases, which can’t be a good thing. And finally, I think one word that describes the Indian people I interacted with is aggressive. The minute I stepped out of the gate from the boat, I began to be harassed, yelled at, groped, pulled, and otherwise annoyed by people trying to sell me something or give me a rickshaw ride or beg for money. The guilt that I felt the first couple of times I interacted with people eventually turned to annoyance, and I learned that you just had to ignore the hundreds of people that approached you every day. Callous, I know, but otherwise I would have been absolutely paralyzed and spent all my time looking at crap I didn’t want to buy as opposed to seeing the amazing sites I witnessed.

So, one day between India and Myanmar. Deeper into Asia we go…

Mauritius and some rambling commentary

Hey people. So, back on the boat from three days in Mauritius. That’s right, Mauritius. Right about now, you are saying to yourself “Where the fuck is Mauritius?!” I thought the same thing. As I think I wrote before, our trip to Kenya was cancelled because of too much terrorist activity in the country and the surrounding waters. So, while we were in South Africa, we got an announcement that we were going to Mauritius. It is a tiny island off of the east coast of Madagascar. It used to be a British colony, but now is best know as a beach island fueled by European tourism. First, let me tell you all what I did there, and then, because this was a short port stay, I want to make some general comments about the voyage thus far.

On the first day in Mauritius, I woke up at 7:30 to get some breakfast and observe the harbor before I went off on my SAS trip for the day. I was a bit surprised by the harbor; I had heard that Mauritius was a big tourist island with lots of beach resorts, but Port Louise was much more industrial than touristy. There were really no beaches in sight of the ship; I learned later that the resort areas were 15-30 minutes away by cab. Anyway, I got off the boat around 9 AM for a city orientation and a visit to the SOS Children’s Village, a village for orphaned and abandoned children.
The city orientation was pretty weak at best. The itinerary said that we would visit temples, churches, and mosques during our tour of the city; what it should have said was that we would drive past temples, churches, and mosques as we did relatively little in the city. We stopped at the site of an old citadel used during the time of British colonialism; that did give us a pretty cool view of Port Louis and the mountains in the background. After that, we stopped in the middle of the city for about 15 minutes. There was not a ton to do there, we just hung out in a park and visited a small local market. Then we drove back to the mall area near the ship, where we were given an hour of shopping time before lunch. What a waste; this mall was literally right next to the ship and we could have easily gotten there on our own. Lunch was at an American style steakhouse, where we were all given some chicken that was very dry and tasted strangely like fish. The “city orientation” was pretty disappointing overall; aside from the drive up to the citadel, there was nothing that we couldn’t have done ourselves by simply walking off of the ship.
The afternoon at the children’s village was a bit better. It was kind of hard to communicate with the children, as they spoke Creole, the native language that is a lot like French. I don’t speak a word of French, let alone Creole, so I smiled a lot, used hand gestures, and tried to do other stuff rather than just talking to the kids. SAS had provided paper and pens and crayons, so that was fun for a while. Then we played some soccer and I let them play with my digital camera, which they all loved. Everyone wanted to take pictures and have their picture taken and see themselves on the little screen. After about 2 hours there, we headed back to the ship. A quick shower, and I headed out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant with some of the people I met on this trip. The food was really good, and we just spent the night hanging out at a few different bars right at the waterfront area.

I didn’t really have any concrete plans for the second day in Mauritius; I had wanted to set up scuba diving, but couldn’t since everything was closed on Sunday, and this was Monday. Friends of mine had tried to call a bunch of dive shops the day prior, but had no luck. So whatever, I planned just to go chill on a beach and relax. That morning, I met up with a friend of mine, Lizzie, and we just decided to get a recommendation for a beach from the travel agent on the boat and go. We ended up at a beach called Trou aux Biches, and decided to go parasailing. SUCH a good call. I had never been parasailing before, and this boat said that they could send us up 150 meters. Lizzie and I did a tandem parasail, so we were in the air together. It was such a rush; I was vaguely reminded of skydiving. I was definitely pretty scared; looking down at the ocean, I realized it was a looooong way down, and we were only clipped in by two small carabineers. No locks, no safety clips, nothing. That definitely added to the adrenaline rush. The view was amazing; we could literally see from one end of the island to the other. After we came down, we were so pumped up, and the boat dropped us off at a nearby resort. We chilled out there, had a cocktail, and soaked up the beach, still on such a rush from the parasailing. This resort was absolutely amazing; I definitely want to go back one day and waterski and sail and lie on the beautiful one sand beaches.
After a bit, we took a cab up to the north of the island, to an area called Grand Bay. Grand Bay was a pretty big tourist area, so we did a little shopping before dinner. We ate dinner at this little local restaurant, and had a view of pretty much the most amazing sunset I have ever seen, the sun just sinking into the water and the silhouettes of sailboats and fishing boats slowly fading into shadow. ARG. I need to put up PICTURES; damn this slow internet! Anyway, after dinner we cabbed it back to the boat, changed, and visited some friends who were staying at a resort in a part of the island called Flic en Flac. This was also an amazing resort; it was modeled after a colonial-style sugar plantation. I knew I was going scuba diving the next day, so I made it a kind of early night, and headed back to the ship around 12:30.

The last day in Mauritius, I met up with a group of kids at 8 AM and we drove off to a dive shop for a morning of scuba diving. I was so excited; scuba was the one thing that I wanted to do more than anything else in Mauritius. I was not disappointed. We did two dives that morning. The first one was a wreck dive on a sunken Japanese trade ship called the Stella Maru. The ship itself was very cool; it was probably about 80 feet long and was slowly being taken over by coral and animal life. There were tons of cool fish and coralon and around the ship. Things that we saw that stand out in my mind were trumpet fish, a moray eel in its hole chomping away, another black and white spotted eel, big schools of zebra fish, lots of brilliantly colored little tropical fish, and all kinds of cool coral. It was also just so cool to be scuba diving again; I love the experience of being underwater and looking up at the surface and seeing the sun above through the waves and just thinking “I am underwater and I can breathe.” Too awesome. We went up, took a break, and did our second dive on a part of the reef called The Aquarium. There were even more fish here than the first time. The divemaster brought down some bread in a plastic bag, and he gave it to us, and all of a sudden we were absolutely surrounded by fish, who would come up to you and peck at your hand and eat the bread. I had an entire school of zebra fish swarming me and eating out of my hand; it was so cool! We saw lots more of the same fish as on the wreck, but this time we also saw a lionfish, and a really skinny fish I think was a needlefish, and also the tiniest moray eel you have ever seen poking out of the sand. Scuba diving in the Indian Ocean. Check.After the diving, we had lunch at a little Italian café nearby, killed some time on the beach, and headed back to the ship. I spent a few more hours wandering around the waterfront area, and then headed back to begin our sail to India. All in all, a great three days in paradise before our Asian leg of the journey begins.

Seeing as we are at about the halfway point of the trip, I think this is a good time to offer some reflections on the journey thus far. Life aboard the ship is definitely not perfect. As I mentioned in an earlier entry, I am sadly disappointed with the academic program. To put it bluntly, I think that some of my professors are worthless hacks, and consequently I put in little to no effort in their classes. I guess I just had pretty high expectations that I was going to actually learn something profound and interesting in these classes. With the exception of Global Studies (maybe), that is definitely not the case, and I have now made peace with that fact, so I pretty much tune out during class and really only go because they take attendance. Another sore point is the food; this food makes Stern Dining look like gourmet, if you can believe that. And my last complaint is that there is a certain group of people on the boat with a particular mindset that just really bugs me; someone accurately called it the “frat party at sea.” Instead of really taking advantage of this incredible sail around the world, these people get off the boat, and look for the nearest bar. Apparently, the more you drink, or the more you tell people about how wasted you were, the cooler you are. Don’t get me wrong, I like to party as much as the next college student, probably a bit more. But FUCK, being around certain SASers in port really makes me embarrassed to be an American. And some people have this superiority complex; they think they are somehow better or more important than the local people, and I have seen some behavior SO rude, it almost made me sick. These people should have stayed the fuck home.

Enough bitching. The three negative points I brought up are really only minor blemishes on an otherwise incredible experience. Every port I have been in has been awesome in its own unique way. The natural landscapes I have witnessed, the people I have met, the culture I have experienced have made this journey incredibly rich, colorful, and enlightening. I really believe that seeing all these different countries, even for just short periods of time, is teaching me more about our planet and humanity as a whole.

Lessons I have learned:

1. Talk to people. Cab drivers, bartenders, tour guides, dive instructors. Everyone has a story, and everyone wants to hear your story! Most people are friendly and interesting, and don’t want to rob you. Ask deeper questions; people don’t think you are rude if you are genuinely interested.

2. Eat weird food. It’s usually good, and how many people can say that they have eaten alligator kebabs or ostrich steak?

3. Poop.

4 Everyone, everything, everywhere is connected. I have read and learned about globalization before, but seriously, I am blown away by how small the world is getting. A simple internet café connections you to anyone, anywhere, anytime. There is KFC and McDonalds in MAURITIUS, a country I bet you didn’t even know existed before I told you about it. Cell phones are universal. In a township in South Africa, they were playing 50 Cent. The global village is not becoming a reality, is already IS reality.

5. Pictures are awesome. It really hurts me that I can’t upload pictures to this blog. I am gonna have to go through the thousands of pictures I have and make a Best Of slideshow. The digital camera is pretty much the best invention ever.

More to come later…

And, in terms of the shipboard community, there are a lot of people on the ship that are very cool and intelligent and with whom I can have great conversations. On the ship, I find myself out of my comfort zone a LOT. There are more hardcore religious people on the boat than I think I have ever seen in my whole life. Same with conservatives. And it is really good! I hear points of view and opinions that you would NEVER hear at Stanford, being argued clearly and consistently. There are a fair amount of liberals here too, but it never turns into a shouting match; people are open-minded and not judgmental. And all of this conversation happens on the backdrop of an incredibly complex global setting. Venezuela where some believe Hugo Chavez is a liberator and some think he is the next Fidel Castro, and where gas is 12 cents a gallon. South Africa where apartheid ended just ten years ago and AIDS is ravishing the continent. And I don’t even know about India and Myanmar and Vietnam yet. Most people are friendly and not cliquish; in each port, I have traveled around with a different group (or groups), and they have all been really cool.

Oh yeah, and being out on the ocean, hundreds of miles away from the nearest shoreline is fricken cool. I have seen more amazing sunsets out here than in my entire life. Nature wins.

So, India, Myanmar, Vietnam, China, Japan, here I come. I am SO excited for Asia, I think being in these countries is just going to blow my mind. It will be unlike anything I have experienced before, I am sure.

OK people, love and miss you all, hope you are rocking the senior (or junior) year, and I’ll see you soon.

I bless the rains down in AFRICA!

Wow. South Africa was definitely the best port so far. I had an absolute blast here. Let me go through what I did day by day so I don’t skip anything.

Day 1: Woke up early on Monday to see up come into port. The view of the sun coming up over Table Mountain was amazing; the top of the mountain looked very musterious, all shrouded in mist. We also saw a whale flopping around on the surface, which was very cool. After taking everything in (and getting lots of pictures), I went back to bed for a while. Got off the boat around noon and headed into downtown Cape Town. Cape Town is such a cool city. It reminds me of a mixture of Amsterdam and San Francisco. The Dutch influence is clearly evident—they even have street names like Buitengraght and Herengraght, which I recognized from Amsterdam. The main street in the city is Long Street, where I spent most of my time. Long Street has all of the shops, cafes, restaurants, clubs, bars, etc. It was also nice to finally be in a city where everyone spoke ENGLISH! It was such a relief to not have to use hand gestures to communicate.

After wandering around a little bit, I went to St. George’s Cathedral. This is a Protestant cathedral right in the center of Cape Town, and was Desmond Tutu’s home cathedral during his time as an archbishop. I’ll be honest, the main reason I first went here was for my Religious Traditions class, but I definitely enjoyed seeing the impressive architecture and stained glass inside. I participated in an afternoon mass, which I also had to do for class. Aside from me and one other girl from my class, there were only 3 other people there and the pastor. Quite awkward, to say the least. Pretty much, I tried not to make too much of an ass of myself, and I think I did at least OK. Afterward, I talked to the pastor for a bit, who was originally from San Francisco, and his son was looking at going to Stanford. Small world.

After the cathedral, stopped into a local dive bar called the Purple Monkey and had a few beers—you know, to clear the religious stuff out of my head. Ended up chilling with two girls from the boat who were absolutely destroyed and insisted that me and this other guy go with them to a piercing studio that was just above the bar. Got my scrotum pierced, that was interesting to say the least—KIDDING, just making sure you were still paying attention here. Anyway, went back down to the waterfront, where I ran into a group of friends who were signing up for a safari on Saturday, so I decided to do that with them. Ended the day with dinner at an African restaurant, where I had some great South African red wine and an ostrich steak. Quite interesting, tasted more like beef than like chicken, but was damn tasty. Afterward, this other group of kids who were at the bar in the same restaurant were like come over, we are learning this tribal African tradition. The bartender brought out this big jar of “Mcompote,” which is this traditional drink that tasted like sour milk, in my opinion. And it is pronounced with a click where the c is, but I don’t really know how to spell that. Anyway, we got in a circle and danced around this bowl of Mcompote and sang this song and when you wanted to, you broke from the circle and got on your knees and picked up this bowl and drank from it. I am not really doing it justice here, but it was fucking awesome to be dancing around with these Africans and drinking and yeah. We rocked out the song all the way back to the boat.

Day 2: Woke up at 10 AM for my overnight river rafting trip. Got on a bus and drove into the wine lands. On the way, we stopped twice; once just to take pictures up in the mountains, and once at this outdoor museum that showed traditional Afrikaner life. Not terribly exciting, but we saw some cool animals like turtles, pigs, roosters, and these crazy-ass ducks. Arrived at our river lodge in the afternoon, where we had some tea and paddled around a bit, just to see what these inflatable canoes were like. Then, we did this awesome wine tasting (or wine-chugging, call it what you will). These two representatives from a wine marketing company brought in bottles of wine from all 10 of the vineyards they represented. There was a TON of wine and it was a beautiful day and we were in the middle of fricken AFRICA and it was just a great time. Dinner was a traditional stew that was slow-cooked over our campfire and was soo good. After dinner, we just chilled around the campfire talking and listening to music.

Day 3: Got up at 7 AM to start our actual rafting trip. Our guides cooked this amazing breakfast of eggs and toast and bacon right over the campfire—I don’t know what it is about food cooked right over the fire like that, but seriously, this was one of the best breakfasts I have ever had.

At 9 AM, we drove up to our put-in point on the river, and began our trip down the Breede River. This was NOT whitewater rafting by any means. Like, if you weren’t paddling, you weren’t moving at all. I kinda wished it had been more extreme, but oh well, it was really nice just to be out on the water in the middle of this beautiful country. We stopped halfway down the river to get out on a sandbank and take pictures and have a snack, and then paddled back to our camp. Lunch, some more wine, and then we got back on our buses and headed back to the waterfront.

After a nap, went out with my roommate to Mitchell’s, a cool local bar. This was my kind of place; kind of small, more local people here than SAS kids, an upstairs where people were watching rugby and soccer. They also had their own beer called Milk and Honey which was fricken amazing; kind of like a hefeweizen, but a bit darker and sweeter. Had a couple of beers here, did some Car Bombs with girls from the boat, and then went to dinner at an Italian place in the mall. Not anything special, but still good. Went back to Mitchell’s, had a couple more beers, and then went to a bar on Long Street called Mama Afrika. This place was SWEET. That night, they had this local percussion group called Abakhaya playing, and they rocked the house down. 3 marimbas and 4 drummers and so much funkiness it was incredible. I bought their CD, I’ll play it for you all when I get back. Stayed till the bar closed, and then headed home to the ship.

Day 4: Up again early, this time for Habitat for Humanity. This was my first time doing Habitat, so I didn’t really know what to expect, but I was excited to help build this house and really hoped we could make an impact. This was the 4th day that Semester at Sea kids had been working on the same house, so I was maybe hoping that we would finish the house, but unfortunately that didn’t happen. The house we were working on was in the Khayelitsha township, about 30 minutes outside of Cape Town. Going into a township is an experience in itself. People live in tiny shacks made of wood or tin siding or whatever they can find. The unemployment rate in the township is about 50% and the average monthly salary is less than $80. Despite all of this, though, the people we talked to and met in the township all seemed quite happy with life in general and wouldn’t even consider moving out of the township.

We started work on the house, but it came clear to me pretty quickly that we weren’t going to be able to do as much as I had hoped. There was relatively little direction for us, so we ended up doing mostly menial tasks like fixing up cracks in the cement that had been set the day before or passing up bricks to where they were needed. Any substantial work, like laying the bricks and cement, or setting the trusses, was done by local township men. I did what I could, assembling trusses and handing them up to people on the roof. Ate a lunch of fried dough, and because they were not really using us so much in building the house, spent a lot of time playing with the throng of kids that had gathered near the house. These kids were so friendly, they all just wanted to hold your hand or jump on your back. They thought digital cameras were the coolest thing ever, and wanted to pose and take pictures of each other. Kind of felt like I was back being a camp counselor again. After playing with the kids for a while, I went back to helping with the cement work until it was time to go at about 4 PM.

After a much needed shower and short nap, headed out to dinner. We went to this place called the Cape Town Fish Market, which was soooo good. Food was also soooo cheap; I had an amazing surf and turf platter AND 2 rum and cokes AND shots after dinner all for like $25. Went back to Mitchell’s and continued the drinking, and I had planned to go out back to Long Street, but I was having such a good time, I ended up staying at Mitchell’s. They had a jukebox and we played awesome music all night long and danced and sang with a lot of local people that were getting off work. It was a blast, rocking out to Tubthumping and Call on Me and Sex Bomb (Matt, that one was for you).

And speaking of rocking out, I was rocking out the Toto the whole time I was here. Yes. I was in AFRICA. I didn’t see Kilimanjaro rise like Olympus about the Serengeti, but I should have. If you are reading this, put on Toto right down, and love it. Love the drums. Love the synth organ. Fuck yeah.

Day 5: After 4 pretty jampacked days, I decided I needed a day just to chill out, do things on my own time. Slept in, woke up around 11, went to the mall and got a magazine, and had a nice long lunch and coffee. Went out, ran into some other SASers, chilled down by the waterfront and had a pancake, and then went into downtown to do shopping. Bought tons of cool shit, including a Djembe drum, which I am so pumped about playing, and a painted ostrich egg, which I thought was awesome.

Went back to the ship, changed, and went to a Jewish Friday night service, again, mainly for class, but it was a good experience. It was in a orthodox synagogue, which was very different for me. The men and women were separated; women in the balcony, men on the floor. And EVERYTHING was in Hebrew—no page numbers, no responsive reading, nothing. The first English I heard was during the rabbi’s sermon. Anyway, yeah, did that, then met back up with the people I had done my Venezuela trip with at Mama Afrika for dinner. Food was sooo good, I had alligator kebabs for appetizer and a lamb curry for dinner. It was really good to hang out with this group again; I hadn’t seen a lot of them the whole time I had been in South Africa, and we had a great time. Made it an early night, because I had to be up ass early the next morning for a safari.

Day 6: Woke up at 5:30 AM and was on the bus to the Aquila Game Reserve by 6:30 AM for our safari. I bet the scenery on the way there was awesome, but you know what, so was my nap. Anyway, got to the lodge, which was gorgeous, and had a great buffet breakfast before going out on our morning game drive. The drive was so cool! We saw tons of animals—hippos, giraffes, springbok (small antelope), rhinos, zebra, blue and black wildebeests, and lions. I will definitely need to show pictures of this, but seriously, it was so awesome to be like 20 yards away from these three huge rhinos, and just watch them do their thing. The giraffes were also fricken sweet.

Went back to the lodge, had another amazing meal, and hung out for a while. Got to see some cool crocodiles they had near the lodge, and also two lion cubs that they were raising in a large pen. After that, we went back out onto the reserve for our afternoon ATV safari. Oh MAN, driving an ATV is sweet. It was my first time on one, and I was just having a blast. I felt so hardcore, crusin around the desert on my ATV, dust blowing in my face, bouncing off of rocks. Oh yeah, and we saw more animals. 6 buffalo walked right across the road at one point, the hippos came all the way out of the water, and there was one place where the giraffes, springbok, antelope, and zebra all had congregated—I couldn’t help but break into Circle of Life. I have GOT to go ATVing again—this was so fun.

Went back to the boat, showered up, and went out for our last night in Cape Town. Ate dinner at this really nice restaurant in the mall, and got things started with some more good wine. Had a really long dinner with the safari crew, and then we went back to Long Street. After a couple more beers and shots and cocktails at the Long Street Café, we went to this club called the Pulse. For a Saturday night, I was actually somewhat disappointed—at 2 AM, the place had pretty much cleared out. Oh well, the upside was that the DJ would play whatever we asked, so we rocked some 80’s and old school rap.

Day 7: For my last day in Cape Town, I was supposed to go shark diving and see great white sharks, but I talked to the company on Saturday and they told me that the trip was cancelled because of bad weather forecasts. Something to do when I come back, I guess. Anyway, this gave me an opportunity to see Table Mountain, which I was really happy about. We took the cable car up, because we felt lazy, and walked around up top for an hour, getting some great pictures of Cape Town and the surrounding areas. Had a cup of coffee at the café up top, then came back down to the waterfront, and chilled at a coffee shop for a bit. Did some last-minute shopping, and ended the trip with dinner at a sushi bar, which was sooooo good.

BLAAAAH. If you read all that, I think you care more about my life than I do. Cape Town was an amazing city, one that I will definitely have to return to. There is just so much to do and see here, and the people were all really friendly—I could definitely even consider moving here at some point in my life, we’ll see. Now we are back on the boat, heading to Mauritius, a small island off of the east coast of Madagascar. It is pretty much just a tourist beach island, which will be a nice break before we begin the Asia leg of our journey; I hear they have really good Scuba diving too.

Alright people, hope life is going well for everyone, and I’ll write again soon.