India 2

March 18
Hi All!!!!!
It has taken me a few days to comprehend what I saw and experienced in India and yet I still don’t know what to think about it. It was unlike anywhere I had ever been before, but it was an amazing experience and I’m sooo glad that I got the chance to see it!!! We arrived in Chennai and the first day we just walked around the town trying to find clothing that we could wear during our stay. We took little golf cart type things to get around, which were pretty fun! The one that I was in was pimped out with a sound system and tv, it was pretty crazy! We went back to the ship after a long hot day of wandering around Chennai for an early night because we had to be up at 3:15 the next morning for a flight to Delhi.
The next morning (if you can even call 3am morning) we woke up and got on buses to head to the airport for our flight to Delhi and then to Varanasi. We arrived in Varanasi at the airport, which I would hardly consider an airport. We arrived at our hotel where we ate lunch. I lived off of nan, rice, ice cream, and those doughnut things drenched in syrup…my favorite!!!!! After lunch we had a tour of Sarnath, which are the ruins of an ancient city where the Buddha preached his first sermon. It is as holy to Buddhists as Varanasi is to Hindus. Then we headed to the banks of the Ganges River to witness The Ganga Aarti at Dasaswamedh Ghat, which is a ceremony that happens every morning at 5am and again at 6pm. The Hindus come to this ceremony and they pray to the Gods asking to be looked after. Watching this ceremony really made me realize how important religion is to the Hindus especially in Varanasi. We rode rickshaws through the town to get to and from the ceremony, which was an experience in itself! There are really no rules to the roads in India, so it is really a free for all. Everyone is honking horns and swerving to avoid hitting the cows that wander the streets freely. I was definitely a little bit scared on the rickshaws, but it was really fun! We headed back to the hotel for dinner and then bed. We ate every meal in hotels, which got really old fast because it was the same food for every meal. I don’t know if we did this because the food was safest at the hotels, but if so it worked because I didn’t get sick…thank god!!!!
The next morning was an early one again! We got up at 4 30am and at 5am we headed back to the Ganges River to watch the same ceremony as the night before, but this time we got to go in a boat along the Ganges. We got to see pilgrims converge to the holy waters for the ritual immersion and prayer to release their souls from the cycle of rebirth. We got to see people bathing in the Ganges River and bodies being cremated. When a Hindu person dies they are cremated and their ashes are put in the Ganges. If this process doesn’t occur the Hindus believe that the person will not be reincarnated in their next life, so it is very crucial that this process occurs. We got off the boat and got to walk through the narrow streets of Varanasi (the oldest living city in the world). After a long exciting morning we returned to the hotel for breakfast. There was an optional side trip to some markets that I went on. I got a bunch of cheap jewelry!!! India had the best jewelry and pants. Then we headed back to the airport for our flight back to Delhi. Arriving in Delhi I was shocked at how different it was from Varanasi! We had gone from the oldest poorest city in India to a large, much more developed city. We went on a sightseeing drive through Delhi on our way to our hotel. We saw a bunch of government buildings and consulates. I was happy when I learned that India’s president is a women. I have been learning a lot about gender division of labor and women in the workforce in the different countries we have visited, so I was excited to see that women in India at least are becoming increasingly more powerful in politics. We went to our hotel in Delhi earlier than planned because we were all sooo exhausted from the traveling and early mornings. We had the night free so we had dinner at the hotel and went to bed early again.
The next morning we woke up at 4 15am and left at 5am for the train station. We were taking the train from Delhi to Agra. At the train station in Delhi, there were tons of people sleeping on the ground and the second we walked in they were all getting up begging us for food. Luckily, we were given boxed breakfasts that weren’t very good, so we all had leftovers that we were able to give to them. It was really hard to see all the women and children that were living this way! I was shocked that the Indian people live amongst this poverty everyday and aren’t really phased by it, while I found it very difficult to walk by these people and not be able to help everyone of them. When we arrived in Agra after a 2 hour train ride we went to Fatehpur Sikri, which is a deserted city 25 miles from Agra. It was built by emperor Akbar as his capitol to honor a muslim saint. Then we headed to a hotel for a huge buffet lunch before heading to the Red Fort and the Taj Mahal. The Taj was the most amazing building I have ever seen! It was absolutely beautiful and I could not stop taking pictures of it!!! I could have spent hours there!! The Indian men in Agra were very excited to see American girls and would follow us around and want to take pictures with us, it was really funny. At the Taj I had an Indian family ask me to take their picture in front of the Taj and then the husband asked me If I would take a picture with his wife and 2 kids. For some reason Indian people really seem to like Americans. We left the Taj and went back to some hotel for dinner and then headed back to the train station to return to Delhi. When we got off the bus to go into the train station there was a man standing outside of the bus with elephantius in his feet. I had seen pictures of it before, but seeing it in person really freaked me out and I had a hard time getting it out of my mind. I even had a nightmare that night that I woke up and had elephantius in my feet…it freaked me out!!! The train ride back to Delhi took a lot longer than going there, but we finally got back 3 hours later around midnight! It had been a long day and we were all so exhausted!!!
We got up at 6am the next morning to go to the airport for our flight to Cochin. We arrived in Cochin and it was an hour bus ride to get to the ship and once we got there we had to go through a ton of immigration and security. The security all throughout India was insane because they had been having terrorist attacks recently, so it was a pain in the ass to get back on the ship. I was so tried and dirty and smelly and all I wanted to do was get on the ship asap. Once we got back on the ship I took a shower, but then had to get ready and pack up for our night on the houseboat on the backwaters in Cochin. The houseboat was really fun! They made dinner for us and breakfast the next morning. Then they took us for a cruise through the backwaters, which was beautiful. It was a wonderful and relaxing way to end a long trip in India.