Starting the first day, one of the most prominent yoga instructors came onto the ship with two yogis, and did a demonstration of the different styles. Afterwards we got to do positions with her and I got her to sign my mat ☺ Once getting off the ship, we had only about four hours until our trip left, so Brad, Armand and I left the ship to go kill some time. The smells in Chennai were not that bad, the heat wasn’t that strong, and the place wasn’t as dirty as everyone made it out to be. This city was very busy don’t get me wrong, but the people were just doing there own thing and we were just there to partake in the adventure. In other countries we have visited, the people we have met treated us like visitors and definitely treated women better. Here, it was like we were locals- we never really got looked at differently. I mean obviously there was a ton of beggars, and people who tried to sell us stuff constantly, but it wasn’t too overwhelming. Also it felt a lot like Israel in the fact that men treated women pretty poorly. Even to us they didn’t really listen to women to the full extent, which was pretty alarming. The taxi drivers or rickshaw drivers were so fun- these were open motorized cars/scooters that drove us around the city. We shopped that day for a while (didn’t buy too much don’t worry). At around 4pm we met up with our group (I did an SAS trip here called Agra and Varanasi). We drove to the Chennai airport and flew to Delhi to our 5 star hotel (the Ramada), which was absolutely gorgeous. They put a red dot on our foreheads and gave us Indian lays as we entered this totally gaudy, gold, beautiful hotel. It was so interesting to me how dirty and run down a lot of the city looked and then all of sudden the hotel popped up and was so amazingly beautiful. A lot of India felt like this kind of juxtaposition. There would be people begging on the street, and then all of a sudden an amazingly dressed wealthy looking woman walking right by. There was even a gross looking street vendor right next to a gorgeous restaurant. This was interesting to me, and I loved how my eyes were wide the entire time I was there.
Five am wake up call to go to the train station. This honestly felt like Slumdog Millionaire. There were so many people! Even at 5am! There were people running through the tracks, a ton of deformed beggars, and just a massive amount of people. Fun fact- 25% of the worlds population live in India! I found this incredible and honestly, you felt it. There were so many people everywhere, all different walks of life. Every person looked really different too, which I wasn’t expecting. Anyways, we took this train to Agra (about two hours) which felt pretty standard, no horror stories here. Getting into Agra we went to Fatehpur Sikri (made out of red sandstone). We went to visit a ton of temples so they kind of became a blur, but this one was extremely beautiful. We also visited a marble shop and we were shown how they make the marble that the Taj Mahal was made up of. We saw the Agra fort, which was the first time we had a view of the Taj Mahal. I first spotted the Taj and immediately took a step back. The whole reason I was so excited to go to India was to see this, so seeing it for the first time (even if it was in the distance), I just paused and tried to remember the moment. We went to the Taj right after and I honestly felt like I was walking through a post card. It was so surreal. All of it was so beautifully breathtaking, and I took way to many pictures. At one point we did a jumping picture, and I actually fell into the holy water- so embarrassing. Indian people were taking pictures of me… it was terrible! But all in all, it was amazing to be there and I felt so lucky to experience such a wonder of the world. We took the train back that night to Delhi. The train at night was a little scarier because the beggars just got worse and worse. It was crazy how many deformed people there were. We heard that if you came from a poor family in India parents would beat their children into deformity, so they could get more money for the family. I saw a man with elephantitis, a ton of children with no legs and arms, and old men crawling and moaning on the ground. It was very disturbing, especially when they would grab at you and yell. I’ve seen beggars before, in Peru they were very similar but these people were just so sad looking. Anyways we got back to our hotel to this amazing dinner where they had a dance floor set up for us. We danced all night here to Indian music and ate the best food ever! Every meal we had was incredible… I love Indian food so this was very fun for me. I was a little scared in the beginning to eat a lot of the food because SAS really scared all of us (giving us Pepto ect.), so I didn’t eat a lot in the beginning. But no worries- because by the end I was legit drinking the water and licking the ground, and I feel fine.
7 am breakfast to go on a city tour where we passed Raj Ghat, Humanyuns Tomb, Raj Path, Rashtrapati Bhawan, and a variety of government buildings. It was amazing to me how much Delhi looked like Washington DC. There was no trash, no beggars, and all the buildings were new looking with a lot of security. We flew to Varanasi later that day which took about two hours. The flights were amazing. The food on the flights were great, the service was awesome, and it was amazing to me how much I was able to sleep during these travel times. These SAS trips run us to the ground. It felt like we were literally traveling the whole time (with no sleep) from train to bus to plane it was crazy. When we entered Varanasi I really didn’t know what to expect. This city looked so different than Delhi or Agra or Chennai. It was dirty, busy, crowded, and had such different smells. It was exactly how I pictured India, and I'm so glad I got to experience Varanasi. That night we all took these rickshaws (these were bike powered not motor powered) through the city to the Ganges River. This sunset ride was amazing- the colors of the stores were all so bright, there were cows and bulls just walking through the streets, monkeys climbing from the walls, and a ton of people and cars just going every which way. The shops were all lit up, the street food smelled amazing, the women on the side walking in these elaborate saris- it was just unreal. That wasn’t even the best part- when we got to the river we entered this huge ceremony. It was called Aarti at Dasaswamedh Ghat at River Ganges- there were about 100 boats filled with people all with candles and flowers, about 500 people all on these steps overlooking the water and everyone was praying and singing. There were about 10 young men standing at the front of the water doing different ceremonious dances and spraying ashes into the sky. There was an array of colors, lights, sounds, and smells. An extreme sensory overload. I went down to the river and some priest came up to me and dragged me this little seat where he made me recite these chants about my family. He put flowers and paint all over me and then told me to put these flowers in the Ganges River. It was a very spiritual experience and I really felt a connection with India after that.
We woke up the next morning at 4:30 to take a boat tour down the Ganges River. Surprisingly cold out, it was a very different experience being at the river before sunrise. Many local people were dunking in the river doing different ceremonious rituals. This river by the way is the same one that a British student died in a couple years ago. It’s so infected because so many people pee, poop, throw up, and die... I mean the list goes on. It’s not clean and certainly not a river to bathe in. Well Casey and Andrew of course jump right in and start doing the rituals. Now, I wasn’t about to do this… but I was however going to do something else. Before the sun rose over the river there were about 40 or so natives doing sunrise yoga on this stage while a man in a headstand chanted the poses. I got up on stage with these people and as the sun rose I did the postures with them. It was absolutely incredible. The last pose was with your arms open just laughing and throwing your head back. I honestly felt a true state of bliss at that moment. It was the most extraordinary emotion. Not only were these two events going on but also there was a huge crematorium right next to us with smoke towers and I'm pretty sure dead bodies all around. It was really mind-blowing that there were these bodies around us and yet such life and happiness on the other side. After seeing this part of the river we traveled back by bus for a city tour of Varanasi and an excursion to sarnath. Now I honestly never thought I say this but taking some of the classes on the boat has helped me in more ways then I can explain. Normally going into museums, I enjoy learning about what I see but I never really fully understand what I'm seeing. I am taking this art history class on the boat about Buddha, and for the past two months I have been looking at these photos and studying their history. As I walked into this museum in Sarnath my jaw dropped. Seeing the actual relics and statues that I have been learning about was truly a unique experience. I was running around this museum like a crazy person explaining little details to people and truly amazing my fellow students. I really appreciated for once what my teacher had taught me and the history of this culture. It was beautiful how people from all around the world came to some of these statues (such as the preaching Buddha at Sarnoth) to come and pray to him. This was truly eye opening. That afternoon we flew back to Delhi and then back to Chennai. We got back to the boat around 1am to end the SAS trip.
So we still had 2 more days in Chennai and everyone I had talked to said it was boring, the rickshaw drivers scanned them, all they did was shop blah blah blah. I of course did not fall into this category. Pack-er-in-er here we go! Well my one friend (Adam) from Penn state met this man a couple days before named Johnny Eagle who he was raving about. We decided to give him a call around 7 to take us around Chennai. He shows up in this car (he had his own driver), a total baller. He sold us some precious stones from Sri Lanka, and really showed us around. We went to this one ashram in the morning were we meditated and ate their local fruits. We then went to another ashram to check out a yoga class (unfortunately we missed the time but told them we would go back tomorrow). We then drove about two hours to a crocodile farm, a snake-charming event, a temple by the water, and a famous statue called the butterball. We had lunch at this local place which was amazing Indian food and made our way back to the ship around 6pm. Getting off the ship we met this man named Madu. He was also so cool- claimed he was a famous Indian movie star? Anyways,.... we got ready to go out and went to this hookah bar called Mocha. This place was unreal. There was a rooftop infinity pool with these giant blow up balls on the water. We figured out that you could get into these balls and go onto the water inside of them. This was awesome! We looked like humans in a hamster ball on the water. Soo fun! Went to bed at 1 and woke up at 4:30 to Madu at the port.
Madu took four of us to the same yoga place we went to the day before for the 6 am class. This was one of the most amazing experiences. We did the 12 postures that are designed for sunrise and the sun was actually rising behind us. There were about 50 locals and us in this outdoor room all on these hand-woven mats. It was truly a moving and special experience. Well it just kept getting better. Tara and I stayed at the ashram and decided to get Indian massages ($6 only mom!). Now this was an experience… I went into this room and got completely naked (no towel) and she sat me on this wooden table. She then drowned me in this natural oil (hair, ears, face, back, stomach) literally everywhere. The massage was very strange- kind of like a Tai massage, a lot of lifting of the legs and almost putting me in yoga poses. I looked to my left mid way through and there was a boiling pot of water (ya this freaked me out). There was this wooden door in the back of the room that kind of looked like the wooden doors on the sidewalk of NYC. Well she opened it up and there was a little stool to sit on. Thought I was going to die. She put me in there, shut the doors and there was a hole for my head to stick out. This was so strange, oh and she left the room! Well about 15 min later im sweating so much, and of course a huge 5-inch cockroach crawls right in front of me! It was truly an experience. I then had oil all over me for the rest of the day and ya I got a lot of looks but I felt awesome. After this Madu picked us up, and we to get henna tattoos in a local market. We did some last minute shopping, ate some street food and returned to the boat around 1. Now the day before, Johnny invited us to his house for lunch/dinner. At 1:30 Johnny was there to pick us up (about 9 of us) to go to his house. His house was a 5 by 5 ft room and that’s it. His two wives cooked us this elaborate meal with nan, masala, dal, fish, gobi chicken, everything you can imagine. It was delicious and amazing to meet his family. He told us he has been bringing a group of SAS kids to his house like this since 1984 (he even had a picture of himself then with girls- so funny)! Well I also realized that my friend Matt, who did SAS a year ago, told me to meet this guy named Johnny boy. Well he was talking about this Johnny! They of course knew each other and it made me feel even more connected to him. It was the perfect end to my trip and really gave me a sense of what it is like to live in India. In other ports I have almost wanted to get back to the ship to sleep because I was so dead but I can honestly say I was not ready to leave India. It was such a magical place. That’s truly the only word I can use to describe my experiences there. Every minute I was in that country I kept saying, “I’m so happy”, and every minute got better and better. It was truly difficult getting back on the ship. I’m kind of in a state of depression because I know I wont be back there for a long time. I learned so much about my self there, about history and religion, and truly about life. I’m blessed to have been so fortunate to experience such a special place.
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