I'm Not Done Yet!

I'm not even sure if anyone is still going to read this now that I'm home in chilly Michigan, but I've still got a couple things to say.

Tonight, however, I wanted to put out my real email, because I've been reading comments from past blog entries for the first time, and I noticed that there are a couple "anonymous" posts, especially ones from people sailing in the future, that mentioned they wanted to talk. Well... I'm all ears! For anyone really, so I thought this might be helpful if anyone is still reading.

Please please please feel free to contact me. I'd love to hear from you and talk to you and exchange/share stories.

kzabriskie2008@my.fit.edu

Countdown

Things are winding down, and the ship is a mixture of summer vacation and sadness. After the last African dance session and our last sea meeting, complete with milk and cookies and ice cream cake, everyone ran around the ship, frantically waving flash drives and carrying dying computers, trying to exchange the last of the pictures from various countries.

Jenn and I just finished packing. It was a lot easier and less time consuming than I thought it would be, and there’s a surprising amount of space in my suitcase. Although, let it be known, I think the one with my toiletries will have to be repacked because it’s over 50 lbs. Bummer, but I was pretty efficient. Now it’s 3 am and people are still in the hallway trading pictures, stopping in people’s rooms, socializing, and reminiscing.

I made a video for Jenn today. My objective was to get her to cry by the end. Psh. It didn’t even get to the sad songs before the tears came. Winner.

Tomorrow will be weird and sad and overwhelming. Now that our room is bare, it’s a little harder to call it home, but it still feels good knowing that I haven’t had a “bad day” in at least 104 days.

I feel like I have so much to reflect on, and I think I’ll be writing at least a little while after I return home on Tuesday. Sometime when things have calmed down and I’ve had a chance to think. I can’t imagine looking outside of my window and seeing grass and a tree and a road. I can’t imagine walking to class and not falling into the wall or an innocent bystander. It will be different, or the same, or reality maybe. We’ll see when the time comes.

Aloha and Aloha

JUST FINISHED MY LAST EXAM! Another semester come and gone, but much quicker than usual, I must say.

I’m sure they weren’t joking around when they named Hilo the “rainiest state in America”, but God seemed to be on our side while we adventured Hawaii. Hilo came into view after a failed attempt at seeing the sunrise (they told us the wrong time!), through a thick, muggy cover of clouds. Everything on the island was green, and from the ship we could see tiny houses up the mountains and the spouts of humpback whales playing in the ship’s wake at the horizon line.

When we got off the ship, we walked about 40 minutes to downtown Hilo. After being so used to so many types of (cheap) public transportation, this was a little reminder of what it’s like in America. There isn’t much. Like all ports, we arrived on a Sunday to the quiet, abandoned streets of the city. This meant plans of renting bikes for the day were scratched, but we made up for it by following a “path” down to the river and jumping out of trees into the water below, watching a small hula dance session, and trucking over millions of lava rocks to a small, chilly lagoon perfect for snorkeling with fish and sea turtles.

If I would have been home, Sunday would have been what I considered a “bad” day. I left my tennis shoes at the small shop where we ate lunch, and didn’t realize it until we were 10 miles away, climbing over rocks. After we left the beach and started our walk back to the ship, I realized I forgot my snorkel and mask in our tiny paradise. With no tennis shoes to run back to get it in, I borrowed Rachel’s, and FINALLY got my country run in. Roads, trails, and then a nice sprint-swim across the lagoon, where my snorkel and mask sat waiting on the sandy edge for me. After another sprint back, Jenn told me she had called the lunch shop, and my shoes would be waiting for me in the morning. Everything always works out.

The town shuts down around 9 pm every night. Most, if not all, of our friends had rented a beach house for the night and were “celebrating” the last day in port with the usual college kid festivities. Jenn, Rachel, Eric and I made our way there, only to sit on the porch, talking and laughing away from the noise. We decided at one point to make our way down to the beach, which was an adventure in the dark, and found out we picked the opportune time when we got a phone call informing us that the cops had come. Nothing bad happened, but I can’t say I’ve ever been at a huge party, let alone one the cops show up to. We slept in the car for 3 hours so we wouldn’t have to pay to stay in the house, and got up at 5 am before the sun rose to see Kilauea Iki volcano and its neighboring lava tube. After a quick breakfast we made out way back into town and rented bikes ($10!) for the day, peddling uphill to Rainbow Waterfall, across town to Walmart, and over to Coconut Island, where we jumped off of a big stone wall into the water below with some fellow SASers and locals.

FOOD DISCLAIMER: I MISS AMERICAN FOOD!  We ate at a place called Ken’s Pancake House twice.

Dinner- I think our waiter was terrified by a) all the places we had been in the last 4 months and b) how we all absolutely inhaled our plates and massive portions in under 5 minutes without speaking to each other. Someone also accidentally asked if we could drink the water. Habit. The food was amazing. Burgers, fries, waffles with passion fruit, guava, and coconut syrup, and my favorite, the pulled pork BBQ sandwich. So good to be back in the states (except for the tip and tax added to the end of our bills!).

Breakfast- A massive, huge, ginormous, delicious omelet with banana pancakes and crispy hash browns. Enough said.

Ice cream and shaved ice- They told us we had to try it, and we did. The ice cream was homemade. It was delicious, of course, but I think I liked the people that worked there better. They were genuinely nice, just like all of the locals around. Ready to give us pointers on where to go and what to do, all of them laid back, on island time. Shaved ice was the bomb. It was huge and tasted like coconut, pineapple, and banana. I’ve decided to by a shaved ice machine when I get home.

As a last hoorah, on the way back to the ship, we stopped at a little place on the side of the road and I ordered another pulled pork sandwich. I guess you don’t realize how much you miss something until you don’t get to have it for 4 months (in this instance, BBQ sauce).

Overall Hawaii was fantastic, but in a different way than our other ports. All of the other countries we have visited I’ve always wanted to see, but never actually knew if I’d ever be able to go there. Hawaii, on the other hand, is just one of those places I’ve known I would visit at one time or another (and hopefully again and again), so it was a different kind of excitement. That, and being on U.S. soil for the first time in 4 months, the MV Explorer flying the American flag as we pulled in. I’m going to miss the complications of foreign travel, but this was a nice break.

Alumni Ball tonight, which is something along the lines of dressy clothes, great food, and an awesome time with your friends. It’ll be a nice break after studying.

Aloha Land!

Sorry I’ve been slacking. Life is a mixture of good, great, and awesome lately. It’s 11:35 am here. I’m sitting on deck 6 in the sun, staring out at the brilliant blue water, waiting to see Hawaii. All students on the ship took the Global Studies final exam this morning at 10, and the general consensus was that there is no general consensus. Some thought it was easy, but it seems most thought the study guide wasn’t much of a help. Deck 7 is now like college spring break on steroids. Nonetheless, it’s one exam down, two to go. Right on.

April 12th #2 was just another day. We’re now 6 hours behind home, 3 behind San Diego. There were a couple April 12th birthdays, which is cool. How many people can say they had two birthday days in a row? Then again, how many people get to say they’ve sailed all the way around the world? We truly are blessed to be doing this.

Two nights ago, we decided it would be a good idea to sleep on the deck. So at midnight, which turned quickly into 1 am with a time change, we “disguised” our pillows with t-shirts so they wouldn’t make us take them back to our cabins (we’re not allowed to take them out of our rooms) and made our way to the backside of the basketball court, which our LLC told us was the most prime spot for sleeping on deck. We brought with us a computer and speakers and watched Pirates of the Caribbean, pointing out the places in the movie where we had swum and explored in Dominica. People came and went, but the best part was around 3 am, right after the security guard came out and told us we had an hour before they started washing the decks. Four of our friends decided to relocate to deck 5, and as they walked back across the basketball court, one person smacked the other with their pillow, and 30 seconds later they had picked teams and were lined up on opposite sides of the court, counting to 3 and charging at each other with their pillows swinging wildly over their heads. It’s the simple things in life nowadays that bring us the most joy. This wasn’t a college frat party, where people had to be naked or wrestling in jello or drunk. It was just a couple college kids acting like 5 year olds and having the absolute time of their lives.

Five minutes after we turned off the movie, it started to rain. And not just regular rain, but soak-everything-in-under-2-minutes rain. We grabbed all of our things and made our way back to our cabins. I think we’ll try again tonight, although when we pull into Hilo tomorrow morning, it’ll be a miracle if it’s not raining. Something about it being the rainiest city in the United States has me thinking we’ll be running for cover again. Or maybe dancing in it. We’ll see.

We pull into Honolulu in a couple hours (but it’s only a fuel stop, we won’t be getting off until Hilo the next day), and talk on the ship is all about getting to use our phones again. I charged mine last night, and am planning to knock out a couple phone calls before we pull out again later tonight. While in Hawaii, I’ll have my phone on me for texting locations to one another, or texting pictures to people back home, but it’s been so good to learn to be social again. No one texts at dinner, or has to call their boyfriend/girlfriend every night. I’ve noticed that when I get internet, I’ll log onto Facebook and then think “Hmm, now what do I do?” It seems my only use for the internet now is to do research, look up things to do in port, book plane tickets. I’m sure it’ll be a main procrastination tool as soon as school starts again, but this summer I’m sure I’ll be doing much more exploring and much less vegging out. I’ve caught the travel bug, and I can’t wait to see everything.

April 12th Number 1

Shipboard life has changed since we started sailing again from Taiwan.  They’ve planned activities for every afternoon, every night. Film festivals, silent and live auctions, soccer tournaments (sore subject), euchure tournaments, and ice cream parties. The thing is, it’s technically, even though it doesn’t feel like we’re even at school, “exam time”. This means that people are participating in events and then pulling all-nighters to finish papers and projects.

I’ve been fighting a sore throat which has developed into a cold recently, and have been leaving the room periodically at odd hours of the night to keep from waking Jenn up. I walk down the hall and take a lap around deck 2 (affectionately known as the Favelas throughout the ship now), and, to my surprise, there are people up. It’s 3 am! Go to sleep! Some are sprawled out with papers surrounding them, hovered over their computer, which is plugged into the wall with a European adapter because it doesn’t have any battery left. Some are talking, procrastinating the project that sits in front of them. It’s convenient, really. I don’t have Tylenol PM or nighttime cold medicine, but out of the 10 people sitting in the hallway, someone always has something I can take. If people are up this late now, I can’t imagine what our last night on board is going to be like. I think I’ll sleep outside on the deck…

Tonight was the shipboard auction. It was like any other auction, and proceeds went to Semester at Sea and voyages to come. Everything from raising the flag in Hawaii to blowing the horn in San Diego to trips at people’s summer cottages to Backstreet Boys and Lakers tickets were up for grabs. The ones I remembered, however, were the outrageous ones. Five boxes of Girl Scout cookies were auctioned off, and the Samoas and Thin Mints in particular went for $75 and $104, respectively (“$104 for 104 days on the 104th voyage!”). Another person paid $155 for a signed box of Captain Crunch signed by the captain.

The best was at the end, when two people went at it to be the first person off the ship.

Market value: Priceless

Final bid: $1,600. Twice.

They ended up settling on $1,600 each to get off the ship first and second. I could’ve done the first 9 countries again for that price!

Today was April 12th. Tomorrow is also April 12th. Time warp! We’re 15 hours ahead now. Tonight we “gain” an hour, but repeat the day. I think that means we lose 23 hours. Maybe that means I’ll be 8 hours behind when I wake up tomorrow? We’ll see I guess.

Rule #1- WIN

Tonight we had a scavenger hunt. Three teams. 7 or 8 people per team. It was intense.

Each team received a paper with a list of things to take pictures of or with or activities to do. They were different difficulties and therefore worth different amounts of points. Everything from “dress your whole team in SAS gear” to “put your life jackets on and assemble your group at your muster stations” to “get a photobomb picture with Brittany the photographer” to “get Keith (head of security) to put on makeup” to “high five Dean Dan” to “get a picture in a restricted area holding an AGN sign”. We had one hour to rack up as many pictures and points as we could.

For the next 60 minutes, 40-some people sprinted around the ship, shouting, dressed in drag with painted on mustaches, trying to complete all of the tasks. We trash talked each other when we would run into another group, jumping in front of their photos and trying to throw them off.

Our group learned the hard way about some rules on the ship. Because we couldn’t find a security guard to take a picture with, we decided to put on our life vests and find our muster station. On our way outside, however, we ran into the “new Savio”, a meaner version of the head of security that was with us the first half of the voyage. Like a robot, all he could say was “Go put those away. You’re not supposed to have those out. Go put those away.” He wouldn’t stop, he wouldn’t listen to our explanation, he wouldn’t even let us go put our life vests away because he was too busy telling us to put them away. In the process of the whole fiasco, Kelly (our RA) and I just stood next to our uncooperative obstacle, held up the thumbs up, and had a teammate snap the photo… while he was still yelling at us. Perfect.

We all reconvened after an hour, presenting our pictures by our group names Snap, Crackle, and Pop. The judges tallied our points while we stuffed our tummies full of ice cream and chocolate sauce.

And the winner was… TEAM POP! (that’s us!) By a slight 5 points, but victorious nonetheless.

Aegean Sea’s first rule since the beginning of sea olympics: WIN

Mission Accomplished.

Caution: Traveling May Cause Drowsiness... and Sore Muscles

We started our first day off in port on a determined search for mopeds. The renter we found who spoke English informed us we would need international licenses, and wouldn’t budge even after Travis offered to pay him off. Probably for the better.

Instead we hopped in a taxi and drove along the coast to Yeliou Geopark, a tiny tourist trap no SASers managed to find. It was raining and freezing, but it was Eric, Travis, and me, and we made the most of it. While other people hid on the ship from the chilly rain , we climbed stairs and stairs and stairs, up to the tippy tops of cliffs overlooking the waves brutally crashing into the jagged rocks below. Over millions of years, the ocean had managed to create a masterpiece with the shoreline. Mushroom-looking rocks sprung out of the tan sandstone boulders. We ran from one to the next, off the beaten path and away from the tourists who stayed close to the entrance, near the park’s main attraction, the “Queen’s Head”, a rock shaped like… well… a queen’s head. The wind pushed us along as we ran past fishermen and into caves, pulling out our flashlights to explore the algae-covered, mossy rocks that gave the caves a smell somewhere between saltwater and damp forest. We spent a couple hours there and then took a bus back to Keelung, where the ship was ported. After a nap and some dinner, we went out to the local night market. Similar to the ones we saw in China, it had some foods we recognized, and more that we didn’t. I stuck to the “iced” cream and took pictures of the rest, including what looked like the arm of the Kraken. I’m not sure where they get the idea to eat some of the things they eat. I haven’t seen a cheeseburger since South Africa.

The next day we hopped the train to another hidden gem that only got a small paragraph in the Lonely Planet guidebook.  Sandiaoling, the writer had said, was good for hiking and littered with huge waterfalls. Both of those were understatements. We climbed more stairs (I should’ve kept track of how many stairs I’ve climbed this trip- Table Mountain, the Him-ah-lias, Mount Huashan, The Great Wall of China, and now Taiwan) and hiked down icy cold rivers. It was still cloudy and cold, but at least it wasn’t raining today. We stood at the top of rushing waterfalls that fell over 100 feet and climbed cliff faces with the help of chains and ropes. After 6 or so miles of pure obstacle course, we stumbled upon the train station our train would have come to next if we had stayed on that morning. After six hours of hiking and wandering, we made our way back to Keelung again, tired and sore and covered in mud. I took my shoes in the shower with me that night, and the day was worth every drop of mud I managed to get on the shower walls.

We took the bus that night to Taipei, about a half hour away, and spent the night eating some of the best food we had tried on the trip. BBQ with eggs and noodles in secret sauce, sausage in secret sauce, grilled corn in secret sauce. Needless to say, we knew what made the food good. We met a man named James, who took us around and showed the boys places to try weird things, including a shot of snake’s blood, which they took in front of a crowd of onlookers.

We spent our last day in Taiwan in Taipei, riding the world’s fastest elevator up to the top of the world’s third tallest building, Taipei 101. We spent the rest of the day searching for a market, but to no avail, and took the bus back to Keelung to wander the streets and spend our last coins buying ice cream cones at the nearest fast food joint, a tradition in every port.

Yesterday we left our last foreign country. It’s weird to know that our trip is almost over, and weird to think that in 11 days I’ll be turning my phone back on and asking for directions without speaking slowly or repeating myself. I think I’ll miss it more than I know.

Two Countries, One Day

Yesterday morning we stopped in Japan on an island chain called the Ryukyu Isles. Because of relations between China and Taiwan, it was best that we made another stop in between and didn’t go directly from one to the other. We watched the Japanese Coast Guard over the side of the ship. As we ate lunch, they strapped into their wetsuits and dive gear to go down and get a buoy out of the ship’s propeller. The islands around us were sandy and small, and the water was a tropical kind of blue. It was sunny for the first time in a long time,, so many of us spent some time replenishing our vitamin d stores.

We pulled into Taiwan last night to a strong drizzle and chilly winds. We went through immigration early, so we could get off the ship right away in the morning. On top of the nearest mountain sits the letters “KEELUNG”, just like in Hollywood. Looking around through, this is nowhere near the same. We’re planning on hiking the mountains and waterfalls for three days, but aren’t sure how the bus system will be working as there is a major festival going on for the couple days we’re here.

Three days in Taiwan, eleven at sea, two in Hawaii, and then only a couple before it’s back to real life. Woah.

And I think I’m going to have to go with Butler tonight.

You Win, China

        After the absolute problem-less-ness and smoothness of India, I figured one country would have to volunteer to be extra rough. China was nice enough to step up and fill those shoes.

        We arrived in Hong Kong, a massive city surrounded by skyscrapers and sculptures and Chinese writing, where it only differed from NYC in size and the fact that we saw a monkey get captured and taken away by animal control next to a big fountain. With plans only to find a train and take it to Xi’an, we figured, eh, this will be easy. We’ll book tickets and have the rest of the day to hang around before we leave. Wrong. Got a tad lost on the walk to the train station, where they told us it would be a 30 hour train ride. Who has that kind of time when they’re traveling the world? Well, actually, a lot of people. But we weren’t any of them, so, after getting extremely lost on the way back to the ship, we got our computers, got to internet, and found cheap-ish flights out 4 hours from then and out of Shenzhen, an hour away by subway. We were trying it. We sprinted back to pack and were off the ship again in 10 minutes, this time not risking it and getting a taxi to the station.

        Because Hong Kong is somehow considered independent of China, we had to pass through Chinese immigration, which was quite the excessive process. A couple bag scans, some paperwork, and a lot of passport checkpoints later we were through and in the airport, running back and forth, trying to communicate with the people at the airline to let us buy tickets for the flight that left in now 30 minutes and counting. After being redirected to a couple different counters, we were finally told the tickets had been sold. Now over the border of Hong Kong with no way back in, we got on the internet again and found a flight out the next morning in the next city over. We retired for the night, exhausted from our mini chase through 3 very large cities in China.

        The next morning our flight was delayed an hour in the airport and another hour on the plane. Because of this, we didn’t get a chance to see the terracotta warriors like we had originally planned, and lost a day in Shanghai at the end of our trip to make room for other things. The hostel we stayed in was cute. The people spoke English, there were backpackers from all over the world, and the blueberry smoothies were delicious.

        We decided the next day we would hike Mount Huashan, the mountain used in the filming of the new Karate Kid movie with Will Smith’s kid, where people hang locks on the rails ascending the mountain as prayers. We woke up at 5:45 am to catch the 7 am bus and a two-hour ride to the mountain. Chinese people really are no help when it comes to reading letters (they only know their characters!), and we couldn’t pronounce the name of the mountain, so we did quite a bit of wandering before finding the right bus. I guess we didn’t really know what we were getting ourselves into when we said we’d hike to the top, but 5 hours later and about 4 km of stairs straight up (I’d give it a 179 degree angle) we were at the point the cable car drops off the tourists who don’t want to climb. It was another couple hours to the highest peak, and the peak with the chess table from the movie, and the last bus left at 5 pm, and it was 4 pm. The Chinese are seemingly against credit cards, because there were no atms and they only took cash and the cable car station we would need to take down if we wanted to make our bus. Thank goodness for Martin, the friend we made on the mountain, who paid our way down (and we paid him back at the next atm we found!) AND spoke Chinese for us to find out which buses to take and where to go to find the bus to take us back to Xi’an. We made it back with 5 minutes to spare.

        When the bus came back to Xi’an, Martin also helped us buy overnight train tickets to Beijing for the next night, and then took us to a delicious street food restaurant in the middle of a bustling, Chinese lantern-decorated street. I’m not sure what we would’ve done without him!

The next day we took the bus to the Terracotta Warriors and discovered the true definition of a Chinese tourist. A Chinese tourist travels in a large pack of other Chinese tourists, smoking cigarettes, speaking loudly, and ignoring personal space, while listening to a Chinese tourist leader, or tour guide, and we like to call them, shout in more Chinese into a microphone facts about the Terracotta Warriors. WOAH. THE TERRACOTTA WARRIORS ARE A BIG TOURIST DESTINATION. The warriors themselves were quite the site. Many years ago a King had ruled that area, including all of the statues and city-like places around the warriors. Another king came along and didn’t like this king very much, so he burned his city, destroying many of the warriors. They’re currently working to unbury, uncover, and reconstruct the Terracotta Warriors. At the end of our personal self-guided tour (aka free) I bought a mini warrior and named him Xsi-Xsi, which means thank you, and was one of two Chinese phrases I learned. The other was hello, and sounds like knee-how.

We took the overnight train to Beijing that night. My bed was the highest of three, or six, in the whole room, and quite impossible to get to. As I climbed up, my foot accidentally slipped off the step and landed on the tippy corner of the furthest end of the bed the lady under me was sleeping on. She jumped up, started yelling at me in Chinese, and ripped my foot down, causing me to slip altogether and dangle from the handle on the ceiling helplessly for about 30 seconds. When I finally did get up to my bed (it was about 7:30 pm) I just went to sleep. Thank goodness for ipods. Chinese people speak very loudly, and smoke in small spaces, might I add.

The next morning our taxi driver got lost and dropped us off at the wrong, but thankfully close by, hostel. We attempted to book overnight train tickets to Shanghai but they were full. Our next best option? Book a flight. For a lot of money. Unfortunately. We stopped thinking about that as quickly as we could and walked to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. The Forbidden City was neat, full of big temple-esque buildings with giant thrones inside and beautiful gardens. It reminded me a lot of the Purple City we saw in Vietnam, which was said to be the influence of the Forbidden City. After walking around for a while, we went to the night market, where they sold everything from bugs to snake to dog to shark to fried bananas to fruit dipped in melted sugar. You want to try weird food, that is the place to go! A few girls came up to us and offered us their leftover snake, saying they were just going to throw it away if we didn’t try it. We did. It was bad. So bad I couldn’t swallow it. It chewed like cartilage. I bought a sprite. YUCK! We ran into SASers while we were there and hung out with them the rest of the night, exploring the city of Beijing through city lights and sounds and tastes, goofing around in the street markets and daring each other to try new foods.

Our final day started at 6:45 am when we attempted over and over again to get on a bus or a train or a SOMETHING to the Great Wall. At 1 pm we finally got on a train, and were just happy it only cost 17 yuan, or about $3. It was looking for quite a while that we weren’t even going to make it to the great wall, which would have been absolutely devastating. Most people hiked right, with tours and tour guides and signs from the Olympics. We went the opposite way, and were rewarded with a part of the wall all to ourselves. We were able to take pictures where you can see for as far as the thick smog will let you, and you can watch the wall fade into the mountains. It really was an eye opener that we were actually in China, and though we had new problems at every turn, we really did appreciate being there and loved the opportunity we had.

We caught a flight out yesterday morning at 7 am to Shanghai. When we got back to the ship, customs was a mess, so I stayed on the ship and worked out for the first time in a long time. It was really nice to have the ship almost to myself and get to use whatever weights I wanted and run wherever I wanted. The city rose up around the ship on all sides, and the view wherever I looked was just amazing. How many people can say they pulled out of Shanghai by ship, snapping pictures of the skyline and just appreciating the chance to be there?

A big problem we had was that even in asking for directions, Chinese people can’t read letters. Not English, but letters in general. I couldn’t write a street name down and have them tell me where to go. They only understand Chinese characters, which is kind of hard to fathom. At least in Brazil if I couldn’t say a street name I could show it to them on a map or in a notebook and they would know. Here I drew some fantastic pictures. And by fantastic, I mean my picture of the Great Wall looked like a necklace.

The little kids, maybe potty training age, wore pants with slits from front to back, and no underwear or diapers. I guess it’s their method of training? I saw a lot of baby butt.

I’ve never seen so much smoking in my life. Everyone. Maybe 4 out of 5 people. In the train. In restaurants. On the streets. I’m really bad with cigarettes. And there is no escaping it. Martin said the young people are changing the future. I believe in them.
If you ever go to China, know that there are student discounts almost anywhere you need to buy a ticket. Half off. It’s awesome.

The toilets were just holes in the ground. Squatting required. And no toilet paper in sight. I really appreciate America now. I think that makes me sound spoiled, but when you’re a girl, one of the small pleasures in life is being able to sit on a toilet and not feel dirty. How I missed the ship bathroom.

Yes, the “Asian Invasion” peace signs were everywhere. Did you know they do it because their political leader does it? For instance, when he shakes your hand, he’s flashing the peace sign with the other hand. You learn something new everyday!

In summary, I guess you could say I hate China right now. Every possible thing that could go wrong, went wrong, and then some. But thinking about it, I’m pretty sure I’ll love it and laugh in a week or two. We had a great experience, and I have so many stories to tell. Stressful, chaotic, rough. But worth it in the end. Just give me a little while to recover.

Wide

        The amount of English spoken in Saigon was, as expected, diminutive.  I had gotten by on make-shift sign language and charades, both of which had, at times, made me feel I deserved awards for “most touristy foreigner” and “biggest idiot”, but you do what you have to do to communicate. Crossing the street in a country where lines on the road might as well have been nonexistent turned out to be the easy part, a nonverbal communication.  It was all eye contact. Eye contact with each of the forty pairs of eyes that belonged to the Vietnamese people riding their motorbikes directly through the crosswalk as if their brakes were broken. Take a deep breath, step off the curb, and don’t break stride until you reach the other side, I would think to myself. Whatever you do, feet, don’t run. It was the equivalent of covering your eyes with your hand or walking blind. At least, the odds of making it across were the same.

        There were the people who knew English, and then there were the people who thought they knew English, who made your brain work three times as hard to interpret what they were trying to say. They said they wanted to practice English, but some I just wanted to give the comic section of the newspaper, wish them well, and turn in the other direction. Sometimes it’s the annoying ones, though, who turn out to create the best stories.

        After a few hours of rooftop restaurant hopping at places we couldn’t afford, six of us wandered the sidewalks of the city, stopping at small street food stands to test the local cuisine and kill time. It was late, but skyscrapers stood on either side of the street, bright lights illuminating the black, cracked pavement beneath our feet, no need for a flashlight, and no dark ally in sight. The thick, dirty humidity of the daytime had gone, and was replaced by a breeze that smelled of car exhaust and cigarettes. As we walked, car horns honked like they were going out of style. The locals we passed stared and kept staring, until their necks wouldn’t allow their heads to turn anymore.

        We passed the beige brick steps of the Opera House, with a rotunda that could provide shade even to the taxi that drove nearest to the sidewalk, and stumbled upon the Womens Photography Exhibit, three rows of both black and white and color pictures, taken by photographers in the area, and protected like a subway map in a plastic display case. I, at the time, was walking in front of everyone else, and as we began to drift down the first set of pictures, a man stepped in front of me.

        “Hello!” he said. “Where you from?” He was shorter than me, and the teeth he had left were yellow and rotting. He wore a tattered flannel button-up shirt and raggedy brown sweatpants, and his once black hair, now streaked with gray, was messy and cut unevenly. “We’re from America,” I said as two of the guys from the group walked up behind me. “Oh! Americans!” he said with the same aw everyone else seemed to have. We were like celebrities here. Sure, our toilets are porcelain and not holes in the ground, and the water that comes out of our faucets is drinkable, but in our book we were nothing special. I smiled and nodded, turning away and down the row of photographs, looping around at the end and coming back down the other side.

        “So, leader,” the man started again, popping out from behind the last case in the row, “do you like pictures?” Leader? This guy was full of it. “Yes, they’re very nice,” I replied without looking at him. “They’re very creative.” He nodded quickly in agreement, still beaming from ear to ear. I wandered down the next isle and came up to the last one, this time expecting the man to be there waiting like a little puppy, tail wagging and ready for a treat, panting and hopping from side to side.

        “Leader! Leader!” he called from under a tree near the second row of pictures. The two guys from our group had caught up to me, and we met the tiny man at the end of the third and last row. “You like the women in the pictures? They are ver-y beautiful, yes?” “Yes, yes,” we shook our heads. I turned around to check on the other people in our group. Lagging behind. The three of us were ready to leave this guy. “What kind of women do you like? Yellow hair like Leader,” it was more of a statement than a question. I guess I knew his choice. “Yellow hair is nice,” he continued, “and good for marriage. Good for cooking.” Oh no, he went there. The guys started to laugh.

        “Do you like wide?” he asked next. Wide? Wide what? He made a gesture with his hands that meant nothing to us. “Wide? Like big? Fat?” I asked. “A wide woman?” The guys shook their heads. “Nah, we don’t like very wide women.” What strange questions he was starting to ask. “No, no!” He began shaking his hands and head. “Wide. Wide. Wide!” I wanted to tell him no matter how many times he repeated the word “wide” we still wouldn’t know what he was talking about. He read the confusion on our faces and pulled out his phone, using the keypad and text box to type w-i-d-e. “Wide! Wide!” He continued to repeat. “You know! Like mary-jay-wana!”

“OH!” the three of us shouted in unison. “Weed!”

“Yes, yes! Wide!” the man relaxed a little, happy to get his point across. “You like wide?”

         “It’s called weed,” I said, typing the letters into his phone to show him. “Ahh, I see,” the man replied. “I was talking to Italian on the street. He tell me this how you say it. I understand now why no one buy from me!” “That would definitely be your problem,” I said as we tried to hold straight faces. “Now you’ll be able to sell plenty.”

         The three photography-appreciators caught up to us, judged the looks on our faces and automatically knew they would be hearing an interesting story soon. We asked the “wide” man for directions to The Apollo, the club where we were supposed to meet our friends later that night, and then said goodbye as we walked carefully across the street, avoiding oncoming traffic casually now that we were used to it.

        “Leader!” the man called one more time as the group walked down the well-lit sidewalk. I turned to acknowledge him, no longer annoyed by his persistence or bad English. “Thank you for teaching me today! Because of your help, I will now make more success in life!”

        “No, thank you,” I said loud enough for only myself to hear, waving and smiling as he turned from the corner and began to walk back towards the photographs and the bright lights of the city in front of him.

'Nam

Oh, what to say about Vietnam? It was a safe place to be. Our biggest problem was the language barrier, which I heard only gets worse with China, and means I’ll be spending my night writing down Chinese terms and looking for maps of every major city we’ll be in before we port in Hong Kong tomorrow.

I travelled with Ben, Kristin, and Rolando. Ben’s dad, a veteran of the war, was stationed at one point in Hue (pronounced: “Hway”, so you can hear the “H”), and that was our deciding factor of where to go. Our plan the first night was to take an overnight train north (about halfway up the country). Five minutes after they told us everything was booked AND it was a 20 hour ride, much different than what we had originally heard, we had booked a one-way flight for the next morning at 6 am. With more time to kill, we spent the day in the market, where I bought a fantastic North Face backpack for $8 (I hear the son of the CEO of North Face is on the ship, and his father is not too happy with all of the purchases made in Vietnam) and the boys spent the better half of two hours bartering prices to get suits made.

 We walked past a restaurant later that afternoon and immediately turned in, attracted, like children, by the swings hanging from the ceiling. Here we were introduced to Pho (pronounced like the first half of the f-bomb, “Fuh”), a chicken noodle type soup, and delicious Vietnamese ice cream.

We spent the night wandering the brightly lit streets of Ho Chi Minh City, also known as Saigon, riding elevators up to the rooftops of shiny buildings, trying weird foods, and talking to American-loving Vietnamese people who wanted to practice their English with us. As we wandered, we walked past groups of kids our age hanging out in parks, some holding skateboards, some just staring as we walked by, some shouting “Hello!”, which seemed to be the most widely known English word among people on the streets. They were just so excited to be able to say anything, and it was really cool.

At one point while we walked, after trying cuttlefish (street food, not the best thing I’ve ever tasted) we were kind of caught by some bouncers and ushered through a dark, down-sloping hallway, past stands that I’m sure, during the day, belonged to owners trying to sell fake sunglasses, purses, watches, etc… The bouncer pushed an invisible button on the dirty wall 100 yards underneath this building, and a black-light elevator opened in front of us. We looked at each other before a mutual “eh, why not?” shoulder shrug, and rose three floors. When the doors opened, my hands automatically went to cover my ears. Mixed Justin Beiber songs (why is every country so obsessed with Justin Beiber?) blared from the speakers around the corner. We were ushered across a big dance floor and down an aisle to a tall table with no chairs. Looking around, it seemed a few other SASers had made it inside, and between us and a couple younger groups of Vietnamese people, there was only head-bobbing. No dancing, no talking. It was MUCH too loud to talk. I felt like I was in a swanky, wild club you see in the movies where girls’ drinks are drugged and fights over cocaine break out randomly. After five minutes of awkward head-bobbing and looking around, we decided street food sounded more appealing, and after a long search for the exit, we managed to get back outside to the now quiet-seeming streets of Saigon.

After more walking around, and a run-in I’ll write about soon for travel writing, we came across some kids fishing on the steep slope of the Saigon River. Didn’t they have homes, or mothers, or somewhere to be? It was so late! They laughed and shouted “Hello!” as we approached, and before we knew it Rolando was sliding down the face of the slope towards the water, fishing net in one hand, arm being tugged to safety by three Vietnamese kids, the rest of us laughing and cracking jokes in our own languages that the others didn’t understand.

I woke up at 3:22 am, after a mini fight at 1:45 am with the girls I share a wall with, who had come in drunk and boisterous. I got ready and met my traveling companions in the gangway, where we ventured out to cut a deal with a taxi driver, $20 to the airport. We were tired, and $5 apiece wasn’t that big of a deal. His car conveniently “stalled” outside of the entrance to the airport, where you had to pay a fee to get in. Three of us paid with five singles, and Ben paid with a $5 bill. As he walked around the car and I pulled my backpack out, the driver said “Excuse me! Not $20!” I recounted and noticed, to my disgust and his embarrassment, that he had taken out Ben’s $5 bill, thinking we would pay more. I yelled at him, telling him we weren’t stupid and I knew he was stealing from us. If my brain had been on (it was 4 am by this time) I would have taken $5 more out of the pile and said “You take $5 out, I take $5 out” and walked away. It bothers me that people in every country have raised prices in taxis and autorickshaws and broken deals because they think we’re stupid Americans. It’s disrespectful, and the next person that does it will get a lot less patience from me than they deserve. I will try to be as nice as possible though. I promise!

The day was extra long since we were off and running in Hue by 7:30 am. We had a little run-in with what we decided were undercover National Geographic photographers, but they wouldn’t admit it. Their National Geographic bags and clothes kind of gave them away. Those liars. Took a taxi into town, where we ate, and then made our way to the Forbidden City, or Purple City, via bikes with little carriages on the front. Stories say it’s what the Forbidden City in China was modeled for. The men who drove us in their carriages spoke little English, but would point to a grassy field and say “bomb”, or stop at pagodas and temples as we made our way to the main attraction.  Some parts were run-down, while some buildings seemed to have been rebuilt. Across the street you could see an old fort topped with a massive Vietnam flag, blowing in the wind. The walls of the buildings were made of tiles, like broken teacups pieced together in an artistic way. The area inside the city seemed more humid, if possible, than the land outside. Sculptures and statues of dragons and ancient un-readable writings covered walls and doorways. I’m not sure how to describe the Forbidden City. I guess it was kind of what I expected. What pictures showed me. Cool, but another touristy thing to seem.

That night, we took a train to Da Nang, East of Hue, on the coast. The next morning, we made our way to Marble Mountain, where statues and temples could be seen perched on the mountain’s cliffs from down below. As we walked the road outside, a woman came up to us. “Where are you from?” she asked. “America”, we all answered in unison, something we had said many times before. “To-tally Aw-some!” She exclaimed. We laughed as she waved goodbye, turning the other direction. A few seconds later another woman approached us, same question, same answer, same response. Who had come through and taught all of these people to say “To-tally Aw-some!” It was cute. It was funny. This woman followed us around, telling us about the mountain, showing us where to eat, asking us to stop by her shop on our way back.

Marble mountain had enough Buddha statues for all of Vietnam. They were huge. They were built into the mountains, carved into the caves, where rays of light shown down on them from holes in the rock face above. It was eerily quiet, except for the squeaking of bats and unpredictable flapping of wings. Raggedy men ushered us around, acting as unwanted tour guides, stressing us out, and then asking for money as we exited the mountain. We explored the forgotten sidewalks and stairs of mountains nearby, climbing and climbing, winding our way to the top for the view we knew would be worth it. At the top of the mountain it was less humid. It smelled clean and fresh and the air was crisp. A good place to relax and rest, and a place that had me realizing I was more of a hiker than a statue-see-er.

We took an overnight train that night to Nha Trang, the touristy beach town, with full intensions of making it a spa day. And spa day it was. We got full massages, including steam room, sauna, and tip, for $8. It was weird when they told us no clothes. We walked around in towels to cover up, not used to the culture of baring it all. The massages were a mixture of pain and pleasure. I wasn’t expecting such strong hands from a girl who only came up to my chin, and she had to hold herself down with the ceiling to make my back crack when she walked on it. The hardest part was communicating to her that my knee didn’t bend the way she was pushing it as she stretched my make-shift ACL into unnatural positions. All I could do was point to the scar, but she was so terrified she almost stopped completely when I showed her. Funny things happen when you don’t speak another’s language.

Later we attempted mani-pedis, advertised in a brochure for $1. Their version of manicure is much different than ours, and the pedicure part must’ve been a typo, because they seemed appalled when we picked out nail polish colors for our toes. $1 is never wasted though; it’s only an experience. My fingers look squeaky clean now.

Food was our main hobby and pastime when we didn’t know what to do. I lived of pho and banana pancakes, and I can’t wait to look up the recipes for both when I get real internet again. Ben ordered pho with every meal, while Rolo ordered a coke with every meal, even breakfast. The banana pancakes were more like crepes, but they were cooked and fried and crispy and perfect. I miss them as much as I miss the chai tea from the Him-ah-lias.

Crossing the street in all of Vietnam was an adventure in itself, so much that I videoed many of our attempts. Cross walks exist, but are more of a reference point. The whole ordeal is really a trusting, understanding, and intimate moment between you and 40 motobike/car drivers/complete strangers coming at you without slowing down. There is no break in traffic. You put your foot into the road, and don’t break stride until you reach the curb on the other side of the street. Walking slowly is key. Running is bad. Stopping is bad. I’d say it’s the equivalent of the old woman in Mulan who covers her eyes and walks across the road. If I covered my eyes and walked slowly across the road, I would have the same outcome. It was mad. I’m crossing my fingers I’ll be able to get a video up to show everyone.

After Vietnam, I realize we were spoiled terribly by the Himalayas. Vietnam was amazing. I liked talking to people and eating and dealing with traffic and sightseeing. But I loved being in India where no one else was going, where there were no tourists, where the path was less traveled. I’ve found I love exploring nature, hiking mountains, seeing caves. I love the scenery. Statues are cool, shrines are neat. But they’re something I can see in 10 minutes and be done with. I can never get enough of the breathtaking views of the Himalayas. The scene when you hike is always changing. It’s not that the Himalayas had more things to do or see, it’s just that it more suited my personality.

If China plans work out, I’ll be getting a dose of both, and a lot more mountains and nature than Vietnam. Cross your fingers! I can’t wait.

One funny thing I liked in Vietnam was that, unlike us, they can’t tell the difference between English-speaking accents. We can tell if someone is from Australia or Great Britain or the U.S. If I talk to someone in the market, they ask “Are you from Australia?” All they know is that I speak English. They can’t identify where I’m from. I feel like we speak so slowly, like we’re so easy to understand, but that’s not the case. It’s very interesting.

A strange and kind of disturbing part of Vietnam we noticed was inside war museums. We visited two while in the country, and both had the same feel. It was cool to see the pictures and big planes and helicopters and tanks that sat in front of the buildings, but when I began reading the descriptions of everything, I noticed a biased outlook on the war. Some pictures would read “This is where Vietnamese captured x number of pilots” or a tank, or a plane, or a group of soldiers. However, when it was us who did the capturing, the signs read “This is a photo of American soldiers beating, torturing, killing, shooting, bombing, fill in the blank”. If I’m not mistaken, the war was brutal on both sides, maybe even more-so for us, but anyone learning about it through the museum would see Americans as terrible and barbaric. Pictures of the after effects of napalm bombs and other weapons and methods of torture took up entire exhibits, but it was all things the Americans had done to the Vietnamese. It was a very interesting and depressing outlook on the war. In the real world and current times, Vietnamese people had forgotten about the war completely. They really do think we’re “to-tally aw-some”, and we like them too.

If I’m writing tomorrow it means I had a fever when I tried to get off the ship in Hong Kong. You walk through an electronic sensory heat detector image thing. IF you’re sick, you get back on the ship. Maybe I’ll take an ibuprofen just to be safe!

Seas are the roughest they’ve been yet. The ship hits waves and sounds like it could very well break in half. Last night at dinner, we hit an especially big wave, and as a result everone’s plates and cups and food went spilling off the table. A moment of friendship among everyone in the dining room. Some made new friends when they accidentally fell into them.

This morning I ate breakfast and put a sea sickness patch on for the first time all voyage. I was sitting in classroom 8, directly next to the union at the bow of the ship, except set up to face backwards of the direction the ship is going. 15 minutes into class I was laying on the floor, supporting my head. 30 minutes later I had decided it might be best to go downstairs and lay in my bed, the place with the least motion. As soon as I stood up to leave, by body said “What? You’re going to the bathroom now? GREAT!” That’s as much detail as I’ll go into. Let me add that I had soup and three brownies for lunch. Hopefully there will be pudding for dinner. The general consensus on the ship is that we’re all very excited to hit land tomorrow.

Life is Like a Box of Chocolates

Vietnam tomorrow (Saturday) until Wednesday! Not much is known about plans, but that’s the way we like it. I know there will most likely be a train involved, and a massage will most certainly come into play.

Also, for future reference in this post and the next, Vietnam is pronounced Forrest Gump style. For example, “Vietnam” will rhyme with both “candied yam” and “I hate spam”.

Savvy?

Clearly You've Never Been to Singapore

Someone name that movie!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all you Irishmen (and everyone else, too)! Thanks to my mommy, I’ll never eat green pancakes and milk again. She scarred me for life.

Singapore was like New York City, but greener, cleaner, and more sophisticated. They have these outrageous laws with hefty fines, or even jail time, like no jaywalking, no spitting gum out, and no durians on the subway. The people dress very high class, in collared shirts and dress slacks or dark jeans for the gentlemen, and cute dresses, pencil skirts, and blouses for the ladies. Flip-flops are the favorite for feet, along with very, very high heels. Bummer for me, because I wore sandals and a dress to fit in, but did enough walking to be wearing waterproof cargo shorts and nice, insole-ated hiking boots.

The main pastime of Singaporeans and tourists alike is eating, and boy did we eat. They have indoor pavilions called Hawkers, which I guess you could compare to a mall food court on steroids. Stands upon stands lined isles with numbered tables. The idea is to walk up to whatever stand you want, tell the people what you want to try (by peeking around their display… there are no counters for ordering), and then tell them the table you’re sitting at. They bring you the food when it’s ready. Noodles, rice, seafood, meats, soups, juices, ice cream, you name it, it’s there to try. Between the three of us who traveled together, Rolando, Eric, and myself, we had

1) fruit juices- pineapple-banana-milk, pear-banana-milk, dragon fruit-milk, durian-milk (I’ll go into detail about this one. YIKES), and mango-kiwi

2) meats- curried chicken, lemon fried chicken, sweet and sour chicken

3) seafood- I tried an oyster omelet, because we ran into my travel writing teacher and he made me. It was more fried than egg, and the oysters were squishy. Nice to try, but not something I would make a “usual” at Sunday brunch. Eric tried octopus balls. Open the bread ball covered in onions and what looked like drizzled frosting to find, surprise!, a fourth of an octopus arm, tentacles and all.

4) rice and noodles- classics, and a reliable choice

5) soups- Eric and Rolo warned me the soup at lunch had a kick to it, so I braced myself, but still ended up coughing and crying out of one eye. Not spicy, maybe more like I had swallowed a crab and it was now hanging from the uvula in the back of my throat. The soup I had for dinner was called solang and meatball. I don’t know what solang is (if you do, and it’s gross, please keep it to yourself), but I guess it tasted kind of fishy. Maybe. But so did the meatballs. Questionable. But good.

6) ice cream- my flavors were green tea, bubble tea, and mint. Green tea tasted just like green tea, but I was overwhelmed and nauseated by the end of eating that scoop, and therefore bubble tea tasted like green tea also. Other flavors included strawberry, mango, and something along the lines of peppercorn. Not my favorite.

Durian is a fruit in Asia that is banned from the subways. There aren’t allowed to sell it in Hawker markets as just the fruit. You’d think people would’ve been warned off by the spikes that cover its outside, but apparently not. Durian happens to be the most disgusting fruit I’ve ever smelled. Jenn and I just came to the decision that it smelled like rotten, moldy, wet food mixed with dry cow manure. Eric bought one in the form of juice, and we all tried it. Once. Eric played hero and wouldn’t waste his money, so he drank the WHOLE THING. We got it on video. He gagged quite a few times. This morning he said he could still smell it, and I believe him. It was a traumatic experience. Just another way to experience Asia! Once, but never again.

The central city of Singapore had sections like Little India, Chinatown, Orchard Road, and the Botanical Gardens. Orchard Road, as they described it to us on the ship, is the Rodeo Drive of Singapore. A girl in my travel writing class dropped more than $300 (yes, that’s American money) on three things there. We stayed for about 10 minutes. Then went to eat some more.

The coolest building in Singapore was one we joked was the MV Explorer caught in a tsunami.  High above three twin skyscrapers was propped what looked like a very long, luxurious cruise ship. We didn’t go in, but later found out it was a casino that charged $20 just to get in. Oh, the life of luxury. I think I’m satisfied on my ship.

I don’t think I said so earlier, but if you haven’t heard, Japan was cancelled right before coming into Singapore. Tonight the announcement was made that our alternative port will be Taiwan. All I know about Taiwan is that they make a lot of the things I have in my house in the United States, and there are cool forests there. Research will be tricky, as we don’t have any Taiwan guidebooks on the ship.  Four days, one less than Japan. After losing a day in South Africa and losing four more before we even got on the ship, we’re all crossing our fingers to get an extra day in Hawaii or China, but it’s not likely on account of cost.

Life is getting interesting! Or, at least, more interesting than the usual interesting when you’re sailing around the world.

Off the Beaten Path

This could've been done earlier if my computer and I had not gotten into a fight this morning. I was almost done, and then it was all gone. But how can you complain when you're on a ship? So here is another Travel Writing piece...

       “No one is going to understand what we just did,” Ben said somberly as the automatic doors to the Chennai airport slid open, releasing a wall of humidity and noise we had gladly gone without for the last five days of our trip. The smell of rotten bonfires and body odor greeted us ruthlessly as we stepped into the open air, and the stares of locals had me clutching my bag a little tighter than usual, wishing to be back in the comfortable mountain village we had unwillingly left early this morning.

        Ben and I had decided on a whim, as all great adventures are made, to skip the regular Taj Mahal, Ganges tourist destinations of India. Somewhere unexpected, somewhere out of the ordinary, we thought. Ben’s finger landed on the Himalayas, or “Him-ah-lias” as Indians pronounced it, and that was the final decision. Now the obstacle was getting there. As the nature of chaotic trip planning goes, we recruited two friends, Will and Travis, along the way. Four days before our scheduled arrival, we nixed the plan for an overnight train and bought plane tickets even farther north than originally intended.

        I swung my bag onto the small conveyor belt behind Will’s and watched it disappear through the rubber flaps of the airport’s x-ray machine as I walked under the metal detector labeled “Ladies”. A different country, a different airport ritual, I thought to myself as a young, uptight Indian woman dressed in a puce military-looking uniform gestured me towards her. She led me into a small cubicle framed with curtains, a sort of special privacy. She spun quickly to face me after jerking the curtains closed, and relaxed. “Where are you from?” she asked nosily as I held up my arms for a pat down. “America,” I responded. “Oh!” Her eyes lit up. “And where are you going?” “To the Himalayas.” Her eyebrows rose above her hazel eyes, a look of confusion. I tried again. “Him-ah-lias.” Understanding flooded her face. “My three friends and I are going hiking,” She peaked out of the curtain and back to the metal detector I had walked through, searching for the girls I was traveling with. “But where are they then, your travel companions?” “I’m traveling with three guys,” I explained. Her smile dropped. A look of shock. I tiptoed to see over the wall and pointed. “There. That’s Will. He wants to do yoga on top of a mountain and ride yaks.” She giggled. “Over there is Ben. He’s a photographer and wants to take pictures of the mountains. And Travis,” I moved my finger to the direction of the metal detector. Travis was in the process of being frisked, rolling his eyes while he emptied his pockets of spare coins and papers. “He thinks he’s going to go skinny dipping in a lake.” Whoops. Her surprised look had me backtracking. Even though I dressed for the culture of India this morning, in long pants and a long sleeved shirt, I was still forgetting the small things, like paying with my right hand and keeping my craving for a cheeseburger to myself. “Why are you here, then?” she asked before I had to explain. Huh, “I really like mountains.” Was that really all I could think of? Surely there was some underlying reason in the back of my mind. “I guess I hadn’t thought about it,” I finished slowly. “Well, good luck,” she said with a smile as she stamped my ticket twice, waving it in the air and blowing on it gently before handing it back to me. “Thanks.”

        I opened the curtain to see Travis, Ben, and Will standing on the other side, holding their things and mine, obviously torn at whether there was a need to jump in for the rescue or wait it out. They paused expectantly for an explanation as I waved goodbye and picked up my bag. “What was that all about?” Travis asked. “Oh, you know, just making friends.”

        I awoke next to my head banging against the foggy propeller plane window. Turbulence. My eyes adjusted to the bright morning sun, which I soon realized was the partial reflection off of the snowcapped peaks of the Himalayas. Our plane landed in Kullu, a small town north of Delhi, at the base of the mountain range. We had touched down in a green valley. Cliffs decorated with tiny terrace homes rose on either side of us, and to north, mountains sprinkled in white met the clouds above. We climbed down the steps of the plane and walked out into the middle of the runway, letting the cold, crisp, mountain air overtake our lungs. A taxi driver with minimal grasp of the English language drove us through the narrow roads, susceptible to rock and land slides, higher and higher into the mountains to the small village of Manali. This was a different kind of India.

        The biggest building in town was our hotel, the Kunzam. The biggest restaurant, fittingly, was inside the hotel, and occupied the large glass face at the front of the building, a view of the small shops and mountain peaks from inside at what we had dubbed our usual table. My stomach was virgin to the spicy cuisine of India, but I stood proud at the end of our trip, Pepto Bismol packed in its original spot, never seeing the light of day. The biggest obstacle overcome on the trip, even if just barely, was Will’s deathly allergy to nuts, including anything cooked in peanut oil. “I’ve got about five minutes to live after I swallow a nut,” he would say, “I haven’t got my epi pen with me, by the way.” He wasn’t living in fear, of course, because we were doing it for him.

        The best part of every meal, and what India was famous for, was the chai tea. Quick calculations told us we averaged about ten cups a day, each. Breakfast was our biggest struggle, and we figured a red flag would go up the next time Americans ate in their hotel. I pictured the sign in front of the tin kettle and sugar bowl: Two Caps Per Person, Please. Spelling English words was their downfall in Manali, so of course an error would stick out in their caution to visitors. Perhaps another sign would be written below in an Indian language: If you can read this, have your fill! Another small shop came to mind, one overflowing with trinkets and souvenirs from Tibet. A shelf stacked with journals sat alone in a corner, and a single label read “Dairies” just below it. We justified our tea addiction, excessive amounts of milk and sugar included, with the widely known fact that “regular tea is good for you.” Of course, this was healthy.

        We raced the sun to the top of the nearest mountain each morning, dressing in layers to avoid the freezing air, shedding them as we climbed, taking less and less oxygen into our burning lungs with each meter in elevation. We left our path for temples hidden in the forest trees, obliviously disturbing Indians in prayer as we paced back and forth across the intricate building’s entrance, snapping pictures as the sun’s red reflection turned the snow pink. Stray dogs followed us up the winding paths, some faithfully, and some for just a short while. The loyal ones were named and dubbed part of the “wolf pack”, but even they knew not to eat the street food we bought to reward them. They barked at auto rickshaws and cars, chasing them 100 yards down the road before giving up and hoping to get the next one instead. They barked at the monkeys, the Himalayan substitute for raccoons, who picked through the trash and then climbed high into the trees, taunting the mutts with hisses and shaking tree branches.

        The nights were spent trying cheap fruit-flavored wines and bad beer around a small table, huddled next to space heaters and dressed like we were still outside. We played Euchre, a northern U.S. card game that quickly became addictive, while engulfed in good conversation. Amidst the sudden shouts of defeat and unnecessary curse words, we bonded. Maybe not the friends-forever, I-can’t-live-without-you bond, but this experience was something we all knew no one else would be able to talk about. It was a personal experience we shared together, something “no one would understand.”

        And that was it. What I had been looking for. I hadn’t been able to choose a favorite between other countries I had previously visited. Brazil, Ghana, South Africa. They were nice, but this was out of the ordinary. I watched the snowy mountains touch the sky above as we took off in the small propeller plane we had arrived in five days earlier. We climbed higher and higher, but this time we were warm and breathing calmly. I watched the peaks shrink and smooth out until the world looked once again as it always had, trodden and familiar. I recognized now that there were two kinds of India. Maybe both were beautiful, maybe both could be favorites. But was I willing to give the second one a shot? I couldn’t risk it ruining my opinion.  I knew, however, that I had to come back to India. My India.

Disclaimer: My teacher, I've learned, is more about the sex, drugs, cursing, and stupid decisions of traveling. Therefore, as far as he knows, we spent the night drinking in our hotel, just to spice up the piece. The boys DID buy wine and beer, but no bottle was left empty. Let's just say the Indians should stick to chai.

More details about the trip tomorrow :)

Ghana, South Africa, and India

Into the Smog

India! India! Here I come!

Over the next few days, I'll be hiking the Himalayas (Kullu, Naggar, and Manali), seeing temples, and potentially yak skiing. I'll explain that if it actually happens. Send a big prayer our way as we battle a country of over a billion people, 100% humidity, pickpocketers, and diarrhea.

If I don't post again before the 12th, call the authorities. But don't worry, we probably just took a detour and ended up at the top of Mount Everest on accident.

Starry Night

Tonight I laid under a sky I had never seen before. Orion’s belt falling off the horizon line, the ship’s steam fogging portions of my view, where the wind blew it. I heard the stars were different on the other side of the world, like a whole new set to explore. The music of Bob Marley and Rod Stewart flowed through my headphones, drowning out the giggles and shouts of pub night as I studied the view.

At first, there were bright, twinkling stars. Big ones like what I use to identify the Big Dipper. One or two held a faint tint, a little bit of color, like sherbet ice cream. I assume they were planets, like Mars back home, or maybe satellites.

And then as I lay there for a while, I began to notice other stars appearing. Much more faint and much smaller, the sprinkles of the sky. There were so many. They were the skeletal system of Orion, his ribs and clavicle, like an x-ray, a personal, confidential view the doctors accidentally let slip. They filled in all the gaps of the bigger stars. I wondered about their age. Were they faint because their light had run out? Or because they were just emerging? As my eyes adjusted, they stood out as much as their competitors.

Together these stars created a constellation with an intensity I had never seen. Before this, my best star gazing opportunity was on a tiny lake in Washington, on my cousins’ dock and away from the city lights. Now there were no lights for miles. No reflections, no glows, no nothing. I decided tonight to make a habit out of stargazing while we’re at sea, because I’m not sure where I can go on land to get this kind of darkness.

The stars rocked from side to side with the motion of the ship, the motion of the ocean. It was a little hypnotizing, and a lot cool. A little peace and quiet is always nice, and nature makes for a good date.

I was thinking about those little stars when my mind wandered to people. You know, those tiny flecks are just as important as the big stars. Have you heard that metaphor, the corny one about the girls at the top of the tree being “good apples”, and that guys are just too lazy to climb all the way up to the top, so they pick the “bad apples” instead? Maybe these stars are like me on the ship, or in God’s eyes. Maybe I’m a faint star, the ones you don’t notice at first. But when you really look to see what’s out there, you find they’re all as beautiful as the next one. Not the same, but unique nonetheless.

Don't overlook anyone. Sometimes the quiet people have the most to say.

The Royal Navy

I’m not really sure where to begin in this update. All I know is that usually I am napping right now, and through Global Studies, which technically just ended. However, I was not in Global Studies. Instead I was witnessing something most don’t see everyday, even on Semester at Sea.

About two hours ago (around 8 am), we entered the waters of Diego Garcia, the largest atoll in the world (shaped like a foot!), near the Maldives. This island, owned by the British Naval Air Force, is a Naval air facility and military relic of the Cold War, used more recently in the war against terrorism with Iraq and Afghanistan, and is rarely seen by anyone other than government eyes. The landing strip on the island is one of 33 emergency landing cites in the world for the space shuttle. The United States Naval Air Force rents, or shares, this island from the British, and together they occupy this pirate-infested area, attempting to keep the waters as safe as possible.

My 8 am class got out early this morning (thank you Professor Kennedy), and apart from looking out the window, we could all feel that the ship had taken a break from cruising at full speed. I sprinted up the stairs and onto the 7th deck, looking out the windows of the sheltered area as rain drops raced down the glass. A girl behind me mentioned something about a submarine that had come up at the bow of the ship, and together we raced to the teacher’s lounge, which was surrounded by a deck only one or two others were standing on, dressed in rain gear and holding the railing, leaning against the rough wind.

The submarine had gone, but there to take its place were two tug boats and at least 4 other jet black speed boats, surrounding at strategic distances from both us and each other, pushing their motors to keep up along our side. They guided us through two red buoys, rocking back and forth in the waves. It seemed like we crossed an invisible line as we slowed and stopped (as much as a ship that’s not anchored can stop) and the speedboats moved closer to the ship. This morning Captain Jeremy had come on the system…

“Good morning and sorry for the interruption. In just a little while we will be making a stop at the port of Diego Garcia, where we will be dropping off two students and a staff member who cannot receive the medical attention they need in our facilities and will need to be air lifted to a hospital with the capabilities to treat them. Please do not be alarmed at the sight of any armed soldiers walking the ship, as it is routine for them to do a sweep and secure the area. Again, I apologize for the early-morning announcement.”

“Armed soldiers” was really the only thing people heard as we sat in the dining room for breakfast.

After standing on deck in the rain for a while, fairly wet and noticing that nothing was really happening at the moment, I ran downstairs to drop my damp notebooks off and grab a pencil (I originally had every intention of going to Global Studies!) As I made my way to my cabin, I passed the gangway, conveniently located on deck 2 near my room. The small space was crowded with Royal Navy soldiers carrying big guns, the deans, and the poor sick girls waiting next to their luggage to get off the ship, small and shrinking in comparison to everyone around them. I pushed through the small crowd to my room and eventually back upstairs.

By the time I had made it back up to the top, they were lowering a platform, and had hydraulic stairs folding out of a mystery door in the ship’s side. Onlookers leaned over the railings above the gangway, watching the process as safety bars were put in place, a Navy boat lined up backwards, and soldiers filed on to our ship, along with the first tame, trained dog I had seen in a while. After what I assumed was another quick search, the sick crewmember waddled down the ramp, carrying a suitcase in each hand and dressed in street clothes (something we don’t see very often on the ship). Next was a girl in my Travel Writing class, followed by another girl strapped into a gurney. A quick job for so much build up. Please pray that they all get better and can return to the ship in Singapore.

The Navy men filed off of our ship and back onto their boat soon after, each clutching Semester at Sea t-shirts. As our crew began to fold back the platform and walkway, we watched and waved as they unraveled their souvenirs, holding them up to get a better view. One man snapped a couple pictures of us and the ship with a wind-up camera I haven’t seen since middle school, and we waved and cheered in appreciation for their help. “Have fun in India!” one of them shouted out with a British accent as we began to drift apart.
As our ship began to move again, our guard boats lined up in familiar fashion and accompanied us back to the imaginary line between the buoys. Rumor has it Captain Jeremy REALLY wanted to see this area, and may have talked his way into these forbidden waters, but of course there were legitimately sick people who needed medical attention.

I just read a lot of cool information on Diego Garcia on Wikipedia. At Florida Tech, we’re not allowed to cite Wiki as a source, as anyone can make changes to an article, but I’m sure a lot of the information is at least mostly true. I can’t see the pictures, but I can read the information below them, which makes me want to be able to see the pictures all the more. If you’re bored, look it up. A forbidden, mysterious place I had never heard of until this morning. You learn something new every day.

Also, if anyone has any information or connections to the U.S. Navy, specifically work in marine biology, I’d love to talk. I’ve always wanted to train dolphins and sea lions to find bombs (no, really), and seeing everything this morning made me itch for more Navy activity, maybe even in another area of interest. I don’t know much about the Navy’s marine bio programs, but the more I see, the more I love it.