India Day 1

I have a terrible habit of pushing aside blogs because in so many of these ports everything is so overwhelming and intense that it seems like too much of a commitment to try and do it justice on paper. Ideally I would love to write about every day in port right after it happened but there is so little time and what time there is I spend immersing myself in culture or, when I absolutely need to, sleeping.  It’s going to be difficult to talk about India because so much happened and I went through so many different cycles and emotions but I guess I’ll just try and start at the beginning.

We docked in Chennai on March 6.  We had to do a face-to-face, so every person on the boat had to meet with an immigration official to get through customs, but we were off of the boat relatively quickly.  At around 10:30am six of my friends and I piled into two rickshaws to go shopping. Rickshaws are like a cross between a car and a golf cart. They drive on the roads with the cars but are open. Speaking of roads, driving in India is CRAZY. I don’t know how ANYONE does it. It appeared that there was no order at all. There were technically lanes but people ignored them. There were cars, busses, rickshaws, motorcycles and bikes all driving all over the place, both sides, in and out of one another honking constantly.  There is a car accident every six minutes in India and although I didn’t see any, but I’m shocked there isn’t one every second. The roads were wild.

During pre-port Marty told us that rickshaws won’t always take you where you want to go, you might go to their brothers store or their friends restaurant or any number of places and we thought she was kidding. Nope. It doesn’t matter where you tell them you want to go, they will take you to souvenier store after souvenier store all selling the same crap. At first you’re excited because you want to shop, but then you just want to go to a market or a temple or to get lunch and they keep taking you to these random places.  It got to the point where we would just walk in and out. It’s because the rickshaw drivers get paid off by these places to take tourists there, then once inside you have people coming at you from all directions trying to sell you things.  If we buy things the rickshaw driver gets paid off even more.

We did do some good shopping in the morning but eventually our groups got split up and I was just with Paige and Andrew. We went to this AMAZING local place for lunch. We ate all of these different kinds of chicken and rice and sauces and nan with our hands off of a banana leaf and drank fresh pineapple juice.  We walked out of there stuffed and it was under $25 for the three of us including three juices and three bottled waters.

The afternoon was more shopping and going wherever our rickshaw driver wanted to go and we got back to the boat around 6.  It was our friend D’s 22nd birthday so we decided to go to a Hookah bar.  Mia and I wore our sarees but getting them on ended up being quite the process.  I ended up just wrapping it around myself in random places and tucking it in and I could barely walk.  I made a deal with myself that this entire trip I would not ride the boat elevator because there are only 6 floors, but I couldn’t get up the stares and had to take it… sad.  At least I made it over halfway through the trip. 

Once we got outside we stopped at the atm to get cash and there were some beggars there, women and children.  They couldn’t speak English but my friend Mackenzie gave them 30 rupies (about 75 cents) and we started signaling at my saree and they quickly got the picture.  Soon I had 4 Indian woman all around me folding and tucking my saree in until I was wearing it correctly.  And then I could walk perfectly! I was way off, and I had been wondering how Indian women did anything. They’re actually really comfortable. I got some money, gave another 100 rupies to the women and got into our cab.

We went to a hookah bar to get an “authentic” India experience but it seemed more like we were in Japan.  We had to go up four flights of stairs to get to the top. On the first flight was what appeared to be an internet café and guys watching sports, on the next floor was an arcade of some sort, on the next floor there was a doorway to a roof where there was a pool with a giant ball in it that I guess you can go inside of??? I didn’t really get the details on that.  And at the top there was the hookah bar.  We start flipping through the menu and quickly realize… no alcohol. Only “mocktails” and fruit juice.  We assumed at a hookah bar there would be drinks, but nope.  People in India don’t drink.  Finding a glass of wine or a beer is a serious production.  We decided to stay anyway because a few of the people in our group liked hookah and there was food.

The night went pretty well but the vibes were weird. Everyone was kind of edgy and no one could drink to deal with it and confront whoever they were upset with so there was definitely a strange undertone.  I however was happy with everyone, mostly because I had spent the previous week studying and by myself, so I had a good time. We ordered lots of yummi food, although it was all American! Yeah, they didn’t have ANY Indian food. Except maybe rice, strange.  We got French fries and chicken fingers and icecream/brownie sundaes and anything else you can think of in that category. Hey, there were 15 of us and we were celebrating!

At around 11 the place closed and we were all EXHAUSTED so we headed back to the boat.  By the time I got all packed for my Taj trip the next morning it was around 1am and I had to meet my group to leave at 3:30am, so I barely got two hours of sleep, not fun.  I was terrified I wouldn’t wake up in time but luckily I did.  I met the group in the Union and we got ready to head to the airport. Hassan was in another group and got there earlier than me and grabbed me a pastry before they all ran out which was key, because on these organized trips they don’t feed us too often.

I’m going to go to dinner now, but I’ll try to get Day 2 up tonight as well.  I will blog if it’s the last thing I do!  Also, we’re not going to Japan. Not sure where we’re going instead, still waiting for word on that. Maybe the Phillipines, South Korea or Taiwan.  What’s your vote?