March 23, we pulled into Port Louis on the North West corner of the island Mauritius. When we pulled up, a soft rain was falling on the windows of the ship which was very disappointing. We could see the town of Port Louis, and behind it were beautiful steep volcanic mountains covered in jungle shooting straight up into the low lying clouds. Mauritius was once a French colony, so the two main languages are French and Creole. Even though English is the official language of the island, not many people speak it fluently. The people of Mauritius are mainly comprised of three races: Africans, Indians, and Europeans. The three races live there and intermingle very well. There is no hostility between religions and complete acceptance no matter where you are from. We ate breakfast, went through our diplomatic briefing, and prepared to go out. We only had one night on the island, so we had to make the most out of both days. The reason we only had one night, is because Mauritius does not like Semester at Sea very much. Over the past years, Semester at Sea students view this stop as their spring break, spending their whole time getting incredibly drunk and trashing the place. A lot of my friends were trying to book hotel rooms and small villas, but they couldn’t use their SAS e-mail account because people would flat out reject them. They had to use their old gmail accounts or AOL accounts to book rooms. When we were allowed off the ship, I met up with Carson, Sarah, Toland, Jill, and nine other kids from the ship. We had chartered a van to take us to the South East side of the island, to a city called Mahebourg. The drive took a little over an hour where we passed through sugar cane fields and small towns along the way. We pulled up to our hostel in Mahebourg called Le Bamboo, a small three story building owned by a local native woman and her husband. There were fifteen of us total, taking up all but two of the rooms in the house that had other people staying in them. There were five people in my room with one bunk bed. Once we settled in, put our stuff down, and changed into our swimsuit, we walked down to town and it was our plan to go to Blue Bay to go swimming. We split up into two groups, Carson, Sarah, Toland, Jill, and I, and then the other nine. My group walked down to the downtown area where we found an ATM and got some money. In Mauritius it is 30 Mauritian Rupees to the dollar. Once we had money, we went to get some lunch. We stopped at one restaurant, sat down, and looked at the menu. It all looked really good, but when we ordered, they were out of stock of almost all of the items on their menu. This demonstrates very well the attitude of Mauritius. They have the island attitude, where they get things done when they get them done. No deadlines. It’s actually quite nice; the people are relaxed and happy. We got up and left this restaurant, walked down the street another block or two, and then found another restaurant. I got fried noodles which were delicious, and while we were eating, there were a few downpours right outside the open air restaurant. When we finished, it had stopped raining, and we walked down a couple blocks to the bus station. We passed through a market on our way where they were selling a lot of fruits, spices, and fish. We hopped on an old rickety bus to Blue Bay, which is about fifteen minutes away by bus. We were about halfway when the bus started going very slow and making funny noises. Eventually our bus driver pulled over and made a few cell phone calls. They never said what was going on, but a few of the locals got up and started walking down the road. My group and I got up and walked to the front and asked what was going on. They said the bus had broken down, but another one was on its way. We decided to wait outside of the bus because we were on a beautiful ocean front road. We walked up and down the road, taking pictures while waiting for the bus. The new bus came in about fifteen minutes and we hopped on yet again and were on our way. It wasn’t more than another ten minutes until we got off at the Blue Bay bus stop and by this time the sky had cleared and it was nice and sunny. We saw the rest of our big group eating at a restaurant, so we went up to them to see what they were doing. They were just finishing up their lunch, and they were about to head down to the beach. We were walking over when a man came up to us and offered to take us out on his boat for a snorkeling trip. We agreed for 200 Rupees a person, he would take us out for 2 hours. That was only about six US Dollars! We went down to the dock and got on his boat, which was a lot nicer than expected. It was plenty big enough for all fifteen of us and it was also a glass bottom boat. He took us out to where all the best coral was, gave us all masks and fins, and told us to jump in. The water was very warm and crystal clear. Our boat driver also threw a few pieces of bread in the water to lure out all of the fish. There was a lot of Staghorn Coral and Rock Coral. We swam around this snorkel spot for a while before picking up anchor and heading to a different spot. The next stop we went to was on the edge of the reef, where a big sand bank met the coral. There was a small current here of about a knot, which made it a nice drift swim. There was a whole bunch of Plate Coral at this site and it was pretty amazing. I saw a couple of Trumpet fish along with other normal reef varieties. We swam here for quite a while before piling back onto the boat and heading back to shore. We got off the boat, took a big group picture, and then split up yet again as our group headed back and the big group stayed by the beach. We took the bus back to town where we meandered up and down the small streets. We stopped in a grocery store where we bought a few snacks. We then walked back to our hostel and took turns taking showers. The shower at the hostel was in a very nice spacious bathroom, but the shower itself was just a small hose protruding from the wall that spit out a minimal amount of water and had one temperature: cold. The cold water was nice though considering the air was very hot. We also met the other people who were staying at the hostel. There was one woman from Germany who was a teacher and was here on her Spring Break. She was travelling on her own and was planning on spending ten days in Mauritius. The other two people in the hostel were a young couple from Holland. The girl was a social organizer for a research vessel. She would plan parties and functions, got the caterers, and made sure everything went smoothly when the ship had a big event. I never heard what the man did. All three of them were very nice and they all spoke really good English. We hung around and talked with them for a bit until the other part of our big group came back. They all hopped in the shower and got ready to go out for the night. The lady who ran our hostel told us of a really good restaurant called the Grand Creole, which she heard everyone say was really good. She pointed us in the general direction and we headed out into the night. We were walking through the city, stopping to ask for directions every couple of blocks, until we got to a different restaurant. We asked where the Grand Creole was, and I think the same person who owned the Grand Creole owned this restaurant as well, because they said they would call a big van to take us there for free and have a fifteen person table ready by the time we got there. We arrived at this very nice restaurant, mostly outdoor seating with a pig tropical looking patio. It was on the edge of a small lagoon where they had their own private dock with a couple of kayaks and a sailboat. We sat down at a very long table and we ordered some drinks and our meals. The food was all very very good. It was a classy place. We ate our food, which came in huge portions, and then sat around the table and talked for a while. Soon, the three Europeans from the hostel showed up; we told them where we were going. The sat down and had a couple drinks with us. We decided we wanted to go somewhere else, so we all piled back into the van, a little cramped due to the extra three, and it dropped us back off in front of our hostel. Carson, Sarah, Toland, Jill, and I went into the hostel because we were going to bed because we were planning on leaving at six the next morning. Everyone else went back up on the town because they had no plans for the next day.
We woke up at 0545 and got ready. The woman who owned the hostel was going to be our private driver for the day and take us around the island. The five of us piled in her small car and headed west, along the southern coast. We drove out of the town and went through sugar cane fields and tea plantations. She pulled over so we could check out the tea plants and take pictures. We also drove by a big lake with a huge copper statue of Shiva. It was the main place for all of the Hindus on the island to go and pray. There are also big religious festivals held at the lake. Our first stop for the day was at a National Park where we were going to go on a hike to see some waterfalls. She dropped us off at a tourist information center where we bought a map and headed out on one of the trails. We walked for a while along an opening until we turned into a small path that went into the dense forest. Not too far in, the trail turned to pure mud, considering it was raining the day before. We decided to take off our shoes and power through it barefoot. We kept on walking and walking until it got too deep. We were sinking up to our ankles and hiking was tough. We decided to turn around and head back because at this rate we weren’t going to be able to see this waterfall and do all the other things we had planned on doing that day. We tromped back through the mud, put or shoes back on, and headed back to the entrance of the park. Our driver picked us up again, and drove us further west to Alexandria Falls. This was an awesome waterfall that fell into a valley that overlooked the ocean. We went out to the lookout point, but you couldn’t really see the waterfall. We hopped a railing and climbed out onto a tree branch that hung out over the valley. From there we had a magnificent view of the falls. We followed the river up a ways from the main falls and found a small cascade leading to about a 25 foot waterfall. We climbed around here and took pictures for a long time. It was soo nice. The water was clear and cool, and we took off our shoes and climbed up and down the cascades. We left this area and went slightly north but continued west, going deeper into the island. We pulled over at Black River Gorge, which is a huge valley carved out by the Black River. There was an amazing Panorama view from the top of the lookout. There were tree waterfalls scattered throughout the valley, and we could see for miles all the way out to the coast. We left this scenic lookout, and continued to head west. After a while we got to the largest waterfall on Mauritius, and it was amazing. It fell off a perfectly flat cliff down into a carved out pool below. There was a spectacular viewpoint from across the valley that we stood and watched the water crash into the rocks below. We then drove another 2 kilometers to the rainbow sands, which is a series of sand dunes that are colored by volcanic minerals. They ranged from burgundy to orange to red, and all those earthy colors. They looked like they were tie-dyed, almost like what oil looks like on water. We piled back into the car and headed to our last stop for the day: the beach! We arrived at a beautiful white sand beach on the west coast of the island at around 1300. We all got lunch at a little place near the water and once we were finished, ran down to the sand, threw our stuff down, and ran into the water. The water was a beautiful baby blue, and behind the beach there was a vertical volcanic butte that shot out from the ground. There was also a really strong current on this beach, about 2-3 knots that pulled us along downstream. We floated around and played in the water for over an hour before we had to start to go back to the ship. We took a walk along the beach as we dried off, wondering past the beach front resort and classic palm trees. Once we were dry and had purchased a couple more bottles of water for the road, we got back in the car and headed north for Port Louis. I was enjoying the scenery until I feel asleep, along with everyone else in the car. I woke again when we were stopped in traffic, not moving. We had been there for a while, and we had only move up about a car length. Our driver got out and asked what the big traffic jam was about. Someone told her that a big truck had tipped over and it was blocking the road. She decided to try another route, so she pulled out of traffic and wound her way through the side streets until she got to another main road. We went along that road for a good two hundred yards until we saw that it was closed and it diverted us back to the road we were on before. This time, it was much more crowded due to the accumulating mass of cars. We were starting get a little worried because it was 1530 and we had to be back on the ship by 1800, and we were still about 45 minutes away. We were sitting in traffic until about 1600, when we told her that we really needed to get back to the ship in any way possible. She was really nice and understood, so she got out and started asking everyone around us if there was any way. She eventually found a small delivery truck that had to make a delivery in Port Louis, so he too was also in a hurry. He said he knew some backstreets and told her to follow. She turned to us and said, “This man says he knows a way. I don’t know who he is or where he is going to take us. Should I follow him?” We all said why not, because at this rate we were not going to make it, so we would try anything. The truck pulled out of traffic in front of us and went down a small backstreet. The delivery driver drover very fast through these small backstreets and our driver had trouble keeping up. We started heading south, which worried me a little bit, until we turned around back north and started heading the right way. We wound through these streets for a long time until we finally could see the town of Port Louis. Unfortunately, there is only one bridge that goes across the river on the south side of Port Louis and that too was jammed with traffic, because it was now rush hour. It was 1445, and we had to rush back to the ship as fast as possible. We decided to ditch the car, because our driver told us it was about a 45 minute walk to the port. We thanked her a lot and headed out. When we were leaving, she told us not to ask directions from drug dealers. We laughed and promised that we wouldn’t and started power walking though the city. We got to the bridge and crossed it, and when we were on the other side, the traffic cleared up, not a lot, but it was still slightly faster than walking. We decided to hop in a cab and hope that it would be faster. We jumped in and told him to go to the port so he immediately turned down a small side street and accelerated. He knew our ship was leaving soon and understood we were in a hurry. He knew all the back streets of the city and he drove them ridiculously fast. We wound through the streets, dodging speed bumps and pedestrians until we all saw the ship and seriously relaxed. We hopped out of the cab, paid the man, and got in line to board the ship. We waited in the long line and finally boarded at 1730. Still 30 minutes to spare. I got back on, showered, and then headed to dinner, which that night, was breakfast for dinner. After dinner, I watched the ship depart Fort Louis and went to bed very early.
We are now going to arrive in South Africa in two days. The trip there has been fairly uneventful until yesterday when the sea started to get really rough again. The pool water was sloshing out of both sides and going over the side down to the outdoor dining area. It was really fun. Today I woke up and looked out the starboard side, to see a beautiful view of the African coast. We have been really close to land to avoid the worst of the seas. Three main currents merge at the southern point of Africa, making the seas really rough all the time. We are almost to Cape Town though, and I am so excited! I will write again after.

On March 11th, I woke up and excitedly looked out the window to see where we were. I saw open water, and presumed that I was just on the wrong side of the ship. I ran up to breakfast and looked out both sides, and yet saw more open water. We were hardly moving though and I was slightly confused. By the time I finished breakfast, I looked out the window again and I could make out large vague shapes out on the horizon. As we slowly moved forwards, I realized that these large shapes were the cranes on the ports, and we weren’t that far away, but the air visibility was so low that you couldn’t really see them unless you were within a couple miles. I went outside to the deck where I could get a better view of us pulling into port. The air was incredibly hot and humid, but this was expected after Vietnam. We were pulling into the Port of Chennai on the eastern coast of India. We pulled into the port and we couldn’t get off the ship until after our diplomatic briefing. We learned that we always have to discuss a price with the taxi drivers before going anywhere, we shouldn’t use our left hand for anything social because it is a sign of disrespect (the Indian people don’t have toilet paper in rural areas so they wipe with their left and eat with their right hence why using your left hand is a sign of disrespect), and that it is socially unacceptable to show your knees and shoulders. After the briefing, I met up with Mike, Corena, Erin, and Elena, and we decided to walk down to the downtown area of Chennai. We got off the ship into a very dirty and unimpressive port area where we were immediately swarmed by taxi and rickshaw drivers. We said we didn’t need a taxi or anything and that we were just going for a walk but they are some of the most persistent people I have ever met. They follow you for long distances trying to get you into their rickshaw. We made it through out to the main street and started walking down to the city. Rickshaw drivers would pull up to the side of the road and yell at us from their rickshaw trying to get us to hire him. They would creep along right next to you and the best tactic to get them to go away was to ignore them and wait until they get tired of following you. We were winding up and down the streets of Chennai, working our way to the city center and looking for ATMs. Mike had to turn back around this time because he had an FDP he had to go on and it was meeting at the ship. We had a pleasant walk to the city, even though it was exuberantly hot, it was my plan to walk around the city until 1400 where I was going to meet up with the Indian interport student named Vikram where he was going to give me  a private tour of the city in his car. We were walking around the town just fine and found an ATM, and out of nowhere, Elena just announced she was very sick and was exhausted. It turns out she hadn’t brought any water and didn’t ask us for any of ours, and she thought she was suffering from heat stroke. Personally, I think she was just tired and hot, not at the heat stroke level, and just wanted to go back to the ship already. We gave her a lot of our water and called a rickshaw to help Elena get back to the ship. I had enough time to drop her off, then catch another rickshaw back to where the meeting point was with my friend. We got into the rickshaw and it was about a ten minute ride back to the port. Rickshaws are fun. They wind around through traffic, drive on the wrong side of the street into oncoming traffic, brake at the last second, and swerve around other cars with inches to spare. It is like Mr. Toad’s wild ride at Disneyland. There are seven gates at the Port of Chennai, and we had to enter through gate seven, which is the closest gate to the city. The thing about rickshaw drivers is that you ask them if they know where something is and they always say yes, no matter if they know where it is or not. They just want your business. So the rickshaw driver went right past the gate we were supposed to enter and took us about halfway down the long port and dropped us off in front of gate five. We didn’t think it really mattered what gate we entered through, but the armed guards at gate five told us that we were only allowed to enter through gate seven, which was about three quarters of a mile away. I started power walking down to the gate through a market so that I could drop the girls off safely and head out to meet Vikram. Elena didn’t want to walk as fast as me, and kept telling me to slow down. Then she decided to stop and look in a little store and that’s when I decided that I was just going to let them do their shopping and I was going to go off by myself and meet Vikram. I had about twenty minutes to get to the statue of Gandhi on Marina Beach which was about ten minutes away. I hailed a rickshaw, agreed on a price of 50 Rupees for the ride, and told him where to go. By the way, while we were in India, it was about 46 Rupees to the dollar, things were pretty cheap. He brought me to the beach and dropped me off in front of a park with a few statues in it. I got out of the rickshaw and gave him a 100 Rupee bill and asked for change. He took it and put it in his pocket and said, “No, 100 Rupee.” I firmly replied with, “No, you told me 50 Rupee.” We argued for a while and I had to start yelling at him before he started giving me change. He first told me he didn’t have any change and I told him he was lying to me and that I needed my change. He said “fine,” and pulled out a wad of money from his pocket and gave me 10 back. I said, “No, 50 Rupee.” We argued and argued, him giving me my change in 10 Rupee increments, until I finally got him to give me the full amount. He left and I went into the area with the statues and looked around. None of them were Gandhi and it was already 1400. I asked some locals where the Gandhi Statue was and they told me it was all the way down on the other side of the beach. I started power walking/jogging down to the other side. It was incredibly hot, humid, and my backpack was very heavy. It took me thirty minutes to get to the other side of the beach and when I got there I was exhausted, covered in sweat, and very dehydrated. I walked around the vicinity of the statue looking for Vikram and he wasn’t there. I didn’t blame him because I was 35 minutes late. I went down to the sand, found a tree to sit under to get out of the sun and I contemplated my situation. While resting and wondering what I was going to do with myself for the rest of the day, an Indian man walked up to me and introduced himself as Anthony. We talked for a little while and I found out he was a student at the university in Chennai and the he was also (surprise) a rickshaw river. He asked me if I wanted a tour, and I declined at first, because I wanted to rest and just hang out on the beach for a bit. Then he told me that he would take me to temples and churches for just 20 Rupees. I confirmed with him that it was actually 20 Rupees and I said ok. We hopped in his rickshaw and started heading out, then he asked me if I wanted to drive for a bit. I said, “Of course!” and hopped in the front seat. He showed me how to do the gas, brake, and gears and then let me drive. He stayed in the front seat with me for safety, and I got to drive up and down the street by the beach. It was pretty cool driving it, and way different from anything I have ever driven before. After a bit of driving he took over again and took me down the street to St. Thomas Church. The church was built on the spot where the apostle St. Thomas died. He was killed in India after spreading the Christian influence. We walked around the outside of the intricate white church taking pictures, and I was looking through the windows at a service that was going on when a bus came up filled with kids on an SAS trip. They all headed in to watch the service and I was going to join them when Anthony came up to me and said, “It will be too crowded in there, I will take you in the back door.” We walked around to the back of the church and he took me in a door that was open. We came around a corner and I was surprised to see that I was on the altar. Anthony just walked out and waved at me to come join him. I went out in front of all the Indian people and the SAS kids that were surprised to see me up there. I waved to a few of my friends and Anthony told me to take pictures. We weren’t up there long and then he took me out, and into an adjacent building where we entered the tomb of St. Thomas. There were stairs that went underground and then a tunnel that went back under the church to the tomb. There was a class case/coffin around a model of St. Thomas lying on his back. Underneath the model, there was a small glass panel where you could see into the dirt where the real St. Thomas was buried. There was also a skylight above the burial site where you could see up into the church. We left the tomb and went back up to the rickshaw and left. We were driving around and Anthony starts talking to me about how if he brings me to certain stores and I go in, he will get a kickback, whether I buy anything or not. I agree to go into a few, because he was only charging me 20 Rupees. It turns out he brought me to six, which is A LOT of stores for me. All of these stores had the same products and were terribly terribly overpriced. After spending like an hour and a half being dragged in between stores (I didn’t mind too much because I thought it was a good way to see the city) he took me to the Temple of Shiva, which is one of the Hindu gods. The temple was beautiful and comprised of an Inner Sanctum, one huge entrance tower, and lots of smaller shrines surrounding the Inner Sanctum. The buildings were all covered in extremely beautiful sculptures of gods, animals, and other deities. Only real Hindus are allowed in the Inner Sanctum, so I could not go in, but I walked around the perimeter and took pictures there. In the back there was a huge artificial lake with two small temples in the center. I walked around the whole temple, going in a clockwise direction, which is the way you are supposed to walk in Hindu temples. There were a lot of people there praying and I ran into another SAS trip there and talked with them for a while. I left the temple, fought my way through the mob of people trying to sell me things, and got back into my rickshaw. I told Anthony it was time for me to go back to the ship because I was really tired and needed to take a break. He took my back to the ship and I washed my face and cleaned up from being out all day. After that, I met up with Carson and we went out to the local market that was right outside of the port. We were slightly disappointed to find that it was a market filled with mostly electronics. We found a few stands with movies and sunglasses, but there wasn’t anything really cultural at this market. We walked around for a while, bought a few movies, watched the local people shop, and then went back to the ship for the night.
The next morning I woke up, ate breakfast, and disembarked the ship at around 0930 with my friend Simone. We hopped in a taxi cab and asked to go to an internet café so Simone could upload some pictures. We agreed on a price and headed out through the port. Right as we got to the main street, the taxi driver pulled over, got out, popped the hood, and told us that his car was broken. He then ushered us into the nearest rickshaw and told the driver where we were going and we left. Personally, I don’t think that the car broke, I think it was a scam because we agreed to pay a certain price for the taxi, which was a legitimate car with air conditioning, and got shoved into a rickshaw for the same price. I think that the taxi had a few rickshaw driver friends waiting outside and he was just bringing kids back and forth between the ship and the main rickshaw area pricing them for cabs, then sending them out in rickshaws. We got to the internet café where Simone spent some time uploading pictures and I looked up good things to do in Chennai. Chennai was mostly a port city, and most of the stuff to do was an hour or more outside the city, so we decided to head to a really good market called Spencer’s Market that we had heard about from kids who went there yesterday. We got back into the same rickshaw and told him to go to Spencer’s Market. He told us that it was closed and that it wasn’t going to open for another hour, so we told him that was fine and to take us there anyway and we would just walk around. He told us that he would take us to a different store, but I said no because I knew it was going to be a kickback shop. He told us again that Spencer’s Market was closed, and I told him that I understood that, but I wanted to go there anyway. We argued in the rickshaw for about ten minutes before he finally said that he would take us to Spencer’s Market. We pulled up in front of one of the kickback stores about ten minutes later, and I told him that it was not Spencer’s Market. He said yet again that Spencer’s Market was closed and that we should go in this shop, but I told him to just take us to Spencer’s Market. He kept insisting that we go into this shop, and I finally just asked him where Spencer’s Market was, and he told us it was about a block away down a certain street. Simone and I just got out of the rickshaw and gave him money. He asked where we were going and we told him we were just going to walk there. Then he started yelling at us because we didn’t give him enough money for the ride. We gave him what we agreed on, but since we weren’t going to the store he wanted more. We told him no, but he kept yelling, and what happens in India, is that if there is an argument on the street, a mob will form due to the high population density. We had already overpaid him for the ride to the internet café, we gave him more than enough to get to where we were, and he didn’t even bring us to the spot we asked to go, but he kept yelling at us for more money. Soon people started to gather around us, all of them angry looking Indian people, so we just decided to give him the money out of fear for our safety. Another thing is that due to the Public Nuisance Clause of Indian Law, police in India can arrest you for pretty much anything. A couple weeks before we got there, there was a British couple where the man kissed the woman on the cheek and they both got thrown in jail. They just declare you as a public nuisance and they have the right to take you in. I didn’t want to be declared a public nuisance. We left that area and headed towards Spencer’s Market. Once we were standing outside we were deciding which way to go. Another rickshaw driver came up to us and asked us where we going, and we told him we were going to walk around and find an outdoor market. He told us that he knew one that was nearby and he would only take us there for 20 Rupees. We agreed and hopped in. He drove us a couple of blocks away and stopped in front of another kickback store. We told him no and that we wanted a real market. He said ok, drove around for a bit, and brought us to yet another kickback store. These stores are all over by the way. They all have the exact same trinkets and whatnot, and you can buy the same items on the street for about 10% of the price. We told him to take us to the Shiva temple because we had seen an outdoor market near there, and we weren’t making any progress with any of the rickshaw drivers, so we decided to try and walk from there. He took us to the Shiva temple, I got out, and tried to give him 20 Rupees. He said that it wasn’t 20 Rupees and that it was 20 Dollars. I laughed at him and told him flat out no. He told me then that it was 600 Rupees, and I told him that was ridiculous. We argued for a long time again and then another mob started to form so we just paid him the ridiculously high amount of money and got out of there. We walked down a block to the market which turned out to be mostly a vegetable market. We bought some slices of fresh watermelon which was delicious. We walked around for a while checking out the market. There were a few clothes stands, some art stands, and some trinket stands, but mostly fruit. There were a whole bunch of different fruits that I had never seen before. We walked around this area for quite a while. We went by a school when it got out and all the kids waved and some came up and shook my hand. After we were thoroughly exhausted, we went back to the ship via rickshaw. This driver dropped us off in the wrong spot, not too far away from the ship, but he didn’t charge us a ridiculous amount of money, which was very nice. We got back on the ship, and relaxed for a bit. We were going to head out again but decided we were really tired, didn’t want to deal with the rickshaw drivers anymore, had seen most of the stuff there is to see in Chennai, and there wasn’t a whole lot of time left before we had to be back on the ship. We left the port at 2200 that night and headed south around the tip of India.
The next two days were days in transit. They were very relaxing and I spent the spare time catching up on sleep and schoolwork. I also spent a bit of time up on the 7th deck swimming and relaxing.
We arrived in Cochin on the 15th, and I was hoping that my experience here would be better than in Chennai. I got off the ship with my newly made friends from the transit days Carly, Steph, Kaylee, and a few other people. In Cochin, there are two main parts, the modern city, and old Fort Cochin. Cochin is made up a few islands and there are bridges and ferries connecting them. This city somewhat reminded me of Vietnam, with lush green trees everywhere. So far, the aesthetics of this city were a lot better than Chennai. It was still very hot and humid, but by this point in the voyage, I am used to being dripping in sweat thirty seconds after leaving the air conditioning. We decided to take the ferry over to the modern part of Cochin, to the main street which is known as Mahatma Gandhi Street. The ferry only cost two Rupees and it was a nice ten minute boat ride across the waterway. The ferry was very small, only about 20 feet long and about ten feet wide. Before we got on, a bunch of people got off where we got on, and the ferry was relatively empty for our ride. We went right next to the MV Explorer and got a great view of the bay. Gandhi Street is about three blocks inland from the waterfront on the main island of Cochin. We walked up through alleyways until we got to the incredibly busy street. The traffic in India is made up of all types of transportation, unlike the US where it is mostly cars and in Vietnam where it is mostly motorbikes. There were everything from bicycles, to motorbikes, to auto rickshaws, to cars, to big trucks. We walked up and down the main street looking for outdoor markets, but we couldn’t find any. We went into a few stores, but I found them all fairly overpriced and not very cultural. They were all more westernized. We walked around for a little while before we had to head back to the ship because a few of us had an FDP leaving at one. We hopped in a rickshaw, and headed back to the ship. This rickshaw driver was a lot nicer and actually accepted the agreed price. I got back to the ship, packed a backpack, got a quick bite, and then headed out for the bus. The trip I was going on was to an SOS Children’s Village about an hour and a half away from Cochin. SOS Children’s Villages are where children go that are orphaned. There, they are put into a house with around ten other kids and a “mom” that takes care of them. They learn to socialize and be part of a family and go to school and they can stay there until they are 18. The smartest kids get sent to college, fully paid, and the ones who aren’t quite as smart get sent to vocational schools to get a trade. The older children (13-18) help with raising and taking care of the younger ones. We arrived at the village around 1430, where we were greeted by a parade of children that escorted us up to a big central gazebo. We were blessed in the Hindu way with incense and bindis (the little dot of paint on the forehead) and then seated in folding chairs in front of a small stage. We got a presentation of what the SOS Village is and how this one worked. After that, we a song and two dances put on by the children. The first song was in English and sang by about seven little girls and one little boy. The song was about how glad they were that we were there. The next dance they did was a traditional farmer dance that was performed by about ten little girls. They had props like little bushels of wheat and scythes made of cardboard and tinfoil. The last dance they did was two little boys did their own dance to a backstreet boys song. It was hilarious and actually really good. One of the little boys actually choreographed the whole dance himself. I was impressed. After the dance, we met up with the kids and they took us to their houses. Two little seven year old boys latched on to each one of my arms and pulled me toward their house. I wish I could remember or even pronounce their names. I had them repeat them at least fifteen times, but they were very difficult Indian names. They were my two little tour guides for the day. The whole SAS group split up to go with their kids, and it was really nice having personal time with them instead of being with a big group. They took me to their house and showed me their room. Their house was pretty nice. It had a small front room, but it had very high ceilings. There was a fish tank with a small fish, lots of photos of all the kids in their family, and lots of religious pictures. This was a Christian house, but there were also Hindu houses and Muslim houses. There was also a small sandpit in the house for the kids to play in. I thought it was really interesting that that was inside the house. There were two rooms for the kids; one for boys and one for girls. They were set up with bunk beds and there were five to a room. The “mother” of the house got her own room right next door. I talked with the mother and the other kids in the house for a bit before my two boys led me out to show me the other houses. They spoke very little English, and while we were walking between houses they would point to a bush and say, “Boosh” or to a flower they would say, “Butiful fower.” They also pointed out mango trees, jackfruit trees, and other fruits. All the houses I went to had the same set up, but each one had different pictures and decorations. I gave my little boys my little camera and that had a blast with it. Over the course of the day they probably took about 200 pictures of themselves and all their friends. Their favorite part was viewing the picture they just took in the little screen. They also took me out into their garden and picked a whole bunch of different fruits for me to try. They were all very good, but I don’t know the names of any of them. After taking me to five or six houses, where I got served coffee, banana chips, and got told stories, everyone gathered on the field for games. I had brought with me a bag of toys for all the kids, which included whistles, horns, necklaces, and bouncy balls. I distributed the toys and all the kids were so happy. They were running around taking pictures, dancing, playing kickball, playing tag, and playing cricket. We played with them for a while on the field before it was time to go. We all sat on the amphitheater seating by the field and took a huge group picture. Afterward, we got sung a goodbye song by five little girls. We went down to the bus, all the kids following us out saying goodbye. As the bus drove away, all the kids stood by the front gate waving until we were out of sight. We got back to the ship and I had a quick bite of food before heading out again with Candice, Kayleigh, Tyler, Scott, and Emerson. We took the ferry back to Mahatma Gandhi Street, where we walked around for a bit. We found a bookstore where we bought some books (yes, they were in English). We kept walking, enjoying the nightlife, and looking at all the stores. After a while, we stopped in a small restaurant for some food. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Indian food. It is too spicy for me. After we ate, we decided to go back to the ship because we were all exhausted. We went back to the ferry only to find it had stopped running about thirty minutes earlier. We walked back out to the street where we hailed a rickshaw. We piled all six of us into one rickshaw and headed out for the ship. We got back, boarded, and all went straight to bed.
The next morning I woke up at 0630 and got breakfast and got ready. I met up with Mike, Helen, Jose, Gabe, Malinda, and a few other people for a trip to the backwaters. The backwaters are like a delta. It is a series of small rivers and canals that makes a whole bunch of islands. Helen had set this trip up through a man who owned a hostel that she had stayed in a few nights ago. He picked us up at 0745 in a big white van and drove us about an hour to a river. We all got out, bought some snacks at a small store, and got on a boat. The boat was very similar to the one I was on at the Mekong Delta. This one was about 25 feet long and eight feet wide. It was made all of wood and had a covering over all the seats. This boat had no engine and was propelled by a man in the front and a man in the back, pushing along the bottom of the river with really long bamboo poles. It looked like a lot of work, but it was really nice not hearing the drone of the engine all day. We took off in a big river, and quickly exited into a small tributary. We went up that for a while, passing by farms, houses, and jungles. There weren’t a whole lot of other boats out on the river. All of a sudden, our driver turned the boat into a very small stream. The boat was about eight feet wide and the stream was about ten. Bushes were scraping against both sides of the boat, but we kept on heading through. We wound our way through a maze of small creeks, getting terrific views into farmland and jungle. We then broke out into a larger river yet again where we pulled over and stopped at a factory for lime. This isn’t the fruit, but a fine white powder made from the shells of small hermit crabs. They dried the shells and cooked them in a giant fire pit. The black shells turned white with the heat, and even disintegrated into this fine powder. They also sold coconut beer at this small factory. I didn’t buy any, but Jose did, and it tasted like beer mixed with coconut. Not the best tasting drink in the world. After we walked around here for a bit, we got back on the boat, and went another quarter mile up the river to a small rope making village. Here, they made rope from coconut husk. They took the fibers, and spun them and pulled on them. It wound up into rope, but this rope wasn’t very strong by themselves. What they did was took two of these ropes and wound them in opposite directions. This made it very strong, I couldn’t even break it. After the demonstration of how to make rope, we walked around the rest of the village. There were a whole bunch of really awesome plants. There was jackfruit, mango, cashew, mint, cinnamon, betel nut, and many more that I had no idea what they were. We got to try a bit of everything; we got to chew on the mint leaves, bite the cinnamon branch, eat little fruits, it was all very good. We spent quite a while here before hopping back on the boat and heading out. On our way out, we saw about thirty smaller boats throwing what looked like handfuls of small pebbles into the water. Our guide told us that they were actually throwing out the small hermit crabs used to make the lime powder. The crabs are born in a lake far away, collected, and then thrown into the river here to mature. This way, they can collect them all in the same place when they reach full size. They were spreading these all over the river. We floated down for a bit until we returned to the place where we got on the boat. We all got off, thanked our guide, and headed back up to the van. He took us back, making a quick stop at the post office for people to buy stamps. We got back to the ship and I threw my heavy backpack in my room, then met up with Mike to go out again. We hopped in a rickshaw and told him to head to old Fort Cochin because we wanted to buy ties. He drove us to (surprise) one of the kickback stores, and we went in to see if they had ties. They had a few, but they were all really expensive and were really bad quality. We told him to bring us some place less expensive, and he just brought us to another kickback store. We asked if they had ties and they said no. We told him there were no ties there, so he took us to a different place. We repeated this process about five times, none of the stores having ties. He then brought us to an outdoor market at the tip of the island, which was actually very nice. There were old Chinese fishing nets that were still in use which was cool to see. We took a quick glimpse through the market, but there were no ties to be seen. We got back in, while our driver was talking to another guy. He was asking the other man where to go. He got back in and told us that there was one more place we could try. He took us to a tailoring place, where I actually picked out the fabric and color and they made the tie right there. They were pretty expensive, so I only ordered two, thinking they would be very nice. We waited about a half an hour while they made the ties, taking a break in the air conditioning. They finished my ties and showed them to me and I was very disappointed. They were very rough and had a lot of stitching errors, but we had to get back to the ship. I took the ties and told the driver to take us back to the ship. He did, and we walked on back into the wonderful AC. A little while later, the ship pulled out from its berth, and slowly made its way out of the harbor and back out into the open sea. I enjoyed Cochin a lot more than Chennai, but both had their ups and downs. India is very different from anything I have ever seen or experienced before. The shock value never stopped because you saw new and amazing things all the time. India was exhausting and I was kind of glad to leave, but I will definitely go back at some point in my life.

Also, on March 19th, we crossed the equator for the first time. There is a big celebration and we get the day off from class and it is called Neptune Day. It is the day we all go from polliwogs to shellbacks. We were woken up at 0730 by the crew dressed in togas wielding tinfoil spears and swords, running up and down the hallways banging on drums and people’s doors. We had breakfast, went up to the pool deck and started the ceremony. The first part was getting fish guts dumped on our heads. At first I thought it was a fake concoction of things from the kitchen, but then I smelled it and saw fish parts floating and realized it was real. After we got it dumped on us, we jumped in the pool, circled it one time, climbed out and kissed a fish. After we kissed a fish, we went up to the Dean and his wife, who were also dressed up in togas, and we kissed a ring that they each wore. After that, our global studies professor, Don Gogniat knighted us with a tinfoil sword and pronounced us shellbacks. Once this process was over, I waited in line for a while to get my head shaved. All this is optional, but how often do you get to do things like this? Now I am bald, and I have had to apply gratuitous amounts of sunscreen to my white head. We spent the rest of that day lying around and enjoying the free time. It was all really fun.

The next stop is a quick two day excursion to Mauritius, and I will post again after that!

I woke up at 0700 on the morning of February 26 and looked out my window to see us about 25 meters away from a jungle covered coastline. I went up on deck for breakfast where I could see out of both sides of the ship and saw that we were actually heading up a river about 150 meters wide. We were going up the Saigon River up to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly known as Saigon) which is located 37 miles upstream from the South China Sea. I got my breakfast and headed outside to the back deck to eat. When the sliding glass door opened, the air was like a punch to the face. Even though it was only 0730 by this point, it was about 85 degrees and about 90% humidity. It felt like I was breathing liquid; I am not used to this kind of humidity. I went outside anyway to eat because it was just too beautiful to eat inside. South Vietnam is very flat and covered with jungles, and from the 6th deck, we could see very far. I sat down at a table with my friends Corena and Shannon and we started planning what we were going to do that day. As we ate and planned, we were watching the spectacular view of our huge ship going up this little river. The river was also packed with smaller boats. There were cargo ships, little fishing boats, and I even saw two hydrofoil boats, which actually lift themselves up out of the water. We put putted along up the river until we reached the Port of Saigon, right on the edge of Ho Chi Minh. The ship pulled up, docked, and we all gathered in the Union for our diplomatic briefing. Before every country we go to, we have people come on and give us a Diplomatic Briefing, which consists of them telling us what is not socially acceptable to do and little words of wisdom for each country. In this briefing, we learned some key phrases in Vietnamese, how to tip, what to wear, and what taxis to take. After the briefing, we had cleared immigration and were allowed to get off the ship. Corena, Shannon, and I got off, ventured into the heat and humidity, and headed for the little shuttle bus that would take us to the Rex Hotel, right on the main street of downtown Ho Chi Minh. The Rex Hotel is also only about 50 meters away from Ho Chi Minh City Hall, which is a beautiful, white, colonial style building that is at the end of the main drag, diverting the street to the left or right. We got off the bus and the first thing we did was find a bank. Crossing the street is a real experience in Vietnam. Vietnam is in the “motorbike” stage of development. This means that their roads and infrastructure is developed enough, but the country isn’t quite wealthy enough for everyone to drive around in cars, so most people ride around on motorbikes. There were thousands of motorbikes everywhere you looked. Also, traffic laws are rarely enforced, and the only way to cross the street is to just walk into the swarm of bikes and just keep walking at a steady pace in a constant direction, and people will swerve around you. It is actually pretty fun. Once we found a bank and got some Dong (which is the Vietnamese currency, and yes, even us mature SAS students made a few jokes here and there) we decided to just walk around the downtown area and look for a good tailor to get a suit made. We started winding up and down the streets, stopping here and there to look in stores and check the prices at tailors. Vietnam is ridiculously cheap. It is about 18,000 Dong to the US Dollar. We round that up so it is pretty much 100,000 Dong is about 5 Dollars. A big meal would cost around 40,000 Dong and nice purses were between 60,000 to 80,000 Dong. We stopped by a few tailors and checked their suits, materials, prices, and asked how long it would take to get done, but we never really found anything we liked/was in our price range/could be done in time. After we shopped for a bit, we decided that we were going to head out and do all the tourist stuff. We headed to the other side of the city where the Reunification Palace was. The Reunification Palace was formerly known as Norodom Palace, and it was the palace of the President of South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. It costs 15,000 Dong to get in (less than a dollar!) and we got to walk around for as long as we wanted. This building is the famous place where the North Vietnamese Army tank crashed through the front gate and took the palace during the Fall of Saigon. The palace was called Norodom Palace until 1962 when it was bombed by the North Vietnamese and almost completely destroyed. After that, the palace was rebuilt on its original location and named Independence Palace when it was completed in 1966. This palace survived a few bombings until 1975, when the North Vietnamese tank crashed through the gate, signifying the end of the Vietnam War. Once North Vietnam and South Vietnam were unified, the palace was renamed the Reunification Palace, which is still its name today. We walked through the front gate where there was a huge circular driveway and a giant fountain in the middle. Over on the side there were two deactivated North Vietnamese tanks, identical to the one that took the palace. There were bright red Vietnamese flags along the edge of the driveway leading the way to the front door. The palace was very open. There were no walls along the backside, allowing the warm breeze to flow through the hallways. The palace was a beautiful white stone building with elegant grey marble floors and lots of intricately designed rugs. On the first floor there were big meeting rooms for the president, vice president, and so on. The largest room on this floor was a big conference room where the papers were signed at the end of the war. There was a giant red banner at the front of the room and on one corner there was the yellow star that was on the Vietnamese flag and on the other corner there was the communist hammer and sickle. In front of this there was a large gold painted statue of Nông Đức Mạnh, who is the current leader of Vietnam. On the second floor there were more rooms including dining rooms, a bar, tea rooms, and so on. Up on the third floor was the president’s office, the map room, and the president’s lounge area. All of the rooms in the palace had really impressive furniture along with beautiful carvings and paintings. One room had two huge elephant tusks held up by a amazingly carved decorative wooden stand. After wandering around all of these rooms, we headed to the roof where you could see all around the front driveway and the surrounding gardens. The best thing about the roof was that there was a military helicopter parked on top that was used by the president. It was a fighting helicopter painted in the jungle camouflage and it looked really cool sitting on the roof. We headed back down through the palace and exited through the back door and walked through the gardens to the exit. We decided to head to the War History Museum that was only a couple blocks away. We made it over there and saw that the museum was closing in about 45 minutes, but we decided to go in anyway because it only cost another 15,000 Dong. Outside the museum there were a whole bunch of military planes, helicopters, tanks, artillery, deactivated bombs, and transport vehicles that were used in the war. It is funny because the Vietnamese do not call it the Vietnam War; they call it the American War which was weird to think about. We had a lot of fun taking pictures of the fighter jets and tanks and then we went inside the museum. The museum was a cube, two stories with one big room on the bottom and a whole bunch of art galleries on the second floor. We walked in and the first few display cases showed different types of ammunition and land mines and the like. The museum was mostly photographs with descriptions, and after walking around for abit, we realized it was very anti-American; nothing like the Hiroshima museum. All the photos and stories were of atrocities committed by American troops during the war. It was really interesting seeing this war displayed from a different perspective. There were lots of photos of people who were affected by Agent Orange (the defoliant used by the Americans to clear the trees and make it easier to spot the Viet Cong) and the napalm bombings. It was a really depressing museum, but it was worth visiting. We left when they started closing up the museum and started meandering our way back to the ship. We found a market that was on our map so we decided to stop by and check it out. The market was inside a big warehouse that I thought it was like an oven. We bought a big bag of Rambutan, which is a small red fruit with spiky hairs on the outside. You peel it open and the interior is very similar to a grape but it has a big pit in the center. We walked around the market for a bit and I bought a chopstick set that came in a nicely carved wooden box and it came with about 5 pairs of chopsticks and chopstick holders. I got it for 100,000 Dong, which was only like five bucks. I love the deals you get there. I was starting to get overheated by this point so we left the market and slowly made our way back to the Rex Hotel. We took the shuttle back to the boat, dropped off our stuff, took a quick shower, then headed back out for dinner. This time around it was Mike, Corena, and I and we just started walking around and looking for a place to eat. We stopped by an outdoor vendor that had a lot of Vietnamese people eating at it. We were about to get food when a man came up and asked if he could help us. Apparently we looked confused. We asked him how to order and he said that this was not the best place around to eat. He was very very nice, and he was apparently from the United States but he was back in Vietnam to visit his family. He gave us directions to an area with a whole bunch of good restaurants that was only a couple blocks away. We thanked him and headed off in the direction he told us to go. We found a good looking restaurant right where he said there would be some and we went inside and ordered some noodles. It was really good. After dinner I split off from Corena and Mike, hopped in a taxi, and went back to the ship. I met up with Carson there and we took a cab to a popular nightclub called Apocalypse Now. We weren’t there for very long, we made the rounds and talked with all the SAS kids that we knew, and afterwards headed back to the ship because we were tired and had to get up early the next morning. We didn’t have the most pleasant taxi ride back. I asked the driver how much it was and he told me a price, and I said ok, but when we got to the ship, he told us that it was per person, something he never told us before. We argued with him for almost a half an hour, before he started getting a little scary and we decided to just pay him and get out of there. He pretty much took most of our money, but I didn’t want to risk anything bad happening. We got back on the ship and went to bed, slightly disheveled from our taxi ride.
        I woke up the next morning at 0630, showered, and packed for my two night trip to the Mekong Delta. We all met in the Union and took roll. Once everybody was there, we left the ship and piled onto a bus. There were about 30 of us total on this trip. Our first bus ride was about two and a half hours up to where we met our boat. We stopped once at an extraordinarily nice rest stop, designed for tourists. There was an artificial pond with lots of lily pads and flowers all round. Surrounding the pond was thatched roofed huts that were restaurants and gift shops. We spent about fifteen minutes here while people used the bathroom and hopped back on the bus. We drove the rest of the way through jungles and small towns until we got to the delta. We got off the bus in a town called Cai Be and headed down to the pier where we applied mosquito repellent, more sunscreen, and got on our boat. Our boat was about thirty feet long, eight feet wide, and made completely of wood. There were rows of folding wooden chairs that ran the length of the boat on both sides. We pulled away from the dock and headed up stream a bit up to a small floating market in a small town. The delta is a huge maze of rivers, creating many islands where small towns reside. We wound our way through a tow, through a floating market. Floating markets are where people fill their boats up with their product, such as fruits, vegetables, and fish. Every boat has a tall pole on it where they hang their product to advertise. For example, if it was a pineapple boat, they would have a single pineapple hanging from the top of the pole. They bring their boat out to the middle of the river, throw out an anchor, and just sit and wait all day as people come and go in their own boats, buying their product. We wound our way through the boats into the center of this town where we docked and walked around. We walked into the heart of the town where we got to go inside a rice net paper factory. Rice net paper is a thin white net-looking pancake made of rice, that you can use like a tortilla. There was about a group of 30 women, sitting in front of small stoves with frying pans on them and a bowl of white liquid between their legs. The white liquid is just rice mashed up finely with water. They have a can with a few holes in the bottom where they scoop up some of the liquid, and drizzle it through the holes over the frying pan. They spread a thin layer over it, let it cook for about ten seconds, then sweep it out with a brush. Each woman made about 2,000 rice net paper sheets per day. It was like an oven in that building and I was fairly grateful when we left. We walked down the street farther where we went to see a coconut candy factory and a popped rice factory. When I say factory, you probably imagine a big brick building with lots of machines and conveyor belts. These factories were just wooden huts, that were open to the air and only had a few machines because most of the work was done by hand. For the coconut candy they cut a coconut in half and grind it up against a twirling grinder where the coconut meat gets finely shredded. When the meat is fine enough, they pour it into a bowl with water over a fire. It is cool to see because they use the leftover coconut husk to fuel the fire, they don’t waste any part. They simmer the meat with water and add in a lot of sugar. It turned into a molasses type fluid which they pour out and let harden and cut into small pieces. We all got to try a piece and it was delicious. After the coconut candy factory, we went right across the street to the popped rice factory. Here they had a huge bowl that was filled with super heated river sediment. They reuse the sediment every batch so it is very dry and burned black by the heat. They throw in a normal pile of rice, and it pops open, just like popcorn. It turns into pretty much Rice Crispies. From there they put it through a strainer where they separate the rice from the sediment. Once the popped rice is separated, they put it into a big bowl where they pour a sweet molasses over it. They then stir up the rice, spreading the molasses evenly making it stick together. They then press it down into a mould and cut it up into little squares using two large sword-like knives. After we saw this demonstration, we got to sit at little tables where we got served tea and little platters of assorted candy. They had coconut candy, ginger candy, rice candy, banana candy, and others. We also got to try Snake Wine, which is made by taking rice wine and putting a whole snake in the bottle. The venom from the snake is dissolved by the ethanol of the rice wine and is rendered harmless. The bottle looks rather scary, the one I saw had a snake that was posed in a curled position and they even put a scorpion in the snake’s mouth. It didn’t taste as bad as I thought it would, but it’s still not my drink of choice. After this small break, we walked down a couple houses to a Fish Sauce factory. I am not the biggest fan of fish sauce and the smell was overwhelming. Fish sauce is made from letting fish ferment and adding salt. Some different types use other herbs and spices, but not all. We saw big barrels of this stuff, about eight feet high and six feet in diameter. We walked around for a bit, but there wasn’t much to see because it was just fermenting fish. We walked out of the factory and the boat came around to meet us right outside of the Fish Sauce factory. We re-boarded our boat and it took us down the river a ways where we hopped off again and went for a brief walk. We walked down a small dirt path that followed a small tributary of the delta. The river was on our left and local’s houses were on our right. The houses were all fairly small, but decorated very nicely. They all had big front gardens with fruit trees and flowers. Along this walk we crossed a few small footbridges and got passed by a few motorbike riders. We walked for about twenty minutes until we got to a small restaurant type relaxation area. We sat down and we got plates of fresh local vegetables. We got watermelon, jack fruit, mangoes, and other fruits. After we tried these delicious fruits we got about twenty minutes to take a break. There were hammocks spread everywhere so most of us laid down and rested. I sat in the hammock for a bit before getting up and exploring the gardens around the rest area. When it was time to go, we all walked back to the small tributary where we got to go for a rowboat ride. It was three people to a boat, that was built like gondolas from Italy, and in the back a Vietnamese person stood up and rowed with oars that were attached to posts on both sides of the boat. I rode with Carson and Sarah and about halfway down, Carson asked if she could try rowing. After a wobbly exchange of places, Carson tried to get the boat moving but somehow the boat ended up in a tree that was along the bank. With a little help from the guide, we got back into the middle of the river and we zigzagged our way down the river a bit. When Carson was done Sarah got up and gave it a shot. Sarah was able to go a little straighter than Carson, but she was much more wobbly standing up in the back of the boat and almost flipped it about three times. Boats started going by us so our guide took over again so we wouldn’t get in their way. We got back to where our boat was where we did a mid-river transfer from our little rowboats back onto our motorboat. We were served coconuts when we got back on board and made our way to where we were spending the night. We spent the night in a bungalow on one of the tributaries of the delta. It was family owned, and they had about three houses with beds for all of us. The building was literally over the river, and they had a big outdoor deck with tables and hammocks where we all hung out. They also had a huge garden with many fruit trees and other plants. I could hardly tell what any of them were. We all decided to go for a swim, which probably wasn’t the best idea due to the leeches and all the other dangerous critters that were in the water, but most of us hopped in anyway. There was a small pier that we could jump off of, and the river was about 5 meters deep, which is a lot deeper than I had expected. We had so much fun swimming around, taking pictures and videos, and jumping off the pier. We swam for about an hour before getting out, rinsing off, and changing back into our normal clothes. That swim was much needed because it was unbearably hot and humid. After our swim, we all played cards for a bit and walked through the garden. Dinner was served to us out on the deck overlooking the river. We were served fish, prawns, soup, and other traditional foods. It was all very good. The fish was very big and it came whole, with its head and fins and everything. It was placed in the middle of the table and we had to peel off the meat we wanted. After dinner a local Vietnamese band came and played traditional music for us. All the songs they sang were also stories, and the two singers, a man and a woman, acted out the stories as they sang. One story was about a man working in the field and the wife bringing him lunch and another was about the man and woman meeting. We could not understand the lyrics of the songs, but our guide gave us a brief synopsis of what each song was about. After the music, we played cards for a bit longer before heading to bed fairly early. We all talked in our rooms for a long time before we actually fell asleep. It felt a lot like summer camp.
We woke up early the next morning and had a delicious breakfast of freshly baked rolls, eggs, and fruits. We hopped back on the boat, waved goodbye to the owners of the bungalow, and headed downriver. We went back to one of the main rivers where we stopped at a brick making factory. There were huge furnaces for heating the bricks and it was all really impressive. They also did decorative pieces there and there were cats, dogs, fish, and other cool statues. We got back on the boat and made our way to a big town where we disembarked and walked through a market. This was a very traditional market with lots of things you would never see in the United States. There were rats, ducklings, snakes, pigs, squid, crabs, and a plethora of other items. We walked through the market out to the street where we met our bus which took us to our hotel, about two hours away on another island. We had to take a car ferry across which was pretty cool. There were tons of people just crowded in this portal to be allowed onto the ferry which sometimes took half an hour for them to get through. Once they were allowed to cram on to the ferry they got the pleasure of sitting with lots of other people in the heat. Most of these people were wearing long-sleeves, something that I really couldn’t understand as I was sweating in short sleeves. There was one old man on the ferry that was blind and the way he made money was by playing a guitar type instrument that was made out of a stick and a metal bowl (and obviously some strings). It took about 10 minutes to get across and meet back up with our bus only to find out that some people had just stayed on the air conditioned bus the whole time and rode the ferry while inside of the bus. It was quite an experience. We went from the ferry to lunch which was in the second story of a nice open air restaurant. We got the usual: soup, chicken, fish, all in different sauces. The main desert was Banana Flambé which came out on a plate that was still on fire. After lunch we made our way to Soc Trang, a town farther inland where we went to a Buddhist temple, which was probably one of the strangest things I have ever seen. It wasn’t a temple like you would expect. It looked more like a crazy religious carnival. There were a whole bunch of brightly painted shrines inside a big one room building. There were Christmas lights and flashing lights everywhere. It was very noisy and jammed packed with people. Outside was the main statue of the Buddha and other smaller shrines. It was very busy and I think this was mainly because it was still the end of Chinese New Year. This was the most colorful temple I have ever seen and it looked like a funhouse. After this temple, we went to another one called the Khleng Pagoda on the other side of the city that was much more like I pictured a temple to be. It had big spires and was donned in gold trim. We went inside where there sat a giant golden Buddha and incense and candles in front of it. The walls and windows had intricate pictures and carvings of plants and animal looking things. We left the inside of the temple and walked to the side, where we accidentally came across a funeral. It was very very sad and I felt awkward for being there, but it was interesting to see other traditions. We left this area fairly quickly and headed back to the bus. We drove back to the hotel, which was called the Ninh Kieu 2, where we checked in and then we got the rest of the day until dinner for free time. My roommate for this trip was Kevin, a hilarious and quirky guy. Carson and I went across the street to the local supermarket where we bought avocadoes, spices, limes, and chips because we were really craving guacamole. We came back to the hotel room and cut up the avocados only to discover that they are not the same as they are in the US. They were hard and tasted funky, they could have just not been ripe, but they weren’t suitable for guacamole. We cut them up, and tried to mash them with a fork, only to discover that it was incredibly hard and when I tried to mash them, they would slip out from under the fork and go flying across the room. We eventually gave up on our experiment and as we were cleaning up, some friends knocked and we let them in. We hung out in the room with a couple more people until it was time to go to dinner. We went to a very nice riverside outdoor restaurant. We got served mango fish, soup, prawns, and more. The food in Vietnam is very sweet. They use a lot of fruits and sweet spices in their cooking which I thoroughly enjoy due to my unquenchable sweet tooth. They also use a lot of mint in Vietnamese food, and the combination of mint and sugar is quite good. After dinner, the majority of the group decided to walk back to the hotel which wasn’t very far away. We wandered up and down a local market that sold mostly clothes. After exploring the street that followed the river, we stopped in a local bar where we got a quick drink. We sat around and talked for about a half an hour and then decided to make our way back to the hotel. We got back to our rooms, chatted for a bit, and then went to sleep.
We woke the next morning and had a very nice breakfast on the top floor of the hotel. We could see over the whole city. When we were done with breakfast, we hopped on the bus, went down to the river, got on our boat and headed for the Cai Rang floating market; it’s one of the busiest in the delta. There were hundreds of boats anchored in the river and even more smaller boats darting form anchored boat to anchored boat. I was amazed how well our boat captain was able to navigate so well through all of them. Also, people don’t really care too much if you hit their boat, so there was a fair bit of bumping going on. We meandered our way up the maze of boats and back down. We pulled up next to a big pineapple boat where they were cutting up fresh pineapples and selling them for just 10,000 Dong. They would cut the skin off the pineapple and cut out the little spikes, and give you the whole pineapple on a stick. It was delicious, fresh, and juicy. We pulled off from this boat and weaved our way to small tributary where we stopped by a local house. We went inside and saw how they made rice noodles. It is very similar to making rice paper: they use the mixture of rice and water, spread it into a circle, steam it, then let it dry out in the sun. When it is dry, they put it through a shredder that cuts it into long noodles. In the back of the house they had one huge female pig that was probably about six feet long. There were also about eight or so smaller pigs in other pens. After looking around we got back on the boat and went back to the pier where our bus was. We drove back to the hotel where we checked out and had lunch down in the lobby. We hopped back on the bus and it was time to head back to Ho Chi Minh. The bus ride back was over five hours, most of which was spent in line for the car ferry. This time we stayed on the bus because it was very busy and the bus had to get on and off the ferry really fast. The rest of the bus ride back was fairly uneventful, going through jungles and small towns along the way. We arrived back in Ho Chi Minh around 1800 and re boarded the ship. I took a much needed shower and cooled off in the air conditioning for a bit before Carson and I headed out to the market again. We took the shuttle to the Rex Hotel and walked down a block to where there was a whole street filled with movie vendors. Each movie was 10,000 Dong which is only about 50 cents. They had hundreds of movies including new releases. They also had seasons of TV shows for sale. I ended up buying eight movies and the Simpsons box. I got 20 seasons of the Simpsons for 440,000 Dong, which is about 22 dollars. That is slightly over a dollar a season. I wish I had bought so much more. After we were done buying movies we walked back to the main street and looked for a place for dinner. I really wanted Pho (pronounced Fuh), which is a Vietnamese noodle soup, and it is apparently extraordinarily tasty. We found a restaurant that we had heard about called Pho 24 and we sat down and got a bowl. It was just as good as everyone had said. I thought it was delicious and afterwards we hopped back on the shuttle and went back to the ship. When we got back we just went to bed because we were really tired.
The next morning I woke up at 0600 and got ready for my trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels. The Cu Chi Tunnels are the tunnels that the Viet Cong built during the Vietnam War and the soldiers pretty much lived in these expansive tunnel networks performing guerilla style warfare on the Americans, then quickly disappearing back into their tunnels. We got on a bus where I met the new interport student from India. Before every country, we get a new interport student that travels with us from the country we were just at to their home country. The interport student’s name is Vikram, and he is a third year medical student in India. He had just gotten on the ship the day before, so he didn’t know anyone or too much about SAS. We sat together on the bus, and we talked for a bit before we both fell asleep. It was still really early. We awoke when the bus stopped at a rubber tree plantation. Our tour guide wanted to take a quick stop here before we got to the tunnels because rubber is a big export of Vietnam. There were hundreds of trees, all planted in rows, as far as the eye could see. We gathered around one and our tour guide took out a set of keys and scraped a line into the tree with one of the keys. A white viscous fluid started seeping out, which he explained was the main component for rubber. He said they cut holes in all of these trees and let it seep out into buckets that they collect it in. We wandered through the trees for about fifteen minutes before making our way to the tunnels. We arrived and it was actually pretty crowded. There were a bunch of other tourist busses there. We entered the main area and we all sat down and watched a video about the tunnels. The video was made during the Vietnam War and it was very anti-American. It was really interesting to see, and they talked about stories of hero American-killers. After the movie, we walked along the path of the park, stopping at all the little exhibits. The first place we stopped was an un-altered entrance to the tunnels. It was incredibly small, designed so American soldiers could not get in. We all got to take turns sliding down and take turns with our heads popping out. I barely managed to squeeze into the hole, but coming out I got stuck. I had to undo my belt because my buckle was getting caught on the lip of the hole. Once I did that, I was able to slide back out again. The next exhibit we saw was a leftover booby trap; it was one where there was a teeter-totter trap door covering a hole with spikes at the bottom. I would not want to fall into one of those. We walked along the path some more through craters still left over from bombs that were dropped on the area. We saw some other tunnel entrances and even a air vent cleverly disguised as a termite mound. Along the path there was a building with demonstrations of a whole bunch of different types of booby traps. They all looked excruciatingly painful and effective. The spikes were also lined with a neurotoxin, so if the trap didn’t kill you, you would still be poisoned. We walked a ways until we got to the main visitor center and shooting range. At this shooting range you could shoot pretty much any gun used during the war. They had AK-47s, M16s, M1 Garands, and Brownings. You had to buy ten bullets minimum if you wanted to shoot one, so me and five other people decided to share a clip. We bought a clip for an AK-47 and we were escorted down to the range. I just wanted to shoot one bullet to say I shot an AK. Down in the range it was deafening. There were other guns going off, and I had no idea how loud these guns actually were. The worker put the bullets into the gun and we all took turns firing. It was incredibly loud and the recoil was stronger than I expected. My right ear was ringing for a long time afterward, and I can’t imagine being in an actual war with those going off all the time. We came back up from the range, but we couldn’t find our group. From this point the trail branched off in many different directions and we just guessed which one our group went. We wandered around, looking for our group but had no luck. We decided to explore on our own and we found an entrance to a tunnel that you could go all the way through. It was a lot hotter than I expected in the tunnel. I thought it would be cooler because it was below ground, but it was probably a good ten degrees hotter. You couldn’t stand, and you either had to crawl or walk whilst being bent over. It was really dark in the tunnel (there were scattered small lights) and to see we used the flashes from our camera to get quick glimpses of where we were going. We emerged from beneath the earth about 100 meters from where we started. We slowly walked back to the entrance and where the bus was, stopping at exhibits, and looking at the scenery. We exited the park and sat down and waited for the rest of our group, and they came out about ten minutes later. We got back on the bus and went to lunch in a village about an hour away from the tunnels. We had another delicious meal of soup, spring rolls, chicken, and noodles. After lunch, we walked around the local village, visiting with two local families. The first house we went to was very small, and only really one room. There was one bed and the toilet was outside. There was no shower and only a big tub outside for washing. We talked with the woman who lived there and found out that she only makes 50,000 Dong per day, which is not even three dollars. The next house we went to was just as small. There was only one woman there, and her husband had died a few years ago, so most of the house was dedicated as a shrine to him. There were photos and little trinkets with candles surrounding them. Out in the street, there were little kids playing. We played with one kid who was riding his bike around. He only had one training wheel so he leaned far to the right as he rode so he wouldn’t tip over. My friend Sarah had little toys that she was giving to kids she saw. She gave this little boy a bouncy ball and a rubber lizard. He was fascinated by the bouncy ball but didn’t really know what to do with the lizard and he dropped it on the ground to play with the ball. An older kid, around our age, came up behind him, grabbed the lizard and put it down the smaller boy’s shirt. The little boy freaked out and started spinning, trying to get the lizard out. We all had a good laugh before continuing onwards through the town. We walked along a dirt road to the other side of the town while being followed by little boys and girls. We got to the other side of the town where there was a huge mint farm. There are many types of mint plants and the ones we saw were young and not more than two feet tall. The field was very extensive, and way on the horizon was a tall egg shaped mountain, in fact, the only mountain I had seen in Vietnam. Southern Vietnam is very flat and mostly jungle and marshlands, while Northern Vietnam is very mountainous and hilly. We met the two ladies who watched over the farm and walked around a while. Afterwards, we made our way back through the small town and got back on the bus for our two hour ride back. I sat with Vikram again and I got a really awesome private question and answer session the whole way back. I asked him all about India and learned more about it in that two hour bus ride than I would have learned from hours of schooling. We got back to the ship about thirty minutes before on-ship time so I just stayed on the ship and relaxed. I talked with my friends, discussing what they did in Vietnam, before heading back to my room and falling asleep.
The ship departed the next day at 0600. I had an 0800 class so I was up by 0700 and watched us make our way back down the Saigon River. We got back to the open ocean and headed south to get to India.

Today is the last day on the ship before we get two India, and a few noteworthy things happened on the journey travelling on the South China Sea, through the Strait of Malacca, and across the Bay of Bengal to India. The first cool thing was we had to stop and anchor off the coast of Singapore for a whole day as we refueled. We anchored among about ten huge tanker ships while a smaller fueling vessel came up and latched onto our side. We were surrounded by small islands, and on one of the islands there was a huge oil refinery. I am guessing this is a main refueling port for ships going from East Asia to Africa or India. The coolest thing about this was that where we were refueling was a main area for pirate attacks, so all day we had a military warship circle and protect us. It had two huge front cannons and a whole bunch of side turrets. Not only was there a warship circling us, but we occasionally got a flyover by military reconnaissance planes. We were well protected. I spent most of this day up on the 7th deck, swimming in the pool, lying in the sun, watching the ships and planes. Another awesome thing about this area was that in the oil refinery, there were a few smokestacks jutting out from the complex. One of these smokestacks had a small flame coming out the top, and about every twenty to thirty minutes a huge fireball would erupt from this smokestack. The fireball would erupt about 200 feet into the air and then burn out into a thick black cloud. It was really awesome. I tried to take pictures, but it was so hot and humid that the air inside the lens of my camera condensed the water due to the difference of temperature and fogged up the lens. We spent all day anchored there and pulled out around 1800.
The next notable event was the Sea Olympics. This is a huge event on Semester at Sea, and how well you perform determines when you can get off the ship back in Florida. My sea, the Mediterranean Sea, is composed of most of the rooms on the third floor port side. Our color was green and we all represented. I wore a green shirt, painted my face green, and wrapped up uncovered limbs with green yarn. The other seas are the Caribbean, Baltic, Arabian, Adriatic, Red, Yellow, Bering, and, since the kids and lifelong learners are not part of any sea, they created their own team called the Salty Sea Monkeys. There was a whole bunch of different events like crab soccer, dance competitions, relay races, and tug-o-war. My event (the best event) was Synchronized Swimming. We had to make a three minute routine and perform in front of the whole ship. The song we chose was a spliced up compilation of Bella Noche, Cha Cha Slide, Save a Horse (Ride a Cowboy), and more. My friend Natali and I were the main choreographers and we preformed with my next door neighbors Anela and Ashley. It was really fun performing in front of about 500 people, showing off my amazing synchronized swimming skills. The events were all day, from 0930 to about 1800. My event was at 1400, and I spent the rest of the day going from event to event supporting my teammates. All day the Mediterranean Sea was in third place, battling for second or first. The way the scoring works is you get certain points for getting 1st, 2nd, or 3rd, and you get more or less points depending on the event. They displayed the scores on the TVs around the ship so you could see who was in which place, but there were certain events, like Synchronized Swimming, Lip-sync contest, and whatnot where the scores were not told until the closing ceremony, which kept who was going to win a surprise all day. The closing ceremony was at 2000 that night, and we got our scores. My synchronized swimming team didn’t place, but we didn’t really care too much. Our dance team got 1st place which is probably the main event so everyone went crazy when we heard that news. The last thing they announced before they said who was the final victor was the Spirit Award. They had secret Spirit Police going around the ship all day looking to see which sea had the best sportsmanship , who supported their teammates the best, and who just was overall the most into Sea Olympics Day. In many people’s opinion, this is one of the best awards it win, considering the whole day was based around spirit. It turns out that the Mediterranean won that award which when announced made everyone go crazy. They then announced the final standings and the Mediterranean ended up getting 3rd place overall. It was an exhausting day, but well worth all the spent energy.
The last cool thing that happened on the trip to India was we passed through the Nicabar Islands, one of the most isolated and undeveloped island chains in the world. They looked like normal islands, but apparently it is almost impossible to get there. There are no airports, and you have to get permission from the Indian government to go there. The cool thing was, we circled one of the islands (it looked like a normal island) but it had a huge shipwreck sitting on the beach that had gotten washed up by the 2004 tsunami. It was a giant passenger ship that was probably the size of our MV Explorer, and it was amazing to see it sitting on its side on the beach. It really showed us the power of the ocean. The rest of the crossing was uneventful, filled with classes and sunbathing. I am really excited for India and I will update again when I get back on the ship!

Early on the morning of February 16^th the MV Explorer pulled into Yangtze River and went upstream to the port in downtown Shanghai. The ship docked very early in the morning but yet again, the process of immigration kept us impatiently waiting. The day we arrived it was sunny yet very cold. The air had a bite to it and there was frost all over the top deck. The Yangtze River flows right through the center of Shanghai so the ship was docked right in the middle of downtown; we were surrounded by tall skyscrapers and beautifully architected buildings. When we could get off the ship, around 1200, my friends Mike, Erin, Elena, and I did the first thing you have to do in every country: find an ATM and get money. Fortunately, this wasn’t that hard, we just had to follow the sea of SAS kids down the street to the bank. It took us a while to withdraw money because of the long line, but once that was done, we started making our way to the Bund, which is the high class riverfront area of Shanghai. The overall plan was to catch a bus to the other side of Shanghai and go to the zoo where we could see the pandas. We had a tour book of Shanghai that told us what bus we needed and which streets to catch it on. We started heading for Ningjing Street, which we found on our map, where the number 13 bus was supposed to stop. The walk was all through the Bund right on the edge of the river through the mobs of Chinese people. Shanghai normally has a population of about 22 million people, but while we were there it was much more than that. We just happened to be in China for most of the Chinese New Year which was downright amazing. Because of the New Year, many shops were closed and the streets were packed. I have never seen so many people in one place in my life. We carefully navigated the streets of the Bund trying not to lose any of our group members. The buildings along the river at the Bund were beautiful white stone colonial looking buildings. They were mostly hotels with a few ritzy shops thrown in here and there. We walked and walked quite a ways until we got to what we thought was Ningjing Street. We looked around and we could not find any bus stops. We looked at the street sign and realized we had made a mistake; we were looking for Ningjing Street, but we had found was Ninjing Street. This was one of the problems of navigating China, there were many Nings, Jings, Nins, and Nans in the street names. By the time we realized all of this, it was too late to go to the zoo so we just decided to walk around and see the rest of downtown Shanghai. We started heading inland and wanted to find a place to stop and eat lunch. We left the ritzy area of the Bund and entered the normal commercial area of the city. We walked until we encountered a group of pagoda style buildings and lots of red Chinese lamps hanging everywhere. It was a Ney Year market where they were selling toys, decorations, and other miscellaneous items. We entered this two block by two block market and were shocked. This was the most densely packed area I have ever been in. There were people shoulder to shoulder everywhere there was space. The only possible way to move was to enter a current of people and follow it wherever it was going. Fortunately I found a man walking a bicycle and got in behind him, which gave me some extra space. The streets were not closed to cars, but no car even dared try to get through the mob of people. We got in one block to the main intersection of the market and decided we were too overwhelmed and started heading out of the market a different way we came. When we finally got out of the madness and caught our breath we decided we were very hungry and wanted to find a restaurant. I was surprised by the fact that I had not even seen a restaurant yet that wasn’t a McDonalds or a different fast food place. We walked another block from the market and saw a few people eating bowls of noodle soup outside of a small door with some Chinese characters above it which we presumed was a restaurant. We walked up and a very exited Chinese man started rapidly talking to us. When he realized we were giving him blank stares, and that we didn’t speak Chinese, he just pointed to the people eating and said, “Soup?” We replied with yes and he told us to follow him inside. We went down a narrow hallway and into a room that was about ten feet by twenty feet that looked more like a storage closet than a restaurant. There were about five tables inside, three of them already having families eating at them. He sat us down and about two minutes later came out with four big bowls of soup. We devoured the soup, now being very proficient at eating soup with chopsticks, and rested for a few minutes before heading back out to the streets. We paid for our soup which turned out to be six yuan for each bowl. The exchange rate while we were there was 6.8 yuan per 1 U.S. dollar which meant that the big meal we just ate wasn’t even one dollar. We walked around some more just winding down any street that looked interesting. We found a small street vendor that was grilling on the corner so we decided to go see what it was. He was grilling kebabs of octopus tentacles and since we have to try everything interesting, we all ordered one. We watched him throw the kebabs on the grill and powder on a few different spices. It actually tasted very good, but had a weird texture. The flavor was mostly from the spices he put on it and the tentacles had a somewhat rubbery chewy texture. We decided to head back to the ship because we were going to meet our friend Corena who was coming back from an FDP (Field Directed Practica) which was riding the Maglev train. The Maglev train is the fastest train in the world which actually hovers along the tracks on very powerful repelling magnets. The way it accelerates is by activating attractive magnets on the track in front of the train, pulling it forward. This modern marvel travels at around 450-500kmh, which is about 270-300mph. Unfortunately it is still really only a prototype and it only goes from Shanghai to the airport. We got back on the ship, freshened up, and headed back to the Bund, which is spectacular by night. The classic colonial style buildings were lit up on the front, and across the river the tall skyscrapers had their lights on with exterior colored lights. We walked up and down the street for a bit taking pictures and enjoying the lights until we got hungry enough for dinner. We called two cabs and went to the other side of town to try and find a restaurant that we saw in the Lonely Planet book. We took a taxi to a corner near where the restaurant was, but on the walk to our chosen restaurant, we saw a different restaurant that looked too good to pass up. We went inside and it was a pretty fancy sit down restaurant that served traditional Chinese food family style. We all chose a dish and shared them throughout the table. It was delicious and not terribly expensive due to the exchange rate. After dinner we heard about a go-kart arena and bar so we hailed two taxis for the five of us and headed out. Mike and I got in one taxi and Corena, Erin, and Elena got into the other. The girls got in the first taxi, I showed the driver the directions, then hopped into our taxi. We lost sight of the girls within two blocks, but we figured that since we showed the driver the same directions, we would end up at the same place. The taxi took us through some really strange back streets and dropped us off in the middle of a somewhat run down residential area. We didn’t see the place we were looking for but there was a big billboard there advertising the bar we were looking for so we figured we had to be close. We waited about fifteen minutes for the girls’ taxi but they never showed up. Mike and I decided to follow the arrow on the billboard and it led us through a fairly sketchy area. There weren’t many streetlights and there were run down apartments all around, also the street was torn up due to construction but Mike and I are fairly big men so we weren’t terribly worried. After wondering around for about ten minutes, we found the go-kart bar on a pretty nice street. It was surprising how quickly you can go from poverty to classy areas. Mike and I went inside saw some other SAS people and asked them if they had seen our other group members. They said the girls hadn’t shown up yet so Mike and I went out on a search party. We walked around for about 45 minutes, but had no luck. We went back to the bar and decided to hop in the go-karts. It was amazing, the track was 4,500 square feet and the karts went really fast. Afterwards, we hung out in the bar and then headed home pretty early because we had to get up early the next morning. We got back to the ship, checked to see if the girls had made it home safely (and they had), and went to bed.

I woke up around 0700 the next morning to get ready for my Xi’an (pronounced Shee-an) and Beijing trip. We met in the union and waited for everyone to get there. At 0930 all 96 of the kids who were going on the trip were present so we split up into three groups by last name and headed to the busses. We took three busses to the airport, I was in bus A, regrouped and checked in. The check-in and security was relatively painless and then we had about an hour to wait in the airport before our flight to Xi’an. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 1200 and we departed only about fifteen minutes late. The flight to Xi’an was two hours and twenty minutes which wasn’t that bad because I got a window seat and met two nice people named Chelsea and Greg. I was slightly worried flying into Xi’an because looking out the window all I could see was polluted air and lots of farmland. But, when we got off the plane, onto the busses, and started heading into the city I could see that my preconceptions were wrong. Xi’an was the capital of China during the Zhou, Qin, Han, the Sui, and Tang Dynasties and it is filled with culture. There are giant walls throughout the city that used to surround it, but nowadays the city has expanded far past them. Our tour guide was named Albert and he was pretty funny. Albert is just his English name, I can’t even begin to pronounce his real name. The first place we went to was the Tang Dynasty Art Museum to see some art and try our hand at calligraphy. The art museum was pretty nice and filled with art from many different time periods. There were paintings, tapestries, masks, sculptures, and even shadow puppets which are movable puppets that are made from clear plastic-y paper and you use them in front of bright lights. After taking a guided tour throughout the museum, we sat down in the largest room where they had rice paper, brushes, and paint set up for us. We learned how to write “forever” and “I love you.” My calligraphy is not the best, but I didn’t think it was too bad. After we practiced these symbols for a bit, we could walk around on our own and purchase small paintings if we wanted. After the art museum, we headed to our hotel to check in. We were staying at the Xi’an Jianguo Hotel, which was a very nice four star hotel. We got assigned roommates based on our last name and I got roomed with a guy named Zach, who I had met once or twice before, but never really talked to. He turned out to be really awesome and we became really good friends. We rested in the hotel for a little bit, got to watch some Olympics, and then it was time for dinner. We went to De Fa Cheng which is a big classy restaurant and we had a huge dumpling dinner. They brought out about twenty different rounds of different dumplings, most of which were delicious. There were some spicy ones, that were way too spicy for me, and some seafood ones which I wasn’t a fan of, but overall, I definitely got my fill of dumplings. After dinner, we could have taken the bus back to the hotel but most people decided to walk around the hotel area and see what there is to see. Xi’an at night turned into a vibrant and colorful city. There are lights everywhere: on buildings, on the trees, on the wall, and even in the sky. The sky was filled with kites, strings of lights, fireworks (for the new year) and the mini hot air balloons that the Chinese light up and let go and they float off into the sky. We walked around the main downtown area which was a giant roundabout with a huge pagoda style clock tower in the middle. We walked around a market for a bit before we decided we were tired and wanted to back. We hopped in a cab, went back to the hotel, and fell asleep to the Olympics.

We woke up at 0645 the next day and had a Chinese/American breakfast in the hotel lobby. It had noodles, eggs, sausages, and lots of other good food. After breakfast we hopped on the bus and went to the Xi’an City Wall. It is the most complete city wall that has survived in China and it was very tall and very wide and also covered in decorations for the New Year. We climbed to the top of one of the guard towers where we could see all the way to the bell tower in the center of the city. We walked around the wall for a bit before hopping on the bus and heading to the Great Mosque. The Great Mosque is an Islamic Mosque in the center of Xi’an that is integrated in the middle of an intricate maze off alleys and markets. It would have been very difficult to find if we were not with a tour guide, but it was awesome. There just so happened to be a big festival going on so we saw a whole bunch of people praying and feasting. The Mosque is 12,000 square meters and filled with small houses, wells, and stone walls. We walked around in the gardens for a bit and headed back to the bus yet again. We drove about 45 minutes to the outskirts of Xi’an where we out to lunch at a local restaurant and had a traditional Chinese restaurant with a big lazy susan in the center and lots of plates of chicken, pork, vegetables, all in different sauces. After lunch there was a market right outside the restaurant where we shopped for a bit and then headed to the Terra Cotta Warrior Museum. The museum was only about ten minutes away from the restaurant and the actual building housing the soldiers was surrounded by a big park. The bus dropped us off and we walked through the ticket gate to the main plaza. The Terra Cotta Museum is divided into three sections. Building 1 has the re-assembled soldiers and the current excavation of the remaining soldiers, Building 2 has a huge excavation site of the rest of the tomb, and Building 3 houses the two famous bronze chariots that were uncovered. We first went into Building 1 where the soldiers were. We walked into the lobby of the building and the man who actually discovered the Terra Cotta soldiers, Yang Xinman, was sitting signing autographs and books for people. He is very old now, but back when he discovered the soldiers, he was just a young peasant. He actually found the soldiers because he was digging a well for their village when he stumbled across the artifacts. Since China is a communist country, he was not entitled to any claim over the artifacts, but the government gave him some monetary compensation and gave him a comfortable job signing autographs all day. This would be way better than a peasant lifestyle. We entered the room where the soldiers were being excavated and it was huge! It was a giant hangar covering the excavation site that was about 300 yards long and about 75 yards wide. There were about eight rows of soldiers going all the way to the back of the hangar with one row perpendicular to them out in front. They are arranged in a Chinese war formation, designed to protect the emperor after death. The most amazing thing is that every soldier is different. Each one has a unique set of armor and facial expression, and because of this, out of the 8,000 soldiers made, only about 1,000 have been reassembled. This tomb was raided before it was actually discovered, and because of this many of the soldiers were damaged or destroyed. The worst thing was that when the tomb was first opened, a lot of the soldiers just crumbled and their paint flaked off because of the new fresh air entering the tomb. They have yet to open the tomb of the Tang Emperor for exactly this reason. No one has dared enter the tomb until they can develop a technology that will preserve the artifacts in the fresh air. They are also dearly concerned about booby traps, like a real life Indiana Jones. We walked all around the hangar taking photos of all the reassembled soldiers and horses. All of them were incredibly detailed and life size, it was truly amazing. After wandering around in there for a bit we headed for Building 2, which wasn’t nearly as impressive. It was an excavation of a different part of the tomb, but there was nothing really in it. We were above it looking down and all it really was was a whole bunch of corridors and walls. We left that building and headed to Building 3, where the bronze chariots are kept. We entered and went down a large staircase to the room where they were. They were remarkably beautiful, but I was surprised to see that they were not life sized. They were each about six feet long and about four feet high, both chariots had four horses in front pulling them. They had amazing attention to detail and they were pretty awesome to see. By this time, it was about time to meet up with the rest of the group at the tea house. We got a quick tea ceremony, where they let us choose six different types of tea and we got to see how they were made and sample them, before we headed out. We all piled back onto the bus and headed for an orphanage on the outskirts of Xi’an. The orphanage was about 45 minutes away from the soldiers and it was in the very outskirts of the suburbs of Xi’an. There are normally about 90 kids in the orphanage, but since it was Chinese New Year a lot of the kids got to visit distant relatives for the holiday and only about 30 of them were still there. We entered the orphanage which was a small fenced off complex of buildings. There were a few classrooms, bedrooms, and one auditorium. When we first got there we took a brief tour of the classrooms and bedrooms. They were very small, but painted in bright happy colors. We exited the buildings and some of the kids started emerging from the other buildings. We got to play with them for a bit and we may have even started a snowball fight. It was my job to make snowballs for some of the smaller kids and they would go throw them at the other people. After running around for a bit we all headed into the auditorium where the kids put on a little show for us. The first show was four kids standing in a box formation and they did a little dance to a Chinese kiddie song. Afterwards, all 30 of the kids got up on the stage and did a hand gesture song which was pretty cute. When they were done, about half of our SAS group, including me, got up on the stage and sang the kids some American kiddie songs, such as Itsy Bitsy Spider, If You’re Happy and You Know It, and Row Row, Row Your Boat. After we were all done performing we played with the kids for a little longer before getting back on the bus and heading back to downtown Xi’an for the Tang Dynasty Dinner Show. We arrived at the Tang Dynasty Theater which is a brightly lit and colorful old style dinner theater. We all got to sit in the first two rows of tables which was an amazing view. As we sat down, the world renowned Tang Dynasty Orchestra started playing to accompany our dinner. I didn’t recognize any of the instruments but it was amazing. It was traditional Chinese music that was mostly plucked string instruments with a flute and all the orchestra members never even looked at their instruments. They stared smiling straight ahead the whole time. Dinner was a delicious five course meal with prawns, steak, dumplings, soup, chicken, and an orange soupy desert. It was all amazing. When we finished with desert, the show started. It was a beautiful performance with dancing and singing. I was right next to the orchestra which was really cool because they sounded amazing. They did a few costume dances where they incorporated long flowing twirling gowns into the dance and they did warrior dances where they leaped around with swords and got into choreographed fights. It was truly spectacular. The show lasted about two and a half hours which just flew by. When the show finished we piled back onto the bus, went back to the hotel, I went on a brief walk with my friend Buddy until we realized we were too tired, went to the hotel, and watched the Olympics for a bit before crashing.

We awoke the next morning at 0700 and went to breakfast. We ate at the hotel like the morning before and piled into the buses to head to the airport for our flight to Beijing. Our flight left at 1050 and arrived at 1225 fairly on time. We got out of the airport and met our Beijing tour guide, a lady named Susan. Susan was a small 30 year old woman with the spirit of a seven year old. She was excited about everything and loved to talk. She was really informational and told us a lot of cool things on our ride to lunch. It was another traditional family style lunch where we sat at big tables and ate off a lazy susan. Most of these meals were pretty much the same with pork, chicken, rice, and tofu, all in different sauces. After lunch we headed to our hotel which was the Courtyard Marriott Hotel which was amazing. Apparently, all the SAS trips that are overnight and not staying in a local’s house have to be in a hotel over four stars. I would have liked to stay in a smaller, more hostile type hotel, but I certainly wasn’t complaining about our hotels. After we checked in and put our stuff away we got the whole afternoon off to do whatever we wanted. Zach and I freshened up we met up with a few people and decided to walk around the block. We heard there was a mall across the street so we went to check it out. We found a 24 hour bakery that was a block away from our hotel and got some amazing Chinese treats. We went into the mall which was disappointing. We were expecting a traditional Chinese mall with vendors and everything, but it turned out to be your stereotypical American looking mall. The only cool thing about it was that there was an ice skating rink that you could look down upon from the first floor. We decided that there was nothing really in this area so we just headed back to the hotel and rested for a bit before dinner. We walked around for a bit looking for a good place, and we weren’t that hungry from our pastry earlier, and there weren’t really any traditional Chinese places so we decided to grab a quick bite at KFC. Apparently the Chinese love KFC. It is everywhere and they are always packed. People like to have long sit-down dinners there. We just grabbed something quick and headed back out. We went back to our room, got on some night clothes, picked up our friends, Isaac, Lauren, Amy, and some others and decided to hit the town. We heard about a place called Bar Street where, guess what, all the bars are. We took two taxi’s, and this time we successfully ended up at the same place. We started walking down the main drag and tere was bar after bar after bar. We went into a few but they were very expensive and very touristy with SAS kids everywhere. Zach, Isaac, and I wanted to actually go to a local bar and try and meet some local people, but the rest of the group didn’t. We split off from them and got off the main drag. We walked down a side street where there were a lot of Chinese people. We went into a few bars until we found one we liked called “Shooters.” We started talking to two local girls who could speak English pretty well. We spent most of the night there until we decided to walk around some more. We walked back to the main street where we saw a cop car with its lights on and a big group of people. We decided to check it out to see what was going on. We were walking by and it looked like a big group of Chinese people, as we were passing, we saw one SASer in the middle of the group that we knew, his name is Edwin. He saw us walking by and ran up to us and started blabbering about why he was in trouble with the cops and surrounded by a group of Chinese people. He was fairly inebriated, which is never a good idea in a foreign country that you don’t know, and especially not in China where the police are not the most friendly people. Apparently what happened was that he was with a group of SAS kids that got really drunk at a bar, and for some unknown reason, one of them (according to Edwin it wasn’t him) kicked a BMW and dented it. While they were walking away the owner of the car came over and said it was Edwin and called the cops. All the other kids left and it was Edwin alone with two officers and about ten Chinese people. Half of them were saying Edwin did it and half of them were saying he wasn’t the one. Whatever the case, Edwin had to pay off the police officer so he wouldn’t be brought to jail so he asked my friend Isaac to loan him some money so he could get out of it. Isaac gave him some money and he got enough to pay off the officers, they all left, and he stumbled away. We tried to get him into a taxi to get home but he found some other SAS kids and started hanging out with them so we hopped in our own taxi, went back to the hotel and went to sleep.

We woke up the next morning early, hopped on the bus, and went to Tiananmen Square. It was a huge open stone square with a stone column in the middle, the capital building on one side, and the Forbidden City on the other. There were lots of soldiers walking around on patrol and lots of other tour groups there. We walked through the square from one end to the other, stopping here and there for small history lessons. We eventually made our way to the gateway of the Forbidden City where the giant portrait of Mao Zedong hung over the central entrance. There are seven entrances to the Forbidden City. The center and biggest one is for the Emperor and the Emperor only. The two to the left and right are for the Emperor’s advisors and officials, then the two farther out are for guests of the Emperor, and the outer two exits are for servants and workers. We entered the first gateway into the first courtyard. There were pagoda style walls all around and a big empty courtyard in the middle. We went through the second gateway where there was another similar courtyard but slightly larger. Lastly, we went through the third gateway where there was an enormous stone courtyard with a frozen river going through it. At the other side of the courtyard was a large stone staircase going up to the main palace of the Forbidden City. The main palace, along with most other buildings in the Forbidden City, was painted beautiful and vibrant reds, greens, and yellows with gold trimmings. We couldn’t see the interior of the buildings, but the outsides were amazing. The thing that surprised me the most was how big the city was. I thought we were at the end when we got to the palace, but our tour guide walked past it and into a maze of alleyways and smaller courtyards. This is where all the servants and consorts lived. The Emperor could have hundreds of different consorts, but only one wife. There were beautiful courtyards and gardens with stone sculptures, metal sculptures, fountains, trees, and beautiful natural rock formations. After winding through these for quite a while we emerged on the other side of the city where the bus picked us up. We drove about ten minutes to the area where all the Beijing locals live and we got off the bus and got onto a rickshaw. Rickshaws are the little two person seats that are pulled by a bicycle. We all paired up, hopped into a rickshaw and went for a ride. I was with my friend Amy and we were in the back of our group of rickshaws. Our driver was hilarious and kept trying to pass all the other rickshaws and kept ramming the cart with my friends in front of us. We winded trough alleyways and small streets until we got to a small local house where we were going to have lunch with a local family and learn how to make dumplings. We got off and walked in to the very small, single story house where the woman, Madame Fung, had set up two tables for our group of fifteen. She brought out delicious dishes of chicken, rice, tofu, and all the other Chinese foods, but it was by far the best food I had in China. She and her daughter spent three hours that day preparing it for us and I thoroughly enjoyed it. She even had this one really good dish where she cooked chicken in Coca-Cola. After dinner, we got to ask her questions about her local life while our tour guide translated for us. Then, she brought out dough circles and filling for us to make dumplings. We put some stuffing in the center of the dough circle and folded it up, how a dumpling should look. Apparently I didn’t do a very good job because Madame Fung, her daughter, and my tour guide all pointed and laughed at mine and said, “Ha ha ha. That is a very special dumpling!” After we folded our dumpling, it was time to leave and take our rickshaw back to the bus. We all took a group photo before we left and the rickshaw ride to the bus was just as exciting as the one to the house. After getting on the bus we headed for one of the places I was most excited for: the Olympic Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube. We pulled up at the Bird’s Nest, hopped out, and pretty much ran inside. At the time we were there, there was a winter festival going on and they had filled the interior with snow and set up sled runs and a whole bunch of snow games. There were also a few stages for performers. We didn’t have much time there, so we ran around, snapping photos, and looking at the amazing architecture. After exploring a bit, we walked outside and went to go check out the Water Cube. Unfortunately, the interior was under renovation so we could not go inside, but the exterior looks really really cool. I am sure you have all seen it, and it is just a rectangular building that is decorated like bubbles. It was pretty awesome. After we explored, we got back onto the bus and headed for a silk factory. We got a quick tour of the factory where we saw the whole silk process. We get silk from the cocoon of the Silk Worm. They soak the cocoon, take the cocoon apart layer by layer, stretch it out, and let it dry. The silk is surprisingly strong, and you can’t rip it very easily. Then they thread the silk through a machine that rolls it up so it can be used as thread. After we saw this process, we got to feel samples of different silks, then of course, were led into the shop at the end where we could purchase items. We didn’t spend very long there because we wanted to get to the Pearl Market that closed in a bit. We quickly headed over there and entered the Pearl Market which is a huge four story building filled with different vendors and stands. All the floors had different types of items, and at the top floor, hence its name, was pearls. I was with my friend Carson through this shopping experience which was fairly overwhelming. The vendors would grab your arm and pull you to your stand and you had to fight your way away. This was the first place where we really got to haggle, which I love. When they see tourists, they always try and severely rip you off, for example, my friend got a jacket from 1200 yuan down to 200 yuan. Carson got a small purse from 395 yuan down to 80 yuan. They always say the same hilarious things such as, “I give you good price,” “I give you student discount,” and, to whatever your starting bid may be, “ohhhh, you joke, you joke, this is high quality!” After the sensory overload of colors, sounds, and physical harassment, we took a taxi back to the hotel to meet up with the bus to go out to a roast duck dinner. We went across town to another large table, lazy susan restaurant where we sat down and started our normal dinner of rice, chicken and pork. About halfway through the dinner, about four chefs came out each with a huge roasted duck, and they started cutting it up right in front of our table. They would cut slices onto plates and put the plates on our lazy susan where we would consume it. It was the best duck I have ever had. It was delicious. After dinner we headed back to the hotel where we walked around for a bit before getting too tired and then went to bed.

We woke up early again, piled on the bus, and went to a Kung Fu school in Beijing. We got a welcome dance, as we walked up to the school, from four men in two tiger outfits. The guy in front was the front legs and controlled the face, and the guy in back controlled the back legs. We entered the main auditorium where they put on an awesome show of amazing Kung Fu moves and jumping and leaping. They demonstrated different weapons and I saw a guy break a big bowl with his finger, another guy had a thick wooden stick be broken on his back, and the most amazing feat was a man put the tip of a practice spear on his neck (a long six foot spear with a relatively dull tip) while another man held it in place and the man who had the tip on his neck walked towards the other guy until the spear bent and snapped in half. After a few demonstrations of quite impressive skills, we got to go up on the stage, play with the practice weapons, and take pictures with the Kung Fu students. We took a few pictures of mid-air jumping kicks and whatnot, and talked with the students for a while. Afterwards, we headed for the bus where it was about an hour and a half to the Great Wall of China. On the ride up the bus played a few games and if you lost you had to do a song or dance in front of the bus on a microphone, it turns out that the same guy lost three times in a row, so he just stayed at the front of the bus for the rest of the ride playing DJ by holding up his iPod to the microphone. On the ride to the wall, there wasn’t much to look at until the very end. Most of the ride was undeveloped flat land that wasn’t terribly exciting. Near the end we started heading into the mountains where we passed a huge frozen lake and through a forest filled with dead deciduous trees. We stopped for lunch about ten minutes away from the wall and had lunch at a nice lazy susan restaurant but this one had lots of trees inside and was decorated like a tropical jungle. After lunch we hopped back onto the bus and drove the last few miles up to the wall. We drove to the base of the ridge that the Great Wall was situated on top of. We got into a gondola and took it from the base of the ridge right up to the edge of the Wall. The ride up was pretty spectacular but, since it was winter, the normally lush green trees on the mountains were all dead and brown. The Wall was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. It was very tall, wide, and snaked across the top of all the mountain ridges until it was out of eyesight. There was a guard tower every 100 meters or so that you had to pass through to walk along the wall. This was the best day that I had on this trip. I was pretty much speechless for the entire two and a half hours we spent on the wall. We walked from the gondola station to the place on the wall where we went down which was about a mile. We even (probably illegally) climbed the outside of one of the guard towers up to the top where we got a spectacular view of all around the wall. There were a lot of steps as the wall went up and down and the steps were uneven and slanted, so you had to always watch where you were going. There was snow in the shadows of the wall which add a beautiful effect, and the mountain range next to us had little watch towers scattered across it. You could look back to the valley we came from and see the small town which we passed through and all the terraced fields above it. We walked around, completely awestruck, until we reached the point where we descended. The best thing about this is that we didn’t walk down, nor did we take the gondola down, but what we did was toboggan down. Not an actual snow toboggan, it was more of a dry bobsled thing where we were on little sleds with wheels and we went down a metal chute that twisted and turned its way down the mountain. I was going really fast until about halfway down when I got stuck behind a man and his son going quite slowly. The good thing about this was that I got to see more scenery. We reached the bottom where we shopped at a small market, buying Great Wall trinkets, for about twenty minutes before piling back on the bus and making the long trek back to Beijing. We arrived at our dinner restaurant, which was another lazy susan dinner with the same chicken, pork, and rice dishes. After dinner we went to a Chinese acrobatic show which was absolutely spectacular. It was in a fancy theater with amazing lights, lasers, smokescreens, and sets. I saw some awesome feats of balance and coordination. I saw about fifteen girls pile on to one bicycle and ride it around the stage, I saw an amazing pile of people and boards piled and balanced up to about thirty feet in the air, and some spectacular vaulting and jumping through hoops. The most amazing thing about this was that there were no safety mats or nets, the only safety equipment they had was for anyone who was over thirty feet in the air and all they had was a small rope. They never even got the rope taught until the person jumped off and they were lowered to the ground. The show lasted about an hour and a half which wasn’t nearly long enough. We headed back to the hotel when the show was all over and we decided to go out and get ice cream. Carson, Spencer, Stephanie, Emily, Katie, and I went out to McDonalds and got some quick ice cream treats. After our snack, we went to the bakery that was near the hotel and picked up some pastries for the morning because we had a very early flight. After picking up some snacks, we decided that it was our last night in Beijing and that we need to embrace the Chinese culture and buy some fireworks. This night was the seventh night of Chinese New Year, and every night we had heard and seen constant fireworks. It almost sounded like a warzone, all day every day, with the noise from the explosions. We found a firework store on the corner which had a huge selection. We were trying to spend a lot of out yuan, because our next stop was Hong Kong where they don’t accept yuan and instead use the Hong Kong Dollar. We bought a big bag and headed for the street. There are no real firework laws in the cities and you just light them off in the middle of the street between skyscrapers. It is all cement and there is nothing that can really catch on fire. We even had a police officer come over and enjoy the fireworks for a bit with us before he strolled off again. After the fireworks, we all went back to the hotel and passed out because our alarm was set for 0345 because we had to depart the hotel at 0430 to head for the airport for out flight to Hong Kong.

We woke up the next morning, tired and groggy, stumbled onto the bus. Surprisingly I stayed up on the twenty minute ride to the airport. This airport check-in wasn’t as smooth as the others because since Honk Kong is separate from China, we had to go through customs and immigration which took a long time because all 96 kids in our tour group were checking-in at the same time. We got through eventually, waited a bit for our flight, we all got on, and I pretty much passed out for the whole 4 hour and 45 minute flight. We landed in Hong Kong around 1130 on a very foggy and cloudy day. Getting off the plane was a shock to me. We went from about 30 degree weather with super dry air to about 80 degree humid weather. For those of you who know me, I do not handle heat and humidity very well, which is unfortunate since I will soon be going to Vietnam, India, Ghana, and Brazil. The only country that won’t be hot and humid will be South Africa. After waiting for everyone to regroup at the end of the airport, we all hopped on busses and rode them back to the MV Explorer docked in Kowloon, which is the closest point of land to Hong Kong Island. We ran onto the ship, threw our bags in our room, then Carson, Sarah, Isaac, and I headed for the Star Ferry to get to Hong Kong. The Star Ferry costs about 30 cents U.S. or 2.50 Hong Kong Dollars. It is about a five minute ferry ride across with stunning views of the city and Victoria Peak behind it. We got off the ferry and decided we were hungry so we set off for a restaurant we had heard about. We hopped on the subway and took it a couple stops to the other side of the city. We got off and found our restaurant which was called The Modern Toilet. It is a pretty funny restaurant where all the seats are toilets and the food is served in fake bedpans and minitoilets. They had all types of food there and I got what is called a hotpot, which is pretty much a big bowl of soup with assorted things thrown in. There is also a fire under it which keeps it hot and the food cooking. In the hotpot there was shrimp, slices of meat, tofu, vegetables, and a whole bunch of unrecognizable stuff, but it was all pretty good. After lunch, we decided to head for the mid-levels escalator, which is the largest stretch of escalators and moving walkways in the world. Hong Kong is on an island which is pretty much just one mountain, Victoria, sticking out of the ocean. This means that the city is built on a hillside and the farther in you go, the higher you go. What they did was build a massive moving walkway and escalator system that brings people up, but it is mostly used by locals going to their apartments away from the waterfront buildings. It is a great way to see a lot of the city. We rode it all the way to the top, and started walking back down, and we made it about halfway until we decided to take a cab because we were taking a really long time and we wanted to get back to the ship to watch the Hong Kong laser show, and then go out to dinner. We hopped in a cab, went to the Star Ferry, rode across, changed, and headed up to the top deck. The laser show wasn’t what I thought it would be, but it was still pretty good. All the buildings lit up in cool patterns and some shot powerful green lasers across the bay. After the light show, we decided to head back to Hong Kong, but this time it was just Carson, Sarah, and I. We got a quick bit to eat at a fast food restaurant and headed back across to Hong Kong. We were going to an area known as Lan Kwai Fong, which was the main bar street of the city. When we got there, it was already packed with SAS kids. We got their fairly late and a lot of people were in every bar and club and hanging out in the street. It was mostly a pedestrian street which made a really good social atmosphere. We got a drink at one bar, socialized, moved to another, and repeated. We stayed for a little bit, then went home with one of the funniest cab drivers that I have ever ridden with. He seemed like a normal guy, and talked on the phone for about half the cab ride, but when he got off, he started driving fast and making high-pitched funny noises. He didn’t really speak any English but he would just repeat everything we said really high pitched and with a Chinese accent. He got us to the ship safely where we got on and went to bed.

The next day I woke up early to try and get a few sunrise pictures over Hong Kong, I think I got a few keepers. Afterwards, I had a nice long breakfast with a few of my friends and we all discussed our plans for the day. When I was done eating I met up with Carson and we got our stuff for the day packed and we headed out for the Star Ferry. We took it across and started heading up through the city to the free zoo and botanical garden. It was a pretty long all uphill climb in hot and humid weather, but the scenery was awesome. This day was a lot sunnier than the previous and Hong Kong has some of the most amazing architecture I have ever seen. We finally made it up to the zoo, and it was a lot better than I had expected. There were monkeys from around the world, tortoises, awesome exotic birds, and some small ground mammals. It was beautiful; it was a small patch of green nature in the dead center of a cement and steel city. It was almost junglesque, with tropical lush trees outside all the exhibits. After looking at the animals for a bit, we took a quick stroll through the botanical garden, which was very nice. There was a beautiful fountain in the center, with small streams and rivers flowing around all the plats. There were a few people there practicing meditation and some sort of Tai Chi. After spending some time there, we headed for the Peak Tram, which is the trolley that goes to the top of Victoria Peak. The trolley ride was incredibly steep; I would say about 45 degrees. The tram needs a big wheel at the top that actually pulls it up the mountain because it is way too steep for any normal wheels. When we got to the top, the view was spectacular. We could see all of downtown Hong Kong and far into Kowloon. Unfortunately, it was very humid and muggy, so the normal air visibility wasn’t terribly far, but it was still amazing. Carson and I started walking to what we thought was a lookout, but it turns out we were on the Dragon’s Back Trail, which is the trail that goes all the way around the top of Victoria Peak. We circled the top of the mountain, getting spectacular views over all sides of the island. After our hike, we hopped back on the tram and headed down the mountain. When we got off, we started meandering our way back down to the Star Ferry, looking for a place to eat. We found one near the harbor area, got a quick bite, and hopped on the ferry. We rode it back to Kowloon and decided to go to the Lady’s Market, in downtown Kowloon. We hailed a cab and headed on our way. We got there and it was extraordinarily crowded. It was just like any other market bazaar with stands everywhere selling miscellaneous items. We both purchased one or two things and then we realized it was time to head back to the ship. We got in another cab and got dropped off at the port. I still had a few Hong Kong dollars to spend so we stopped at a candy store that was near the ship and bought a few treats. We boarded the ship about half an hour before On Ship Time at 1800. When I got back on the ship, I ate dinner and had lots of conversations with all of my friends about all of their China adventures. After dinner, we had to do our second Muster Drill, which took a while and was quite uneventful. The Muster Drill is where you practice going to your emergency lifeboat stations in case there is a disaster. We have to do a few of these on the voyage to make sure that we remember how to do it (it isn’t that hard, but some kids still have trouble). The ship was scheduled to pull out at 2000, right during that night’s laser show. Most of the kids were out on deck while the ship departed from the dock and made its way back out to open sea. When the ship was away from all the lights and sounds of Hong Kong, I went back to my room and fell asleep rather quickly, thus beginning our (only) two day voyage to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, which afterwards I will update my blog again.