if you can't drink the water, drink the beer

Saturday, October 15, 2011 (10:28pm) - India

where do i even begin with this?! i guess i'll go with a play-by-play for now, then do a reflection or something the next few days because i have so much to say. so this is going to be long... don't say i didn't warn you.

so as many of you know, i planned a trip for india. pretty stressful before, but miraculously everything worked out once we got here. so on day one it took us a few hours to get off the ship because indian customs is crazyyy. had to do face to face again, plus "landing passes" (who knows what those are?). so once everybody got their passports and everything we all met in the library. there were 14 of us, which was a perfect number for a trip of this magnitude. as soon as we walked off the ship we were met by mr. rhoda and a sign "discovery full circle tours welcomes sam, alex, & friends." um, check that off my bucketlist. always wanted to be greeted by a sign in an airport or something. so the 14 of us packed into two vans and ventured to the chennai airport. it took us about an hour because holy hell is traffic crazy in india. i remember watching ice road truckers extreme that took place in india (cus i'm a boy, i think) and everything that was on there was true! i mean, why follow stoplights, acknowledge road lanes, or give the right of way to pedestrians!? pretty much a free for all. oh and the kicker, they don't use sideview mirrors because motorcycles and autos and rickshaws just buzz around like they own the place, so people honk the entire time they're driving just to let other people know where they are. because following the traffic laws would just be too easy. not sure how i'm going to be able to drive in america again after these crazy countries.

anyways, we get to the airport without a hitch. who knew there could be stricter flying rules than american tsa? but there is, and they live in india. here, you can't fly with ANY liquids, gels, etc... even the travel size. so we all threw our toiletries in ricky's bag and checked it. plus you have to put tags on all your carry-ons and get them stamped when you go through security (if not, they won't let you on the plane). and everyone gets "frisked"... not just me who has to go to secondary every single time i fly in america. so that was a blast. our plane was a little delayed, but not too bad. it was a 3 hour flight to delhi and i pretty much just slept the entire time. i had a window seat, which was nice... but it didn't really mean anything because i couldn't see anything on the ground because of the crazy amount of smog in this country. so kind of a waste of a window seat. and one other difference from american flights are that they play music on flights. and by music, i mean the instrumental version of heaven by dj sammy... for three hours on repeat. casual. oh, and they won't even give you complementary drinks and peanuts... you have to pay for them! not okay.

so we get to delhi where we meet mr. chaman, our tour guide for the trip. i heard about him from some friends who've been on past sas voyages... and my were they right. but more about that later. so we walk to our van and the first thing chaman does is "lei" us all and hand us a beer. because if you can't drink the water, drink the beer. that quickly became our motto of the trip. so we were pretty stoked on that. because our plane was delayed, we didn't get to go to the orphanage... so we just went straight to dinner at jor bizarre. first indian meal... success! we pretty much ate a variation of the same meal everytime... but it was okay because it was so good. it was usually spicy chicken masala, spinach and cheese, spicy cheese, yellow lentils, beans, and some other things. oh and i'm pretty sure i ate my body weight in naan this week. not complaining, at all. though i'm pretty sure i never want to see or smell indian food again in my life. too much. so after dinner, we headed to the train station. we were almost late, but we caught our train on time. this was the first of two overnight trains we took. i can't even describe my first impressions, other than the fact that i was certain we were all going to die. as did everyone else. it was an old train full of sleeping indians that i'm pretty sure hated us just for being there. and we weren't all together in the train. so chaman told us that the next set was for a group of four, so nick, duggan, chad, and i grabbed it right away. the four of us walk into our area and an older indian couple  are asleep on the first level, cus oh wait there are two triple bunk beds in these rooms. and by bunk beds i mean beds hanging out of the walls from sketchy hooks. so the four of us just start laughing. chad tries to get us to take shifts keeping watch so none of us die. but we quickly get pretty comfortable. so duggan and i are on the second level and nick and chad are on the top. we had the giggles for a while, just laughing at what we got ourselves into. i could NOT get comfortable all night. the beds were so short and every time i stretched my legs out people would bump into them. i slept on and off all night. woke up around 3 in the morning to a random indian man plugging in his cell phone right near my head. thought for sure i was getting murdered. nick was up and i made eye contact with him, then rolled back over and went to sleep. he told me in the morning he was about to jump on the random dude if he was in our room any longer. so stressful. other things from the train... people walked up and down the walkway ALL night saying "chaiiiiii??" oh my goodness, soooo annoying. nobody wants chai, dude. oh wait, except nick who got it like every other time someone walked by. such a jokester.

so we finally reached varanasi around noon because our train decided to stop at one of the stations for 3 hours in the middle of the night for no reason. but we met our vans at the train station that took us to our hotel. driving through the streets of varansi, i was so confused and a little stressed about where we were going to stay because all we were driving past were shacks and rundown buildings. but then all of a sudden we were on a street lined with luxurious hotels. so we stayed at the meraden grand hotel where we again got "lei'd" again. we immediately ate lunch and then were given some time to relax in our rooms. i shared a room with jordan. i get so excited when there is cable tv, so i watched a ton of cricket but also watched some bollywood which was pretty funny. then we met down in the lobby around 4:30. once everyone was there, we all broke into pairs for our cycle rickshaw ride to the ganges river. duggan & i decided to share a ride and omg was that an experience. when we're in a giant van going through this crazy traffic, we felt pretty invincible. but when you're in one of those petty-cab bicycle things that they have at like qualcomm but in the streets of india instead it was SO sketchy. i could have touched any car or horse or whatever that went by us. not great. and i'm pretty sure i got black lung from that ride. all the smog and dust and whatever else is in the air could not have been great to breathe in. and now i can't stop coughing. woopsies. so we road our rickshaws as close to the river as we could, then all gathered together and our guide told us a little bit about the city. for those of you that don't know, varanasi is one of the oldest cities in the world and is a major pilgrimage site for holy/spiritual people. so we walked around some of the original alleys of the city, which were smelly and dirty but really cool. we actually passed by a building where they were teaching young men to recite and memorize all the prayers. after we walked around for a little bit, we headed down to the ganges river to witness the evening prayer called the ganga arati. we were a little early so we got on one of the boats that was there and we went to see the funeral pyres. SO intense. for those of you that don't know what those are... when a man dies, his wife commits suicide by throwing herself onto a fire. then we came back to the main area where we saw the evening prayer. there were hundreds, if not thousands of people there too. every night at 6:30 young priests offer a prayer to the river ganges. it involved a lot of singing, chanting, and rituals. we were given these small wreath kind of things that had candles in them that we all lit and put them in the river as a prayer and watched them float away. even though i'm clearly not hindu, the entire experience on the river was really overwhelming and powerful and something i'm not going to forget anytime soon. once the prayer was over, we walked through the throngs of people back to our rickshaws which took us back to the hotel where we got in our van to go to a different hotel for a rooftop dinner. it was really nice on the rooftop, but we couldn't really see anything because there weren't very many lights in the city. after dinner, we headed back to the hotel for an extremely necessary shower and bed time.

meeting time in the lobby the next day was 5:15am. so unnecessary, especially when we were up pretty late the night before celebrating the fact that we were in india! so we all got into our bus again which took us back to the ganges river so we could witness the locals morning bathing. sounds creepy and a little perverted, but bathing in the ganges river is one of the most sacred rituals in the world. 5 people from our trip got in the river. though bathing in the ganges is on my sas bucketlist, i couldn't bring myself to do it. mostly because women can't just strip down and go in like the men can... we have to be fully clothed. so that meant walking around in wet clothes all day, which wasn't ideal. plus i was wearing my favorite shirt. and side note, the ganges river has 500 times the legal amount of fecal matter in it. so all those things combined kept me in the boat while some of the others went and got their sins cleansed. but it was a pretty crazy experience seeing them go in, even though i didn't. while we were there the boat driver also took us to see the two crematoriums that are on the river banks which was crazy too. then we got off the boat and walked to the golden temple, also known as the monkey temple because there were SO many monkeys everywhere. that is one of the holiest places in the city, which was really cool. then we also saw the bharat mata (also called the mother india temple) and we drove through the benares hindu university which was really interesting to see. definitely did not look anything like usd. we got back to the hotel around 9am where we ate breakfast and were allowed to nap until we had to meet back in the lobby at 12:30. we all got back in the van and headed to sarnath. but first we stopped at this restaurant called brownies for lunch. after that, we drove to sarnath which is considered the birth place of buddhism. it's where buddha revealed his doctrine and founded his monastic community. so we saw a temple there and the bodi tree where buddha gave his first lecture. like, i was literally standing under and touching the same tree that buddha gave his first lecture. are you kidding me!? after that we walked to the museum at sarnath that had carvings from the 3rd century bc through the 12th century ad. it was all really neat, then we went to the ruins and excavation site across the street where all the artifacts were found. it was a huge area where there were a bunch of excavated monasteries and this HUGE mound that we all sat and meditated in front of. it was so amazing sitting there knowing that buddha himself was there at one point too. sarnath is a main pilgrimage site for buddhists and even though i'm not buddhist myself, i could still appreciate the magnitude and importance of the place for other people. after sarnath we returned back to the hotel where we ate dinner. after dinner we went to a silk factory where we saw them making silks by hand. it was crazy to see because they still make it how they always did, which means it takes two men to make 3 centimeters a day of a design. such tedious work, but they had beautiful things for us to buy. it was really awesome to be able to see first hand a dying art before it ends and machines take over. after that we went to a carpet factory. chaman arranged for there to be a traditional dance for us there with traditional music. after the dance, they showed us some beautiful rugs. i wish i had a house to decorate to buy one, but i don't think i want to bring a genuine silk kashmir indian rug to mission beach for drunk bitches to puke all over. not sorry. this is what happens when diva 20 year olds go to india and can't buy a rug cus they don't even own a house yet. wah wah wah.  but after a while there we headed to the train station.

this time our train was delayed in a major way. our train was supposed to leave at like 10:30 but we didn't end up getting on the train until 2 in the morning. normal. this time i roomed with chad, ben, and andi... but when i woke up andi was gone and duggan was there. i don't really know what happened there, but it's okay. so obvs we got there a little later than planned, but we met our vans when we got there and skipped lunch to start sight-seeing right away. our first stop was the agra fort or red fort. on the way, duggan was the first one to spot the taj mahal for the first time which got everyone excited for the day despite how disgusting we all felt from not showering and overnighting in a train. but the agra fort was amazing. it's where the five mughal rulers lived and each built their own palaces. it was huge and we only got to see a quarter of it because the indian military still uses most of it. but we got to see a bunch of the palaces, including akbar the great's and shah jahan's who built the taj mahal (not by himself obvs). after a few hours seeing the fort we took our van to the taj mahal. honestly, no words can explain how amazing seeing the taj mahal in person is. yes, you can google image it and what not... but i don't think you can truly appreciate the magnitude and size of the taj (cus we're on a first name basis now, duh). chad, nick, duggan, ben, and i walked around the taj and the surrounding gardens together for the hour or so we had there. we didn't end up going in the taj because the line was seriously a billion people long. but it's okay because i heard that the inside was a huge let down. after seeing the sunset at the taj mahal (which was amazing because the taj changes colors with the changing light) we all booked it out of the taj grounds where we caught horse drawn rickshaws. imagine a romantic horse-drawn carriage ride through central park... then delete that image cus it was nothing like that. duggan, chad, nick, and i were together and the driver guy let duggan and i drive for a little bit which was so stressful cus like i said, traffic is such a mess. then we got to this local theatre to watch a play about why the taj mahal was built. the play was really awesome and a lot cooler than i thought. it was pretty much half a play and half a musical. i don't really know why they were singing and dancing cus it had nothing to do with the play, but it was really beautiful since they had really elaborate costumes. for those of you that don't know, shah jahan had the taj mahal built as a memorial to his wife who died giving birth to their 8th child. attention future husband, if i die before you... taj mahal part 2? i think yes. but the play was obviously for foreigners since the entire audience was white for the most part. and it was the first time i had to listen to a play with headphones in english which was pretty fun. after the play we headed to a marble factory where we got to see how they did the in-lay work at the taj mahal. it was really cool to see another dying art and shop around for a little. after that we went to the hotel for the first time to have dinner. i roomed with jordan again and we pretty much just showered and went straight to bed after dinner cus we were dirty and exhausted.

had to wake up early again the next day to meet in the lobby at 6:00. we all got in the vans to drive to mehtab bagh which is a huge 25 acre garden across the yamuna river from the taj mahal. it was the sight where shah jahan had planned to build the counterpart of the taj mahal for himself in black marble. though that would have been sick, i think it's more special that there is only one taj. and the views of the taj from the garden were amazing, especially because we were there at sunrise so we could again see the taj under changing light again. but we could only stay for a few pictures and stuff because we had to go back to the hotel to eat breakfast, check out, then start our drive back to delhi. it only took us like 4 hours which was much less than expected. we skipped lunch, and when we got to delhi we went straight to the bahai temple which was amazing. it was huge and in the shape of a lotus flower. i didn't really know much about the bahai faith before, but it seems really cool since anybody can be bahai regardless of what faith they are. so i could be catholic and bahai at the same time, which was really interesting because i'd never heard of anything like that before. so we spent like 15 minutes meditating there before we had to leave and go to another rug/gift shop place where chaman arranged for me to get hennaed. omg i was so happy. that was all i wanted out of india (okay, not really but kind of). i've never gotten henna before (not even at the del mar fair or anything) so it was really neat and it was like the real deal. so i got both my hands hennaed and it is SO gorgeous. but i'm already kind of over it and get confused when there's all this brown shit on my hands. after a bunch of us got hennaed we got back on the vans and drove past the india gate which separates old and new delhi. then we went to the presidential palace to take a few pictures. after that it was time to head to the airport to catch our flight back to chennai.

it was really sad having to leave chaman at the airport. he is honestly the most genuine man i've ever met in my life. i'll never forget india, and i have only chaman to thank for that. so thank you chaman for some of the most incredible experiences of my life. and thank you to danny, brando, michael, alex, duggan, chad, nick, ricky, ben, angela, andi, jordan, and maddie for an amazing 5 days in india. but back to the airport... we nearly missed our flight because it took us so long to say bye to chaman. literally we were the last people to get there. in india you have to be there like 45 minutes before your flight because you have to be bused to where your plane is on the tarmac to get on the plane from there. a little stressful but when we got on the plane it was a party because there were a billion sas kids on it. it's always fun getting together after ports to talk about what we all did. so we landed in chennai after about 2 hours and met mr. rhoda to take our vans back to the ship. so nice being back on the ship, breathing fresh air, taking a shower, reuniting with brewer, and sleeping in my bed.

then today i told brewer not to wake me up because i needed to sleep after a long first five days in india. but i realized today was our last day so i told her we would def get up and leave the ship. so we got up around 10:30 then laid in bed reading emails and stuff, then went and got lunch. i got a caeser salad from the pool deck because after 5 days of strictly indian food all i want is fruit and salad. then we came back to our cabin, got ready, and took an auto to spencer's. an auto is basically one of those three wheeled motorcycles with the exterior of a car on it. pretty stressful, but a little more safe than a cycle rickshaw. spencer's is a local mall. but not like an american mall. imagine horton plaza, but wayyy more confusing. i can't get my way around utc, how do you expect me to get around india's horton plaza?! there were random alleys and three different buildings with like 5 floors of mazes of hallways. stressful. but we did a little shopping for a few hours. oh and NEWS FLASH brewer got her nose pierced. cus what's more sanitary than a sketchy mall in the middle of chennai, india? and clearly i'm not going to talk her down cus i'm a good friend, duh. but it looks really good, so no worries there. but a ton of people got it done and it looks really bad on a lot of people. kind of waiting for these people's noses to start falling off. and deep breath family, i did not get mine done. that was a high school wish that never came true, and now i feel too old to do stupid shit like that. it's called maturity people. then we headed back to the ship where we showered again, got some dinner, and face-to-face checks with customs again.

india was seriously amazing. i had some of the most spiritual and overwhelming experiences of my life here. this week is something i won't be forgetting in a very long time. one thing i could forget about though is the smell. i wish you guys could scratch-n-sniff my pictures or something, because you can't truly experience india until you experience the smell. a mixture of smog, raw sewage, cow, body odor, street food, and lots of other things i don't want to know about. i got black lung from it, pretty sure. but, when in india...

they just announced code blue over the intercom which apparently means medical emergency so brew and i are going to go investigate. over and out.