SORRY THIS ALL IS SO LATE! still working on the more recent events of my trip!


India:
4day/ 3night trip to Agra and Varanasi

wake up at 3:30, kill me. Went to airport at 4:15am for our flight to Varanasi. The big event for the afternoon was a tour of the ancient city of Sarnath where Buddha preached his first sermon. There is a huge brick Dhamekh Stupa where practicing Buddhists circle clockwise and pray. I didn’t really understand what was going on and started walking around it counter clockwise but soon figured out that I was doing something REALLY wrong by the looks I started to get. Throughout the ruins, Chinese pilgrims in all white sat in groups and prayed some of them placing there hands and faces against the outside of the round Stupa walls. Next we went to a museum of ancient art. This museum was nothing like a museum at home and was having construction done on the inside. Our guide told us that many of the artifacts are no longer here and in western museums today. We went back to the hotel and had dinner then went to the hotel bar and had a couple drinks before going up to bed. The going out scene in India is sketchy at best. No one really drinks so they close down bars, clubs, and any liquor stores at the latest 11pm. Probably a good thing because of our 4:30am wake up call the next morning

We got on our bus at 5am and heading to the Ganges River, one of the holies sites for Hindus. Once at the river we got on a boat and were rowed down the river as the sun rose. The Ganges River in Hinduism is supposed to release the souls of people from the perpetual cycle of birth and rebirth and have their souls reach “moksha”. Anyways, as the sun rose we watched as men striped down and submerged themselves in the dirty water, some even swimming for a bit and then getting out of the water. We were rowed down the river as the sun rose. It was really gorgeous and I have some great pictures from it. Once we got further down the river we got to the spot where they brought bodies to be burned and put in the water. I couldn’t see any dead bodies in the water and no bodies were being burned but once we got out the boat you could see the spot where bodies had been partially cremated. We began to walk through the tight winding alleys back to the buses. I tried to soak in all that was going on around me including the food preparation, small stands selling cheap plastic objects and people praying but I was preoccupied with the task of not walking through shit. Yes literally shit, cow, human, dog you name it and it was there in those alleys just waiting for us to step in. More than once I quickly looked up to find myself face to face with a long horned cow, one of Hindu’s sacred animals. Finally we emerged out of the smells of shit and pee, bo and spicy food and are bombarded with speeding motorcycles and scooters. We somehow weave through all the traffic and get to our buses with dirty children begging us for money. Back to the hotel for breakfast then off to airport for New Delhi. We get in and take a tour of the city on the bus and visit a Sikh temple. The “holy water” that the people drink and put their feet looks oily and definitely unsanitary. We then get to our hotel welcomed by a fully outfitted “ethnic” Indian man at the door. India is full of both authentic differences and fabricated ones like at the touristy hotels.

4:15 wake up call. Go to railway station to take the train to Agra to see the Taj Mahal. More disfigured men, women, and children approach us at the train station begging. Our group of 40 white people sticks out like a sore thumb and people stare and point at us. We get to the Taj after a walk through children sellers of small plastic snow globes with small white flakes falling on the Taj Mahal in the center. Why people decided a snow globe was a good idea for a souvenir at a place that never snows I have no idea. The haggling was sport in and of itself. One of my guy friends got 10 snow globes for a dollar he then commenced to just give out the cheap plastic trinkets. The Taj Mahal is more breath taking in person than I could have guessed. First off it is so much bigger than I imagined and unlike every other inch of India it is relatively clean. The white stones sparkle in the sun. The photo shoot begins, the best is watching all the Asians either posing straight faced or with a peace sign. Sadly the funniest picture I saw though was one of the guys on my trip posing so that the tower to the right of the Taj was strategically coming out of his crotch and his hand was held around the tower…. Totally appropriate. The inside of the Taj is noting compared to the outside. Will have to wait to show everyone pictures. After lunch we went to Fatehpur Sikri, an abandoned city built by Emperor Akbar to get a male heir.  There was a massive pool on one side of the massive complex with a thin film of green bacteria thriving on the surface. Next think I know an Indian man strips down and jumps the 15 feet down into the pool. So disgusting. Then everyone wanted to film it so they somehow communicated to him that he should jump in again… That night we went back to the hotel and found out that there was a club attached to the hotel. We ended up getting into the VIP section and partying with Bollywood stars… Everyone told them that it was my birthday so they bought me two bottles of Dom. Faking your birthday always pays off. Wake up call the next morning at 6:30 was an amazing sleep in. Most memorable part of the next day of traveling was when one of my guy friends (still quite inebriated) left his entire suitcase at the hotel and had to go back and get it. He barely made the plane. Also in the airport at 9am stuffing our faces with McDonalds and subway was fantastic.


Vietnam:

Day 1:
Like most other ports we decided to walk around Ho Chi Ming City for the first day. We walked to a large market and tried to keep the group together while winding through the tight walkways between the little stalls and shops. Common goods being sold were chopsticks, bowls, and clothing. We all decided that we wanted to have clothes made so we went in search of fabric to take to a seamstress, (the skirt and the dress I had made were dirt cheap and not really that great… you live and you learn) Lunch was great especially when we saw other white people in the restaurant.  Experimenting with all the different food in all the different countries we have visited is always a bit of a danger so seeing that other tourists could eat there too was reassuring. One of the women in the group came over and we soon discovered that they were looking at us to go off our lead and we were doing the same to them. We decided to skip on the ice in our drinks and the dog on the menu. In the afternoon we set up a tour for ourselves on the Mekong Delta for the next day. For dinner one of my friends Meredith invited a group of us to go out to dinner with her and her mom. We went to a French restaurant and I had the first good salad ive had since January. There was goat cheese on it. Enough said, Went back to her mom’s hotel and had a cocktail at the bar. There was wifi so I tried calling everyone in my family. No one picked up my call except Will (annie’s boyfriend) who had just left my family in St, barths. Needless to say I was pissed off at the fam. We decided to just go back to the boat for the night because everyone was so tired and we had to get up early the next day for our tour.
Day 2:
Our tour on the Mekong delta was very touristy but still fun. We took a boat down the river for a bit then stopped to walk through small villages on different islands. Lunch was the most exciting event of the day where they brought us an entire fried fish including the head with eyes, all the fins, and the scales. To eat it you had to just use your fingers and pick at the fish to get a good piece of meat out of the side of the fish without getting bones. Cassie and I were really the other ones brave enough the fish. It was great but not bad either. We got back to HCMC at like 4pm and made dinner reservations at a sushi restaurant near the dock for my bday. Sushi was great and made me sad that we weren’t going to Japan. Was weird turning 21 in a country where being 21 doesn’t matter. Will have to celebrate again when I get home! After dinner we went to a bar and then was home by like 2. Next morning I was extremely hung over but had to get my stuff together to go on my trip to Cambodia.