Mauritius and India

Mauritius
The highlight of my time in Mauritius was a field trip I did through semester at sea. It was called rainbow culture and religion. We visited a tamil temple, and Chinese, pagoda, a muslim cultural center, and the mahatma ghandi insitute where we saw classical Indian dancing. The architecture was quite amazing, so I took plenty of pictures. Before and after this trip I spent most of my time relaxing in our villa. It was about 10 dollars a night and it was beautiful. It just so happens that sas kids took over the complex and it was pretty much spring break. We had a lot of fun. It went by so fast and it was like a mini vacation. The population was mostly Indian and some Chinese. We kinda stood out.
India
Ok lets go day by day… Day 1 – got off the ship and didn’t really know what to do so of course we went to the market. We took a taxi and he brought us to this store and we were like ok whatever (the taxi and rickshaw drivers get commission if they bring tourists to their friend’s stores) but he took us where we wanted to go next. It was basically a mall but it had a lot of little shops. I bought a lot of stuff in India. At night I went to the welcome reception, that was pretty sweet. They put a red dot on our forehead and a yellow dot on our throat. Not really sure what was going on but they threw water on us (maybe holy water I dunno) and gave us flowers. There was food available but I’d already eaten and they had a few vendors selling jewelry and clothes And bags. There was live music and a dancer performing on stage. There was a violin (which is played with the neck on the players ankle and the body against his chest) and a mrdangam (the drumused in classical music in southern India) and a wonderful female vocalist. I have some video footage of them playing and of the dancer. That was awesome. Day 2 – off to my homestay. I did a Rotarian homestay, so they kinda have money. It wasn’t what I expected though. I wasn’t exactly hanging out with a family. My hosts were these two sisters, one of which was always working so basically it was me and two other SAS girls and our one host sister, Rabeque(Rebecca). She’s 23 and she was so cool. She’s a DJ and she was really into house/techno music. She is the craziest driver I’ve ever been in a car with. Driving in India doesn’t even compare to new york or boston. The dotted lines on the road don’t mean anything, you make up your own lanes. Stop signs are ignored. You don’t take your hand off your horn. It was crazy. We went shopping a little and then had dinner at her big house (she was in the process of moving into an apartment). Right after, we went to the rotary club for tea and a meeting. The district rotary governor spoke to us and we took pictures shaking his hand and receiving a gift. That was an honor ☺ Day 3 – we got up soooo early to go to Mahabilapurram (formerly mammalapurram) to see the temples and mosques. It was SAS style which means we went shopping most of the time and spent like 10 minutes at each temple. I was disappointed, we didn’t even go inside the temples, but I took tons of pictures. At night we went to a Bali-wood film. We saw Namaste London. It was really interesting how the people were so into it. When the hero shows up everyone screams and they cheer a lot and clap. There was an intermission, which was different. I saw ads for new films that are coming to theatres soon and I’m so excited because I didn’t know that pirates of the Caribbean is coming out when I get home. Anywayyy…. Day 4 – we got a little more sleep but I went to the beauty parlor in the morning and got my hair done. I dyed it darker again and got highlights. It looks like how I had it in high school. I like telling people I spent almost 10, 000 rupees. The currency exchange rate was good, things were very cheap. We ran a few errands and stopped for the best smoothies in the world (haha I can say that;). We were allowed to bring our homestay sister on the ship and we ate there then got ready for a night on the town. We went to a club that was playing intense, heavy techno music. It was a lot of fun. We were soooo exhausted by the end of this. I slept on the ship that night and then the next day (Day 5) we slept in and then met Rabeque at the market. Getting there is another story. Youknow how I told you the rickshaw drivers get commission if they take us to certain places? Well we tried to make it clear that we wont get into his rickshaw until he agrees to take us only to the place we want to go and we’d pay him a certain price. He agreed so we got in. Well a minute later he turns around to us and says I want to take you to a few shops, and we said no. A minute later he asks what time it is and we say 1:15, so he says oh the market doesn’t open until 2 anyway so we’ll just go to shops until it opens… haha no the market opens at like 10 am so we refused. Then he begs us just to look and we don’t even have to buy anything, we’re getting really annoying so we raise our voice and say No take us here and that it, you agreed. Then he pulls over and tells us he can’t do that and to get out.. I was a little freaked out, we were on the side of the highway. We argued for a while and he waved over another rickshaw driver and told us to get out and go with him. This guys took us where we needed to go, but I was kinda nervous. We hung out at the market in Rabeque’s friend’s shops. Her friends were really cool, we exchanged emails so hopefully we’ll be in touch. We pretty much just ran around town looking for stuff we needed and just chilled. Back to the ship to make phone calls before departure.
India had a big impact on me and I don’t really know how to explain it. The poverty is heart breaking. It’s everywhere. You just try not to look at the children as they’re tugging on your hand begging for food or money. We saw many huts weaved out of straw. Toddlers wearing nothing but panty hose. It’s so hard not to help, but we couldn’t because we’d probably get bombarded by so many beggars. I can’t really describe it, homeless people in the US look like kings and queens compared to what we saw in India. Maybe I’ll make tons of money one day and return to India and help as much as I can. I don’t know if they have soup kitchens but something like that would be a big help.
Well I’ll be in Malaysia in a few days. I land in Penang, but I’m flying to Kuala Lumpur. Should be amazing.

Mauritius

Ok so by the way the whole free wifi thing didn't quite happen. I'm on my way to india now and don't have many internet minutes left so i'll probably talk a little bit about mauritius in my India blog, 'cause I gotta go! the internet is very slow and takes up valuable minutes. i'l be in touch asap~!!!!~!!!!

South Africa

wow i think i could live here. i had an amazing time in cape town. i did so much i'll try my best to recap. day one was a waste of 106 dollars because the township music field practica i went on was a flop. pretty upset but i'm over it (I’ll get a refund somehow) . my friend ben got us a tour guide for a few days so we did some pretty cool things. our first day with him we got a tour of the city and visited the district 6 museum. district 6 was once occupied by a large population (all black), but during apartheid they were forced to move into townships on the outskirts of cape town. it was very upsetting to see the photo of how many buildings and just all the activity that was in the area and then drive by what it is now, a big patch of dirt and grass. the apartheid is now over, but after having a good conversation with a local girl, I learned that they still struggle with racism. The girl I talked to was “colored” which means she’s a mixed race. We were at a club and she told me that the bar tenders were ignoring her and her sister and they’d only serve the white people. She was in a better mood when I expressed my opinion, she was almost astonished because I guess she’s never met a white girl like me who believes that we’re just people, we’re not our skin color or the texture of our hair. I learned a lot from just talking to people in the city. When we drove through the township we got a response that I wasn’t expecting. Everyone on the sidewalks would cheer and wave and give us thumbs up to greet us. Having tourism through townships is helping them out a lot. On our second day with our tour guide we went to cape point, the southern most tip of the continent of Africa. The views were sweet. There were huge waves. We saw a lot of animals that day like ostrich (which I ate for lunch- sooo good), baboons, springbok (which I ate the next day, that was my favorite), zebra, cheetah (in a reserve kinda, for tourists to come pet them). I saw warthogs and the list goes on… so I didn’t go on a safari, but I think I did pretty well. I’d have to say my favorite animals that I saw were the penguins. They were so cute and funny. I took a video of some of them walking around…. It amused me. It was nice to have a day off after that. Did some shopping, wrote all my postcards, went to an internet café and made a few phone calls. Caught up on some sleep too. I was planning on going to Table Mountain, but the wind was too strong so the cable car was out of service. I never did go up Table Mountain ☹ I went out to dinner at a place called Mama Africa for someone’s birthday. I had sparkling red wine (didn’t even know that exsisted) and a wild game platter consisting of crocodile, ostrich, kudu, and springbok. Didn’t really care much for the crocodile but I loved all the other ones, they make steak look bad. The morning after I went with my friends and our tour guide to Stellenbosch winelands where we got a tour of their factory and we were shown the process of wine making followed by a wine tasting. I sent a case of wine home (mom and matt- it better be there when I get home) they were like 11-16 dollars a bottle and the minimum per case was 12 so I kinda splurged. South African wine is amazing so it will be worth it. I think I slept the rest of the day because I stayed out pretty late the night before. Ok so heres the part that will shock some people. I know I wrote in my post card to you mom that I did not go sky diving… well I wrote those post cards before I jumped out of the plane. So yeah I went sky diving in South Africa, who else can say that? It was the best thing I think I’ve ever done in my life. If I ever get the opportunity to jump again I’d do it and I wouldn’t even be scared. The feeling was just incredible. For 30 seconds I was falling at 120 miles per hour and after the parachute is pulled it’s smooth sailing for another 3 minutes. I had an instructor attached to my back and he pulled the parachute. I could see Robben Island and Table Mountain from the best seat in the house. Just amazing. I went out for one more fantastic dinner and night of dancing then slept in. Around 11:30 am my roommate and I went to Green Market Square to shop at the market. I got a really cool canvas painting of silhouettes dancing and playing instruments. I bought a wooden mask and a small ebony statue of abstract people kissing… and of course a few things for people back home. It was so hard to leave Cape Town… my description might now sound all that amazing, but the city really affected me. Scientists are trying to prove that all of our DNA traces back to Africa as our place of origin. Maybe I was home for the first time and I felt so attached to it. Everyone felt it. I was almost depressed when we got on the boat. I am getting pretty bored on this ship, my classes are pretty demanding so I feel like I’m cramming in so much in between ports. I only have 44 class days (only 22 class meetings per class) so I guess it is pretty accelerated. I’m used to having the weekends to catch up on work for all my classes, but here I don’t have classes, and there’s no way I’m going to spend my time in port doing homework on the ship. So now I’m on my way to Mauritius… did you know Mauritius has free wifi internet throughout the entire island? So I’ll definitely try to get in touch with people at home when I have free time. If anyone has skype let me know and I can basically call you for free (sort of like aim or msn messenger). Soo mom you should download that program www.skype.com I think. I dunno google it. Well folks thanks for checkin up on me I’ll try to blog again while I’m in Mauritius (I’ll definitely send a shout out to the Desai family!) Love you all! <3Kim

Cape Town South Africa

i'll be writing asap... can't wait to tell you everything,, but it will be quite the novel. just thought i'd let you know i am still alive and well! cheers!