India was definitely my favorite country so far. The highlight was the Taj, but I still saw some pretty awesome places and got to interact with a bunch of people.
The first day in India was enlightening. As soon as "The Voice" came over the speaker and said that we docked, I already knew it. The odor of sulfur and eggs seemed to find its way through the ventilation system and into my cabin. Wasn’t exactly the first thing I expected from India. After waking up, I went up to the observation deck to get a better look. Once I walked outside, the smell was pretty strong. We were in an industrial port, the gate was about half a mile away, and we were not allowed to walk to it. Right off of the ship there was a dock filled with around 300 Ford cars, looking like they had just arrived, whether it was from a manufacturing plant in India or the US, I wasn’t sure. I decided to go back to sleep after passing face-to-face immigration.
At about 12, I went to the fifth deck to get food. They had closed off the sixth and seventh deck due to the potential problem with bugs and pollution. I also noticed that they covered the fifth deck floor with wrap and stairs with cardboard in order to prevent people from tracking in dirt. After I got food with Mike and Ashley, I had an FDP with my international business professor. Once we all got on the bus from the gangway, we had to go through the gate. Here, we had to stop the bus and an officer had to come on and check our passports. After that, we drove a little over an hour to a place outside of Chennai where we got to see a local village. We were taken inside the school, the place where they sewed clothes, and the medical clinic. Luckily, they were all the same building, each just separated by a wall.
We spent about twenty minutes interacting with the kids. Ashley was having a ball but Mike and I weren’t the biggest fans of small children. After going through that, we got see where the town had its dump and how they used their waste to fertilize plants. It was about dinner time when we left the village. We got back to the ship around 6. I ate with Mike, Kyle, and Jess and since they hadn’t booked anything for China, they were looking to find an internet café in order to make some plans together. So I decided to tag along with them just for something to do.
We got to ride in a rickshaw on the way to the internet café. Oh, I forgot to mention the lack of sanity that people have while behind the wheel. Street signs and traffic lights, yeah people ignore them flat out. If theres a possible way for someone to pass you, they will, not to mention the constant honking every three seconds, no exaggeration. I think people in India believe to signal that they're passing, they honk. But then again, I guess they need to since they ignore the marks on the road. The whole driving experience was maximized by driving in a small contraption with 3 wheels and absolutely no protection. It was a thrill, in the bad kind of way.
After getting back from the internet café, I debated until 1 in the morning whether I should sleep before my trip to Agra left at 4. I decided to take a nap and then sleep on the plane. Because airport security was very tight, we were not allowed to carry on liquids so for the 44 of us, there was a small bag that we had to squeeze all of our liquids into. Once they figured out that we couldn’t manage, we realized we needed to have second bag to check. I took a risk bringing on my camera battery, cell phone battery, and laptop battery. ISE suggested that all external batteries be checked, but I thought that was BS so I kept my stuff and I made through security fine.
We flew into New Delhi and once we got there, we hopped right on a tour bus to go and see where Gandhi was cremated. That was another thing I noticed. Gandhi seemed to be everywhere. He was on every form of paper currency and I must have seen four or five statues of him. The place where he was cremated was surrounded by gardens and there was a flame burning near what looked like a marble table. We had to take off our shoes in order to walk around the interior of the gardens. After seeing that, we got to eat lunch at a place that had the best vanilla ice cream I have ever had. Luckily, that’s where we were getting our boxed lunch for the train to Agra. After getting lunch we got to go site seeing around New Delhi.
There really wasn’t anything too interesting to see until two days later when we would get a whole tour of the city. At 5:00, we headed for the train station and once we got through security, we were notified that our train was delayed two and a half hours, so the guide decided that taking the bus on a 5 hour drive would be quicker, so that’s what we did. I slept for most of the ride but along the way there were multiple weddings. You could tell they were weddings because they were huge parties with what looked like Christmas lights, blasting music, and people dancing. Apparently March is a popular month for people to get married. Once we got to the hotel, I tried to get the internet working but it cost money. The hotel was five stars by Indian standards and pretty good by my standards. I ended up watching Robocop 3 until around two and fell asleep right after.
We got a 5:45 wakeup call in order to be at the Taj Mahal for sunrise. The hotel was luckily only about a mile away. We arrived at the east gate at around 6:15, just as the sun was coming up. Once I walked in, I was in awe. It looked exactly like every picture that I had seen of it, almost like I was standing in front a backdrop. Immediately people around me started taking pictures, as did I. I think I must have taken 100 pictures of the same thing. After we walked around and got plenty of pictures, we had to take off our shoes in order to go inside to see Sha Jahan and his wife’s tomb. The outside far surpassed the inside, but the inside was still pretty amazing.
We headed back to the hotel at around 8:30 and got breakfast which was surprisingly good. They had pancakes, eggs, bacon, french toast, and a chef that would make any omelet that you wanted. After breakfast, we got to go on the tour of the city. We got to see Agra Fort and a palace made of red sandstone. I had a kid about my age guide me around and tell me about everything. I was with him for about ten minutes and at the end, he asked me for a tip. I said I didn’t have anything, so he asked me for my watch, but I said no.
Everywhere I went, people seemed to think I was rich because I was white. We headed back to the Taj at about 5:00 in order to catch it at sunset. It was much more crowded then the morning. It was kind of depressing to leave one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, but then I remembered that I’d be seeing the Great Wall in a few weeks, so I felt better about that. After the Taj, we headed to the train station for our express train back to New Delhi. Once there, we checked into our hotel and I finally broke down and bought two hours of internet, which I spent skyping.
The next day, we got to wake up at 8:30 which was so much better than the morning before. Breakfast again was great. The hotel was very Americanized, just like the last. We got taken on a whole tour of the city. During the tour, we visited two temples. One of which, we had to cover our heads with a turban or scarf like cloth and take off our shoes and socks in order to enter. The shrine inside was gold and there were three men singing and playing drums while people were kneeling down and kissing the floor. It was pretty cool to see. the second shrine was very similar to the first, but this time, I got a lea of flowers and a red dot on my forehead between my eyes. I could break off a flower and lay it in front of the statue of the god that I wanted to make an offering to, so I did. I wasn’t sure which god meant what, but I didn’t have any flowers when we left the temple.
We then went to a bazaar in order to shop. We had two hours to buy things, but my friend Lee and I decided to go to a local bar to get some drinks and try to figure out the game of cricket. It was kind of strange because the sign said that we needed to be 25 to drink, but we weren’t carded or even looked at twice. In fact, the man who looked like a security guard sitting outside opened the door for us to let us in. Lee and I ended up splitting a pitcher of beer and my first ever pitcher of mojitos. We left for the airport at around 6 for our 9:15 flight. The New Delhi airport was very nice, and they had a Subway! I went straight for it and realized that there was a vegetarian line and a non vegetarian line, quite interesting. It was quite what I expected, but it was still nice to have something that reminded me of home. We ended up getting back to the ship at around 1:00 in the morning and I was so nice to finally see my bed.
The next day was kind of a relaxed day. I slept in until 11 and met up with Erica and Nate for lunch and we went to a hookah bar/ internet café. This was my first hookah bar I had ever been to. I wasn’t really a fan of it, but the wifi was free so I didn’t complain. We spent most of the afternoon there and I just took the rest of the night easy on the ship. On Friday, I met up with Erica, Jack and a few other people and we all went to the train station to catch a train to Mambalam, where we tried to spend some extra rupees. Erica was on my Agra trip and she kept making noise about getting a pair of Indian pants. She ended up getting four pairs for around twenty dollars American. There really wasn’t too much else that happened on Friday. Leaving India was kind of depressing though. Like I said, India is definitely my favorite country so far.
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