India

India Day 1
I awoke to find a layer of dust outside of my window. I Ate breakfast and waited to be called to receive my customs form and shore pass which I must carry with me at all times while in India. I left for the city orientation with my friends Sam and Maggie at 1. We saw St. Georges fort, St. Thomas’s cathedral, visited a few shops, and the most pretty Hindu temple I have ever seen. The temple was built to honor the god Shiva. We had planned to take a rickshaw after that and find a place to shop and use internet, but we decided it was too late and planned for tomorrow. Traffic in India is indeed horrible, but in my opinion, Ghana was worse! The sidewalk is very rarely used for walking. The majority of people we saw on the sidewalk were sleeping. I’m extremely glad that we were able to visit Ghana first. I feel as if I would not have been prepared for the beggers and sellers that try to swarm you.

Days 2 and 3
The next two days consisted mostly of shopping and wondering around Chennai. We hit two major malls: the City Centre and Spencers Plaza. The City centre looked like a typical American Mall with about 4 stories. Spencers Plaza however, looked like a warehouse with as many stores shoved together as possible. I bought the movie Slumdog Millionaire, the first two seasons of Psych, and the first season of Heroes. We also managed to find internet for 30 INR an hour. We were extremely lucky that only one of our rickshaw drivers tried to take us to a store where he would get a kickback.

India Day 4
Maggie and I had been planning on visiting the local theme park, MGM Dizzee World, for quite awhile. The port agent that is employed by semester at sea was running a special to rent a taxi cab for 5 hours (or 50 km) for the flat rate of 850 INR. We were told to book two hours in advance so we were up and ready to book the taxi at 8 AM. We told the port agent that we would like to book a taxi and take advantage of the 5 hour special. Of course, he barely speaks English and has no clue what we are trying to say. We finally grab the flyer with the 5 hour deal printed on it and tell him we are trying to get to MGM Dizzee World. He tries to tell us that it’s too far and we would have to pay 3000 INR because it’s in Mallamapuram. This is a total lie. Dizzee world is 25 KM away and halfway to Mallamapuram. Even if it was in Mallamapuram, there is no way we would ever pay 3000 INR to get anywhere in the surrounding areas of Chennai. We filed a report with the field office on how unreliable their port agent is and then tried to decide weather or not we still wanted to try and make it there. We decided to nap on it and make a final decision at lunch. After eating a great meal of pita bread and tiramisu cake we (and our friends Katie and Kareem) decided to try and find a taxi willing to take us there. As we were leaving the ship, we noticed that a different port agent was sitting at the desk. We decided just to see how much they would try to charge us. Surprisingly, this person said it would only cost 1700 INR for the entire trip. So we ended up paying the 850 we thought it was originally going to be. When we pull up to the park we are not even sure if it’s open. Turns out, half of the park is under construction. We could still ride on the majority of the rides though. Dizzee World was huge! It was also somewhat sketchy. We probably wouldn’t have agreed to ride these rides if we were in America, but we decided to chance it J . We ended up staying for a good two 1/2 hours and rode as much as we could. The type of rides were the same you would find in America: tea cups, roller coasters, ferris wheels, swings, etc.

India Day 5
Drove 2 hours to the temple city of Kancheepuram. The name “Kanchepuram” literally means “Golden City” and is one of the seven most sacred places of pilgrimage for Hindu’s. We saw a total of 3 temples in the morning. The first temple is named Kailasanatha temple and is adorned with beautiful Hindi paintings. The second is called Ekambareswara which contains a total of 10 stories and was built to honor the god Shiva.

The final temple was named Vaikuntanatha and is one of the oldest temples in Kancheepuram.
After seeing the temples at Kancheepuram we drove to Mahibalipuram for lunch and more sightseeing. Lunch was served buffet style and had some of the best spicy shrimp I have ever eaten. They also served ice cream for desert! The town of Mahabalipuram is ancient port city. The place we visited was a cave with carvings that depict daily life and mythological Hindu stories. The second monument we saw is called the Five Rathas and contains amazing life size stone carvings of elephants. The last temple we saw was called the Shore Temple located along the coastline.

Overall I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed India. The only real negative I experienced was the “hawkers”, who are people who try to sell you stuff on the side of the road. I don’t mind being bugged by a few, but at one point I had about 7 people following me and trying to sell me stuff. They are not dangerous, just extremely annoying