Good Morning Viet Nam!

        Viet Nam, holy cow. My Asian tour is off and running. We had one day in between Singapore and Viet Nam. Not much time to really let Singapore sink in and get ready for another country, but oh well. I also found out in that one day that my main trip to Nha Trang was cancelled. One day is also not enough time to plan out a whole country when you haven’t looked up anything. My plans got drastically changed, but I still had a great time in Viet Nam. We weren’t allowed to go to Nha Trang because of the horrible flooding. There was no way to get to Nha Trang. The highway was shut down because of a land slide and the airport was shut down because it was flooded. I made due and still had a great time.

        On my first day in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), I went with my Cognition professor on a FDP. We first went to the Ben Thanh Market and then to the Viet Nam War Remnants Museum. The market was very cool. You could get pretty much anything you wanted there. They had all sorts of clothes, textiles, restaurants, fish and meat markets, jewelry…you name it. There were also tailors inside that could make you a suit or dress in a day. It was awesome and cheap. I didn’t buy anything during my trip because we didn’t have enough time. Tucker and I walked through it then decided to go walk around outside with the time we had before lunch. We walked down a few streets close to the market. We ran into a cool looking Hindu temple. After we took a few pictures, we found a nice coffee shop. We ordered some coffee…not realizing that it was going to take forever to make the coffee. We discovered that Vietnamese coffee is the best ever, but we had to chug it in order to make it back to the bus on time. We chugged it, paid, and sprinted through all the motorbikes back to the bus. We got back in time to find out that we were going to eat at a restaurant across the street from the market.

        We at lunch at Pho 2000. Pho, pronounced “Fuh”, is a Southern Vietnamese noodle. I had Pho Ga, or pho with chicken. It was delicious. They make it with a basic broth, meat, onions, and spices. The price made it even better. We got a huge bowl of pho and two drinks for about 4 dollars. This was just the start of me eating Pho in Viet Nam.

After we ate lunch, we headed to the War Remnants Museum. This museum was a pretty big eye-opener for me and the rest of the people on my trip. Being from the US, we aren’t really taught anything about this war. We are taught that it happened, and that is about it. I wasn’t even taught that we lost…or at least I don’t remember anyone teaching me that. I had never heard of Agent Orange or anything of the brutalities that went on during it. It was hard to look at all the pictures, but I am glad I went. If I hadn’t gone to the museum, I probably would have never known what really went on during that war. We only got 45 minutes or so to go through the museum, but that was about all I needed to see.

        After my FDP, I met up with Amanda and we headed back to the Ben Thanh market. This time I started my shopping spree. I brought a bunch of 1 dollar bills just for the shopping in Viet Nam. They love taking them in the market and it was easier for me to do the conversion rate. It was close to 20,000 Vietnamese Dong to 1 USD. Everything was so cheap that I felt like I needed to get it all. I only got a few things this trip, but this wasn’t my last trip to the market. We shopped around for the afternoon, then headed back to the ship to get some dinner and drop off what we had bought. 

        We grabbed a quick dinner and got ready to go out for awhile. Amanda, Angela, and I went to 39 Bonard Restaurant to meet Megan, Eloise, Jon, Travis, and Bri. It took us awhile to figure out where they were because it was somewhat hidden. It was on the top floor of a building. It had a really cool view of the market area in HCMC though. When we got up to their table, it was full of food. Apparently the staff just kept on bringing out plates of food even though they hadn’t ordered it. They wanted us to try all sorts of different things. After the restaurant we headed to the night market. It is at the same place as the Ben Thanh market, but it is on the streets around the building. The inside market closes at 6pm and the night market opens at 6pm. It is pretty much a market that never closes. We walked around there for awhile and then a few of us headed back to the ship. I got back to my room and change into my pjs just in time for Eloise to talk me into going back out to meet up with Jon, Bri, Travis, and Megan. We met them at a bar called The Factory. It ended up being really cool. It was really industrial and all the workers had on construction type outfits. They also had new American music playing. We were all really excited because we have no idea what the new music is since we left.

        Once we were done at The Factory, Eloise and I headed to Apocalypse Now. Some SAS kid rented out the top floor of this club so pretty much the entire ship was there. On our way there, I was using Eloise’s iPhone as a GPS to figure out what streets to take. I was holding it in front of me when a guy on his motorbike jumped the curb behind me, drove really close to me, and slapped the phone out of my hand. It luckily hit the tips of my fingers and flew back towards Eloise. It landed in her arm. After she flipped him off and had a few words to say, we both just stood there and didn’t know what to say. We couldn’t believe that he had done that. After we contemplated what had just happened for awhile, we walked the rest of the way to the club. We stayed long enough to say hi to some people, and then headed back to the ship. We figured we shouldn’t walk around anymore, so we shared a cab with some other SAS kids.

        The next morning, I left early for the Cu Chi Tunnels. I stayed awake for awhile to see other parts of HCMC, but I fell asleep after awhile. It was about an hour and a half to get to the tunnels from the port. When we got there, we got our tickets and headed to a covered area to watch an informational video. Our guide gave us some overview information about the area and how it was used. Then we watched the video. I missed parts of it because I could not keep my eyes open. It was a very old video that was in black and white and I couldn’t keep my attention focused. I woke up at the end of the video and we headed to the tour part. We stopped at a tree and our guide told us to find a tunnel. We all looked around and started kicking leaves around on the ground. We couldn’t find anything. She took her foot and scraped a section of leaves away and you could see the top of the tunnel entrance. We all got turns to try and fit in the hole and put the top back on. We all thought we weren’t going to fit because it looks so small. All of the people that tried fit, some easier than others though. After that we walked around the area some more. She showed us several craters from bombs, trenches, and mounds they used to get oxygen into the tunnels. It was really cool. It was all things I would have never realized what they were unless she showed us. After we walked for awhile we finally got a chance to walk through the real tunnels. We went for about 200m in the tunnels. They enlarged this section of the tunnel about 2/3 of what they originally were. I can’t imagine trying to fit in there before they made them larger.  I also can’t imagine living in them at all. It was a workout just trying to go 200m in them, let alone doing that all day. On our way through we got to see where their clinic was as well as the kitchen. It was really cool how they built this whole city underground. They showed us when we got above ground where the exhaust comes out of the kitchen. They made it so it comes out a ways away so if the enemy saw it they would just bomb the exhaust and not the actual kitchen. Once everyone was out of the tunnels, we headed to the gift shop area. You could take turns shooting all their different kinds of guns they used in the war. Amanda and I skipped out on that and headed towards the bus. It was another hour and a half back to the port, so we all took another nap. We did stop once on the way back at a rubber tree farm. That was really random, but cool. We got out and went to check out the trees.

        When we got back to the ship, Amanda and I cleaned up and headed out for lunch. My roommate Anthony came with us to get more pho. Before we went to get pho, we stopped at the Rex Hotel and booked our plans for dinner. My boss Yvonne recommended the Bonsai Cruise. It is a dragon boat that serves a huge buffet dinner and entertainment. We didn’t have any plans so we figured that would be a fun way to spend the night. It was a pretty easy process to sign up. After, we headed to Pho24. It was delicious. It was even better than Pho 2000. We each had vegetarian pho, spring rolls, and 2 drinks for about 6 dollars. After we had that, we headed to Tutti Frutti. It was a self-serve frozen yogurt shop. I hadn’t had any froyo since I was last in Denver. I had a gigantic bowl. I had tart and passion fruit mixed with gummy bears on top. When we were done with yogurt, we were stuffed. We decided to walk it off around the market. I ended up getting a whole backpack full of stuff at the market. Much more than I had planned, but it crossed off a big chunk of gifts I needed to get. We didn’t spend a whole lot of time there. We walked back to the Rex Hotel to catch the shuttle back to the ship and stopped at a few shops on the way there.

        When we got back to the ship, we relaxed until we needed to be ready for the cruise. We took a nap, and then got dressed up for our dinner. The cruise left from right next to our ship, so it was really convenient. We walked over and checked in really early. We got to take a picture with some of the performers, and then we were taken to our table. The buffet looked so amazing. It was almost the entire length of the ship. We had a welcome drink and some small appetizers while we waited for the rest of the people to show up. It ended up being half of our ship’s crew that sat near us. It was really cool to eat with all of them. They don’t get to do things like this very often so they were all very excited. Once everyone showed up, the boat took off and we were allowed to go to the buffet. The food was amazing. I think I had 4 or so plates before dessert. I had spring rolls, sushi, salads, teriyaki, shrimp…about anything you could think of. It was so nice to have a really good dinner. They had live music and traditional dancing going on the whole time we were eating. The ship was going up and down the Saigon River, so we also got a really good view of the HCMC skyline at night. We ate all the way up until we had to leave. When we were getting ready to leave, Amanda and I put our money together to pay. We set it down on the table waiting for our waitress to come pick it up. We hadn’t thought about the wind that was being caused by the ship moving. We turned around and then heard our money move. By the time we could react, the money had blown right off the ship. Luckily we only had to pay for our drinks on the boat since everything else was prepaid. That would have been one expensive dinner if we had to pay twice for everything. After the dinner cruise, we were all pretty tired. We headed back to the ship to relax for the rest of the night. I took my computer and sat outside to get free internet for awhile, then headed to bed. Amanda and I were getting up early to run, so we called it a pretty early night.

        The next morning we got up at 730am to run for awhile. After we were done, we showered and headed to Highlands Coffee. We wanted a good breakfast and some really good coffee to go with it. We got just that. I had fried eggs, bacon, potatoes, fruit, and a coffee with condensed milk. It was all delicious. After our breakfast we headed to a large park in the middle of HCMC. It was a short walk from the coffee shop. It was a really cool park. There were people all over the place. Running, dancing, playing games, or just talking. We walked around for a good 2 hours taking pictures and watching everyone else in the park. I was really tempted to find someone else on the ship that plays tennis, because there were tons of courts at this park. They were only by reservation though, and the people I know that play weren’t in HCMC. After we walked around the park, we decided to walk around the city some more. We went all over. We walked through a bunch of other parks. We didn’t really have anything we wanted to see, but we didn’t know what else to do. After we walked around forever, we headed back to the ship for some lunch. We barely made it back in time because the shuttle driver decided to stop and get some coffee. We made it back with 5 minutes to spare before they shut down lunch. It was nothing special though, so I had some fruit. When we were done eating, we got our computers and headed back down to Highlands Coffee. They had really fast, free internet, so we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon catching up on some stuff. It started to pour while we were there, so we ended up staying there even longer. We headed back in time to grab some dinner and called it an early night.

        The next morning we headed to the market again. We stopped by the tailor Amanda had gone to get some dresses made. It was just a small shop down the street from the market. I ended buying some stuff from her as well because it was really reasonable priced stuff for being handmade. After that we just walked around the market again until lunch. We surprisingly enough had pho again. This time my friend Michael met us. We all had big bowls of pho and spring rolls again. We then walked around the market some more. After awhile we decided to try and find a different section of HCMC. It was called the backpacker’s district. It was suppose to be just a really lively place where all the European and Australian tourists stay. We hoped on some motorcycle taxis and told them to take us there. We ended up at some random building. I think it was a post office. It was pouring rain by the time we got there, so we just jumped off and stayed. There were some shops inside so we looked around while we were waiting for the rain to stop. It didn’t stop, so we decided to buy some ponchos and run out to find a taxi. We ran out and by the time we hailed a taxi, we were all drenched. We decided to just go back to the ship before dinner.

        We got back and cleaned up. We decided to try and find the real backpacker’s district. The motorcycle taxis outside the port knew where it was so we jumped on. They took us to an Irish pub. It was still raining so we hung out there for awhile. We then headed to a restaurant called Go Go Go. I just had some happy hour spring rolls because I had some nachos and fries at the Irish pub. When we were done eating we headed back to the ship before going out for the night. On our way back we heard that someone had passed away on the ship. We wanted to figure out what was going on. When we got back it was confirmed that Andre Ramadan has passed away in his cabin. It was a pretty unfortunate event. We still haven’t heard what the actual cause of death was. The mood on the ship after that memo was pretty somber. A few of us decided to go back to the backpacker’s district because the ship wasn’t a good place to be at the time. We went to a place called The Crazy Buffalo. It had a huge buffalo sign on the side of the building. We ordered a bunch of food. It was all delicious. We got in a huge fight with the waiters and managers when we were trying to pay though. The American dollar is accepted pretty much everywhere in Viet Nam, so we paid part in Vietnamese Dong and part in USD. They took the money and told us that it wasn’t enough because it was 17,000 VND to 1 USD. It really is 19,600 VND to 1 USD. Most places even round up to 20,000, but the place wasn’t going to budge. We ended up making a pretty big scene before I slapped down an extra dollar and walked off. If I would have known that that was all it was going to take I would have done that a lot earlier. After that we decided to try and find a decent club. We ended up going back to Apocalypse Now. It was really fun. It was packed, but this time it wasn’t complete filled with SAS kids. We stayed there until 3am or so then headed back to the ship.

        The next morning I slept in a bit because I was out so late. I met Amanda at Tutti Frutti for some lunch. Annie and Gina ended up wanting to get some lunch as well so they joined. We got some sandwiches and froyo. This time I tried the vanilla and chocolate swirl. It was good as always. After we ate Amanda and I walked around for the rest of the day. We had planned on going to get massages because they were so cheap, but we ran out of time. I tried camera hunting, but didn’t find anything for a reasonable price. We spent our last money and headed back to the ship. It decided to pour rain on us right when we wanted to get back so we sat under an awning of a shop until we could get a taxi. We thought we were going to have to stand in line at the ship in the pouring rain, but we were able to get right in when we got back.

        Well, this once again took me longer to write than I had planned…and I am still well behind on blogging. It is slowly but surely coming along. I will try to get China written before we get to Hawaii...that is if I don't go crazy with this rocking boat. It feels like we are on an endless roller coaster at the moment. The seas are HORRIBLE. I am finally done with almost all my big assignments, so I just have my finals left WOO HOO! Only 2 weeks before I am back home in the continental states. I can’t wait. Well I hope Thanksgiving was great for everyone!

SINGAPORE!

        Singapore. I really hadn’t heard much of anything about this country before I signed up for SAS. It completely surprised me. It was nothing like I would have expected a country in that area to be like. Singapore is probably the nicest city I have ever been to. It is amazingly clean, the people are really nice, and there isn’t much of a language barrier.

        The first day in Singapore, Annie, Gina, Eloise, and I headed to Sentosa Island. The island was right across the water from where our ship was docked. We just had to go to a building right outside the ship to take a cable car. The cable car was really cool. It took us right over the ship. None of us had seen our ship from above before. It looked pretty lame compared to the cruise ship next to us though. When we got to Sentosa, we felt like we had just landed in a Disney World for adults. It all had a theme park feel to it. Food stands all over, big colorful buses, and tons of attractions. The first place we went to was Underwater World. It was a huge aquarium. They had all sorts of exhibits that you could actually touch the animals. We saw sting rays, sharks, jelly fish, eels, and even Scuba Steve…at least that’s what we called the guy inside one of the tanks cleaning it. I felt like I was back in 4th grade at SeaWorld in Orlando. After we went through everything, we stopped at the gift shop. We all found these amazing hats. They are just these really cheap baseball caps, but they have a built-in fan in the bill. On the top of the hat there is a small circle solar panel, so whenever you are in direct sunlight, the fan turns on. The hat was the coolest/geekiest thing I have ever bought.

        After the aquarium, we grabbed a bite to eat at a Chinese restaurant and then headed over by the Hard Rock Hotel. It was right outside the Universal Studios Singapore. There were all sorts of stores, so we just walked around for the rest of the afternoon. A little before dinner, we headed back to the ship to change and head to our hotel. We stayed at the Sheraton Towers. It was one of the nicest hotels I have ever been to in my life. There was a black Lamborghini outside if that explains anything. Eloise, Jordan, Travis, Ellie, Meghan, and I stayed there. Eloise had her dad use his Starwood points to get us the Executive Suite. It came with our own butler and everything. We didn’t ever need to leave the room, but that would have defeated the purpose of being in Singapore. The majority of us just snacked around in the Executive Lounge until everyone else met us at the hotel. After we all met up, we headed out for the night. It was Halloween, but since it fell on a Sunday, not a whole lot was going on. We went out for awhile then came back to the hotel.

        The next morning we ordered in breakfast to the room. It was great. They just rolled in a huge table of food right to our bed. After we ate, we got ready and headed out. We went to Orchard Road. There was a subway right outside of the hotel, so we just took that. This is when I learned how dangerous Singapore is. Every subway station is a mall. You get off and you don’t even have to come out of the ground to live. There are huge food courts, supermarkets, and every type of store you would want. It was incredible. We eventually made it out to Orchard and it was even worse up there. It was just a huge road full of stores. We started off at the cheap market. I got some awesome fake asian/nerdy glasses and a watch. I then just ended up walking from store to store with everyone else because it was too expensive to buy much else. I did get to have my first Starbucks of the whole trip. It was amazing. I hadn’t had good tasting coffee in a long time.

        SAS made us get on the ship an hour earlier than normal, so we didn’t have much time to go around the second day. It was definitely not enough time to do what I wanted in Singapore. I still had an amazing time, however. It is a place I want to go back to for sure. I say that I could live in about every country I have been to on the trip, but I can realistically see myself living in Singapore.

        Well, this one is a short one, but there wasn’t much time to write about in Singapore. I get to Japan in day and a half and get to see Mara. I can’t wait and I will be writing about Viet Nam as soon as I get back on the ship after Japan. Until then…see ya!

India...

        India. Always on the go. That was pretty much the story of my time there. It was absolutely incredible though. I really had no idea what India was going to be like. I knew it was going to be hectic, but I didn’t really know to what extent. I had an action packed time there. There was little time that I actually got to spend not running around.

        On the first day, I went on the Dalit Work Project with SAS. We went to the Dalit village in Chennai and painted a building they wanted to use as a community center. When we first arrived there, all the village school kids ran out to the bus and greeted us as we got off. They put flowers around our neck, and had boys playing the drums up and down the streets. It was really cool. They made us feel like royalty. When we got off the bus we walked into the village. They had a canopy set up outside the building we were painting. They had a whole introduction welcoming us to the village and addressing the village on why we were there. I couldn’t understand anything they were saying so I just smiled, nodded my head, and clapped when they did.

        When the introduction was over, we were all handed buckets of paint and a brush and we went at it. We only had to paint for an hour or so, but I think I lost about 10 pounds in the process. I have never sweated that much in my life. We were all dripping with sweat. There was no air conditioning and only one little fan. I was inside painting and there was only one window and a small door. We were also covered in paint by the time we were done too. They water down their paint a ton. It was practically like trying to paint with water. There wasn’t a way to paint without getting it all over the ground. They had some of us going around with pads cleaning it off the ground because of that. I did that for most of the time because there weren’t enough buckets of paint and brushes for everyone. After an hour of painting, it wasn’t completely done, but it was so much better than it was before.

        When we were done painting, they took us on a little walking tour of the village. It almost reminded me of Ghana. The kids swarmed around us grabbing our arms. They all wanted us to take pictures of them like the kids in Ghana. It was really fun. They were constantly trying to get our attention and shaking our hands. These kids don’t get to see anyone from outside their village very often. We also got to meet the village doctor and musician on our way around. The village was very small so everyone knew everyone. There were so many goats and cows in the streets. It was so weird to just see cows hanging out in the streets. When we made our way back to the community center, they had another ceremony set up for us. They sang and danced for us. It was a way of saying thank you for coming to the village. We had our own little dance party as well. It was the same cultural thing as my experience in Ghana. They expect singing and dancing in return if they do it for you.

        After we left the village, I took the rest of the afternoon to wash up and rest. That short trip ended up being pretty tiring. A whole group of friends and I planned on going out to have a really nice dinner, so I wanted to be ready to go do that. There were 9 of us all together going to dinner. We convinced our taxi drive to take us all. We crammed into every possible spot in his suv. It was a fairly long ride to The Verandah, where we ate. The restaurant was inside of the Taj Connemara Hotel. This place was absolutely incredible. There was just one extremely long buffet. There were all kinds of Indian and Chinese dishes and tons of fruit and desserts. Everything I had was so good. They had one dessert that I had probably 5 or 6 of as well. It was passion fruit custard. I could have eaten that for the whole meal.

        When we got done with dinner, we all headed back to the ship. We got to take our first ride in an auto-rickshaw. These little vehicles are all over India. They are pretty much a go-cart with three wheels. They are incredible to ride in. They are such crazy drivers in India that we definitely thought we were going to die at some point. You get so close to the other cars in the street that you can touch the other cars without putting more than your hand outside the rickshaw. Once we finally made it back to the ship, it was about 1230am. I decided not to go to bed at all because I had to be up and ready to leave for Delhi at 345am. I have a habit of sleeping through my alarm if I get less than 4 hours of sleep. My trip was so expensive that I couldn’t afford to miss it. I just sat around the ship and made sure I was all packed for a few hours. It went surprisingly quick.

        345am came quick enough and I was off to Delhi. I fell asleep immediately after I got on the bus. It was about an hour to get to the airport from the ship. When we finally made it to the airport, we had to rush through ticketing and security. We were all pretty late. Annie, Gina, and I barely made it on to the plane. They were paging our names on the intercoms for awhile. We luckily made it and were fine. I was awake long enough to know we took off, but fell right back asleep until we got to Delhi. Falling asleep on transportation became a theme for me on this trip. When we got to Delhi, we got on a few busses and headed to do some sightseeing around the city before lunch. We went to a hotel to eat. It was another Indian buffet. It was very good as well. I ate a ton.

        After lunch we headed to the hotel. We stayed at Le Meridian. It was probably one of the nicest hotels I have ever stayed at in my life. After we got our stuff in our rooms, we had the option of going with our tour guide to some temples or exploring the city on our own. Annie, Gina, and I decided to go off by ourselves. We got a rickshaw and went to some type of market. We were looking for a traditional outdoor market, but the driver took us to a place that was more like a mall. It had stuff that we were looking for, but it was pricier. We shopped around for awhile, and then headed back to the hotel to get some internet before dinner. The internet wasn’t free, but I didn’t care. It was fast internet and that’s all I cared about. The internet has been getting worse and worse on the ship, so we take any opportunity we can to get good internet.

        We ate at the hotel for dinner. It was once again a huge Indian buffet. I think they wanted us to be fat. It was delicious as well. It was much better than lunch. They had this chocolate brownie dessert that I ate a whole plate of. I could have had a ton more, but there was never any left when I went back up there. After dinner I ran into Chris and Shelly from another trip that was staying at the same hotel. I went and talked to them for awhile. We all were exhausted and decided to not do much. We headed to the main section of the hotel. There was a chocolate bar, which sounded much more appealing than the actual bar. I had homemade hot chocolate made with dark chocolate chips and a box full of really good chocolates. After I finished my hot chocolate, I headed back to my room. I lounged around and checked up on some stuff on the internet. My roommate never came back to the room, so I had the whole room to myself. It was pretty nice.

        The next morning came too quick. We had to be on the bus around 5am, so breakfast was at 430ish. I made it there around 445, but that was a struggle. Once we got everyone on the bus, we headed to the train station. We took the train to Agra. I have heard so many stories about the Indian rail systems. This train really wasn’t that bad. It was the nicest trail line though. It was pretty dirty and old, but it could have been much worse. It was comfortable enough for me to fall asleep on the entire way. I think it was about a 2 hour train ride, but I would have been ok with it being a lot longer. That nap wasn’t long enough. When we got to Agra, we headed to a hotel for breakfast. On our way to our busses, we saw some eye-opening things. There were just masses of people begging for money. Some were in wheelchairs. Some had amputated limbs on their bodies. Some had elephantiasis. It was hard to see. It was even crazier when our guide told us that some parents cut off their child’s arms or legs so they can go there and beg.

        After that sight, we were all ready to get away from there. We headed to a hotel that another trip was staying at. Another Indian buffet was waiting for us. This time it was a breakfast buffet. I had some really good bread and sauce. I have no idea what it was called. It was pretty spicy though. I didn’t eat all that much since we did have a breakfast at our hotel before we left. After we ate, we headed to the red fort. I think that was the name. I have a picture of the ticket, but that’s about as interested as I was in it. It was kind of fun to run around and take pictures in it, but other than that I have no idea what was going on there. We went right back from there to the hotel for lunch. This was our third meal in 8 hours. I wasn’t hungry in the least. We again had an Indian buffet. It was good, but I could not eat much.

        After lunch, we headed to Agra Fort. This place was a lot more interesting than the first fort. It was like a huge maze. It just kept on going. There were some really cool looking buildings inside. There was a really good viewing spot from one section to see the Taj Mahal. We roamed around there for awhile and took some more pictures. We then got to finally go to the Taj. It took us awhile to get there, even though it was relatively close to Agra Fort. There are just so many tourists and you only get so close to it by vehicle. They have it blocked off from vehicles from a really far distance. We had to get off the bus and walk to the entrance. We were immediately bombarded by vendors. Everyone was trying to sell us everything. It was quite annoying, but that’s what happens when millions of tourists come here every year.

        We finally made it to the gate and got in. The second we walked through the huge entryway, we were in awe. It is just one of those places that are incredible to see in person. The building just seems flawless, and the color of the marble during the sunset was awesome. We first tried to fight all the crowds to get some good pictures. We also had to fight off all the “professional” photographers that want to take your picture and sell it to you. We then walked around the grounds by the reflecting pool. While this is a really cool place, there isn’t much to do there other than take pictures to have proof that you have been there. I am glad I got to go, but I have no reason to ever go back.

        After the Taj, we got to stop at a marble store to check out some handmade goods. They were incredible, but insanely pricey. There wasn’t any way I could afford anything there, so I just looked around. We then headed back to the train station. We caught a late train back to Delhi. When we got back, I was way too tired to do anything. I just went back to my room and lounged around again. My roommate once again didn’t stay in the room, so I had it alone again. We got to “sleep in” till 6am this time, so we were all excited.

        The next morning we all got herded back up at 6am to head to the airport. We caught a mid-morning flight to Varanasi. All of our flights in India were on Kingfischer Airlines. They were probably one of the nicest airlines that I have ever flown on. Every flight had satellite tv, comfy leather seats, and really good Indian meals. Two of our flights even had cameras on the bottom of the plane so you could watch what was going on outside. The Varanasi airport, however, was the worst airport I have ever been to. That kind of set the mood for what Varanasi would be like. Varanasi is the most traditional and unchanged place I have ever been to. It really feels like you go back in time when you go there. They have electricity and vehicles and that stuff, but it still seems like it is very old.

        Varanasi was by far my favorite part of India. It really felt like I was seeing the real culture there. When we got there, we checked into our hotel and got situated. We then had lunch in the hotel. The hotel was owned by the same chain as the hotel I ate at the first night in Chennai. The meal was fantastic as usual, but I was getting sick of Indian food. It is great food, but I get sick of any type of food that you feed me for 4 days straight, every meal. After lunch, we headed to Sarnath. Sarnath is the place where Buddha gave his first sermon. It was a really cool area. We went to the museum first to look at all the old statues that they had preserved. We then went outside to the grounds that he gave his first sermon in. We saw all the stupas surrounding where he would have stood. That was a pretty surreal feeling knowing that he gave his sermon right where we were walking.

        We then headed to a silk factory. We got to watch as the workers made the silk scarves and other products. It is quite a process to actually make one scarf. I would have bought some from them, but their prices were insane. Some people were dropping close to a grand there. I’m on a bit more of a tight budget than them. After we got that tour, bike rickshaws were waiting outside to take us to the Ganges River. These were so cool. They are a 2-seater cart thing with a bike in the front. We had a convoy of about 40 of them going through the streets. We were also heading to the river during rush hour, so traffic was insane. We finally made it as close as the rickshaws could get, we hopped off and walked to the end of the road. When we got to the end, we looked down at the river and it was just filled with people. They were standing all over, sitting in boats, sitting on buildings…people were everywhere. Every night, there is a ceremony at the river to thank it for the day. It is a ritual that has been going on for hundreds of years. There are 6 guys that dance on platforms to traditional music. It was a really cool thing to see. It was even more exciting to think that we would be back at this same river in a few hours to see it at sunrise.

        Once the ceremony was over, we headed back to the hotel. We had to take the rickshaws back to a certain spot to meet the busses. There was so much traffic that the busses couldn’t get through. We got back to the hotel and ate dinner. They once again had a huge Indian buffet ready for us. I was still full from the million other pounds of Indian food I had eaten in the past few days. I didn’t eat much, and headed back to my room to go to bed. I called it another early night because we had to be up around 4am to get to the river before sunrise.

        4am came way too quick. It felt like I had just fallen asleep and I was back up ready to get on the bus. We were coming back to the hotel for breakfast, so we didn’t have to be packed or anything. Once we got everyone rounded up, we headed back to the river. We got fairly close this time on the bus. We walked the rest of the way. We went right back to where we were the night before. It was a completely different feeling. It was very quiet. There were people bathing in the river. Others were praying or meditating. Others were getting their heads shaved. It is tradition that if you are the one bringing a deceased family member to the river, you are to shave your head before you take the body. We walked around for awhile, and then got into a little boat to go up and down the river. When we first got in, they gave us a little votive candle. We all made a silent prayer or wish and let the candle go down the river. It was a really cool sight to see them all float away. After that we just started going in the boat. Our guide pointed out all the different people along the river. He pointed out the ones meditating, the ones bathing to wash their sins away, and the ones bathing just to bathe. It was a really cool sight this early in the morning. Then the sun began to rise. This was one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. As the sun began to rise more and more people came to the river to pray. They have prayer beads with 108 beads on it. We saw many people in the water praying and counting the beads. After the sun rose, we headed over to the main crematorium. This was very interesting. We got to see the whole process. It is crazy to see how they deal with death compared to our culture. Once we were done seeing the cremation, we headed back to dock and walked back to the busses.

        We headed back to the hotel to grab some breakfast. On the way back we drove through the largest university in Varanasi.  It is called Banares University. I don’t know if that is how it is spelled. They had everything there. It was a huge college. They were telling us to come back to study there after SAS because it was only $2,000 for everything for an entire year. That would be very cool, but I don’t think I could spend an entire year in Varanasi. After the drive through of the university, we stopped at Mother India Temple. It is a small temple, but it has a whole map of India made out of marble on the ground. It is one of the original maps of India. It included Pakistan and that area, since that once was all India. After we took some pictures we headed back for breakfast. We grabbed a bite to eat, packed our stuff, and headed to the airport.

        When we got to the airport, we had hardly any time to get to the plane. We took up most of the plane, so we knew they wouldn’t take off without us. They were not happy though. They rushed us all through security, but about 5 of the students about didn’t make it on. They were already playing the safety videos when the last kid got on. We all made it and got to Delhi safe. We had 8 hours to do some more sightseeing when we got back to Delhi. We went to a large Hindu temple and walked around for awhile, then went to a market nearby. This market was interesting. They had a lot of stuff that we hadn’t seen before. That’s because it was all stuff made by Tibetan refugees. I didn’t end up getting anything, but I thought it was pretty cool. We stopped shopping pretty early because we had nothing to get, and we went to McDonald’s across the street. McDonald’s in India was interesting. Since they don’t serve beef, their menu is completely different. I had a Chicken Maharaja Mac. It was like the Indian Big Mac. It was…alright. Probably the worst thing I have ever had at Mcds. However, Annie had a wrap that was delicious. It all tasted like what we had been eating at our other Indian meals, but McDonald’s style.

        After everyone was done shopping, we headed to a hotel to have some ice cream and tea before we headed to the airport to catch our flight back to Chennai. We ran back into some of the other SAS kids and talked for awhile. This was our first time that we had plenty of time to get to the airport. It was nice to not have to rush for once. We got to the airport and had an hour and a half before we had to board. Annie, Gina, and I went to get some coffee and a dessert while we waited. We finally got on the plane and I went to bed. I woke up when we landed and fell right back asleep on the bus. It was about 2am when we finally made it back to the ship.

        On the last day in India, I went shopping around Chennai with Amanda and Gina. We didn’t get much time the rest of the trip to get many gifts, so we did some shopping. We spent most of our day at Spencer’s Plaza. It is just a huge mall with market type stores. It was great. I also had Pizza Hut there. It was a lot different than Pizza Hut in the states, but it was still good. I had had enough Indian food that pizza sounded great. Once we were sick of shopping, we tried heading to a movie theater to see if we could catch a Bollywood movie before we left. We had missed the only one we could see before the ship left by about a half hour, so we went to the post office to grab some stamps and headed back to the ship.

        YAY. I finally finished this blog. I am sooo behind on writing. I only have 3 more days on the ship between now and when we leave Japan, so I probably won’t get Singapore through Japan blogged about until I am on my way to Hawaii. Expect quite a few blogs between Japan and San Diego! I hope everything is well at home. See ya.