India Pictures

Taj Mahal

Indian "friend" from two years ago

Reunion with Rajan and Namrata

In the slums

Giving stickers to kids in the slum

My favorite little kid in the slum

Hi Guys-
We've been busy these past two days on the ship. Singapore was fun-I felt like I was back in the U.S.
Catherine, Matt, Gavin and I just walked around for the day and explored different places. The water there is a beautiful teal color, and we walked along a beach resort. We had lunch in China town, and ate all kinds of wierd foods like octopus and duck gizzards. The mall right by the ship felt like home. We got french fries from McDonalds....I've missed them soo much. I also had my first starbucks coffee in 2.5 months. We did a little bit of shopping and then got back on the ship. It was a really short day, and I wish we had a little more time to go around Singapore.

So the verdict is in, and the MV Explorer will be making it's final international stop Taiwan. Radiation was detected in South Korea, and the Phillipines was knocked out for safety issues. We're trying to stay positive and get very excited about Taiwan, but everyone's still super bummed about Japan. If anyone has time and wants to google things to do in Taiwan, or info about it, we'll be there for 4 days and have NO idea what to do-
We arrive in Vietnam tomorrow and I am SO excited to be there. It sounds so amazing. My roommate and her best friend from home have their moms waiting for them in HCM city, and we're super excited to hang out with them tomorrow. We're going to shop and get outfits made, and go out to dinner with them. We're all happy to have moms around, it's been a long time!
I'm planning on spending the rest of the week with a couple of my friends on the ship-going to a temple and beaches and other fun stuff.
I'm starting to get excited about this last leg of the voyage. We have only a couple of classes, and a lot of time in ports! I think I have like 3 days of classes in the next two weeks.
I miss all of you guys so much-a little over a month before I see you all!
<3 peace

I’ve got a lot of updates for all of you. I know most of you have been following facebook since “Neptune” day, but a lot has gone on on the ship. First of all, India was perfect. Everything went so well. We did end up missing our flight on Sunday, but it gave us a day to explore Chennai and we still got out by Sunday night. We arrived in Delhi after midnight and Rajan had a driver to take us to his apartment. Namrata was in Jaipur for the night, so we stayed up with Rajan for a little while and gave him his gifts. Catherine and I had brought both of them Semester at Sea shirts, and Joellen and Gavin had Maple syrup from New York, plus Saratoga racetrack gear for them. We fell asleep around 2, and had to get up at 6:30 the next morning for our drive to Agra. Manoche, my driver from last year, was our driver again! My mom and I loved Manoche, and I had fun catching up with him while the C, J, and G slept in the back. Monday was just a seriously perfect day. We met up with Salim, the same hotel manager as last time, and dropped off our stuff. Then we saw the red fort and had an amazing Indian lunch. Afterwards, we held snakes (one of Catherine’s fears conquered), and made our way to the Taj. The Taj Mahal was sooo beautiful. I love it so much. We took a ton of pictures and our guide really made it 20x’s better. Catherine and I had our first motorcycle ride back to the hotel, and then Salim took us to see his sisters! I was so excited to see them. Joellen and I had brought a semester at sea shirt for each of them to have. I brought pictures of us together, and we stayed with the family for a while. They did henna on us, and we listened to one of the little girls in the family sing us English songs. It was so cool to be back there with them and see my “friend” two years later.

We left for Jaipur the next morning, where we toured forts and did LOTS of shopping. Catherine and I got our outfits for the ball. The theme is International Royal Masquerade, and we’re going as Jasmines. Matt and Gavin got pants and will be going as Aladdins.

We spent our third and fourth day in Delhi with Rajan and Namrata, and visiting a slum.

Overall India was so fabulous and everything I expected. Catherine, Gavin, Joellen and I were a great traveling group and had lots of fun pictures and videos together. We were also able to use a lot of your stickers, so thanks so much!

Sorry India blog is so short, things have been crazy here and I’m trying to get done as much as possible before Singapore in a couple of hours.

Ok-now most of you are avid facebookers and have already posted a bazillion comments, but for you dinosaurs out there, if you haven’t heard, I donated all of my hair along with like a hundred other SASers to Locks of Love. And when I say all, I mean ALL of it. I look totally different, but I love it! Thank you so much for all of the amazing comments you guys have posted on my fbook pic and wall…a couple people have forwarded them on to me through email and it’s been really cool to see how much love I’ve gotten from family, friends and even strangers! Friends on the ship have given me girly clothes and jewelry and scarves to borrow, and I’ve had so much fun dressing up every day with my new style. Definitely no regrets, although I have heard of some girls being super upset by their new do’s.

On to Japan…

Unfortunately, due to the devastating tsunami that took place earlier this week, Japan has been taken off our itinerary. We are all sad that we will not be able to visit our last country, but our hearts go out to all those affected by this tragedy. We will be going to another country, but there is no official word of where it will be. So far, ISE is saying that the decision will be made between South Korea, Taiwan or the Philippines. Not sure if I have a preference, so we’ll just have to go with the flow I guess.

Ok that’s it for now, pictures will be up soon hopefully. Only a little more than a month left….wierd.

Hey Guys-

It’s midnight, and we are about 7 hours away from arriving in India! I can’t believe I’m going back-this is so crazy. Catherine, Gavin, Joellen and I have a flight to Delhi in the morning that we are praying we’ll make. Rajan and Namrata, the couple that my mom and I stayed with when we volunteered last year, will be picking us up at the airport and bringing us to their apartment. Rajan has been amazing and planned almost all of our trip in India. We’ll leave on Monday morning to go to Jaipur, where we’ll see forts and ride an elephant (Gavin’s one request), and get our traditional Indian outfits. We’ll go on to Agra on Tuesday and spend the day at the Taj Mahal, which I am so excited to see again. I have a feeling it’s going to be even more amazing the second time, when I can see the reactions on my friends’ faces as they make their way out of the tunnel and see the Taj in front of them.

 We’re all super excited and we have a really fun group going. We bought gifts from the campus store today to give to Namrata and Rajan. They’re each getting a semester at sea shirt, and Joellen also has some maple syrup from New York, which I know they’ll love. I’m also bringing them a couple of small things I picked up along the way from Brazil and Africa.

It just doesn’t seem real that we’ll be in India tomorrow. I’m printing out a couple of photos to bring with me. When my mom and I were in Agra last year, the hotel manager brought us to his “house” so his little sister could do henna on us. We were brought on a rickshaw to these shack like houses, where his excited sisters waited for us. They couldn’t afford to send both to school, so the youngest daughter, who they thought was prettier and smarter,  got to go while the older girl stayed at home. The younger girl did the henna on the arms, and the older sister literally stared at me the whole time. She told her brother she thought I was a movie star, and she just sat and smiled at me the whole time. Right before we left, she took a ring off her finger, pointed to herself and said “friend," then put the ring on my finger, and said “friend” again. It was so adorable, and something I’ll never forget. We took a picture together, showing the ring on my wedding finger. We’re staying at the same hotel, and I’m hoping that Salim is still there so I will be able to bring the picture of me with his sister back to her. She probably has never seen a photo of herself, and I want to bring it to her with a piece of my own jewelry to give her. I never thought I would be going back there, so I’m really excited and hoping everything works out. Alright-I’m going to get going. We’re waking up at six to watch the sunrise and our ship get into port. Hope everyone is doing well at home-

Wish me luck in India and think good thoughts so I don’t get sick like last time!  

Hi Guys,

Sorry I haven’t been updating. This week has been ridiculous. We’ve sailed away from South Africa, spent a day in Mauritius, and are now making our way to India. Once we hit India we will only have about two days between each port, which means little time on the ship to do things like update my blog! I’ve been getting emails from a lot of you asking about my village blog, and I swear I will get it up there. It’s a really important one to me, and I just don’t want to write what I did, but rather what it meant to me. Unfortunately I seriously have had no time to do that. Maybe sometime this week, or after my test tomorrow. South Africa was so awesome, and SO beautiful. It is definitely the most beautiful country I have ever been to. Catherine and I went to Robben Island the first day, which is the high security prison where Nelson Mandela and many other political prisoners were held during Apartheid. Our guide was a former prisoner, and listening to him talk about the cell he stayed in for seven years was really amazing. We stayed after and he talked to us about Mandela’s influence on him. Mandela was talking to a group of them, and told them that they might be freed in the future. Our guide told us that he said he wanted revenge on the men who captured and held him, but Mandela said that would get their country nowhere. He said they needed to respect and love their enemies. Our guide said that Mandela’s leadership was there from the beginning, and helped them all move forward. It was so powerful to hear all of this from someone who experienced it during my lifetime. It was also surprising to me that I knew so little about something that is so important. I wish we learned more about Apartheid in school, even if it doesn’t directly relate to Americans.

We left the second day for our bungee jumping/shark dive adventure tour. I think the pictures really explain it all, but I will say that they were the most Legit days of the trip. It was a seven-hour drive to the Bloukrans Bridge, but the drive was so gorgeous. We asked about the houses overlooking the beach on the coast, and they said the most expensive ones were anywhere from 300,000-700,000 US dollars. I’ve decided I’m going to retire there….or maybe I’ll force my parents to and then I’ll just go visit all the time!

Jumping off the bridge was kind of scary. I was the first in our group from the ship, which was almost better because I didn’t have time to walk away. They strapped me up, brought me to the edge, and did a countdown from 5 for me to jump. I thought I was going to close my eyes, but that would have been silly for me to pay all that money and then not watch myself dive into the river and see the trees and boulders below. The whole thing lasted about 2 minutes, and I was terrified by the end. I felt like the strap was falling down toward my feet and I was so relieved when the guy came and strapped me to him to make our way back up. They had a party for us after, with a DJ and drinks. We had to get up at 4 am the next morning to leave for shark diving, so we were in bed by midnight.

Shark diving was surreal. I never thought I would come face to face with a Great White. They had a cage attached to the boat-the top half of the cage is above the water and the bottom half is below. They have seven of us line up next to each other in the cage, with our knees on a bar half way down and our heads above the water. We hold on by putting our hands on top. I think there’s a picture on my blog somewhere. When they yell down, it means they’ve seen the shadow of a shark so we hold our breath and put our feet on the bottom of the cage. We have a weight belt on, and we hold on to the bar that our knees were on before. The shark eats the bait that they put right there, so we get an up close view of the shark. Sometimes the shark can get really close…like really REALLY close. On our last shark viewing, we went down and the shark was coming at the cage. There’s only about a foot between the front of the cage and our faces, and it’s just a couple of widely spaced bars that keep the shark from getting completely into the cage. So on the last one….the shark got the bait, and then started swimming straight at our cage. Catherine and I both let go of the bar, and tried to push ourselves away from the front of the cage. The Great White hit the cage and then turned around and whipped her tail against the cage as she swam away. We were all screaming under water and grabbing each other. Everyone was freaking out, but it was so cool! I wish we had it on video. Our friends on the boat said they were actually scared for us!

I can’t even try to compare the bungee jumping with shark diving. They were two completely different feelings. Jumping was a huge adrenaline rush, but shark diving was one of the most amazing things I have ever experienced. A pretty awesome two days to say the least.

The rest of our time in South Africa was spent hanging out around Cape Town. I went to a meeting with 5 NGOs who have been recognized by Rhoda Khadalie’s organization called Impumelelo. Rhoda is a really inspiring woman who has worked for Nelson Mandela, and to put it nicely, doesn’t take shit from anyone. The NGOs talked to us about the work they have been doing in South Africa. It was really inspiring, and I talked with Rhoda about coming back and doing an internship for her in the future. I don’t think I’ll be able to make it work, but it was still fun to consider.  Rhoda is a well-known author on politics (she reminds me of a female, South African Michael Moore), and she gave me a signed copy of her most recent book.

We celebrated our friend Lauren’s birthday that night at an awesome restaurant called Africa Café. It’s a restaurant you go to with big groups, and it’s a set menu. They have 20 dishes that they bring out, all from different countries on the African continent. We took lots of pictures, but I don’t think I got any up on the blog. The food was amazing, and they were really good about letting me know if there were nuts in anything. And we got to eat with our hands!  Everyone who works there wears traditional African outfits, and they sang and danced for us. And they even painted our faces! We had so much fun, and I want to bring all of you back here just so you can go there! We took the party from there to a local bar, and celebrated until morning. Alas, I spent my last day in Cape Town recovering…. I did some picture updating on my blog, and a lot of Internet research for my South Africa project in Abnormal Psych. Everyone else rallied and went to a winery for the day….it wasn’t going to happen for me.

All right, that’s it for South Africa! I’ll update you on Mauritius a little later, and the village blog! Miss everyone. <3 B