India

India

*Pcitures are up, enjoy*

WARNING: This is pretty long, Im sorry.

If someone were to ask me what India is like, I would have to respond by saying India is everything. India is poor and rich, it is happy and it is extremely sad, it is delicious and disgusting, it is fast and slow, it is religious and secular, it is developed and undeveloped, it is hot and….alright well its just plain hot. India is a shock to all the senses, the sights of the poorest people in the world, sleeping in the dirt with absolutely no belongings, then there is the sounds of a thousand horns all blaring at the same time, the smell of India is so bad sometimes that you can taste it in your mouth and it burns the back of your throat.

I saw things in India that I don’t even want to write about, it was a whole different world and I have never seen anything like it, even after seeing the poor of South Africa and Brazil. I’m sure it hasn’t even set in for me yet and it will take some time to do so. Nevertheless, my experience in India was one I will never forget.

Day 1: After dealing with the extremely bureaucratic Indian immigration officials, we finally got off the ship and made our way to THE GATE. Dean Mike had warned us about the gate in both of our preports (which I could write a whole entry about and maybe I will). As soon as we passed through the gate we were bombarded with rickshaw drivers looking to take our money. “You want rickshaw? I give good price! Where you want to go, you want to go shopping? I give good price, my friend, my friend, come come!” I left the bartering for the rickshaw up to Kyle and Slava. We were told that the going rate to get into town was about 70 rupees, yet the first rate offered to us was 200 rupees a piece. We were able to get the driver down to 70 and we were on our way in our first rickshaw ride, over the course of which I probably said “holy shit!” at least a hundred times. India has absolutely no traffic rules, the lanes don’t mean anything, the horn is used liberally, stop signs are optional, and everyone drives within 6 inches of other vehicles (and I’m not exaggerating).

Our destination was Spencer’s Plaza, a market/mall type place where we were going to do some shopping. However, the rickshaw drivers get commission for taking us to some of their stores so we agreed with our driver that we would go to two stores before making it to Spencer’s. Once we got there we bought a lot of stuff for extremely cheap.
The rest of the day was spent on similar adventures with some arguments with rickshaw drivers thrown in. We also had some great Indian cuisine: Pizza Hut.

Day 2: My Delhi/Agra/Taj trip through SAS left the ship at 4:15am. We took a 2.5 hour flight to Delhi, had lunch and then transferred to the train station for what was supposed to be a 3.5 hour train ride. The train was delayed for over an hour and we ended up sitting at the train station for about 2.5 hours. The station was filled with poor families, beggers, and other pretty sad sights. We finally got on the train, a second class sleeper which was pretty short of comfortable. The ride ended up taking over 4 hours and we didn’t end up getting to the hotel until past 7:00pm. Fifteen straight hours of traveling wasn’t too enthralling. A group of us walked around the streets of Agra for a bit and hung out at the hotel and then headed to bed.

Day 3: The day began at 5:30am with a trip to the Taj Mahal for sunrise. What an experience this was, seeing one of the wonders of the world, something that you look at in photographs your whole life. It was surreal to have it right before my eyes and I just couldn’t stop taking pictures. Of course everyone knows what the Taj Mahal looks like, but not many people know what it actually is. It was built by the 5th Mughal emperor, Shah Jahan as a tomb for his beloved wife. It took 20,000 men and 22 years to construct. The middle dome required a 2 mile long ramp to be built in order for the marble stones to be brought to the top. The white marble is inlayed with some absurd amount of precious gems and jewels. In the midst of the construction of the Taj, Shah Jahan was imprisoned by his own son who was upset that his father was spending all of his inheritance on the Taj. Shah Jahan watched from his cell as the Taj was completed and never was able to visit the finished product. Upon his death, he too was buried inside of the Taj, though this wasn’t part of the original plan. The wife’s tomb is directly under center of the middle dome and Shah Jahan’s is off to the side, his tomb is in fact the only asymmetrical part of the Taj.
It is rumored that Shah Jahan wanted to build a second mausoleum for himself but was never able to complete this task. His tomb was going to be a second Taj, directly across the river and made out of black marble. If you wikipedia Black Taj, you can find a lot more interesting facts about this.

We left the Taj and headed back to the hotel for breakfast, then headed to a silk carpet store. The owner explained to us how the rugs were made and how durable and long-lasting they were. They take about 5 years to make and are only made in Kashmir. After teaching us about them for a half hour or so, of course the store wanted to sell us some. The starting price? $650. Surprisingly, a few kids on the trip bought some. From here, we boarded the busses again and took a 45 minute drive to a ghost city of the Mughal Empire.
This city was built by emperor Akbah, the 3rd emperor, after finding a healer in the area that allowed Akbah’s wife to produced a male heir to the throne. The capital was moved from Agra to this city, constructed of red sandstone. Because of water shortages, Akbah and his people were forced to leave after just 20 years and though the city is 400 years old, it is in pristine condition. It even houses a life sized Parchese board. Did you know that the US and India are the only two countries that play Parchese?

After the ghost city, we headed back to Agra for lunch at the hotel, and then back out to go to Agra Fort. Agra Fort is actually not a fort, but a city of mosques and palaces where the Mughul royalty spent many years. Like the ghost city, the fort is in amazing condition for being 400 years old. From the fort, you can see the Taj further down the river and also the “cell” where Shah Jahan was imprisoned. The architecture and intricacy of the buildings is amazing. After touring the fort, we headed back to the Taj for sunset. Beginning and ending the day at the Taj Mahal was incredible and no matter how long I stared at it, I still could not grasp the fact that I was there seeing it.

We had dinner at Pizza Hut, where the waiters performed a choreographed Indian dance (if only they did this while waiting for pizza in the states) and then headed to the train station for the train back to Delhi. Thankfully, it was first class and the express train this time. We arrived in Delhi at an amazing hotel called Hotel Ashkok and headed to bed.

Day 4: After breakfast at the hotel, we headed out on a bus tour of Delhi. The city is actually quite amazing and extremely different from Chennai. It was carefully planned out by the British while they still colonized India. The city is very green, as trees were planted along every street and every median to make sure the city would stay cool year round. The government buildings are quite remarkable (Delhi is India’s Washington DC). The presidential palace is three times the size of the White House. After seeing some of the sights of Delhi, we headed to the house where Ghandi spent the last 144 days of his life. The house has been turned into a museum, but they have left Ghandi’s bedroom, office, and meditation area untouched. They even retraced his footsteps out to the garden where he was assassinated. I wish we would have had more time to spend here because there was a lot of great things to read and sights around the estate to take in. Unfortunately, we had to head back to the hotel to checkout and then off to the airport. After a lot of traveling, we reached the ship in Chennai at about 9:00pm.

Day 5: I slept in pretty late and had lunch on the ship before heading out with a group of people to do some shopping (because there really isn’t that much else to do in Chennai). We spent a few more hours out at Spencer’s and returned to the ship pretty early.

Today we have an off day, which means time to catch up on sleep, schoolwork, and blogging. We have just a few days before reaching Malaysia. The voyage gets very condensed from this point forward and we won’t have a long stretch at sea until after Japan, which is a good thing. I just hope the next few weeks wont fly by too fast, I’m not ready for the time of my life to end just yet.