TURKEY!

We docked early in Istanbul and our port was in a perfect location. I went out to the deck to look around and prepared myself for some cold weather, finally! It wasn’t freezing but definitely North Face weather, which is really refreshing after months of heat and humidity. The skyline of the city was incredible and really different from any other big city I’ve ever seen. I made travel plans with my friends Justin, Jordan, and Brittany and we all met early so that we could get off the ship and go straight to the airport. Most people were planning on staying around Istanbul because it’s a big city and there was definitely enough to do there for five days. My friends and I read about a town on the southern coast called Antalya that sounded beautiful so we decided to try and spend some time there and come back to Istanbul for the last day.
The four of us were the first people off the ship and we talked to some parents who were eagerly waiting for their SAS kids to come off the ship. There are parents at a lot of the ports who meet their kids there and travel around with them, I can’t wait to see my parents waiting for me in Florida! We grabbed a cab and quickly realized that even with negotiating the prices in Turkey were nothing like what we had been paying in the rest of the world. The airport was about a half an hour away and right when we got there we found a cheap flight to Antalya that was leaving right away. We bought the tickets and ran to the gate, luckily making the flight since the next one was four hours later and a hundred Turkish Lira more (the conversion was about 1.4 Turkish Lira to the US dollar, which made conversions pretty confusing). The flight was really short, but basically all flights anywhere in Turkey were less than an hour and a half. It’s crazy to think that you can get around an entire country as quickly as it takes to get around California. When we arrived in Antalya it was a total change from the cold city feeling of Istanbul. The weather was in the 60’s and it was bright and sunny. We took a cab to a hotel that we’d read about, and enjoyed the view on the drive there. The streets were clean and developed, there was shopping and hotels, and restaurants and everything looked safe and inviting. This was definitely a new atmosphere to travel in. We were all so happy to be in such a developed and beautiful place, and after driving along the ocean and arriving at a hotel we all thought Antalya was the most beautiful place we had ever seen. The city wrapped around the coastline of a big bay of gorgeous blue water and behind the hotels and houses there were mountains covered in dense green forest. None of us knew much about what Turkey would be like but Antalya looked and felt like paradise. The first hotel was full so we ventured out to another one that sounded pretty eccentric in the guidebook.
The Hillside Su Hotel was the funniest place I’ve ever seen. When we entered the entirely white building the lobby is adorned with three humungous disco balls that were literally each bigger than me in diameter. There were huge white coaches with huge white pillows sitting on the shiny white floors. All of the walls were bright white and orange trees sat in the oversized windows. The only decorations besides the whiteness were red accent lights. It felt like being in a tacky dream. The reception desk was long and white (of course) and had about 8 clear goldfish bowls with orange fish in them lining the counter. We were all in shock and thought it would be fun to stay there for the night. We checked into our white rooms and then decided to try out the hotel’s sushi chef for lunch. We hadn’t had good sushi since Japan and this was a fantastic meal. I never realized how much I had missed avocados! After eating we wandered out to see the pool and beach. The pool area looked like it was directly out of a modern architecture magazine. Everything was clean and crisp and white. There was a pathway out to the beach and a small area with white couches and towels for hotel guests to lounge on. The weather was really warm enough for lying out (this was the off season in Antalya) so we walked around the beach in our jeans and jackets and took in the atmosphere. If the weather had been fifteen degrees warmer I don’t think I would ever want to leave that beach, it was pretty much empty and so picturesque. We found free internet in the hotel, which is always enticing because we have to pay for it on the ship. I spent a solid four hours on the computer getting back to my friends and figuring out my class schedule for next semester back at Vandy. After settling into the hotel rooms we rested for a bit and then went downstairs to have our free buffet dinner that was included in the price of the room. I had a buffet dinner in Hong Kong that was absolutely the best buffet I had ever seen but this dinner came in a close second.
We left the stark white walls of the hotel and entered the dining room, which was entirely red. I don’t think I’ve ever been so entertained by a hotel. There were tables and tables and tables of gourmet food that seemed to go on forever. They were divided into tables of cheeses, bread in every form possible, cooked vegetables, meats, spaghetti with meatballs, pizza, and tons more. Each of us went back at least 3 times to try things we had missed. And even after I thought I had seen everything, Jordan told me that the tables went into another room past the one we were in and it had at least five tables of unbelievable deserts. There were cakes and cookies, pies, custards, chocolate torts, puddings, fruit concoctions and crazy sauces. We figured the high priced room was worth it after this unbelievable dinner. After stuffing ourselves we changed and asked the front desk where to find some kind of nightlife. They recommended a bar nearby with live music, although it was the off-season so we knew we wouldn’t find too much to do. After trying out one bar that was empty except for the band and maybe three people, we took a taxi into “Old Town” and walked through the cobblestone streets. There were a lot of bars but because the weather had gotten cold there weren’t any people there. Right as we were about to give up a Turkish man asked us what we were looking for and then lead us through the streets in the direction of music. At first we thought he was taking us to his house or something but we ended up in a pretty authentic, non-touristy Turkish bar. It was a small place with two tables full or Turks and we sat down to listen to the band play. This was an unplanned and unexpected night but we ended up having a great time there. We all danced with the Turkish people in the bar and stayed until late having some beers and enjoying the music.
We slept in a bit the next morning in our crazy white hotel rooms and then checked out and went back into Old Town to find out about tours around the area. Right as we got out of our cab a man in a suit asked us what we were looking for and then ended up leading us across the street to a rug store. They invited us in for tea (which was really common in Egypt as well) so we accepted and went into the store. The men tried to sell us rugs and we sat there politely declining, telling them we were only students and couldn’t afford them. The speech that rug store owners give is really intense, at least this is how it was in India and in Turkey. They started unfolding rugs all over the floor and telling us to email our parents and ask if they wanted a rug so that we could buy one and have it shipped home. A man came in holding a large solid metal lantern looking thing and then he opened a small door on the side of it and took out our cups of hot tea. The tea was served in little clear glasses that indented in the middle making a bulb or vase shape and they sat on little glass plates. It was pretty bright green tea and it tasted just like sweet apple cider. I think I had Turkish apple tea about 15 times again after that in the country and I bought some to bring home because it was amazing. After our tea we told the man we were looking for a hotel and for tours. He lead us across and down the street to a tour office, owned by a relative of his (of course). We discussed what we could do and decided to go on a full day tour the next day of a place called Myra where we would take a boat out and explore some interesting stuff. Then the man who was helping us took us into the center of town to a small hotel. This hotel was probably the least nice of any place I have stayed during semester at sea (except for the one we stayed in the next night). It was a tiny building that looked like a cabin on the first floor but had a TV and couches and we were amazed at the way they made it look in pictures on the brochure they had at the front desk. It was very cheap so we agreed to stay there and the man walked us up to our rooms. The rooms were a very interesting mixture of things. They had some neon cheap fleece blankets and rickety old furniture, but there were TV’s and bathrooms attached to the bedrooms so we were happy. We called our cab driver who had taken us to our hotel the first day and asked if he could drive us out to a tourist spot for the afternoon, because this was cheaper and easier than taking a tour. The driver agreed and came to pick us up.
It was about a half hour ride out to our first destination, the Duden Waterfalls. This area was like a little park that was fenced off, and we paid our admission and went in to look around. The waterfalls and caves behind them were unbelievable. There were manmade stairs so that we could walk into the caves carved into the rock that the waterfalls rolled over. Everything was misty and the sun was bright so it looked even more incredible. The interiors of the caves were covered in thick green moss and felt cold and damp. We walked deeper into them and stood directly behind the cascading falls. From every angle this place was really breath taking. We walked down below to view the falls and the river and I took pictures from the bridges of the rainbow that formed over the area where the waterfalls ended. The leaves were bright greens and yellow and the weather was sunny but a little cold and crisp, which felt a bit like we had finally entered fall after the long summery weather in other parts of the world. After we were done exploring the falls and the nature at Duden we got back into our cab and drove up to Termessos. The drive there was a long windy one around a mountain to get to the top. We could see the land and the mountains for miles and miles in every direction and there wasn’t a cloud in the clear blue sky. At this point I don’t think we could even see a town anymore, it was just nature all around us. We got to the top of the road and read the signs about the history of Termessos. I took a picture of the sign and it’s really interesting so I’ll just transcribe exactly what it said:
“Termessos is one of the best preserved and most attractive archaeological sites in Turkey. The Permessians referred to themselves in inscriptions as Solymias, a native people of Pamphylia. Their language seems to have been a dialect of Piidian, although mentioned in the “Illiad”. In connection with the story of Bellerophon, Termessos does not make its first appearance in history until 334 B.C. when Alexander The Great passed through the region. Termessos enjoyed its first period of prosperity in the Hellenistic age and its second in Roman times. The inhabitants were acknowledged by the Roman Senate as ‘Friends and Allies’ of the Roman people and were granted the right to ‘formulate their own laws’. Nothing is known about the Christian period in Termessos.”
There was also a map of all the different sites or ruins to see. We walked up the trail toward the city, which wasn’t an easy hike, especially in the altitude. After a while we came across thee first sign of where the lower city walls were. We could see a bit of stone structure that had been over half-way destroyed. We continued up the path to the signs leading us to the bath and gymnasium. There were doorways and walls made of stone still standing but because of all the trees and rubble it was hard to tell what everything was and how it originally might have looked. It was pretty hard to believe that this village was built into the side and top of this mountain. At the top there was the theater that sat with the rows of stone seats looking outward over one of the most phenomenal views I have ever seen. It was in pretty good condition with all of the fallen stones resting in the center where the stage would have been. We each sat on the edge of the ancient stone rim for a long time just taking in the scenery. I was completely struck by the complete and total silence. There was not a single bird chirping, it was simply dead quiet. Termessos was an absolutely perfect place and sitting there in the fresh air with the sun casting a shadow over exactly half of the spectacular theater was something I will never forget. The acoustics in the theater were pretty amazing. Brittany and I walked down into the center and we could easily hear and talk to the boys at the top without yelling at all. After a good amount of time enjoying the silence and taking pictures, an SAS trip arrived. It was a small trip of about 12 people and we knew it was SAS right when they walked up because they were so loud. They didn’t expect to see us there any more than we expected to see them there. I think we were the only independent travelers who came all the way to Antalya. The “Sheriff” from the ship and his wife were on the trip so we talked to them about what they had seen and how much we all loved the area. We said goodbye to the SAS-ers and headed back down the trail.
Our cab driver was waiting for us at the bottom and he pointed out some wild pigs running by in the road. They were pretty scary and disgusting looking, but we didn’t get very close to them because they ran away. We asked our driver if he could stop at a restaurant on the way back because we were all starving. He took us down the road a bit and turned off at an area that was a popular camping place. There was a little outdoorsy looking restaurant on the side of the road that he said was good so we went in for some food. There were no menus and the man didn’t speak too much English but he said they had some kind of kebob so we asked for chicken and beef and salads. The food was delicious, and much better than we had expected from a little run down restaurant like this place. After eating we went back to our little hotel and wandered around the streets of Old Town for a while. We found a pet store that had at least 15 puppies in it and they were adorable. The puppies were tiny and kept in little stacked cages, there was even a skinny little brown boxer that I fell in love with. It was whining and shaking and I just wanted to take it back to the ship with me, of course it made me miss my boxer, Sophie. Jordan and Justin called me over to see another animal in one of the cages, which at first looked like a smallish fluffy white dog but I was shocked when I realized it was a bunny! It was literally the biggest rabbit I have ever seen, the guy pulled it out and held it by its neck and it must have been as long as his torso and over two feet wide with all its fluff. It was one of those bunnies with red eyes, and that made it extra creepy. It was almost impossible to stop playing with the puppies but we headed off to try some street food. In Turkey they have kebob stations on the side of the street where there is meat on a giant skewer that turns upright in front of a flame and cooks. The kebob guy uses a huge knife to scrape of pieces of meat on the outside that have been cooked by the flame. Then he wraps the meat, tomato, lettuce and sauce up in a pita type bread like a burrito. I think I ate this about 6 times while I was in Turkey. It was one of the simplest, cheapest, and best things to eat in the country. We had a dinner of kebob from a street vendor for only a few dollars and then walked around the city looking for something to do. It was the off season in Antalya and if there was any night life it wouldn’t have started for another few hours so we saw a movie theater and decided to check if there were any English movies. There was one US movie that was a few months old but Jordan, Brittany, and I hadn’t seen it so we wanted to kill a few hours watching it. This was the first movie theater I’d been to in over two months and I forgot how nice it was to watch movies on a giant screen rather than the on my laptop or the tiny TV in my room on the ship. The movie had Turkish subtitles but it was in English so it took me back to the US for a few hours. It is really amazing how privileged we have been in every single country because English is extremely common all over the world and it was never really necessary for us to speak any other language to get by.
After the movie we wandered a bit more down the streets and at every restaurant we passed there was a man asking us to come in and eat. We kept telling them we had already had dinner but we asked if there were any places nearby to go out at night. One man pointed us in the direction of the harbor, where there were supposed to be bars and nightclubs. It took us a while walking through the streets to finally make it to the lit up harbor but it was worth the walk. There were a ton of boats docked and bars and restaurants lining the strip along the water. Everything was lit up and reflected on the water, and I’m sure this place would have been full of people in the summer. We found one or two bars that were open and went in to check them out. Most places were closed in the because of the off season so after the boys played darts for a while in one of the bars we walked back to our hotel and got some sleep.
In the morning we woke up at 6:30 and headed back to the tour place to meet the guide and the rest of our group. We loaded up in a van and then a bus with a bunch of other foreigners. The drive was long but the scenery was unbelievable. We drove along the coast basically on a cliff overlooking the ocean. We wound around turn after turn and each cove was more beautiful than the last, parts of the drive reminded me of some areas of Highway One along the California coastline. Every once in a while there were small beaches or green valleys that were entirely untouched and didn’t have a single structure built on them. If land like this existed anywhere in the US I can’t imagine it wouldn’t be covered with vacation homes and resorts. It took about three hours to get to our destination but we stopped at a restaurant and gift shop about half way there. When we arrived we got off the bus in a small town that sat along the water. I feel like I’m running out of words to describe this part of Turkey because it was all incredible, beautiful and unbelievably picturesque. The weather was a bit chilly but the sun was out and brightly reflecting on the crystal clear water. We boarded our little boat and took off on a slow tour of the nearby islands and scenery. Our tour guide had to give the same information in 4 different languages so it was hard to get a very good description of anything. His English wasn’t bad but his accent and confusion of the other three languages made it hard to understand everything he said. There were a couple little towns built entirely into the hills of the tiny islands. The guide told us that in these towns there were no roads at all, and people got from place to place by steps carved into the hills between the homes. On top of one of the small islands there was an original castle built by the crusaders. It wasn’t in perfect condition but it was very large and easy to see from our boat. We also got to see a “sunken city” or the ruins that still existed under water and along the shore. There were stone doorways, steps, and the foundation or outlines of buildings that sat on the shore and were visible a few feet under the sparkling clear water. These islands were all only accessible by boat which was pretty incredible because there had been ancient civilizations as well as modern towns built there even though there were no roads or bridges to get there. The boat stopped so that we could have a chance to swim around. Brittany and I decided it was a little too cold to get in but Jordan and Justin changed and got in with some of the other tourists. They said it wasn’t too cold but we were still wearing jeans and sweatshirts on the boat so getting into the ocean wasn’t really appealing. We returned to the little town by the water where we had started and got back on the bus for the ride to another site.
The next stop was the town of Myra, where we had lunch and visited the St. Nicolas church that was erected there after his death. Lunch was mediocre but it was included in our tour. The only good part was the tomato soup, which was really good. This area was supposedly well known for its tomatoes. After lunch we went inside the church for a tour. I took a picture of the sign describing the history of St. Nicholas and it said: “St. Nicholas was born in Patara in the second half of the 3rd Century and lived there until he became the bishop of Myra.” He was a popular religious character and gained popularity all over Europe. He is now known in America of course as Santa Claus. He is also known as the patron Saint of Seamen and sailors used to wish each other luck with the phrase “May Saint Nicolas Hold the Tiller.” The church was small but very interesting and dated back to the 8th century. I bought a St. Nicholas medal on a necklace to wear on the ship, hopefully for some protection against any bad seas for the rest of the voyage! Justin and I took pictures with the giant Santa Claus statue that was erected in the center of town and we looked around in the shops waiting for the other tourists to get back on the bus.
After Myra we drove out to a site where there was a large well-preserved amphitheater as well as some other ancient ruins. This place was really amazing. It’s really hard to describe but my favorite part were these tombs that had been intricately carved into the rock side of a mountain. They had windows and doorways and were carved so completely into the rock that they looked like the mountain had formed that way. We couldn’t get too close to the tombs because they were fairly high up, but there were steps leading up to the top of the theater. Once we reached the top we looked down into a huge number of stone steps with the mountain behind us, and the sun setting out to the side over the land. There were also a bunch of mountain goats walking all over the steps. They were really big with huge curled horns, which made them particularly intimidating. There were a few little boys trying to lead us around and sell us things and they kept grabbing the goats by the horns and hitting them. This was pretty funny to watch but we were all expecting one of them to get mad enough to head butt the boys down the steps. We stayed as far away from the goats as we could and explored the theater. This theater was probably larger than the one we saw at Termessos but it wasn’t quite as impressive because of its location. It was still incredible to be able to walk around in a structure that was centuries old and still standing. We had a few glasses of fresh squeezed orange and pomegranate juice from the vendors around the site, and then got back on the bus for the drive back. We stopped at the same small restaurant/shop after about an hour and a half of driving and arrived in perfect timing for a spectacular sunset over a view of a huge valley with green hills, a small lit up town, and the water below. The sun made layers of deep red, then dark orange, then glowing yellow fading up toward the dark sky. It was hard to capture on the camera but I don’t think I’ll ever forget the way the sky looked at that moment.
We had decided that we wanted to go to Olympus to see the flames there and stay overnight, so we had the tour bus drop us off half way on their return drive to Antalya. This seemed like a good idea at the time, especially because we only had a short time in Turkey and we had seen all there was to see in Antalya. Also the Olympus flames were supposed to be truly amazing. So we spoke to our guide and he said they could drop us at a place where a bus would come from the hotels and pick us up to bring us into the town. The driver was apparently a little confused and it took him a few times turning around to get us to the spot we needed to be. We felt bad that we were inconveniencing the other members of our group so we didn’t object when the guide finally told us to grab our stuff and wait on the road for the bus to come. He said that the bus came about every half hour and that he had called one of the hotels to let them know we would be there. It sounded like a good plan so we all picked up our backpacks and got off the bus. We stood on the side of the highway in a sort of inlet where the road turned off at a sign for Olympus as the bus pulled away and everything became pitch black. We literally couldn’t see a single thing around us, except when cars would come by every few minutes. I had my computer with me so I opened it up for some light and put on some music so it wasn’t quite as scary. We were all laughing at ourselves because we couldn’t believe we were standing on the side of the road with no concept of where we were and no guarantee that we were getting picked up. After about 40 minutes a bus finally arrived and we ran up asking if it was for the hotel in Olympus. Luckily it was the right bus and we were saved! The small bus took us down a winding road away from the highway toward our hotel. I guess I forgot to mention that Olympus is known for its tree house hotels and our tour guide had recommended the best one that he knew of. So we arrived at the “hotel” which consisted of a bunch of wooden tree houses and bungalows as well as a small main room where meals were served. It was really cold by this time of night but we were all excited about staying in a tree house so we booked the room for the night. There was a sign up that said there were night time trips out to see the flames after dinner. We asked the manager and he arranged a trip for us that night. We sat down to dinner while our tree house room was being prepared. There were a few other Americans there as well as some girls from Canada and a couple from New Zealand and Australia. The meal was very home style, some grilled chicken, potatoes, pasta and bread. It wasn’t bad food especially after our long day and adventure getting there. The four of us put our stuff down in the “tree house” before bundling up to go out and see the flames.
Our room was raised off the ground by steps and consisted of four thin walls and a door, floor and ceiling. There were two big beds with layers of sheets and blankets but there was absolutely nothing else in the room. The bathrooms were all outdoors and all the meals were served in the main room. These tree house hotels were all over the place in Olympus but obviously they were extremely popular in the summer months and basically empty during the winter.
We got into a van, which took us on a winding drive out to the area where we could see the flames. When we arrived it looked like a campsite and a man came out of a small building to collect our money for the tickets we had to buy. He then handed us two flashlights and pointed up a dark trail, telling us to follow it up about 2 kilometers. We hadn’t expected that this would be self-lead but everything that night had been pretty unexpected. We followed the dark path using our small lights to find our way through the woods uphill. At one point we had to step over a huge fallen tree but the little pathway continued past it. After a pretty good hike we saw some light ahead and heard a few people talking. Coming up to the flames was one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen. There were much more than I had expected, probably over 20 of different sizes spread out everywhere over a hill of rocks and dirt. There were some campers surrounding one large flame but luckily there weren’t many other people there. We took a bunch of pictures but it was hard to show just what they looked like. Some were tiny and came out of little coves of rock, while others were a few feet high. They were mostly yellow and orange, like regular flames, but some of the little ones were really blue where they came out of the ground. We read a sign about the flames that explained that the “Eternal Flame of Olympos” is caused by a constant gas leak from the ground that always remains ignited. This is where the original Olympic flames were lit and the athletes ran down into the town from there. It was incredible to see the flames at night, and I think this was my favorite thing we did on this trip. I can’t wait to show everyone pictures from this night, because they are really unbelievable.
After coming back down the hill from seeing the flames, we met our bus driver and went back to the tree house hotel. We stayed in the main room for a while playing cards (because there was a wood burning stove in there to heat the room), and then eventually headed out into the cold to go to bed. I don’t know exactly what the temperature was but I can say that even with at least 3 blankets on that was the coldest and most uncomfortable nights sleep I have ever had. I guess it’s fun to say that I slept in a tree house hotel but I didn’t appreciate it at all that night. We got up early the next morning to catch a ride to the bus station and then bought our tickets for a shuttle back to Antalya. When we got there the shuttle was pretty much full but they put plastic stools in the aisles for us to sit on. There were soldiers in the back of the shuttle sitting there holding huge guns the whole time, which was pretty weird. After the long ride we were back in Antalya and we had about two hours left before we had to catch our flight. The boys had heard of a bungee jumping place so we took a taxi out there but it was closed because it was the off season. I was pretty happy that it wasn’t open because I know they would have tried to make me do it.
The flight was short and we all slept the whole time, and when we got off in Istanbul and walked out of the security gate I realized my entire wallet was gone. It had my credit cards, cash, all forms of ID, and my passport in it. I started freaking out and went to every person in the airport asking who I should talk to. They all sent me to different people over and over and I basically got nowhere. I finally talked to the lost and found and convinced one of them to run on the plane and look for it because I was almost positive that it had just fallen out somewhere near my seat. They said they couldn’t find it so I asked to write down a number to call in case they did and they gave me a report to fill out, but this was all pretty difficult since they spoke very little English. We got back to the ship and I had to go through a whole ordeal explaining my situation because losing your passport is pretty much the worst thing to do on Semester at Sea. The phones and internet were down on the ship so I had to go out in Istanbul and try and find a phone and then I couldn’t figure that out so I had to go back to the ship and get my computer. I finally got a hold of my mom through instant messaging by having a friend call her and of course she wasn’t too happy with the situation. She had to cancel the credit card of course and it was a huge ordeal. After that I found some of my friends and had some dinner before heading back to the ship to deal with figuring out a new passport. There was a guy from Istanbul who was working with the ship to help with any situation like this who I had spoken with earlier about my missing wallet. I saw him again as I walked into the port and he told me they’d found the wallet at the airport. I was pretty ecstatic because once we got there and picked it up everything was in it, including my passport. Thankfully everything worked out but of course it was a nightmare for a few hours. There have been at least 10 other SAS kids who have lost wallets and passports and some of them have had to pay huge fees or go through long processes to get new ones. I was so relieved to have everything back in my hands!
After that fiasco I turned in my passport to the front desk (we do this at every port when we don’t need it anymore) and I went out with some friends to experience Istanbul at night. Walking down the streets was a whole new experience. It was crowded everywhere and not a thing was shut down, as a lot had been in Antalya. I really loved the city of Istanbul, it had much more to offer than I expected. We went to a few bars and hung out with some other SAS friends and then headed back to the ship for a good nights sleep. I’d heard of a lot of people who got unknowingly involved in scams while out and about in Istanbul, but luckily this didn’t happen to me or my friends. Apparently when some guys would go into a bar and sit down, a few girls would come over and then immediately there would be drinks set down in front of all of them. When the guys tried to leave they would be stopped and asked to pay a ridiculous bill, some of them were hundreds of dollars. A lot of the SAS guys refused to pay and some had their wallets taken and money stolen or the bartender would lead them to an ATM and force them to withdraw a ton of money. This was just another thing we were warned about and had to watch out for.
The next day Corinne, Mio, Natania and I spent the day wandering around Istanbul and doing all our souvenir shopping. I loved the city even more during the day and I’m glad I had some time to spend there. We had some of the best food also. We ate kebob again and they also have these baked potato stands where they have hot baked potatoes that they put melted butter and cheese into and then you can choose from a bunch of different toppings. It was the perfect meal for a cold day. We walked for a long time in the Grand Bizarre, which had more stuff to look at than I’ve ever seen. The first place we went was directly outside at the entrance. It was a beautiful store with all handmade jewelry and the two men who worked there were very nice. They brought us some Turkish apple tea, of course, and convinced us to buy a few things. One of the men was making jewelry as we stood there and before we left he tied red strings around our wrists for good luck. Next we entered the overwhelming alleys of the bizarre. I could have spent days in there wandering and shopping. There are great leather goods in Turkey so they make imitations (or as the vendors call them “authentic fakes”) of designer leather purses that are extremely well made. We looked at tons of purses, jewelry, tea sets, pashminas and tons more for hours. It was a great long day of shopping and then we headed back toward the ship for some delicious dinner and got on before on-ship time.
Turkey was incredible, as you can tell by how much I wrote. I really think it was my favorite port (although Croatia tied it next). I was really happy to have found so many amazing things in a country that I hadn’t expected much from. I would love to go back, especially in the summer months to southern Turkey. And Istanbul was more amazing than Hong Kong (my other favorite city), it has endless things to offer and the culture and history were fascinating. Sorry it took me so long! I have been feeling pretty sea sick on the Atlantic and it’s exam time so I’ve been a little busy, but Croatia will be up soon! Thanks for reading, I’ll be home in a week and I can’t wait to be on dry land again!!!

EGYPT!

Our port in Egypt was called Adabiya and it was one of the least attractive ports we’ve docked in. There was no town or city close by, just a lot of desert and some run down looking apartment buildings. I was traveling in Egypt with Corinne, Mio, Dave, Dan, and Andrew so we woke up really early to get off the ship and find a way to get to Sharm El Sheik. Our plan was to go to Sharm (a vacation/resort town on the coast with some of the best scuba diving/snorkeling in the world), and then make it to Luxor, Cairo, and up to Alexandria to meet the ship. The ship docked in Adabiya but it was going to travel through the Suez Canal and finally dock in Alexandria, and some students stayed on for the ride through the Suez.
We found a taxi and tried to bargain as much as possible, but usually the taxis that are right at the port are always overpriced and hard to talk down. We agreed on a price and got six of us in a taxi headed to the Suez Bus Station. We thought we had seen crazy driving in Vietnam but Egypt was much worse. Although there were distinguishable lanes the cars didn’t seem to stay in them very often. Our taxi would speed up behind a car in front of him and get inches behind it and then swerve around to pass the car. We started to get used to this after it happened about 12 times in a row. He was probably going about 85 miles an hour on a road that was not quite as nice as freeways in the US. We made it to the bus station after our near death cab ride and then ended up in a 20 minute argument with the driver about what we should pay him. We had agreed on a price at the beginning and then he started asking for more money from each of us. Luckily the boys were traveling with us because they were able to negotiate and we didn’t have to pay the extra. We stood in line for bus tickets at the outdoor station but we had a lot of trouble because there weren’t many people who spoke English, The weather was extremely hot but very dry, which was a nice change from the intense humidity we had been traveling in. We had been told to cover up with long sleeved shirts and pants out of respect for the culture in the Muslim dominated country. Women at the station wore pants or long skirts and long sleeved shirts as well as scarves wrapped around their heads covering their necks and hair. We definitely felt out of place and almost every person at the station was staring at all of us. It was pretty uncomfortable at first, but obviously we were clear outsiders so we expected to be stared at.
We finally got up to the front of the unorganized line to ask for tickets but Dave had found a driver who would take us to Sharm for about twice the price of a bus ticket ($12 each, and the tickets were $6 each). We thought that would be a better idea so we hired the man and got into a small van for the long drive to Sharm El Sheik. Luckily we made the right decision because the bus took about 7 hours but our driver got us there in 3 and a half. He took us to “Old Sharm” and we were automatically in awe of the town we arrived in. The drive had been purely desert and mountains with absolutely no scenery until we pulled off onto a stretch of road that led right down to the stunning blue ocean. We entered Old Sharm and saw restaurants, shops, tourists, and beautiful beaches. We were all pretty excited that we had picked this city to start off our tour through Egypt. After another long confusing cab ride we finally got to Naama Bay, which was the area that our hotel was in. We walked down the main road of the very touristy resort town and it was like being in “Egypt Town USA”. There were tons of hooka bars, restaurants (including a Hard Rock Café), hotels, shops, and even casinos lining the streets. It was an entirely new experience after spending time traveling in Asian, impoverished countries.
We walked for a really long time passing beach after beach and nice hotel after nice hotel. It actually started to look a bit like Cabo, which was something I never expected to find in Egypt. There was a small center of town and then a long stretch of paved walkway along the beach with hotels all on one side and restaurants all on the other side. We walked for a really long time, picking out which restaurant we wanted to come back to after we dropped our stuff at the hotel. We finally found the “Oonas Hotel” where we had booked rooms. It was at the very end and it was a small white building with balconies lining the second story, all looking out over the town and the ocean. It was much smaller than the other hotels and had no TV’s in the rooms but it was pretty cheap and perfect for us. We got two triples for the boys and the girls and put down our overstuffed and heavy backpacks. Every trip I have been on, whether it’s been one night or 4, I have managed to fit everything I needed into a regular sized north face backpack that I bought in Vietnam. I have been pretty surprised that I could live out of such a small bag, especially after being such an over-packer all my life. But it has been convenient to throw a backpack on rather than carting around heavy bags anywhere.
We left the hotel and found some lunch at one of the many restaurants on the beach. The view and the weather were incredible, and very unexpected. Egypt was one of the countries that I had almost no expectations for because I knew so little about it, and Sharm El Sheik was an incredible resort town that was a huge surprise. Almost everything was in English and there were foreign tourists everywhere. The only Egyptians around were men who worked at the hotels and restaurants. Everyone was running around bathing suits and resort wear, which was a shock since we had been so warned about staying covered up while anywhere in Egypt. We had some great food and took some time to relax and walk around the city. We also booked our snorkeling and scuba diving for the next day through our hotel. That night we decided to check out the bar that was on top of our hotel and it was absolutely incredible. It took up the whole roof and it was decorated with big wooden posts that looked like candles. There were red cushions and pillows organized into booths on the floor all overlooking the coast, which was lit up and beautiful. We were really happy with the view especially because our hotel was probably the cheapest one on the strip. After eating on the rooftop Dan, Mio and I headed out to see what the night life in Sharm was like. We walked to the main part of town and there was a good amount of people wandering around. We decided to go into the Hard Rock to get a drink and found out once we got inside that it was really expensive and basically filled with foreign men. We stayed for a while and then at midnight there was a huge dance party on the main floor. It was a very touristy and Euro in the bar and not too much fun so we walked back to our hotel and passed out after a long day.
The next morning we woke up early and had our complimentary hotel breakfast at the restaurant next door. We got outfitted with snorkeling gear and Dave and Andrew tried on all of their scuba gear. The hotel was also a dive center so they had everything we needed and a shuttle bus to take our group, and a few other tourists out to the harbor to get on our boat for the day. The harbor was in Old Sharm and was completely packed with almost identical looking boats. Our boat was about 45 feet long with 2 levels and lounging space on the top deck. There were 5 or 6 other people on the boat with us who were from Germany and the UK. The weather was really warm and the scenery was spectacular. The ocean water was crystal clear and surrounded by miles of tan sand and mountains. There was not any vegetation at all on the land around us. It looked like a sandwich of robin’s egg blue sky, the acres of bright tan desert, and then deep blue ocean for miles in every direction. I had to keep reminding myself that I was in Egypt because this was not at all what I would have expected. We stopped at three different places to snorkel and dive. The reefs in Sharm are supposed to be among the top 5 best places on earth to dive. Dan, Mio, Corrine and I snorkeled because we were flying to Luxor the next day and we would have had to wait a full 24 hours before getting on a plane. Dave and Andrew wanted to scuba dive so they went with the dive master and other tourists. The water wasn’t nearly as cold as the Pacific Ocean but it certainly wasn’t warm. Since it was October it was the end of the season so the weather had gotten a bit cooler. The four of us were outfitted in our flippers and scuba masks and we had some time at each spot to explore the reefs. I’ve been diving in Tahiti and Mexico but this was better then anything I’d ever seen. The water was really clear and the reef was close enough to the surface that there were hundreds of fish absolutely everywhere. They swam close enough to us that we could touch them and there was so much to see I barely had to even swim around. I basically just floated for a bit and watched the range of sea life below me. The fish we saw were every shape and size and a crazy range of colors. In every crevice of the coral there were sea creatures and fish to see. The snorkeling was phenomenal and the boys said that the diving was even more exciting. They got some great underwater pictures of a huge octopus, sting ray, and a small shipwreck. We lounged on the boat for a while on the way back and took tons of pictures of the amazingly unique scenery. The sun setting behind the Egyptian desert and reflecting on the water was one of the most memorable times of my entire trip.
While on the boat we started talking to another tourist about our trip. His name was Terry and he was from the UK. He traveled internationally for business and told us all about his company and then asked if we’d like to be taken out to an authentic Egyptian meal. Terry had a friend in Sharm named Muhammad, who worked for him as a translator (the guy spoke 9 languages!), so he called him up to ask where we should all go out. After we got back to the hotel and showered we met Terry and Muhammad and hopped in a cab toward Old Sharm. They were both extremely nice and told us all about the culture and the area. We hadn’t really had authentic food from the country so it was great to have a chance to try it. The restaurant was outdoors in the middle of Old Sharm and Muhammad ordered us a range of dishes. We had all sorts of dips (that were a bit like hummus) with pita bread and a few kinds of meat to eat with the bread also. One meat dish looked like ground beef but in sausage form. Corinne and I had the same meat the day before in our sandwiches and we figured it was just an interesting tasting beef. Beef in each country was a little different, especially in hamburgers (every one I’ve had has been pretty bad, except for at the McDonald’s in Kobe, Japan). I started asking Muhammad if people in Egypt ate camel meat often and he said that they did, and that it was the cheapest meat. Then I asked if it tasted good because I wanted to try it and he said, “You tell me, you just ate it”. So apparently that ground beef/sausage looking meat had actually been camel and I had eaten it twice before I even knew what it was. It made me a little sick to think about because I knew it had tasted funny but after eating snake I think I can keep anything down.
Dinner was delicious and Terry was nice enough to treat the six of us to the meal. It ended up being pretty cheap but if we had been on our own without Muhammad there we probably would have gotten a “tourist price”, which would have been higher than the regular restaurant price for dinner. We walked through the town and the shopping areas that all carried pretty much the same things: hookahs, t-shirts, wooden games, and other souvenirs. Muhammad and Terry brought us to a show after dinner at a place that was kind of touristy but every night there was traditional dancing and it was in a really cool outdoor area. We all sat around a big round stage on couches while women and men performed amazing dances. The show was fairly long and we were all exhausted so we headed back to the hotel and thanked Terry for his generosity. It’s always nice to meet someone who knows the area so that you can spend less time trying to find the good places to go, especially in a new foreign country. Dan, Mio, Corinne, and I had made arrangements to fly to Luxor the next morning and we had to be ready to go at 5am. We found a fairly cheap tour that included flights to and from Luxor as well as meals and tours when we got there. Dave and Andrew stayed to do another day of diving.
The early wake-up call was pretty painful especially because the guy didn’t speak English and just kept saying “bus Cairo now!”. He woke us up at 4:30am saying that and we were all confused because they told us 5am and we knew we weren’t going to Cairo. We figured it out eventually and made it to our shuttle that took us to the airport. There were a bunch of other foreign tourists with us and they divided us between English speakers and Russian speakers. The flight to Luxor was really short and easy and we boarded a bus when we landed to start our day of touring. I can’t remember the exact details of some of the things we saw but I think out of any tour I have been on this entire trip, this day was my absolute favorite. Egyptian history was fascinating. Our guide would tell us details about the lives of the pharaohs that were really interesting and the places we got to walk around in and touch were literally thousands of years old. The hieroglyphics all over the place were incredibly well preserved. The massiveness of many of the structures, columns, and statues was overwhelming. I can’t describe all of the places we went because it was a jam packed day but I’ll mention my favorite parts, and of course I’ll have tons of pictures to show everyone when I get back.
My favorite site was the Temples of Karnak. We walked along pathway lined with about 25 stone carved animals on each side that were almost all identical and were each bigger than me. The entrance itself was absolutely huge and once we were inside (technically this was all outdoors) we were surrounded by tons of gigantic pillars. They were all evenly spaced apart and covered in detailed pictures and hieroglyphics carved into the stone. When I was standing among the pillars it reminded me a bit of how small you feel when you stand between huge Redwood trees, except that these were manmade. Each pillar must have been at least 12 feet across (I’m pretty bad at estimating this stuff but this is a guess) and around 50 feet tall. The sun came in at all angles and cast huge shadows everywhere, which made it even more amazing. When we left this area there were two Obelisques that had been carved out of the red granite quarries in Aswan, Egypt and were erected by Queen Hatshepsut (whose father was Tuthmosis I). They were extremely tall and skinny, covered in carvings and coming to a point at the top. There were statues, walls, carvings, and huge structures everywhere making me feel like I was an ant. There was also a “Sacred Lake”, built by Tuthmosis III, which covered 3200 meters and the priests used to purify themselves before performing their rituals in the Karnak Temples. I still cannot believe this place exists and has existed for thousands of years, because I have never seen anything so impressive.
We also went to the Valley of the Kings, which is an area of desert/mountains in which there are over 60 tombs of kings carved into the land. These tombs were meant to stay a secret, but since they were created there have been numerous tomb robbings and they were al discovered. The area itself looks barren and dry, just like the rest of the desert around it. The tombs have now been open for people to view so each one has a marked entrance and stairs down into it. From outside I would never have guessed that there were entire extensive rooms that existed within the land. We got to look at a few of the tombs and the interiors were really unexpected. The walls were absolutely covered in pictures and hieroglyphics, which have probably undergone restoration but looked as if they could have been done less than a hundred years ago. There were literally thousands of characters and pictures either carved or painted within the walls of the tombs. At the bottom there was the main room with the sarcophagus inside, and of course all of the mummies and riches of the tomb were taken out and most were at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
The historical sites in Luxor were fantastic but the best part of the day was the sunset on the Nile. We boarded a small boat with our tour group and sailed down the Nile as the sunset. The scenery wasn’t particularly interesting, along the sides were buildings and other boats, as well as fields, camels, and a few people here and there. But the actual sunset was one of the best I have ever seen in my life. Everything was gold and orange and the clouds turned pink as the sun faded into the horizon. We took a ton of pictures and loved every minute of the boat ride. After the long, hectic day we headed back to the airport for our short flight back to Sharm El Sheik. When we got back to Sharm our tour bus hadn’t shown up so we just stood outside the airport waiting with everyone. Every other group had left with their buses and after about 10 minutes we were really the only people in the entire airport. A security officer came up to us and asked why we were still there and we told him our tour company was supposed to pick us up. The guy had a badge on his arm that said “Tourist Police” and he started getting all worked up and said that he needed the name of the tour company because it was a problem to have tourists standing around. He said that the company could be charged with a Felony for leaving us there. I have no idea what the tourist police is, or what they do, but it seemed like a pretty big deal. This was the only place I have ever been where it isn’t ok to wait at the airport. Our bus finally came and the officer had a stern talk with the driver, who looked like he was about to cry. I’m not sure how it was all resolved but we were just happy when they figured things out because we wanted to get back to the hotel and get some sleep.
We met Dave and Andrew back at the hotel and found out that they actually didn’t go diving that day. Dave had been really sick with a cold and fever the few days before and after diving one day he decided to go to a doctor at a nearby hotel. He finally got some antibiotics and decided diving wasn’t such a great idea. We all had dinner and a pretty calm night that night. The next morning we slept in and wandered around a bit before catching the 10:30am shuttle to the bus station were we caught a seven and a half hour bus ride to Cairo. We had planned on originally taking this bus overnight so that we didn’t miss a day but I am so glad that we took it during the day. There were assigned seats and the bus was totally full. Four of us got the seats in the very back of the bus that didn’t even recline so it was a good thing that we weren’t too tired. They actually played the movie “Gladiator” in English on TV’s in the bus so that was a good way to pass a lot of time. Taking the bus was a lot cheaper than a flight to Cairo and the seven hours passed by pretty easily. We got off at the bus station in Cairo and it was a completely different environment then Sharm or Luxor. Cairo is a HUGE city with the Nile running through it and a huge percentage of the population of Egypt lives in Cairo. Something like 80% of the country is basically uninhabitable desert so a huge portion is centered in Cairo and a few other cities that are located on the coast or near the Nile.
We negotiated with a cab driver (two of them were fighting with each other and one was offering a lower price but the other guy said he had no idea where he was going), and arrived at a hotel that we had picked out of a Lonely Planet guidebook. It has been really surprising how many cab drivers will pick you up in a foreign country when they have no idea where they are going and try to take you somewhere else (usually somewhere that they are getting a commission for taking you to, like a shop or hotel). Our cab driver spoke pretty good English and seemed pretty honest (it’s always hard to tell, and we were really cautious of being scammed) so he offered to drive us around to all of the sights of Cairo the next day for a pretty good price and we decided that was a good idea. The hotel we wanted was booked but there was another one a few floors above it in the same building that had one room they said they would put all six of us in. We were too tired to look around and it was only $100 a night for all of us there so we took it. There were originally 3 twin beds in the room but they brought in one more so we could push three together and have five of us sleep there. Dave had his own bed in the corner and we were all joked that he was quarantined there because he was still sick. We walked down the street looking for dinner, and the hotel was located in a pretty good area. We finally got in a cab because we had no idea where we were going and he took us into the busy part of the city to a good restaurant.
After dinner we came back to our hotel room to watch some TV and sleep. It’s nice having some time in hotels to watch TV while in port because on the ship there is no TV, only movies that play in our rooms sometimes. We woke up the next day to see what there was to see in Cairo. The first half of the day wasn’t too eventful, we saw two mosques that were pretty impressive and walked around some of the city streets. Then our driver took us to a place where we could get either camels or horses to ride out to see the pyramids. We decided to get three horses and three camels so that we could switch if we wanted to. Corinne and I wanted horses because we had heard that the camels were really uncomfortable and when you rode one you were like 10 feet off the ground. I’ve never been up close to a camel before this but they were absolutely disgusting. I don’t think there is any animal besides spiders that I hate more than camels. They were huge and dirty and kept making this gross bellowing noise. Their teeth are huge and covered in green and yellow filth, and they basically always look angry, especially when their mouths are open. Needless to say, I was happy to be on a horse. We all walked out through the streets past tons of small stables that rented out horses and camels for tourists to see the pyramids. It was strange though because they were all lining concrete streets, and I had never imagined this is where you would find stables. We walked for about 15 minutes, slowly, before we made it out to a field that connected the end of the street and the desert. We headed out into the desert on camel and horseback, excited to see an ancient wonder of the world. The pyramids were really surreal. We saw them at first from a distance and all took pictures with them but they basically looked like a backdrop, and like they weren’t really there. Also the city of Cairo is built really close to them, which I hadn’t expected. From the pyramids you can see the city a few hundred meters away to the side. We took our tourist pictures and then decided to get up close and see that they really looked like. As we walked up to the pyramids they looked like they were growing because they hadn’t seemed to be so gigantic from far away. The bricks of stone that formed the base were literally like three by six feet each. I cannot imagine how they were built without cranes and modern machinery. Each bottom stone looked like it would have needed at least six people to carry it. The size of the blocks got progressively smaller toward the top and formed an uneven surface that looked like giant rectangular tan gravel. At the very top there was a section of small bricks layered to make a smooth surface but that only covered the top 30 feet or so and the rest of the surface was uneven and scattered. It was incredible to see these things that looked like triangular mountains of sand from far away, become more and more detailed and massive as we approached them. I was really impressed and so happy to have been able to see the pyramids. We saw the Sphinx as well, which was only a few hundred feet away. On the way back I decided to switch my horse with someone and ride a camel, for the experience. I think that was the worst decision I have made in any country. The camels sit down on their long legs while you climb on top of them and then they stand up first with their back legs (and throw you forward), and then with their front legs. After I got up it was kind of exciting to be so far off the ground sitting on a saddle but after about five minutes I hated the camel ride. I really haven’t been a big complainer about things I’ve done while traveling but I don't think I have ever been so uncomfortable. The first problem was that the saddle on the camel was leaning about 6 inches to the right so in order to stay on I had to pull myself over to the other side the whole time. Also because of the heat I had long linen pants that were perfect for traveling but miserable for camel riding. I regretted getting off of my horse but the boys were ecstatic that they had gotten off of the camels. It was a long ride back to the stables, but I guess if I had to have a miserable camel riding experience anywhere, this would be the place to do it. We got back to our taxi driver and headed to the hotel to use some internet and take naps before dinner because it was another exhausting day. It was also Dave’s 22nd Birthday, and really unfortunately for him, he was still pretty sick and waiting for the medicine to kick in. Mio planned out a little cake and card to surprise him with even though we all knew he didn’t like sweet stuff so the five of us ate his cake and let him go back to sleep while we went out to dinner. We walked for a really long time to find a restaurant we had heard about but it was definitely worth it because the food was fantastic. Afterwards Andrew, Dan, and I went to the bar/club at the Hilton to see if there was any nightlife but there were about 5 people there so we made our way back to the hotel.
The next morning we woke up and decided to spend a few hours at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Out of any museum I have ever been to I think this had the most fascinating things. Inside it things weren’t displayed or protected very well at all, or at least compared to in US museums. The best part was going to the “Mummy Room” to see the actual mummies of a bunch of different kings and other figures of Egyptian history. To have only a thin layer of glass between myself and a human body that was thousands of years old was unreal. This definitely made history come alive more than in any other museum or historical site that I have been to. We also saw animal mummies, and the coolest was a huge crocodile that was mummified with a baby croc in its mouth. I was amazed at how well preserved everything was, and that they were all just displayed in thin glass and wooden cases that you could walk right up to. There were multiple times when I would look at something in the museum and realize that it had been on the cover of a history book or I had seen it on TV. It was absolutely packed with history and there was a ton to look at. As we left the museum we walked out the gates and along the sidewalk where there was a man sanding down the end of a thick metal pipe with a power tool. He was using a metal circular sanding blade (or disk, I’m not too sure about my power tool terminology) and there were sparks flying everywhere, the guy wasn’t even wearing goggles. Having the overly cautious instincts of my dad, I realized how unsafe that looked and starting walking as quickly as I could past the guy. Of course, 5 seconds later as I was about 20 feet away from it, I heard a loud cracking noise and it felt like I had been whipped with something hot on the back of my arm. I put my bag down and freaked out a little because it stung and I didn’t know what had happened. The blade had shattered into pieces and out of the 6 of us I was the one who got hit with a chunk of it. Luckily it didn’t really break the skin but I had a pretty good welt and a story to tell.
After that we took taxis to the station to make our train from Cairo to Alexandria. The train station was pretty cool and it was a cheap and fast way to get to where the ship was docked. The scenery along the train tracks was fascinating, from fisherman in the small river to shantytowns and farming. I have found that train rides are usually great ways to see scenic areas of any country and I have really enjoyed all of them. We arrived back in Alexandria with enough time to get a glimpse of the town and walk around a bit. We grabbed some delicious food in an alleyway restaurant by basically pointing at what other people were eating because there was no English menu. The town of Alexandria is right on the water and it was really gorgeous. The library was amazing, from the outside it looked like a big disk made of windows that was lodged into the land. I wish we had more time to check out the sights in Alexandria but we had to get back on the ship and we had seen a lot of Egypt.
I’m writing this pretty late after having been to Turkey and Croatia already, it was hard to keep up with only 2 days between ports. At the time I would have said that Egypt was my favorite country of the whole voyage but now that I have been to Turkey and Croatia there is tough competition. Having the chance to see so many cities and aspects of Egypt was incredible. I was really pleased with this trip and I had a great 5 friends to travel with. Egypt was so much more than I expected and I’m so happy to have had the chance to go, especially as a young person at a time when traveling to that part of the world is not very ideal. I got some great souvenirs and fantastic pictures and I can’t wait to share them with you all! Keep the comments coming, and I’ll get the Turkey blog up as soon as I can!

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!

Myanmar

October 12, 2006
Myanmar…
Our First day in Myanmar (formally known as Burma), we actually docked at 4pm but couldn’t get off of the ship until 8am the next morning. I had signed up for an SAS trip to Bagan (an hour and a half flight from Yangon), so I was ready to go and packed for 4 days at 7:15am. Everyone was worried about malaria meds and bug spray because Myanmar has a lot of mosquitoes carrying disease. We first got on a tour bus that was pretty cramped but decorated nicely for us and we were even given small roses and bags that were embroidered with “Myanmar” on them. The reason that the country’s name was changed is because 60% of the population is Burmese, but they didn’t want the country to be named after the majority of the population, so it was renamed Myanmar so the minority groups weren’t as excluded.
The bus took us to the city of Yangon (about a 45 minute drive) and we toured around for a “City Orientation”. The city was pretty bare, with a few big hotels and buildings but nothing like a clean, metropolitan city that we are used to from home. There were vendors along some of the streets selling exotic looking food, tons of books, and a lot of cheap plastic hair clips (which seemed a little strange). The Burmese people are darker skinned than the Vietnamese but looked similar to them, and were fairly short compared to us. We got a lot more looks and stares, because Myanmar is not a huge tourist destination, and there are actually many countries trying not to support any tourism there to fight against the military regime that runs the country. The people have very little freedom (for example many internet sites are “illegal” to them for use) and there were always members of the military around to watch people and make sure they weren’t doing anything that they weren’t supposed to. We had been warned in pre-port that we should never ask the people about their government or how they felt about their freedoms, because they could be thrown in prison for a merely having a conversation about those topics. It was amazing to be in a place that had such restrictions on individual freedoms, and made me realize how much we take our freedoms in the US for granted.
During the city tour we ran into another SAS group and there was a girl who had passed out and started having a kind of seizure on the sidewalk. People were crowded around her and luckily the doctor from the ship, “Dr. Bob” was in the same group. Her eyes were fluttering and it looked like she couldn’t focus on anything. It was really scary and we found out later that the girl’s doctor had given her a prescription for malaria medication and had written that it was to be taken daily but it was actually a weekly pill. Luckily she was fine, but the overdose of medicine made her sick enough to have to go back to the ship. One highlight of the tour was the city hall which was huge and decorated with gold. Otherwise it wasn’t a very attractive city and it was raining so everyone wanted to get back on thee bus. We headed to the Shwedagon Pagoda (one of the wonders of the world) which has a 76 carat diamond mounted at the very top of it. It was a huge structure covered in gold so we couldn’t actually see the diamond at the top but there were pictures of it to look at and it was amazing. The area that the pagoda was in was a huge tile courtyard with hundreds of small open rooms, shrines, and little pagodas, decorated in mostly white and gold. You have to take your shoes off in these religious places, which can be pretty gross especially after its been raining. We walked around the pagoda for a long time in the unbearable humidity and heat. After taking a ton of pictures we boarded the bus again for the Yangon airport.
The airport was the smallest I have ever seen. It consisted of two big, long rooms, one with a glass counter to buy snacks and candy, and the other room was after the security checkpoint and was filled with seats to wait for our flight. The plane was small but nice, and the flight attendants were extremely friendly. Surprisingly, the was a lot of English spoken by most of the people we met. After our shaky flight we landed in the Bagan airport, which was even smaller. It felt like Hawaii though getting off the plane. There were lush, tropical trees everywhere around the runway and the humidity made it feel like a tropical place. We drove to our hotel through the roads of Bagan, which are actually nicely paved, but there was absolutely nothing around us. Bagan is known for being the land of thousands of pagodas. They are built absolutely everywhere, dotting the countryside and popping up in unexpected places. The pagodas date centuries back and they are hard to describe but most look like little castles with round tops that extend into tall decorated peaks on top. From any one point in Bagan, no matter where, you could see at least ten pagodas. Out hotel was one the River Thande, and we stayed in small bungalows that had a perfect view of the river. The hotel was like a little tucked away resort, and was much nicer than what we expected for Myanmar. There were beautiful gardens, and an amazing pool that was hard to leave to go see more and more pagodas every day. The first night we had a delicious dinner and got settled in the hotel, ready to wake up and explore the next morning. Our dinner was served at the hotel, and a lot of the dishes were a bit strange but the rice and pork (that tasted like cinnamon and cloves), were delicious.
This was a four day, three night trip, but there was a lot of down time because there really isn’t a whole lot to do in Bagan. We went to numerous Pagodas (my favorite was one that we climbed to the top of at sunset), but generally they were all very similar so I’m just going to describe the highlights of the trip because it will be boring to go into every detail. My favorite day we went into a village for a visit and to give donations to the children. We entered the small school within the village where there were first through fourth grade children all in the same class. It was a big wooden schoolroom with benches for desks and no chairs. The kids were adorable. They all had dark green and white uniforms and they sat down singing Burmese songs for us. We watched them for a while, and then sang a few American songs for them and they all smiled and clapped. Semester at Sea has large donations of backpacks, books, and pencils to hand out so we each handed them out to the kids and they all loved their new stuff. I’m sure that these children had never seen backpacks like this in their lives. The village they lived in was tiny and they lived off the land. I was really surprised to see the kids in uniforms. We let them get back to their schooling and wandered around the village to see the Burmese way of life. Many of the people spoke to us in any English that they knew. Some of the women had a little stand set up to sell things that they made. Lacquer ware is a popular craft made in Myanmar, and the women showed us bowls, bracelets, plates and other things that were all made of bamboo and covered in glossy black lacquer, then decorated with bright colored paints. Each item took weeks to make but they would sell them for around a dollar or two each. We bought a few things as souvenirs and they also showed us the traditional longys (pronounced lon-gees) that they wear. Both men and women wear long skirts that are single pieces of decorated fabric wrapped around and tied at the waist. A lot of the guys on our trip bought them and have been wearing them all the time.
The people in Myanmar wore a kind of clay on their faces. It was light yellow colored and our guide explained to us that it was good for the skin. The women in the village took us to their house behind where they were selling things and brought out a smooth wooden block to smash the clay onto and get it wet. Then they used their fingers to paint it on our cheeks and noses. It was a little weird feeling but it was a gesture of kindness so we thanked them and walked around the village with our faces painted. After some time wandering the village we got back on the bus and said goodbye. As we were leaving we realized that a few of the vendors followed our bus on bikes so that they could try and sell us things everywhere we went. We visited another beautiful pagoda with a huge gold Buddha inside. Then we all got to take pony carts for a 20 minute ride out to a large pagoda for sunset. Two or three people could fit in the small carts and they were pulled by skinny and unhappy looking horses. It was a long bumpy ride but the scenery was absolutely beautiful. We could see fields spotted with pagodas in every direction and the rain had cleared up so it was clear as the sun was starting to go down. W got to the big pagoda and climbed up a very small, dark, stone staircase lined with candles in order to get to the top and take in the view. This was my favorite moment in Myanmar. The view was completely surreal. We all stood around speechless looking out over miles of green countryside completely untouched except for the hundreds of pagodas of sprawled out in every direction. Their was mountains in the distance somewhat hidden by a layer of mist and the sun was setting over the fields. We walked around barefoot (shoes weren’t allowed in any of the holy places) on the bricks that made up the top level of the building trying to take pictures and capture just how amazing it was.
Next we took the pony carts back to the buses and headed to an authentic Burmese restaurant. At the restaurant there was a traditional puppet show and we all sat down to watch and enjoy our food. Overall we didn’t really love the food but the coconut rice and spiced pork were amazing. The puppet show was impressive too and lasted the entire time we ate. We went back to the hotel to swim and relax before another day sight seeing in Bagan. The rest of the trip was pretty similar in terms of going to see pagodas and we were supposed to go to Mt. Popa (a mountain with a giant pagoda built at the top and with monkeys everywhere), but there had been an excessive amount of rain in Bagan right around the time we were there so a lot of riverbanks had flooded and roads were closed. One other highlight of the trip was the dinner we had on the last night there. We were bussed out to yet another pagoda, and when we got there it was all decorated and lit up, and there was a huge sign saying “Welcome Semester at Sea Fall 2006”. There were tents and tables and people dressed up beautifully in exotic looking outfits. They welcomed us in and led us to a buffet of food that looked delicious. The only problem was that there were about 10 bugs per every one square foot. There were bugs of every shape and size landing on everything and anything. We doused ourselves with bug spray, but our food was constantly attacked by the disgusting, flying, hopping, jumping insects. The dinner would have been delicious if there hadn’t been so many bugs all over the place. There were 2 other SAS groups who joined us at the big dinner and the local people performed 12 different shows for us of dancing, singing and other talents. It was really amazing to watch and a lot of fun.
Our flight back to Yangon wasn’t until late afternoon the next day but because we basically had nothing left to do we went to the airport pretty early. The Bagan airport was basically one room and had a tiny shop in it selling postcards, t-shirts and lacquer ware. But besides that there was absolutely nothing to do. A few of us wandered down the street to the tiniest restaurant I have ever seen and tried to get some food. We sat on little plastic chairs crowded around a table while the women brought us plates of very strange looking and smelling dishes. We finally decided on rice and peanuts, which was the most normal thing that she mentioned. We were all pretty hungry so cold rice and peanuts ended up being not that bad to eat. This country was probably the worst in terms of my food experiences. We finally got back to Yangon after hours of waiting and another bumpy flight and Sam and I headed to the main hotel in town to stay the night before having to be back to the ship by 2pm the next day. A ton of SAS kids were staying at the Traders Hotel so we found some friends and decided to share the room they had booked. The food there was absolutely amazing, especially after having mostly unsatisfying meals for the past few days. We had a great dinner and then headed to a local bar to have some fun with our friends on our last night in Myanmar. Bars are pretty rare there, but we found one place that was pretty normal and safe, because there was a lot of other SAS kids and foreigners there. After an hour at the bar Sam and I decided to get our stuff from the hotel and take a cab back to the ship because there wasn’t anything else to see in Yangon and sleeping in our own clean beds sounded great. We took a cab back “home” to the ship, satisfied with the time we spent in Myanmar.
One other place in the country that a lot of people went to was called Inle Lake and sounded absolutely incredible. People stayed in floating hotels that were only accessible by boat and said that it was one of their favorite places they had been so far. I really enjoyed Bagan, but we felt a little “Pagoda-ed out” by the end of the four days. I learned a lot about a place I really knew nothing about and I’m so glad that this was a port included in our trip. People say that from the US it is hard to get to Myanmar and to be able to travel there so I’m lucky to have gotten the chance. Hopefully one day I can go back and see Inle Lake and spend more time interacting with the people, because they were some of the most genuine and friendly people that I have met so far.
Sorry this is so so late, I should get India up ASAP because we’re getting off the ship for Egypt tomorrow! Time is flying by and there are less than 6 weeks left and only 4 ports. I’ll have tons of pictures and stories to share with you all when I get home, thanks for checking the blog!