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!