INDIA

October 27, 2006
We arrived in our port in the morning and I went outside to the 7th deck to check out the view. Our port was in the city of Chennai (one of the professors called the city the “Detroit” of Asia) and it was very industrial looking and not very attractive. The humidity, awful smell, and thousands of flies were the first things I experienced when I stepped outside. Flies were literally everywhere and just to stand outside was exhausting because the humidity was so overwhelming. There was a parking lot to one side of the ship and a pretty typical industrial looking skyline beyond that. It didn’t look like I expected India to look like, but of course the scenery was much different once we got out of Chennai.
I packed and lounged around the ship until my trip left around 2pm. I bought a few snack bars and waters to bring on the 4 day, 3 night trip because we had a lot of early wake up calls and meals on flights. The SAS trip that I signed up for was to Delhi, Agra, and Varanasi and it came with a warning that there would be early wake ups and a ton of traveling. But I had read about Varanasi and I was really excited to see the Ganges as well as the Taj Mahal in Agra.
We took a bus to the airport, then flew the Delhi around 6 pm and got to our beautiful hotel that night. On all the SAS trips the hotels are usually really nice, and this one was amazing. We were given flower leis made of beautiful bright orange flowers as we entered the door and women dressed on vivid colored saris handed us cold drinks. We were all pretty tired but decided to drop off our stuff and find a place for some food. The meal on the flight had actually been pretty good. It was spicy curry chicken, rice and vegetables served hot all together, a cold vegetable salad with lime, and Indian yogurt (which is supposed to be used to combat the spiciness of the other food). But we were still hungry that night so we walked out of the hotel and found a Lebanese restaurant. We ordered some hummus and drinks and it was some of the best food that I’ve had anywhere. Luckily the menus were all in English and many or most of the Indians we met spoke a good enough amount of English to talk to us. I’ve been really surprised in each of the countries how much English is everywhere. There are always English signs, and often English music playing, no matter how many of the people can actually speak it. After our late dinner we had a 4am wake up call so we decided to try and get at least a few hours of sleep. The next morning we all made it down to the buses (there were two full buses of people on this trip, probably around 120 kids so it was hard to get everyone organized and in the right places on time) by 5am, ready to take a train to Agra for the day. We got to the station and waited about half an hour for our “first class” train. The train station was probably one of the dirtiest places that we went. Imagine a subway station in New York City but about 10 times dirtier and with children and handicapped beggars constantly grabbing at your clothes and feet asking for money. The begging was overwhelming at times, especially when we would see children as young as 4 (they could have been older but were probably extremely malnourished and looked about that age), holding a sickly looking baby with one arm and holding the other out for money. The hardest part about this was that giving out anything meant that you would be surrounded by more and more people waiting for a handout. We had to try as hard as we could to just look away and not acknowledge the beggars (which is what our Indian tour guide told us to do). We got onto our first class train which was in no way comparable to trains in the US but it was air conditioned and perfectly fine to travel in for a few hours. The toilet was basically a hole in the floor and of course there was no toilet paper anywhere. Every place we went we would be so happy to find a “western” toilet and to not have to squat over a dirty porcelain hole in the floor. We were served food on the train that looked a little weird but I would definitely have eaten out of hunger if it weren’t for the cockroach that crawled around my tray on the table. I pretty much lost my appetite after that.
We got off the train in Agra and boarded another bus to drive an hour out to a Turkish Sultan’s Palace. It was a huge complex built out of red sandstone and it was completed in the 16th century. It was kind of interesting but we were all so hot and uncomfortable that it was hard to pay attention and walk around the area for the hour long tour. Our tour guide was pretty informative but very intense and the bus rides outside of the cities were so bumpy that we got thrown around a lot and we weren’t really able to catch up on any sleep. I didn’t really enjoy the first stop, but seeing the Taj Mahal was definitely the highlight of Agra. On our way to the Taj we stopped at a small shopping center where we could buy rugs, jewelry, silk, clothing, and souvenirs. We all sat in one room to hear about the rugs, which were really impressive. A man described to us how each rug was made, the family pattern that it followed, and how great the quality was. A few people bought rugs and the rug place shipped them to the US for free. The jewelry in India was amazing, but a lot of the stuff we had seen was obviously fake stones that the people tried to sell to us claiming it was real. But the jewelry store above the rug place was really nice. We were pretty positive that these stones and the gold and white gold were real so we shopped around to see how expensive it would be compared to home. Vendors and salespeople in India were more persistent and convincing than in any other country. They showed us more and more rings and had us sit down and try them all on, while telling us how beautiful they were and how affordable compared to home. We looked at a bunch of different white gold rings with small diamonds that were all very unique and really nice. They were between about 200 and 800 dollars, which seemed like a lot less than they would be at home. I bought a ring to remember the trip by (thanks Dad, think of it as an early Christmas present). After our shopping trip we headed to the Taj Mahal.
To get into the area where the Taj was we had to go through security (there are always separate lines for women and men when going through security in India). We walked through a huge courtyard all made of stone and surrounded by lush green trees and gardens. It was a beautiful area and I was really impressed…and then I saw the Taj. We walked through an opening where everyone filtered in through the courtyard toward the long shallow pool that sits leading up to the huge stone building. At first sight, the Taj Mahal looked completely fake. We were hundreds of feet away from it yet it still seemed massive and it was shining white in the sun. It was the most impressive looking building that I have ever seen. The man who built it did so as a promise to his wife who died. And after the building was complete, the man ordered all of the workers’ fingers to be cut off so that they couldn’t build anything comparable to the Taj. We stood as a group and took a ton of pictures with the Taj as the background. My friend Sam and I were taking pictures of each other and suddenly some Indian men started asking to have their pictures taken with us. We thought it was strange but they were really excited so we let them stand next to us and take pictures. This was fine until about 50 of them had taken pictures and we got a little overwhelmed and decided to leave. This happened to a lot of the kids we were with, we couldn’t really figure out why it was so exciting to them. We walked toward the Taj along a shallow stone pool with little fountains spaced out in it (kind of like the reflection pool in Washington DC). When we got to the level that the Taj was on we had to take off our shoes to walk around. Inside of the building was a fairly small room with a huge, tall ceiling. In the center there were two large stone tombs, one for the wife and one for the widowed husband. The entire white stone structure was amazing, especially as the sun started to set.
We walked around exploring, trying to avoid taking pictures but stopping a few times as a big group to pose with Indians. Indian men and Indian women never posed together, they barely seemed to interact anywhere unless they were married. When we posed with Indian women they stood to the sides of us and were pretty timid, but many of the Indian men started to put their arms around us and lean on us. At first we thought it was funny but then it started to get really uncomfortable. Anywhere we stood or sat people would stare at us and when we would say no to pictures they just stood around us or behind us and had their friends take them anyway. A bunch of us (SAS students) were sitting down against a wall and when a man asked to take our picture someone said yes and then about 20 Indian men ran over and squeezed themselves between us. It was really uncomfortable how close the man were getting to us and one of them even grabbed at my chest and I had to smack his hand away and yell at him. This same thing happened to another girl but there was a guard nearby and he came over and hit the Indian guy in the face with a huge wooden stick. Apparently it is common for them to hang around and do this to foreign women. This incident along with a few other things made it hard to trust or want to approach the Indian people. Because we were Americans here it basically meant we were walking dollar signs and we were constantly being taken advantage of or lied to in order to get more money out of us. But it seemed hard to blame these people for trying to get us to pay them more considering the extreme poverty that India suffers from.
After this we went to get dinner at a Pizza Hut (I think the only country we haven’t seen a pizza hut in was Myanmar). The pizza tasted the same as in the US, and we were happy to have a familiar meal after such a long day. The 5 Indian guys who were working at the Pizza Hut stood in a line between our tables and turned on some Indian pop music. We were a little confused until they all started doing a complicated choreographed dance to the music. This was really entertaining and fun to get a display of Indian culture while we ate our pizza. After dinner we thanked the guys and headed to the train station to get back to Delhi. We returned to our hotel in Delhi, exhausted after our 16-hour day.
The next morning we woke up around 5:30am in order to catch our flight to Varanasi. We got to our hotel In Varanasi in time for lunch and had a really good Indian meal. They served this bread called Naan that looks a bit like pita and is used to scoop up other dishes or to eat alone with butter. Naan was definitely my favorite Indian food, with butter it tasted like a mix between toast and a pancake and it was delicious. The food was pretty spicy and Dr. Bob (the doctor on the ship) had warned us of course not to drink the water and that the food would often make people sick. He called it “Delhi Belly”, which a large number of people had when they got back on the ship, but luckily I was fine. Out hotel was very nice and I think it was in a nicer part of Varanasi, but the area was still pretty poor and dirty looking. We boarded the buses again for a tour of a museum and important locations of Buddhism. We went to the place where Buddha gave his first sermon, and there were some small ruins that we explored. India is primarily a Hindu country but Buddhism was created there. Buddhism became basically a form of Hinduism so not many Hindus in India converted to Buddhism because it was tied into their religion. This was interesting to see but it basically looked like a little park with a fence around it.
After the tours a few of us went back to the hotel to rest and shop around the area. There were silk and jewelry shops absolutely everywhere in Varanasi. The city is known for its silk. We went into one large “Silk Emporium” that looked like a dirty hallway but a man came out and lead us in to see where the silk bedspreads were being made. A very old man sat at a wooden machine in a small room working on the pattern in a silk bedcover. He showed us at least 30 different colors of silk thread that were all lined up along a wooden loom and being used to make a very complex and beautiful pattern. It looked extremely time consuming because it was done painstakingly by hand. The owner of the shop took us upstairs to look at all of their products. There were hundreds and hundreds of silk scarves, bedcovers, bags, saris, ties, shirts, and pashminas. The man had us sit down and asked if we wanted tea or coffee. At first we said no but they really wanted us to have some so they brought us some Indian tea with spices in it. It was very strong but pretty good. The man brought out anything we wanted to see and showed us tons of different designs. He spent about an hour telling us all about his family’s business in silk and showing us how to put saris on. The silk saris were impressive looking, they were huge single pieces of silk that they tied around us in the traditional fashion. It was fun to be able to look at everything but it was somewhat expensive, probably because they expected Americans to pay a lot for anything. Most of the time when we asked how much something cost they gave us a price that we could cut in half by bargaining. After shopping we went back to the hotel for dinner and to get some sleep before another early wake-up.
The last day in Varanasi was my favorite day of the trip. We woke up before dawn and boarded the buses to go watch the morning bathing as the sun was coming up. Our eyes were only half open on the ride but once we got off the bus and climbed down the concrete steps to our small wooden boat in the Ganges River, we were wide awake. The villages along the banks of the river looked as if they had been undisturbed by time for centuries. The village people were selling wares, fruits, and vegetables, or washing themselves and their clothes in the shallow water of the river. We all crammed into the long skinny canoe-like boat and bought little wax candles that sat in big brown leaves filled with tiny bright red flowers. The candles were lit and the tradition is to make a wish and send your floating flame down the river. There is a lot of tradition associated with the Ganges River and it is very significant for the Hindu people of India. Although most people are familiar with the ceremony of floating dead bodies in the Ganges, it is actually only four types of people who receive this treatment when they die: pregnant women, lepers, very holy men, and people who have been poisoned. But along the banks, people are ceremoniously cremated when they die and it is said that their soul is released from the cycle of reincarnation and sent to enlightenment. This is the ultimate goal of any Hindu so there are many people who come to die in Varnasi, near the river. Because of all of this, the Ganges is extremely dirty. The water looked really murky and there was some ash from the cremation floating on the top. Regardless, the Indian people bath and wash each morning in the Ganges River and refuse to listen to doctors and others who say that it is contaminated and dangerous.
To watch this ritual as the sun rose was one of the most memorable moments of the past few months. The sun was almost neon orange and the glow over the water was breath taking. I took some of my favorite pictures there that morning, especially one of a man on his back floating in the river directly in the bright reflection of the sunrise on the water. We floated down past many other boats full of tourists and finally came in to shore to get off and walk through the streets. The city along the river is pretty hard to describe because it’s like no other place I’ve ever been. There were huge stone steps leading out of the river and there were men women and children everywhere, going about their daily business. One group of old women, dressed in bright colored saris, were huddled around some kind of food that they were preparing, while chanting together very loudly. As we walked up into the winding city streets, we passed by an area that our guide told us not to take pictures of. It was the place where they were cremating the bodies of the dead. We didn’t get too close but basically it was a big fire pit out in the open with smoke rising up from it. I never imagined something like that would be done so simply and out in the open. It was a shock to see but even more shocking a few minutes later when four men came walking through the street carrying something large and wrapped in bright fabric on a type of stretcher. We all got out of the way quickly and as the men passed, singing, we realized that it had been a body they were carrying. Death is a huge part of Varanasi and the Ganges, and it was fascinating to see how differently Indian culture deals with death compared to Western Culture.
Touring through the streets of Varanasi was one of the times when we were all most deeply immersed in a culture, as well as feeling the most culture-shock. The streets were tiny and there was no escape but to walk forward so we experienced what it would be like to live within the poverty of this place. There were vendors and begging children grabbing at us and following us almost the entire way, as well as the occasional cow who would walk through (and of course in India, cows always have the right of way). In addition to the very ancient looking surroundings, there were a few stark contrasts to remind us of westernization. A couple motorbikes zipped through us at one point or another and even in a tiny alley with trash everywhere and a cracked door at the end, there was a huge Coca-Cola sign painted on the concrete. I think the contrast of the modern world reminders like billboards and advertisements made these poverty-stricken areas look even more destitute. We wandered these streets following our guide for a good thirty minutes, and we were all happy to see our comfortable, clean tour bus waiting for us on a larger road.
This was the end of the touring on our trip, so we headed back to the hotel for breakfast before a day filled with flights back to Delhi and then to Chennai. Coming home to the ship after catching our two delayed flights was one of the happier moments I’ve had the whole time. We all got on board as fast as possible to take hot showers and throw our clothes in the wash. We had been warned about the dirtiness and smells of India, and although it was pretty unsanitary at times, I didn’t think it was as bad as expected. We had traveled to some of the most culturally rich places, and not necessarily the cities where tourists go to experience India. I really appreciated seeing the Taj and the Ganges because I got so much out of the trip.
That night I had a great night’s sleep on the ship and got up to shop around Chennai with Corinne and Greg. We walked out onto the streets from Port and of course got haggled by tons of cab drivers. The prices they offer range by a lot and you always have to bargain and avoid getting ripped off. We finally found a driver who seemed decent and of course in broken English he told us we would stop first at a shop. This is something that happened to basically every person who go a rickshaw taxi in India. The driver would agree to take you where you wanted to go but would stop at a rug or jewelry or silk shop along the way so that you would go in and buy something and he would get a small commission for taking you there. It got really annoying because it didn’t feel like you could take anyone’s word at all. But our driver was pretty honest with us and nice so we went into one or two places before getting to where we wanted to go. We found a shopping center that looked almost identical to malls in the US, and we looked around in there for a while to use an internet café and pick up last minute souvenirs. After walking through the mall and the city streets of Chennai we had one last good meal in India before returning to the ship.
Sorry this is SO late! It’s getting harder and harder to keep up with the writing but I promise they will all get posted. I just had 5 incredible days in Egypt that I’m working on writing up and I’m also planning out my next 5 days in Turkey. Everything is going by so quickly but I’m loving every minute of it and I can’t wait to share all of my pictures and stories…thanks again for the comments!