Hong Kong! Currency exchange $1US=$8 Hong Kong Dollars(HKD) Probly the most impressive city I have ever seen in my life. We pulled into port on a foggy morning after 2 rough days at sea. Friday morning may have been the rockiest the ship has been throughout the entire voyage. Many people puking on the ship. I gave a presentation with two partners in International Marketing about a non-alcoholic beverage and how I would market it in Vietnam. We started to prepare our presentation just hours before class and finished about 5 minutes before we delivered it. Brian froze during it and I had to step up and say his part. He was extremely rattled and Joe and I have made fun of him for a few days since then. Boring story but it was funny.
Anyways so we pulled in on a foggy morning as the skyscrapers seemed to appear out of nowhere. It really is an amazing port to pull into because it is almost like you go through a gauntlet in between these towering buildings. The river goes directly between Hong Kong Island(central) and the mainland. The Semester at Sea put us in was great because there was so much to do right around us. You get off and have the ferry for just $2(their money even though it looks like USD) which will take you over to Hong Kong Island. Unfortunatly because of the bad weather we were not able to get docked and off of the ship until nearly 11 so we headed straight to a restaurant in Central to get lunch. I personally wanted to eat at a small local place which most likely would have great local food. It’s my first time in China so I want to try all the local foods that I can, and if there is one thing I learned from this trip around the world, it is that the sketchier looking the food joint, the better the food. Some of the places I have got food from at all hours of the night make Pinones in San Juan look like Salvatore’s. Seriously, Vietnam was the worst….so much late night Pho and I had no idea what kind of meats they were chopping up and putting in. Anyways, because we were with girls they of course wanted to eat at the really nice looking restaurant across the street. Long story short I ended up paying $160($20) for one of the worst meals I have had this trip. I made a vow to myself that for the rest of the trip I eat when I want where I want no matter what pressure there is to eat with people. Only doing this trip once. Start doing what I want.
MV Explorer
The ship on which we will be sailing
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Saturday March 26th 2011-Hong Kongien experience
Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011- Last day in Vietnam?sad
The last day in Nam did not consist of doing very much. We were going to go see the Chu Chi tunnels but I heard it was far and not that great of a trip. Although looking back I wish I could have done it. We went to a Vietnam history museum for a few minutes before hopping back on motorcycles and going to pick up our tailored suits. I ended up paying $90US for pants and a jacket fully tailored after he measured me the first day in Vietnam. Aaron got just a jacket and Drew had Cambodia the first day so was not able to get one made. He did however pay $50 for the sample jacket which fit him pretty perfectly. When he got it in his room he noticed all the sweat stains and gross stuff on it. Probly not his smartest SAS purchase. We ate a lot of Pho and bought a lot of dumb junk that day. I made sure to pick myself up one of those masks which Asian people wear in every country. Mine is Hello Kitty and really cool. Drew was jealous so I bought him a Scooby Doo one. Aaron and I got great shirts from one of the places we stopped, mine being a purple button down with chrome buckles and other things on it. I made sure to not button it up for the motorcycle ride. Pictures to follow. We made a lot of Pho jokes…as in when I asked if Sarah would take my Pho-to…no one will laugh at that but I will later when I read this. Phorase? Haha funny. Some how what do you know everybody ended up at the bar right next to our ship at the end of the day. Surprise surprise. Dock time for some people…and it was pouring rain.
Wish I had more time in Vietnam… One of those ports where I easily could have spent over a week straight. Just one more place for me to return to when I am older I guess. Onnnnnn to China
Tuesday March 22nd 2011-Ankor What??? And some ?nam
Sunrise at Ankor Wat was pretty cool to see. Exploring the actual temple was even better. It was amazing to think that this huge temple was lost in jungle for hundreds of years. The thing was enormous. We spent a few hours there just wandering all of the rooms in the place. The cool thing about being able to see this is that apparently in a few years people will not be able to wander around it anymore…Because it is not in great condition they are going to close it down to the public to preserve it. After visiting the main temple at Ankor Wat, we were dragged off to another temple. A few of us in the group had read about the Tomb Raider Temple which has been untouched since found, and wanted to go see that but unfortunately the Semester At Sea trip was on a schedule and could not just change it even though the majority of the group wanted to go see it. That kids annoying mother threw a fit at the leader of our trip who told her she is free to do what she wants. That’s the good thing with Semester at Sea trips is that at any time you can just sign out and go do your own thing, as long as you’re on time for planes and trains then you will be fine. He told the woman that time was short but she is free to go do what she wants. She could not comprehend the fact that both busses had to go with the original schedule. It turned into her and her son and daughter (who came along with her) complaining about waiting around a lot on this trip…which I did not agree with. For a SAS trip, this was run very fast and smoothly. So she complained that we could not go to the Tomb Raider Temple, even though she was free to do so alone, as long as she was on time back to the hotel for the flight. I could not even listen to her bitch at our nice trip leader anymore so me and a few girls on the trip hopped in a rickshaw and started to head off to the Tomb Raider Temple independently. When the mother saw this she ran over to us to ask if we could all go as a group. I was thrilled to tell her “no, we cannot, we are going alone.” That’s it. It felt great to simply deny her but we were already pressed for time and there was no way I was waiting around for some old lady.
Looking back I am so happy we went to this other temple. It was apparently what the Ankor Wat temple looked like before they cleared it all out so it was nice to see something so untouched. There were 500 year old trees growing right through the brick of it, roots much bigger than myself crawling up the walls of the temple. Once again I had the opportunity to grab some great pictures of myself next to the roots.
The weird thing about these temples is how you can walk around anywhere in them with no restrictions. There were points when I was walking through the temple that I felt I was the first to ever walk through there. Climbing through dark crevices over fallen ruins where nobody else was at the time felt so weird. It is something that would never happen in the United States, or any other countries for that matter.
I felt like we were a little rushed for time at the end and we had no idea where we were. We stressed out for the entire rickshaw ride back because we had a lot on the line. They would leave us in Cambodia if it came down to it and we would have been in big trouble. Luckily after stressing for so long we made it back to the hotel even before the other group. I made sure to flaunt my pictures in front of the woman and told her how much they missed out by not going to the other temple. I had her real rattled.
After a much delayed plane and cockroaches on the airport floor, we made it back to the ship where I slept for a few hours before going out for the night. Aaron, Drew and I asked to go to Buffalo Bar but the motorcycle driver had no clue what we were talking about…we told him to drive until we saw something. When we saw a corner with a few bars and a lot of people on it, we told him to stop. Sure enough we were right in front of Buffalo Bar. After a new I Pho t-shirt, some beef Pho, and inflatable swords we paid some motorcycle drivers to just go around for the rest of the night. I can’t do these nightclubs every night like everybody else on SAS. I would rather drive around on the back of a motorcycle all night and look around the city for interesting things. I lost a nice Izod polo because I put my Ipho shirt on and forgot my polo on the motorcycle. I was pissed but the $2 t-shirt was pretty cool so it was a good trade. Aaron and I got some more pho of course and then headed back to the ship. It was a long night of doing nothing but it was perfectly enjoyable.
Monday March 21st 2011-Arrival in Siem Reap
After the market we took a quick flight to Siem Reap where we only had time for dinner that night. Dinner was at a show where we watched a traditional Cambodian story of love being told. It was mediocre as was dinner.
The hotel once again was beautiful but unfortunately my roommate wanted to stay in my room this time…I guess I can live with that.
After dinner we took a few rickshaws to a bar district called Pub Street. Sarah Larocca was telling me how she read about a bar called Ankor What? A play on the temple name Ankor Wat in Siem Reap. Right as she was telling me all she wanted was a t-shirt from that bar, we looked to our right and saw it. We had no idea it was down there…pretty weird.
Went inside and got free t-shirts, met an Australian guy who stayed on Hertel Ave. in Buffalo all summer and wrote out a note from SAS 2011 on the wall of the restaurant. Afterwards we all had a few drinks in us and decided to get fish pedicures. It was so hard to keep your feet in this tank of a few hundred little fish. It tickled so much that it was hard to keep them in over 10 seconds. At first I hated it but eventually got used to it. It was really funny to watch about 15 of us around the tank all yelling at how weird it felt on our feet. If you ever get the opportunity to do it you must because it is such a funny experience with those fish nipping the dead skin off of your feet. The whole experience lasted about 20 minutes and cost me $3 with a free beer. Not a bad deal. Once again, even the bars sold pitchers of beer for $2…Cambodia…cheapest place ever. I had a delicious noodle meal alone at a restaurant before returning the hotel where I did not go to sleep. I skyped my parents and Kelsey all night until about 5am when people started to come downstairs to go to the sunrise at Ankor Wat.
Monday March 21st 2011-Phnom Penh Second Day
So I learned a lot today. I know it’s a shame but I can’t remember what I did this morning. Ate breakfast and then went somewhere…not very important clearly. After we did that though we were able to do what I came to Cambodia for, to experience the killing fields and learn about the history of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge rule over Cambodia. We started by going to Tuol Sleng which was the former high school turned prison where over 20,000 Cambodians were killed by torturing and execution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuol_Sleng_Genocide_Museum is the link for people who want to read about it. I was able to go into the cells and see the beds where the people were actually chained to. It was a very sobering experience to walk around the prison and see not only the tiny cells where they were forced to live but the specific items and ways they were used to kill and torture people. Much of the museum was just filled with pictures of faces simply to get a feel of truly how many people were killed in the little courtyard right outside. The Khmer Rouge trained young boys to abandon their families and in some cases they even had to capture and torture their own families. Our tour guide was completely emotionless throughout the tour and even spoke of how his mother was killed at this very prison. He told us how the Khmer Rouge ripped off all of her finger and toe nails to drain her blood and then injected her with water to kill her. He told us that she still was not completely dead when they buried her alive. The thing that is amazing about this whole genocide is how recent it was. Only 30 years ago arguably 2.5-3 million Cambodians were killed in the genocide. It seems as though everybody in the town had connections to the killings as well. Our bartender the night before at the hotel told us how he was able to flee and 36 of his family members were killed by the Khmer Rouge. Truly amazing.
After this we had the opportunity to go over to the Killing fields which were used simply as execution sites and large graveyards. It is amazing that this whole area was kept as a secret from people living so close. They would bring people here to kill them in a variety of different ways. Children were killed by smashing their heads against a specific tree to prevent them from growing up and taking revenge for their parent’s deaths. People were forced to dig their own graves and then buried alive. The Khmer Rouge would poor chemicals over the bodies to both eliminate the stench of hundreds of bodies as well as kill off the people who were still living in the piles. A sign read about where something called “the detention” was located. Since the killing fields were used simply as a place to kill people, nobody actually lived there, but there was a point during the genocide where too many people were being shipped in to even kill in a day. They were kept in a detention overnight until the Khmer Rouge got to them. They were killing over 300 people a day…so many that they could not even keep up with killing them all. How terrible is that, and to think it was not that long ago. It was really bizarre being somewhere where something like this happened because as you are walking through you can literally see bone and clothing still sticking out of the ground. Almost like it is untouched. They had a memorial in the middle which consisted of over 600 skulls and loads of clothing from people recovered in the mass graves. It was weird that it was wide open, if I had wanted I could have picked up one of the skulls. The story of Pol Pot(which literally stands for Political Potential) is fascinating and one which you should read about it if you don’t know already. What is shocking to me is the fact that we are not taught about this in school. It may have been mentioned but not like we talked about the Holocaust. Nearly 3 million people were killed and in American schooling you don’t even realize this happened just 30 years ago.
After we were finished we ate lunch at a similar place in which we ate dinner the night before…it was delicious and afterwards we were able to walk around this market in the center of town. Before we went in our trip leader who had been to Cambodia many times told us that it was one of the best markets he had been in around the world. Hailey and I rushed through lunch and ran over to it. He was so right. To date, and I have already been to China, Cambodia had the cheapest items I have seen in the entire world. Shirts, shorts, knick knacks, crappy souvenirs, North Face’s, fruit and other food….anything you wanted for very cheap. I got 3 t-shirts and a pair of shorts for $5 at one place. I loved that market and would love to go back to go Halloween shopping. They had some pretty terrible looking stuff.
Oh I remember what we did that morning. Went to the king’s old palace. It was huge and pretty spectacular but again, I have realized I much more like spending time learning about and being immersed in the culture than seeing the typical tourist stuff. I have pictures for that.
Sunday March 20th 2011, Cambodiarrr
Even though I got back late the night before, and my trip did not leave until 1130, I got up very early the next morning. Half because I was so excited for my Cambodia trip and half because I was so afraid I would oversleep my alarm and miss it entirely. I got up at about 0700, and off the ship to find a flag. I had a motorcycle driver take me to a local market where we were literally walking the bike through a crowd of people. It was a little uncomfortable but a really cool experience. A sunny warm early morning and all the Vietnamese people were out getting their fresh produce and meat. I think it is funny how people in Vietnam wear those round pointy on top hats…not sure why I think it’s funny. Maybe because it is precisely how I pictured Vietnam to be. Every other port for the most part has been so different from what I pictured so when I actually see something I correctly predicted it seems weird to me. After I found a Vietnam flag for my collection in the market I had my driver take me back to the ship. We left for Cambodia right around 1130. Phnom Penh group B was chosen as the trip for people whose parents came to visit them. I was in group B as well. Mom and dad apparently did not get the memo and I was one of 2 kids on the 50 person trip whose parents were not there (sad face).
I met this woman on the bus on the way to the airport who was this kid on SAS’s mother. I forget her son’s name, he was a little bit different and of course ended up being my roommate. Thankfully he slept on the floor of his parents room and I get our big ass hotel room to myself, this seems to be a theme I have had on SAS trips. Anyways the woman got to talking about where we were from and just had nothing positive to say about me being from Buffalo. She was about 60 years old but I almost smacked her. What jobs are available there? What’s going on downtown? She did not get the fact that I lived in a suburb. And she is from Pittsburgh… in my opinion the darkest gloomiest winter in the United States more so than Buffalo. I’m not one to necessarily defend the city of Buffalo because I know it’s not the best city, but seriously. It’s okay I owned her later in the trip.
The flight to Phnom Penh was pretty short and soon enough we were on a bus going to our first stop which was an art museum. Although impressive…not really my thing so I walked over to a bunch of kids playing soccer with some ball and watched them for a while before getting on the bus. We then had a boat tour of the Mekong River Delta before going to eat dinner. Authentic Cambodian food is pretty good. We ate at a restaurant which had dish’s that everybody shared. That’s called Tapas right? Yeah we had some Cambotapas. The skinny kid across from me grabbed every dish first and made sure to take enough so that everyone else had to split a lot less.
After dinner we had the opportunity to do one of the most exciting things I did in Vietnam/Cambodia. We went to an orphanage called Palm Tree Orphanage which was started by a former SASer. All the kids there were so cute and excited to see us and they each chose one of us as soon as we walked in, grabbed our hand and pulled us around to show us everything. I was able to meet an amazing 19 year old girl named Chealode. She showed me around for the short 40 minutes that we were there and told me about her days and what she does. I was able to hand out around 30 wristbands at the orphanage, which is the reason I actually brought them in the first place. Unlike in India, these kids were so happy and appreciative of us being there. They simply wanted to sit down and spend time with us and it is a shame that SAS gave us so little time to spend there. The kids ranged in ages of babies all the way up to 21 years old. Pretty amazing considering there were about 64 kids living there and they were all able to look over each other almost like a family. Unfortunately we had to leave too quickly and I said goodbye to Chealode and all the other kids.
That night was pretty slow. We got to our hotel which turned out to be beautiful as usual for SAS trips(and even more beautiful when I learned about my room by myself) and sat with Rikki and her parents(who went to UB funny enough) at the hotel bar. They bought her, a kid named Andrew and myself a drink called “Around the World” which seemed appropriate. Corny picture followed. Afterwards Andrew and I walked down a sketchy ally and found a Karaoke bar and then a different club. I ate so much street Pho that night? Have I written about pho yet? I don’t know why I asked because clearly no one is going to answer. But it is a very popular noodle soup, of which I had 3 bowls that night. Andrew told me a really messed up story about how some crazy girl on the ship accused him of rape and simply lied about it. Andrew is now gone and everyone hates this girl. I wont go into details on my blog but that is a scary situation for him because it is the type of thing which can follow him home…and it is a lie on top of it…crazy.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Saturday March 19, 2011-When I was in Nam
After only a few days at sea we are already here in Vietnam. I woke up to the Mekong Delta which reminds me a lot of the Amazon River. Not very clean and little towns on either side. This is the port where the parents were visiting the students, and Semester at Sea chose a great port to do so. Matt was going off with Kim on a tour, Drew was going to Cambodia, and Charlie was going off with his parents for that first day so it was just Aaron and I. First thing we did was hop on motorcycles and head to Ben Thanh Market. It was a huge marketplace where you could buy all sorts of clothing, food, essentials, souvenirs or pretty much anything else you could think of. The thing was is that everything did not seem as cheap as I thought it would be. Although the prices were some of the lowest which I have seen on the trip, they were still not as low as I pictured them in my mind. Aaron and I hopped back on a motorcycle and had them drive us to a place to get custom suits made. We got measured up and paid $100 apiece for a jacket and pants custom made… not too bad. Ohhh yeah and the currency exchange is $1=20,000 dong. Really stupid I know but my suit cost me 2,000,000… how baller is that. After that Aaron and I paid our motorcycle drivers to simply ride around…The best way to see any city is to rent a rickshaw or motorcycle and just drive around until you see something you want to stop at. We ate so much the first day. Over the course of the week I ate ridiculous amounts of pho which is a popular noodle soup with beef, pork, chicken or any other meat you wanted. You could go to any road side stand and order it for just a dollar or even under, and was amazing.
Not really that much happened the first day except for buying a bunch of crap and seeing the whole city. Towards nighttime, I saw a restaurant which was very busy and Aaron and I decided to stop and eat there. It was an outdoor type deal with over a hundred people sitting and eating. We received the menu to find it all in Vietnamese and no idea what items were. Not only that but this was the longest menu I had ever seen so we had no idea what to order. I had a list of notes that I had taken from preport the night before with simple food words so I could know basically if it were a seafood or beef meal. A lot of dog is even served in Vietnam and although we looked for some over the course of the week, we did not have luck finding any. I thought it might be a cool thing to say I have tried before…maybe in China. Anyways we ate some sketchy little hard boiled eggs that had more of a fetus inside than a cooked egg. Something was not right about it but we had a few beers and did not care. The rest of the meal besides the eggs was great and after that we headed back to the ship.
After a quick change, we headed off to the wedding of Adam on the ship. He legitimately had a wedding and a reception that people were invited to. All you can drink on the top floor of some hotel. It was pretty awesome but the weird thing was that no one even thought twice about the fact that he and a girl he had just met on the ship got married. Oh well not my problem. I had a bunch of drinks with Charlie’s parents who also attended. Mrs. Demar brought me a bottle of Frank’s hot sauce which I requested and I thanked her so much for it. Mr. Demar asked me if I like Tobasco and I told him how I did not like it at all. He called me a pussy and asked if I also did not like girls. I put my head down and walked away in shame.
After that we went to this Apocalypse now place. It was kinda stupid and I was looking forward too much to Cambodia in the morning. Drunk moto ride back to the ship.
Friday March 11, 2011- Last day in-DIA
Woke up early…4 am no taxi/rickshaw…the panic starts because none are around anywhere as Matt and I are walking through the town. We have a flight at 630 and the airport is over an hour away. We finally see a car driving down the road and manage to flag it down. I hopped in and tried to explain the story to him. Thank god he helped us look around town for a taxi but still 10 minutes of searching we still could not find one. 0430 rolls around, Cochin is absolutely dead but we finally see a rickshaw with a man next to it on the side of the road, convince him to take us and hop in. These things are significantly slower than cars so Matt and I were quiet the entire way there thinking about the possibility that we may miss our flight. We have never flown independently in a foreign country before…we have no clue where the airport is and put total faith in the driver’s hands. Of course he would have to stop for gas on the way. Thank god we get to the airport at about 0540 and made it in and to our gate in plenty of time. Stressful morning gets better when after 2 hours our plane lands safely back in Cochin.
This day kinda sucked a little…Yet again just like in Mauritius my package from mom and dad did not arrive. Sucks to talk about but I spent about an hour and a half trying to track it down just to figure out it is at the Cochin airport where I had just been this morning…unfortunately that is an hour away so I let it go. Yeah I was mad. My package had made it to the opposite side of the world from Buffalo, New York to India in just 4 days. It had been traveling through India alone for 11 days and still had not been delivered to the post office in the correct city. Shows a little something about business and how it is run around the world compared to the United States.
I returned to the ship, grabbed a quick lunch, and returned outside, this time by myself. I spent the next 4 hours before on ship time just driving around the city by myself. Allowed me some time to once again think of how fast this trip is passing me by and although I am not taking it for granted I feel there is so much to take in in such a short amount of time.
I ordered a flag from a sports shop which had to be made by hand…turned out to be my best flag yet but while it was being made I tried to go to a few shops… unsuccessful considering my driver wanted to take me to shops where he received petrol coupons…I refused to go in the store until he took me to a real local market…unfortunately I never made it there but I did see a puppy running happily behind two girls on the way back to the flag store. I yelled for my driver to stop and went to pick him up. No one gave him any attention and the girls were clearly scared of him so he was so happy when I scooped him up and brought him back into my rickshaw. He stayed with me for a few stops more before I had to go back to the ship and left him back off where I found him. He trotted off happily…it made me laugh because I thought of Colby and Schatzi…I miss them…
Whellppp obviously India was great…I am sitting in preport for China right now and the Chinese student are absolutely blowing their presentation. Everyone is looking at eachother not knowing what to think about it. Terrible.
Thursday March 10th- Independent Cochin Trip
Arrival at train station
Roaches gross/arrival at Cochin
Finding a hotel and what we milked it for
Chinese Fishing nets
How to get to beach(ferry bus walk)
Day on beach/lunch with Pamela+Slim
Towards the evening at Cochin, I finally had the opportunity to give my One World Futbol away. I was playing along the boardwalk on the beach when a 17 year old kid named Raul came up and we began kicking the ball back and forth. Not many people in India play futbol because cricket is the popular sport but obviously he was one that did. After a few kicks around he began to walk away and I called to him. Raul was not great at English but his friend who he was with translated for us so I could explain the One World Futbol story and how the ball was indestructible. He did not understand at first that I was giving him the ball and kept giving it back to me. It was funny trying to get across that it was his to keep. I was able to take a few pictures with him before leaving the beach and traveling back to town to find somewhere to stay for the night.
On the way back to the town of Cochin, Matt and I were bumping my stereo in the back of the rickshaw…it was awesome. We saw some festival of some type going on and made him stop so we could walk in. There were hundreds of little open fires on the ground with women cooking a rice and sugar mixture over them. It was an amazing thing to see because later we learned that it is an offering to the gods which only happens once a year, and we caught it right at it was happening. They offered Matt and I some rice on a banana leaf which we gratefully accepted and quickly scalded our hands on. It was so freaking hot, I had to let it cool for about ten minutes before eating it.
That night we ate the dinner which I still say is the best dinner I have had to date on Semester At Sea. Maybe it was the few beers we had consumed beforehand but we were sooo hungry and found this place called Del Roti which had been recommended in his guide book. We arrived there to realize we had no idea what to order. Our waiter, who the guidebook also spoke about, took our menu’s and told us he would bring us out something that he recommends…I tried to order more than he told us but he said it would be enough, even though we were really hungry. It turned out to be some kind of chicken wrap split in two, a bowl of the best chicken curry I have ever tasted, and flat bread similar to naan on the side. Matt and I killed it. I mean in like 4 minutes flat we killed all the food on the table. We told him we wanted another round of the exact same thing. Best part about eating in India is the speed of the food. Our second round was out not 3 minutes later. I was able to hardly finish my part and Matt being the woman he is could not finish his. I finished it for him and almost puked. That night we had nothing to do because EVERYTHING in that town closes at 2200. We walked around for a few hours aimlessly before walking into someone’s house that had a homestay sign on it. As sketchy as it sounds…that’s exactly how sketchy it was, but the woman turned out to be really nice. She arranged a taxi for us in the morning to drive us to the airport for our 0630 flight, we gave her 300R and went to bed.
Wednesday March 9th, 2011-2nd day in Erode
The second day in Erode was simply amazing. We had an early start off to eat breakfast at some huge school where we would return later. After a big breakfast, we went to an elementary school where we were the guests of an assembly in front of about 1300 kids. Hardly what I expected to walk out to but we walked out onto their outdoor stage and were just shocked at the amount of little kids we saw in rows sitting in front of us. It was so amazing and you could feel the excitement of all the kids out in the crowd. I waved to them and a few hundred waved back. Yes a few hundred. When I saw how many reacted to just a little wave of my hand, I threw both of my hands in the air and waved them hard back and forth. Again…you have to see these things for it to do justice but I would say more than 90% of the kids in the crowd followed and did exactly what I did. It was soo funny to see. We sat down and they sang songs all together to us. It was such an amazing experience and I will be sure to update many pictures once I get to Hong Kong. As we left when the assembly was over, I did the same thing and got it on video, although it was not nearly to the extent of the first one because kids were starting to leave.
Later on in the day we visited a blanket weaving factory. It was kinda cool. Very cool to learn what they made in a day working there. The men who have been working the longest and are the most skilled make only R250 for an entire 8 hour day of work. The women make about R50…that’s a dollar…for a whole day. Crazyness. So we visited another school which gave us the opportunity to play cricket and other sports with the kids. It was pretty cool but super overwhelming because there were hundreds of kids there and every single one wanted to talk to us and get our autograph.
Im moving through this day fast because I just got back from Vietnam/Cambodia and want to write about that before arriving in China tomorrow already…Keeping up is super hard because there are so many days in port and none at sea anymore….so enjoyable and tiring.
I’m going to do a super abbreviated rest of day then explain when I get home. Sorry but there is too much to do.
Assembly at school
Black Balloon kid
Disabled school
Ice cream for kids
Basketball game
Tell about Hans and Bonnie
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Tuesday March 8th 2011- Home Stay First dayyyyyyyyy
We arrived at the Erode train station around 6 in the morning. Seems like I had not slept at all the night before because of the constant stopping and starting of the train waking me up. We drove in a van to our host’s house which was about 35 minutes away from the station. When we arrived, we were introduced to our hosts who turned out to be the nicest people I could have asked to show us around the town. They had a beautiful house which was built open like a courtyard with rooms off of it. Not what I expected at all when going into an Indian home stay. Matt, the other boys in the group, Brittany the ship photographer, and I took the guest house which consisted of 2 bathrooms and 3 bedrooms set about 25 yards from their house. We had a nice authentic Indian breakfast followed by a trip to a local small elementary school where we were able to wander around by ourselves to different classrooms and meet with the children. The reason why I loved this SAS trip so much is because we had so many opportunities to meet with children in schools. I am convinced that Indian children are the cutest little kids in the entire world. They were all so excited to see us and as much as they tried to concentrate on their teachers who were still speaking, they could not help but be distracted from everything happening. Indians are not used to seeing white people in Chennai and other big cities let alone a small town in central India. When the people see us there they literally stare at us, and if that is how adults react, you can only imagine how surprised and excited little kids get. We stopped in one English class where one student was reading out loud from a book and could not stop laughing every few words because the other kids were laughing and we were laughing. It just spread and his teacher kept giving him dirty looks even though she herself had a smirk on her face. We also stopped in a classroom for young kids who preformed many songs, which I now know everyone in the world knows; everything from “Itsy Bitsy Spider” to “Wheels on the Bus.” And every time you take a picture of them, they want to see it right away…fascinated by the fact they can see themselves on the little camera screen. It was at this time that I realized I had forgotten my One World Futbol back at the home we were staying…it sucked because this would have been the perfect opportunity to give the ball to the little kids in the school. It was pretty clear that they were not able to afford nice balls based on the looks of the school. Luckily I had an opportunity later on in India to give it to a kid so it all worked out.
After leaving the school we went back to the host families house and had an opportunity to eat lunch and take a much needed nap. Afterwards we visited a local marketplace…very cool but it was mainly just a few hundred Indians staring at us like we were freaks. I decided to make things a little wild and broke out about 15 “Flight 3407” wristbands to give out to the kids. Instantly, no exaggeration, about 35 people crowded around us when they saw me giving them to kids. I had to put them away and rip my arm away from some man who got way too aggressive about trying to get one. After we cleared the group out, I was able to snag a few pictures with the kids I gave wristbands to. They loved them. They also loved WWE apparently because they kept telling matt he looked like John Cena..and doing his signature “you can’t see me” move. Quite funny quite funny.
So that night we eat some dinner. Good of course. Its funny the way we ate while at the home stay. They sat us around the outside of the room and served us on a banana tree leaf. No forks. No Spoons. No left hands(apparently that is the hand you wipe your ass with) too many rules for eating in India and eating rice and other sloppy foods with your hands seems barbaric but they are so used to doing it every day that eating with utensils seems weird. While eating, a conversation came up between me and Purne about the differences in head nods in India and the United States. In the US, we nod our head when we want to say yes to a question. In India, they do this head bobbing type deal back and forth to say yes. It is almost the same as if someone in the US were to say maybe or sometimes….you know how you would kinda bob your head from side to side??? Hard to describe but yeah, it is so confusing when you ask an Indian a question because it is easy to forget that it means yes so they almost look like they are saying they don’t know. As I type this out I realize it makes no sense so everyone will have to ask me when I get home, but it went something like this on the first day in India. Before the cricket match we asked the taxi driver if he knew where the cricket stadium was, he bobbed his head and we took it as a no. We tried to move on to someone else but he kept on stopping us…we would ask again…another head bob. It went like this numerous times every day in India as it took place everywhere. During the conversation, Purne and her daughter were both telling us that most of the time they nod their heads instead of bobbing them. Seriously not 30 seconds after the convo ended, I asked them if they eat with their hand for every meal and both of them bobbed their heads back and forth at the same time. We all started to crack up as they realized they had just done exactly what we were talking about….HAHA makes me laugh thinking back on it but to them they were saying every meal we eat with our hands, but to Americans, we take it as “sometimes we do and sometimes we do not.”
After dinner we went swimming in some 40 foot deep swimming hole. Not too much to say about it except for that it was a high jump and felt good after a long day in the hot hot heat of India.
That night I helped Purne’s daughter on her school project.. More a story I have to tell in person but it was one of those moments where I was really able to immerse myself in the culture as I spent about an hour sitting with the 2 of them late at night trying to do a project that she had saved for last minute. I made it so much better. Went to bed late that night.
Oh and one more thing, Matt and I booked a plane ticked last minute today for a plane ticket from Cochin to Chennai for the last day. We had absolutely no clue how we were going to get from Erode to Cochin the next day but it was exciting to plan something for the last minute.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Monday March 7th 2011 2nd day in Chennai and Train to Erode
The second day in India consisted of similar things as the first day. Aaron Kaufman, Matt, Charlie and I had hopped in a rickshaw at about 10 o’clock and headed off to find that fantastic authentic Indian food we were craving. It is funny because I was not looking forward to Indian food in the least bit coming into this trip and now that we left it is all that I want. Even yesterday in Singapore, my friends wanted to all get the local Singapore food but they also had a bunch of great Indian restaurants…I smelled the food and was immediately brought back to my experience in India. I’m gonna miss it. I have to find a good Indian place at home now. We went to this restaurant about a half hour rickshaw ride away which did not open for another half hour unfortunately. We decided to be patient and visit a few little shops around the restaurant while we waited. Now…Indian drivers have a scam… one that every driver knows and everybody who has been to India should know by now. No matter where you are going and what kind of time restrictions you have, they will always want to take you to their friends shop. The conversation goes something like this... “Hey, I’m late for the airport…can you take me? And step on it please, I have a flight in one hour”
“Okay we stop at one store on the way, 5 minutes. You find something for friend”
“No thank you I am really in a hurry, we have no time to stop…hurry!!”
“OOOkkkkayyy we stop first”
Over the course of 3 days in India, I was brought to numerous shops around town 3 separate times! It is ridiculous how obvious they make the fact that they obviously receive something in return for bringing these stores customers. You can ask for the driver to take you to a local cheap market to buy things and they take you to these way overpriced shops…quite annoying. On the last day I finally forced it out of my driver to what he gets to stop at these shops. Petrol coupons. That’s all they have to do is bring customers into the shops and they get free gas coupons. Quite annoying for a tourist but worth it for these drivers.
So after visiting 2 of these ridiculously priced shops, it was time to eat lunch. We had not eaten all day and it was now about 1230. We ordered and of course forgot we were in India so an hour later we were still waiting for our food, which can be looked at as a good or bad thing. On the bright side, when it finally came, it tasted that much better. I had a curry chicken dish with lots of Garlic Naan and rice. I miss naan sooo much. It is a flat bread you rip off in pieces and dip in the stew that the chicken comes in. This meal was the first time I had tried it and I fell in love. Our table just kept ordering more and more of it every few minutes because it is so cheap and does not fill you up. 20 minutes later we were all stuffed beyond belief not being able to finish another bite. The more I talk about this the more I hate the fact that we will not be having any more Indian food. It really is THAT GOOD.
After lunch, Aaron and Charlie had to leave for their trip to Agra and Varanasi to go see the Taj Mahal and Ganges River where they burn the bodies of people who have died. We said goodbye for the next 4 days and parted ways. Matt and I still had another 8 hours until our homestay trip to Erode left at 2130 that night. We paid our driver who had been with us in the morning R500 to take us around for the whole day so we hoped back in the rickshaw began driving around. We went to a few local market type shops looking for authentic Indian wear to rock at our homestay. We were not having much luck but it was really enjoyable being able to just drive around a completely new country without a care. It is at certain moments such as this which I have time to think and really look around me. The experience I am going through is something which I very likely will never do again, and it is the most amazing way I can think of to ever spend a semester studying. Someday in the near future, I will be sitting in an office working and thinking back to just riding around in a rickshaw in a little town in India. Moments like this are perfect…everything comes together. The locals, the dogs on the side of the street, the hot hot sun, the noises and the smells. There is just so much to look at that Matt and I hardly talked about anything during the ride to the bazaar where we found the perfect shirt and pants to wear for just R400. The pants are ridiculous looking but so cool to wear in India. Huge linen pants which come to a narrow ankle…tons of complements on them.
After the bazaar, Matt and I still had about 3 hours to kill. Matt has a lot of guidebooks…like, literally the LonelyPlanet guidebook for every single country we visit, so he broke it out and looked up a hotel in Chennai called the Raintree. Matt and I became experts at milking everything we possibly could from hotels in the next few days, and it carried over even into Singapore as you will hear about later, and hopefully works for the rest of the trip. We took the elevator to the top floor like we owned the place and took our spot at the Infinity pool on the roof overlooking the city. Since all I had with me was a little drawstring backpack, we decided to just strip to our boxers to use the pool…we were the only ones up there anyhow. After the pool we made our way to the business center for about an hour and a half of free internet. Score…Pics uploaded to my blog and Facebook, and all my emails answered. When we were all finished we made our way to the Ship to pack and meet up with our SAS group who was traveling to Erode.
We left at about 2130 to the train station where we were taking a overnight sleeper train…When we arrived at the train station after about a 15 minute bus ride, we quickly realized that it was the wrong station…good start to our Semester at Sea trip, them taking us to the wrong station. Our bus had left already and now we were late for a train at a different station. The 15 people in our trip hopped in 5 different rickshaws and we raced to the other station. The drivers were being more reckless than usual and we hit a red light at which we decided to run. I was sitting on the left side of the rickshaw which has an open door with no restraints…it is simply open to walk in and out. I saw it coming about 3-4 seconds in advance, but in the middle of the intersection where we ran the light a saw another rickshaw racing directly at the side of our vehicle. It’s like everytime you are in an accident and you see it coming but BOOM. It struck the side of us moving at a pretty good speed. We bumped off and kept going just running away from the accident in the middle of the intersection. I looked back to see sparks coming from the front of the other rickshaw as their tire had fallen off and the front of the chasse was now just scraping the ground. I had officially been involved in my first car accident in India. I could not believe that it happened and when we got to the train station all the other people that we were with had been flipping out that they saw an accident, little did we know that it was us involved in it.
We got on the overnight train, what a cool experience that turned out to be. It left at about 2300 on a 7 hour ride toward Erode. Not having quite the safety standards the United States have, India leaves their train doors open for the entire ride. I was able to stick my head out the train car as it tore throughout the countryside of India at nighttime. Although I was so tired from a long day of exploring the country, I was still far too excited to fall asleep on the train. Matt and a few other kids on the trip stayed up and talked until about 0200 when we turned the lights and tried to get a little bit of sleep for the long day we had ahead of us. Throughout the night I don’t think I slept in any increment of more than 30 minutes, but I did not even mind because of how exciting everything was.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Sunday March 6th 2011 Indiiiaaaaa
Writing about India is one of the hardest things ever. How do I describe an experience in which you have to go through to truly appreciate and understand? An entry like this is one which only someone who has been to India can relate to. Just sayin’…
Just want to start off by saying that my expectations from India were not very high in the first place. Let me re-word that…it was the port in which I was least interested in going and complained why they would give us 6 days in India when we only have one in Singapore. When you think of India living in the US, what comes to mind? Smelly, clearly the first thing you cringe at. Crowded, with the population 3 times of that in the United States. A Dirty, garbage covered, unfamiliar religion based, insane driving, completely different culture based country located on the direct other side of the globe from that of NYS. And this is exactly what it turned out to be…and through this I fell in love with India, and in a very very very different way from Cape Town, it became my number one favorite port we have visited thus far on our itinerary. Shocker.
It’s currency exchange rate time!!!! So pay attention please. $1= R45 RUPEES. I love Rupees. They are my second favorite currency for 2 reasons… Number 1) everything seems so expensive at first when you hear the price in rupees then your like “oh dang that’s actually cheap” .. like… “that meal was good and filled me up, but was not worth R100” then I realized I got a fantastic Indian lunch for hardly over 2 bucks. Number 2) the word Rupee is the best, especially when Indian people say it. My number one favorite currency is the Cedi’s out of Ghana because we have a stupid joke where everything costs 5 Cedi, like “you want help on the homework?...5 cedi.” Get it? Good. We had preport for 2 days as opposed to just the night before in preparation for India because there was so much to cover. Everything from food and protecting ourselves from sickness to cultural norms and getting around the country safely. They made India out to be far more intense than it actually ended up being for me. I mean, Semester at sea plastic wrapped all of the carpets throughout the ship and closed the top 2 decks for the entire time we were in port for god’s sake.
Sunday March 6th, 2011
Our first day in port and nothing to do but explore India. We decided to get one major cultural experience out of the way right off the bat. We attended the Cricket World cup. Honestly what are the chances of that. The event happens once every 4 years and we happen to dock in the exact city, in the exact country which was hosting a game being played between South Africa and England(S.A. being a country I had visited just weeks before) Crazyness. Cricket is like an unnamed religion in India, is the way the interport students described it to us. Bigger than the great game of Hockey in Canada or Football in the US, everybody plays backyard cricket in India. We got off of the ship, hopped into a rickshaw on the street and head off to the game…before I go on I need to talk a little bit about Rickshaw’s:
They are the freakin sweetest mode of transpo ever. Look them up online if you don’t know what they are because they are too hard to explain but here is my brief description…3 wheeled tricked out yellow go karts with roofs and rear seating for 3 crammed people. These crazy Indians whip them around the streets without a care in the world. A line of cars does not matter because rickshaws are little and can just weave in and out like a motorcycle, which also fill the streets. The driving in India is way crazier than any country I have ever been to before. I had been to P.R., and thought driving could not get much crazier than that, then to other tiny Caribbean islands and thought the same thing…then Ghana came around and it was even more stupid and crazy driving…India blows them out of the water. I can confidently say this time I don’t know if I will ever be to a country where they drive as wild as they do in India. No stop signs and only traffic signs on the absolute busiest of corners. I could probly count the traffic lights on two hands in the city of Chennai and 8 million people live in the city. Lines in the road? They don’t matter. Signaling for turns? Doesn’t happen. Being able to negotiate a price to somewhere before a ride in which the Rickshaw driver is actually happy with at the end of the ride? Impossible. They always wanted more money. Those Indian scams would trick a nube traveler, but not myself. I have many vids of the rickshaw driving in India and at this point im afraid that is the only thing that can do it justice.
Let me get myself back on track here. Cricket. The Chennai stadium we were in was pretty awesome, Looks exactly like a baseball stadium except more spread out and perfectly round….I won’t get into too much detail because no one actually knows/cares about cricket in the US and would not know what I am talking about. Although not the most exciting of events in the world, a cricket match is something which I felt I needed to experience of watching in person, and that I can now cross it off my list. We left after about 2 hours into the 9 hour match.
After the match we drove around town for a while looking for the best Indian cuisine. Semester at Sea dropped us off on a Sunday…apparently local food is difficult to find on Sunday…we ended up going to a hookah bar called Elementz and having pizza and Panini’s. Hookah bars are easy to find in India because all Indians smoke hookah; it’s a huge part of their culture and offered everywhere.
This first day had been great. Nothing but exploring around a brand new city which may as well have been a whole different world. The last thing we did before returning to the ship was go to Spencer Plaza. It was basically a buttload of every sort of Indian shop piled into a decent sized mall. A place you can certainly spend a few hours shopping and walking around but not exactly the Indian cultural experience I was looking for. We spent about 2 hours there looking at all the fabric and native clothing in there before leaving back to the ship.
After eating and getting a change out of our very sweaty dirty clothes, just Matt and I headed out to explore the nightlife of India. Just Matt and I became the theme of my entire time in India because we basically traveled alone throughout the next 5 days. Traveling with one other person is the best way to go about getting things done quickly and efficiently. I hate more than anything going in a large group. I want to scream. I always feel like I am trying to herd a bunch of cattle from location to location. It’s a slow process and some girl(not in a sexist way or anything but in reality let’s be honest…these are college aged girls we are talking about) is always complaining about something and bound to slow me up…it’s an aggravating feeling and one I want to avoid as much as possible on this voyage. Annnyyywhhooooo Matt and I jumped in a rickshaw at around 2000 and just went. The nighttime driving even more enjoyable than the day so a half an hour ride to the hotel we were going to did not bother me one bit. After a few enjoyable beers on the top floor of the Accord Metropolitan hotel(with a cool breeze and a great view of the city), Matt and I jumped in a rickshaw and headed towards our next destination. Completely random but at about 2200, a decently far distance from the ship, suddenly I spotted one of my best friends from the ship Aaron Kaufman standing on the street corner standing with Bruno and Tom. I yelled for our driver to stop and we picked them up. This does not seem significant but it was just the weirdest thing ever how I spotted them basically in the middle of nowhere. We continued with 5 people(6 including the driver) in the rickshaw back to Elementz where we had eaten lunch earlier. Word on the ship is that people were going there to hang out that night. Cool. For lack of anything better to do we ended up staying there the rest of the night just hanging out and talking about our first day in Chennai. We almost went to some club where they had a dress code, but I was wearing shorts…Matt and Aaron gave me a hard time about it all night saying how they wanted to go and could not go because of my stupid decision to stay cool on a hot Indian night. I convinced some kid on SAS I had never talked to before to switch pants with me. After changing and surprising Aaron and Matt with my new find, they told me the club was now closed. Not worth it. Uneventful night led to a ride home with 7 people and one driver crammed in a rickshaw meant for 3 and a driver. We gave each other “wet rickshaws” the entire way back to the ship. Matt’s rickshaw was behind us and ran out of gas. They got back to the ship an hour and a half later. Sucks to suck.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Different scenes around Cape Town
Mzoli's meat...only about half of the grills they had
Half way up Table Mountain
Sunrise over Victoria's Wharf... MV Explorer
Panorama shot of the port we docked in.
Arrival in Cape Town
GHANA GHANA
Holding treats on my head from Axim, Ghana
All the locals fishing boats in Takoradi, Ghana
One World Futbol
This is the little boy we gave the One World Futbol to in Ghana. He is a 7 year old named Bennie and could not have been happier with the gift.
Amazon Rain Forest
Cosheta the monkey
Piranha fishing.
Grasshopper found outside our Jungle Lodge room.
Saturday, March 5, 2011
One World Futbol Trip Leader!!
Oh also I get the opportunity to do another One World Futbol donation on my Village Homestay in Erode!!!
This time I am not only a group leader, but also the only one in my group which means I will be able to pick the kid I want to give the ball to and be able to present it to them specially for me. For the people who are not dedicated to reading my blog every day of their lives, you may have no idea what the One World Futbol is... So here are the facts out of the brochure.
The One World Futbol is an ultra durable, all-terrain soccer ball that can be played on any surface and will never go flat, even when punctured. The ball requires no pump or needle and eliminates the waste of punctured, deflated traditional soccer balls. The design allows the ball to adjust for variations in altitude and temp and retains the rebound characteristics of a traditional ball without ever having to be inflated. The color is the shade of blue associated with peace-making efforts in general, and the United Nations in particular... So basically every time one of these balls is purchased, one is donated to some kids who cannot afford one. I am lucky enough to already have been a part of a group who delivered one, and now able to deliver one directly on my own. A pretty special feeling indeed to be able and do this.
Saturday March 5th 2011
Boo…Today is precisely the first day of the second half of my journey around the world. Woo…we will be in India tomorrow!!!! asdijg[iovaoie4r[. Holy shit am I excited. What an insane country India is. Over 1/6th of the entire world’s population lives in this country...or about 1.2 billion people. 310,000 live in the US. The country is 1/3rd the size of the US and contains about 3 times as many people. It’s crazy to think about. You know what else is crazy to think about? How easy it is to get some serious runs in India. Tonight in pre-port Dr. Laura and Dr. Bill rapped about diarrhea. Apparently it is very hard to avoid it in India and we should be taking Pepto on the reg. I’m sure the food will be fantastic but the after effects may do some serious damage on my body…and my toilet. It’s funny that today is also crew appreciation day. Semester at Sea strategically plans this so we can thank our cabin stewards for cleaning up our rooms every day of the voyage thus far, then dumps us in India the very next day. Thanks for the first 52 days Rene…sorry about the next week…here’s 10 bucks.
We are over 75% done with our classes already because we have had so many sea days. That means the second part of this program is just going to fly by because every few days we are in another country. Over the next 5 weeks, I have each of my classes only 4 times! That’s less than once a week per class. I will attach my schedule but it is funny how quickly the countries come now. We are in India tomorrow then a few days of class then Singapore, 2 days then Vietnam, a few days then china. And so on. Everyone is looking forward to this leg of the trip, but unfortunately I am afraid it will go by a lot faster.
7 hours outside Chennai, India. Wish me luck.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Monday February 21st 2011 Other days in South Africa...I know it's late
My last two days in South Africa were not nearly as exciting as my first few were, but still full of good things…goooood things. Monday we hiked table mountain. A much more difficult hike than I actually thought it would be. Charlie and I did not exactly get the early start which we were hoping for and were planning on going alone to get it done quickly. Of course Charlie being the polite kid he is, invited 2 girls we saw at lunch who also wanted to hike it…Perfect. I warned them that I would be moving quickly and if they wanted to go with us they would have to keep up, to which she responded… “Don’t worry, we can hang. You will probably be following us up the mountain.” Because it is not very eventful, I will make a long story short. The very girl that said that did more complaining than Kresley when she is hungry and had to take breaks every few seconds. I ended up finishing alone and having a snack at the top for half an hour waiting for them. Beautiful view. Pictures to follow.
Today was our Wine Tour… yay. Winelands are huge in South Africa and they have hundreds of estates spread throughout the three towns of Franschoek, Paarl, and Stellenbosch. It reminds me of a much larger Niagara on the Lake area. Charlie, Drew, Aaron, Grace and I only did a half day tasting with my new friend cab driver Erufaan because we had to be back to the port on time for me to first update pictures to Facebook and then get on the ship by 5 for on ship time. We were able to visit 2 of the wine estates which were beautiful and one brandy distillery, each of which we had tastings at (Charlie did not like the brandy so did not get a tasting there and is made fun of it still about a week and a half later). Stellenbosch was like a whole other side of Cape Town because instead of mountains and buildings it was instead rolling hills with rows after rows of grapes and other crops growing. The wine estates were absolutely amazing because being in Africa, they had animals on the grounds. Everything from Cheetahs, to baby white lions, to Zebras, to exotic birds…all of which you can encounter and play with, although not always the smartest idea after having some of their local wine. The highlight of the trip was when we got back to the ship and back on. The first thing we all had to do was return our passport to the front desk because we needed them to get off in S.A. for whatever reason. Grace Lyons got very tired apparently from her wine and fell asleep before doing so. And failed to hear her name announced over the speaker to return it. And failed to hear it when they called her a second time(now about 1900). Guess what Grace? You were late returning your passport? DOCK TIME…no Mauritius for Grace this time around unfortunately…it sucks but I think she learned her lesson.
Yeah so South Africa was pretty awesome all in all.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Top Secret stuff from sea
A lot has gone down in the past few days to fill all yall in on. First of all, I have a friend the ship from Arizona, she goes to SMU. After we got back on the ship in Mauritius she noticed bruises on her hips and she said she never really bruises. Over the past 3 days she has noticed more and more bruising all over her body. She got blood drawn and tested and finds out that it is some blood disease called ITP (unknown cause for low platelet count). There is a very slight chance that it could be some sort of leukemia. So 2 days ago when she had it tested they told her she would have to leave the ship and go home from India, because it is important she get it taken care of. Then yesterday we increased our speed because it became more serious. We anchored this morning about a half mile off the coast of a tiny US Navy base island in the middle of the Indian Ocean called Diego Garcia. US and British Military came on the ship through the 2nd deck gangway, where I was waiting with a few other kids to see Sophie off. It was a pretty amazing thing to see how seriously the two militaries took it. They had their huge guns and even a Schatzi on board. I went up to the 5th deck to look around and our ship was surrounded by about 9 of those small fast rescue boats, a few of which had machine gun turrets mounted on the side. This island is very protected and apparently a place which the captain has wanted to stop for a long time because it is so secretive. This is a place where I will truly never be again in my entire life and it is amazing to think that here in the middle of nowhere, there is a US military base, with Americans stationed. Anyways Sophie and one other girl with an infection, were taken off of the Explorer onto one of the military ships and brought to Diego Garcia island, where they will be flown directly to Singapore to get treated. Hopefully she will be okay but her Semester at Sea is over we think. As terrible as it is, the situation she is going through right now is so cool with the military taking her on their top secret island and flying her all the way to Singapore. She truly is in the best hands possible.
Also, I wish I was up last night because apparently some cool things were happening on deck 5. My friend was up there at around 2am and said there were men dressed in all white carrying fire hoses around. She went up there and asked what they were doing and they told her that they were going through a pirate territory and on lookout with the extremely high pressured hoses. They told her that was the other reason we were moving so fast as well because our ship moving at full speed of nearly 28 knots can basically out run any ship on the sea and we were trying to get through to the safe military area. Pretty amazing that you hear about stuff like this all the time on the news and meanwhile the ship I am on is taking precautions against it.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Sunday February 20th, 2011
Woke up that morning to have a nice breakfast outside on the pier. I am so sick of breakfast food on this ship and can’t handle any more eggs, potatoes and French toast, so I paid an extra R10 so they could fix me a bacon and guac cheeseburger. It was amazing. Our plans for the day were to head to Mzoli’s which was a meat market in a township which threw a big Sunday bash every week. We grabbed a cab with a guy name Erufann who ended up being our driver on a few more occasions that week. Great guy who knew a ton about Cape Town. Sometimes when you are driving in countries away from home, you can actually forget where you are. For example on the way to the township, we were driving down the highway and Erufaan pointed out zebra and impala on a hillside right next to the highway. And the day before, on the way home from shark diving, our cab driver pointed out a few baboons just walking on the shoulder of the road. It is funny to see animals like this around everywhere, especially when you are so not used to it. He was able to show us a few different townships on the way to Mzoli’s and what they were known for. Oh and a township is the word in S.A. referring to the ghetto and the shacks in which the poorest of the poor live. Go watch District 9. I always saw that movie and expected that where the aliens lived is dramatized but Erufaan told us that it was actually filmed in one of the townships of Cape Town. The tiny 9’x9’ sheet metal huts you see in that movie are exactly what the people live in. We were told that up to 5 people live in these tiny huts together. We were going to a township called Guguletu which had this Mzoli’s in it. Erufaan informed us to not wander too far away from where everyone was because just like in Brazil, the townships can be very dangerous and people are killed every day. When we arrived, I was shocked to see a few thousand people in attendance at it. There was a huge line coming right out the door and down the street of the Mzoli’s restaurant where we get our meat. Being American, I decided to cut it because I heard it takes about an hour to wait in. I was only a few feet outside the door which cut off roughly 45 minutes. We gathered up R250 so I could just order food for everybody. I could not believe what I saw when I stepped in the door. It was a tiny room with a glass case of more meat cuts than I had ever seen. I stepped up, gave the woman the R250 and told her I wanted however much I could get for that amount. She gave me steak, chicken thighs and legs, pork chops, some different cut of pork, lamb, lamb ribs, sausage and some other cuts I didn’t even know what they were. I could not believe how much meat you get for such a little price. They gave it all to me stacked up in a metal tray with marinade and seasonings and guided me to the back. Now what happened here was like nothing you would ever see in America. I stepped down the hallway and entered a room with about 50 people crammed together and a serving area with grills lining the walls. I made my way through and had a guy pass my meat up to the front. Now it was a waiting game of listening to my number. We went back outside because we were told it takes about an hour after you even give them the meat. After a few drinks about an hour later we went to check back on the meat and found it had not been put on the grill yet. I asked another guy who looked like a local how long it usually takes and he says there is a trick to getting it done quicker…you just have to bribe the cooks. First of all this was the most flamboyant person I have ever talked to. It was really funny because he walked around like he owned the place saying hello and waving at everybody. I gave him R20 and asked if he would go bribe the cook for me. I figured that even if he takes my money and does nothing, it was only R20 so it was worth a good story. I got the greatest video of him walking back yelling “let the lady through!” to get through the crowd, and in the vid you can clearly see him put the money in the cooks apron. Soon enough, all of our food came out before the other SAS people who ordered before us. The gay guy demanded a glass of wine which I gladly bought him for getting our food quicker. Our tray of food once it was cooked was one of the sexiest things I have ever seen in my life. One tray overflowing with some of the best meat you can imagine. It was a meat lover’s dream… No potatoes, no veggies, no fruit, no pasta, no sides at all. Simply meat. Hell we did not even get a fork and knife or plates. We brought that tray out to 7 semi drunk kids who had not eaten all day. And we all just tore into it with our hands. The funny thing is that there was too much meat for us to even finish. And all of us had a little trouble stopping eating because it was so delicious. Full process even with cutting the line and bribing the cook was an hour and 50 minutes. It is aggravating to think that they do this every single Sunday and do not have a more efficient method by now of getting people their food, but then you have to remember, as I did have many times on this trip, that this is not America and business is run a little bit differently. In the USA people would have never settled for service but here, it did not seem to be a problem. They are so used to it being so slow and it is not a problem for them because they have never known what really fast business is actually like. After eating, Erufaan picked us up and we went back to the ship.
While Drew, Grace and the girls went back to the ship, Matt and I took a cab to long street where there was an open air market. I told the cab driver that it was closed and he insisted that it was open. Of course he got our money and drove off and it was closed when we got there. Instead we went in some restaurant and sat on the balcony where we ordered a bottle of wine. True bromance. Bottle of wine. Balcony overlooking DT Cape Town. A little bit of singing. It was a good time.
We returned back to the ship where we then went out to the bars on Camps Bay. This place was shocking how much it reminded me of a mini South Beach, Miami. Really nice bars with a huge beach with palm trees right across the street. St Eyves was the name of the place we went to. It was soo sweet with a ton of Semester at Sea students there. The best part of that night though was Drew bought a puppy. Yep. He legitimacy called me out of the bar and had a puppy in his arms. Apparently some homeless man was walking around with the puppy asking for money for his family who was sitting across the street. Drew told him he would only give him money if he could have the mans puppy. R300 rand later Drew had a new pup. No idea what he was planning on doing with it but it was only 4 weeks old and laid on his back in the palm of my hand. Cutest thing ever. The man can confidently say he has officially owned a dog in South Africa. He named it Hilos A few hours later it came time to go back to the ship, which presented a problem for Drew. Absolutely no puppies on the ship. He stuck it in Sarah’s shirt and made a go at it. They made it through the lower level of security and even through the metal detector before the security guard freaked out when he saw the puppies head sticking out haha. Almost…He ended up giving it to a cop who gave it some horrible name and was going to give it to his family. My night kinda pretty much ended there. Camps Bay was awesome is the moral of this terrible entry.