Arriving in Vietnam tomorrow (and getting angry emails from the fam) has made me finally start my blog about my travels in India. The days following India I was mostly trying to catch up on sleep because the warning on my trip, “this is a rigorous itinerary with many early mornings “, did not lie at all. I found that I slept more on buses and planes than I did in an actual bed. But before I went on my trip I had two days in Chennai to explore.
Day 1:
First off India is serious about immigration. Each student, teacher, and life long learner had to do a face-to-face meeting with an officer who checked our paperwork and stamped our passport. Once we got off the boat we had to take a shuttle out of the port because the government didn’t want us walking around in the port. To leave the port area we again had to check with officers who looked at our passports and visa’s again. As soon as we (5 friends Cassie, Kelly, Farrah, Hailey, Meredith, and me)  left the gate we were bombarded with men trying to get us to ride in their taxi/ rickshaw.  One man got our attention and told us he could fit us all, 6, in his “very big AC taxi”. The taxi was absolutely the same as a normal taxi and the AC did not work… first lesson in India: see what you are going to be traveling in. We told our driver that we wanted to go to the market. Second lesson in India soon followed: your driver will take you were he wants to take you, mainly his families or friends stores. We finally told him that if he did not bring us where we wanted to go we would get out of the cab. We heard “just one more shop” about 5 times before he took us to a market. Each shop we went to there were other SAS students there. The taxi drivers must have made a deal with storeowners to bring us to certain shops. Also Indians pretend to know what you are saying in English but they have no idea and do what they want anyways. They also say “yes, yes” even when they have not understood one word that has come out of your mouth. Anyways the first day in Chennai was very much an adventure. We just kinda went with the flow. Visited many stores, one market, one place for lunch (where I had my tofu that I thought was chicken), and one mall (trust me VERY unlike a mall in the US). I didn’t really buy much. Ive found that Im not really into the crazy clothes and tapestries… A lot of people on the boat are kinda hippy (can you say Colorado?) and into that but im not really so much. Anyways, by the time I got back to the boat I was sticky, hot, and exhausted. I ate up in the dining hall then took a shower and got in bed. Some people went out but India doesn’t keep bars open past 11pm so the nightlife isn’t really the party people expected. I was very happy that I stayed in and actually got some sleep.
Day2:
On the second day in Chennai, I went with a group of my friends to Mamallapuram, which is about an hour and a half away from Chennai. This city has pretty much turned into a tourist town. We had a great time walking around the old stone carvings of elephants and Hindu gods. Some of the carvings were just out of a wall of stone while others were carved buildings with stone gods inside. There is no longer any worship done at this site but it was interesting for me to recognize the three main Hindu gods from my World Religion course, Vishnu, Brahma, and Shiva. After walking around for a while and taking some great touristy pictures, we went down one of the market street and shopped a bit. I bought 5 of something… wonder who those are for…. Some of my friends that were with us had to be back at the ship by 2 for an SAS trip so we got back in the taxi and headed back to Chennai. There was AC in this taxi so the trip wasn’t awful. When we got back to the port everyone but Cassie and I went back to the ship. We stayed in the taxi and tried to get him to take us to a restaurant that one of her friends who had been on semester at sea before recommended. Of course the driver said he knew the place but we soon found he had no idea where we wanted to go. He ended up taking us to a more western type place where I had basically strips of chicken in peanut sauce. Once we got back to the boat I showered and got in bed because I had to get up at 3am to leave for my trip.

I WILL BLOG MORE LATER!