Vietnam and Cambodia love their Eric Clapton

No seriously, they really do! I heard it on the airplanes in Cambodia, most restaurants, along with several books on him in the bookstore. Still Cambodia and Vietnam were really interesting and I had an amazing time. The first day I caught a flight via my SAS trip to Phnom Penh, Cambodia which was possibly the shortest flight I have ever taken at around 13 minutes in the air. Once we had arrived we headed straight to the National Museum which was a former temple and is now loaded with tons of religious artifacts from Hinduism and Buddhism. They also had some cultural items and photographs, but a lot of it was stone sculptures of different gods. A lot of this information was related to the French occupation in Indochina, but we were not allowed to take pictures inside so you will just have to trust my descriptions. After that we went down to the Mekong River for a sunset cruise in a double decker boat which was really pretty. We also got to see a floating village where the entire house was built on the water, pretty neat! The last stop that night was the Palm Tree Orphanage which is actually set up through semester at sea. These kids were a lot older than the ones I played with in Thailand, and it was more on a one on one basis. I hung out with a 14 year old girl named Srim who is in the 6th grade there. She was very sweet and her little brother was there as well. She drew me a picture and showed me a lot of her favorite places, especially the garden near the entrance. She was really sweet, but we were shocked to find out that people really don't adopt the children that go there. In Thailand, those children were normally ending up in Europe or the U.S. but apparently there are some major issues with adoption from Cambodia, who knows but I'm sure Angelina Jolie's done it before! She stopped at this really swank restaurant, exactly what you want to do after leaving an orphanage (cough cough sarcasm cough cough good planning SAS), and the food was actually not that good. It was a lot of fish which I tried but it just was not my style so I ate a lot of fruit and spring rolls. Our hotel was equally as fancy, obviously set up through SAS because I would not be the one planning to stay in places like that, and we finished off the long day of driving around with the ice cream in the restaurant downstairs.

The second day was really emotional but one of the most important for the whole trip. Our first stop was the Tuol Sleng Museum which used to be a high school in Phnom Penh before the Khmer Rouge took over. Once they had they turned it into a detention center and torture chamber for the upper classes along with all of the intellectuals in the society. This part is kind of depressing for some so if you don't want to read it please skip ahead. We walked into 2 of the buildings and saw torture chambers where the floor was still stained with blood and they had pictures of how the people died on them. In addition, they had photos on the wall of one building of the people that were held there along with some torture photos. They had these gallows things where they hung people by their hands before sticking their heads in water, a trick they apparently picked up from the KGB agents. Upstairs in one of the buildings they had a lot of history of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot among other things. They posted the national anthem during those 4 years and other scary things. This was incredibly intense and then we headed to Choeungek Genocidal Center or the Killing Fields where they would bus the people from places like Tuol Sleng to me massacred and thrown into the mass graves there. There were mass graves everywhere in back of this giant stupa where they had placed a lot of the skulls inside with ordered by age. The crazy part was that on the path around the mass graves there were actually still clothes and bones still sticking out because a lot of people still haven't been excavated yet. There are just so many people buried there that it is almost impossible. In addition, there were a lot of signs up explaining what each part of what happened in each place. This included how they put DDT on the bodies so they didn't smell and so the people around the Killing Fields wouldn't know what was going on. This was really shocking to a lot of us and the crazy part was really our guide, who told us to call him Kim. His father, sister and uncle were all killed because his father was a professor and a member of the upper and intellectual class in Phnom Penh. As part of being a tour guide in these areas it must be really painful but he said it was worth it to have people know what really happened. He said it actually made him feel better that people wanted to know and also that his life is so much better now that he doesn't have to worry about his life being threatened anymore. It isn't that Cambodia doesn't have any more issues, it has more than its fair share of corruption and is considered by many a "third world nation", but his life is so much more peaceful now that anything seems better than what he experienced in his childhood. Kim was really sweet and I have yet to have a tour guide that can stand up to his standards.

Back to the more upbeat stuff now! We then headed to the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda in Phnom Penh which was absolutely beautiful and reminded us a great deal of the Grand Palace in Thailand. There were so many Buddha representations in the Silver Pagoda I didn't know where to face, and they had my favorite story on the walls, the Ramayana from Indian culture or the Reamker in Cambodian. Our lunch was definitely better that day but Kim told us that it was really more Chinese than Cambodian. We had a little bit of time to hang out and do some shopping around the Russian Market which was fun, I have collected more than my fair share of fake purses among other things so far. We then flew from Phnom Penh to Seim Riep where we got to see Angkor Wat at sunset. We actually didn't get to go into the complex at that point but it was still neat to see the sun set on the other side. We had a huge buffet dinner with a bunch of other tour groups from around the world. As part of dinner we got a Cambodian dance show which was absolutely beautiful. This was really special because this is a form that was almost killed off because of the Khmer Rouge but it alive and well now. The women looked so beautiful in the outfits they wore and the men were very silly in their monkey suits among other things. Once we were at our next swank hotel, thanks to SAS, we got a tuk-tuk to the night market and did some shopping there. They actually had this fish massage thing there which I didn't do but it involves sticking your feet in a pool of water and having fish eat the dead skin off your feet. Sounds crazy but a couple of my friends did it.

The third day we woke up incredibly early to view Angkor Wat at sunrise which was beautiful but we were definitely tired for the rest of the day after that. We got to run in to view a little bit of the inside for about 5 minutes before we had to leave. We had a good buffet breakfast at the hotel before heading to the Ta Prohm temple. This was really neat because it was almost a jungle temple with trees growing the the ruins that were taller than any I think I've seen before. We then headed to Angkor Wat to explore more thoroughly which was really interesting especially because many of the relief sculptures inside were never finished because Cambodia was being invaded at the time. Unfortunately, we couldn't climb the huge stupas on the crazy steep stairs. We were there for quite a bit before heading back to our hotel for lunch. In the afternoon we went to the South gate of Angkor Wat with the faces on it, followed by going to the Bayon temple. This was really neat because they had the same faces all over the place similar to the ones on the South gate. There were a great deal of monkeys on the way to that temple which was kind of cute too. Apparently they aren't actually natural to the area because the fruit they eat isn't there, they just came because of the tourists feeding them. After that we wandered around to some temples and saw the Elephant terrace, and the Royal Palace along with the Leper king terraces. Finally we found some neat temples that were pretty cool, I'm talking about temperature, inside. It definitely over 100 and I believe 2 girls got heat stroke on our trip. We then went to the airport where I managed to get some Dairy Queen along with a foot massage to make up for all the immense walking and sweating I had done. I'm pretty sure none of us have any toxins left in our systems anymore. Once we were back in Ho Chi Minh City we went to a pizza shop to hang out for a bit and explored a little bit.

The fourth day I woke up early to go get a dress tailor made, which actually turned out fantastic for only $27 US. MY friend who took me to this specific shop also led me to a DVD store where I did a little bit of damage as well, I'm hoping those get through customs on the way back! We then went around the Ben Thanh market for a bit and found more than our fair share of fake purses among other strange items. We got some juice before heading back to the ship to drop our stuff off. We hung out for a little while eating pizza and seeing one of the new movies before I met up with my roommate Megan and our friend Scott. We walked around Ho Chi Ming for a bit before deciding to go to this jazz club called Sax 'n Art which was really neat. They actually played a lot of old school songs that we recognized which was neat and it was fun to just hang out there for a bit. After we got back we watched some "Meet Joe Black" before bed because we knew we should be up early the next day.

The last day I went shopping with a friend, Patricia, for decorations for the Ambassador's Ball which was are both on the committee for. We walked around the market I went to the day before and also some shops around it to find some office supplies along with paper to do some of the decorations. After that I'm sorry to tell ya Dad but I caught a motorbike ride to the War Remnants Museum. I swear they use them as a form of taxi all over the place here and it was actually a ton of fun! We got lunch at this chain called Pho 24 which had the traditional Pho soup in huge bowls, which was awesome, along with some spring rolls. Once at the Museum we ran into a lot of other SASers so we could talk about a lot of what we saw. They had a lot of photos, mainly from LIFE magazine along with some others from the Vietnam War which was really crazy. I found that it really scary but also confused because a lot of the info was different from what I had learned in school, at least from the little bit of info we did get about that. It was definitely presented in a pro-Vietnam fashion, but big surprise we were there! They had a lot of other photos that were pretty disturbing about the Agent Orange and other things. The most interesting part were these drawings they had up from the children in Vietnam about their impressions of warfare or how the world should be. Some were really touching but others were incredibly gruesome. After that Patricia and I grabbed a smoothie before heading back to the ship on the back of a motorbike again. Once back I went out again with Megan and Scott to do a little grocery shopping before on ship time. We also got these great waffle wafer thing from this street vendor which were SO delicious. Once I had picked up my dress with my friend we headed up to the barbecue that SAS set up for us on the ship which was awesome just to have a good hot dog and burger. At that point I have started to work on this blog and we started a lot of our movies once Cassie got back from her Cambodia trip. Overall Cambodia was my favorite trip I have been on so far because it was so interesting and emotional in general. Vietnam was interesting but I do wish I had enough time to do the Cu Chi tunnels or something like that, but I'm definitely still happy. In 3 days I will arrive in Hong Kong which is pretty exciting and it kind of feels like we are winding everything down, although we still have around 6 weeks left. Oh well!

Thai Massage, I think yes!

Thailand has been amazing and I especially enjoyed all of the food I had so I will definitely miss that until I get home for a "Taste of Thai"! The first day we couldn't get off the ship for a while so we didn't get to go explore before our trip to the Sri Racha Tiger Zoo. This actually reminded a lot of the Bronx zoo combined with a circus. We were a little disappointed because we were hoping for a tiger sanctuary and it just ended up being shows of animals doing tricks. All that we hope is that they aren't abused, which is hard for us to tell. I guess this is the case with any of the ports we have been to but I noticed it the most about worrying over the welfare of the animals that were "performing". At the zoo we first ran off to take pictures with the baby elephants and then watched the Tiger show. This involved a lot of jumping through hoops.......literally........flaming ones. Then there was the crocodile show where people stuck their hands and heads in their jaws, I promise I'm not that stupid Mom. The funny part was that they actually sold skewers of crocodile outside right after the show, kinda screwed up. Last was the elephant show where they did a bunch of balancing things and actually had 2 SAS kids do some tricks with them. The entire reason for me going on this trip was so that I could feed a baby tiger so I was really excited to actually get to do that. Although I will say that my "baby" tiger was probably about the same size as me, not too comfortable while sitting on your lap I must say. They did have a really tiny baby one but it was wailing and I just felt bad for it I so I didn't want to bother it. It could barely even walk across the ground. After that we went to Mini Siam which has miniatures of a bunch of world monuments and Thai ones as well. Most of us wished this had been done later when we would've known what the individual Thai monuments were. They then dropped us off at the Harbor Mall near our port so we could get dinner. We had this "Hot pot" thing where you cook the meat in a stew in the middle of the table. Our tour guide told us it was Korean, but all I really cared about was that it was good food, which it was.

The second day was my trip to Bangkok to go see some sites and such. Bangkok was a little less than 2 hours away from our ship. We stopped at a mall early in the morning to pick up our boats to go down the river and canal system. The canals were really cool because there were so many temples along it as well as the neat traditional Thai houses. We saw a bunch of the temples from the river that we visited later. We got this amazing local Thai food which was one of my favorite meals from the whole visit. Then we visited the Wat Aron, sorry if I screwed this up, which is this temple with really steep stairs up the side of it. Its almost like climbing a ladder, but up the side of the temple, kinda scary, but not in comparison to bungeeing off the highest one in the world I guess. The next stop was a boat ride to Wat Pho which had the giant reclining Buddha. This giant golden Buddha was maybe the size of a building  it was so huge. The last stop was the Grand Palace which was so intricately painted and also had some ridiculous amounts of gold every. I think I might have gone partially blind because of it. There was also the Emerald Buddha where they change his outfits depending on the season. After taking some goofy pictures with the palace guards and funky statues everywhere we headed to one of the more modern buildings. This is what they themed "The King and I" after, with the combination of European and Thai designs. We finally headed back to the ship and got some dinner in Laem Chabang, our port city.

St. Patrick's day was probably my favorite of all the days in Thailand, because it was so ridiculous, although I will admit I have absolutely no Irish in me. In the morning we left early for the Pattaya Orphanage where we got to play with a bunch of the kids. the older ones were at school so we hung out with the toddlers mainly. This was also a school for the deaf because their facilities are so nice. It really was a nice orphanage, or at least better than what I was expecting, and they gave us a tour of their whole grounds. One of the little girls we were playing with actually was getting adopted that day so she was really excited and running around like crazy. Most of the adoptions from this orphanage normally go to Europe but there are some to the U.S. That was a really fun service and the kids really seemed to enjoy just playing around with people and all of the toys that we brought. We decided to stay in Pattaya for that night so we got to our hotel and checked in after the trip was done. The only thing is that a good portion of Pattaya was a red light district, or at least near the beach where we were, so there were a ton of older European men running around. Nobody really bothered us at all, even as 3 American girls, but most of the men related to us like we were their daughters or something, kinda creepy now that we think about it though. We went to a corner stop Thai restaurant which was really good and we got to do some people watching which was one of my favorite activities in Thailand. We did a little shopping, I might have a couple of DVDs that are not released in the States yet, whoopsies? Then we just headed to a corner bar so my friend could get a drink for her birthday, 21 of course. There we met Pang who was a 25 year old cocktail waitress at this corner bar (more people watching involved, and no it doesn't make us feel like creepers). She taught us how to play this dice game and then we also played Jenga and Connect Four with her, which we found hilarious later. We talked for almost an hour about her family in Bangkok and also her children who were 5 and 2. They lived with her parents, and apparently she was married to a Thai man but he wasn't a "good man" so she left for Pattaya. We decided that we wanted to watch the sunset on the beach so we invited her if she was off, but then we found out there was a little more to her cocktail waitress job than just serving drinks. She couldn't leave unless someone paid, which we thought about for a second, imagine that story of taking her to the beach with us! We decided against it in the end and watched the sunset on the beach, which was really gorgeous but the water was definitely not too clean. This meant that when we got back to our hotel we jumped in the pool quickly before getting ready for Kelly's birthday dinner. The funny thing is that Kelly is Irish and it was her 21st birthday so she was very excited. There were actually several Irish pubs in Pattaya so we went across the street to one for dinner, although I still got Thai food there. There we saw 2 of the med students from UVA on the ship walk past so they came and hung out for the rest of the night with us as our male version of protection. The funny thing was that we were more protection for them by pretending we were their girlfriends so the "ladies" wouldn't bother them. Overall Pattaya was definitely fun and we had a great time.

We tried getting breakfast at the hotel the next morning but it was only for two so we just left and got a taxi back to the ship to pick up our SAS trip. We headed to the Pattaya elephant village which I didn't feel as bad about because it wasn't a circus-like or touristy environment. They did have a Thai dancer performing with some live musicians for us first, but then all of the elephants came out. I actually got to jump up on the neck of one, bare back of course, and ride it was it went for its bath in the pond. I definitely got a little wet but it was really fun. We had 2 more rides with them later one and it wasn't as creepy about it because there were hardly an chairs on the elephants, but hopping up on their necks. The little kids of the professors on the ship were there and it was completely adorable to watch them in awe of the elephants. They even had a pregnant elephant, although I couldn't tell the difference. There was a mini drum show at the end and they showed us how the traditional Thai people used elephants for their work in farming as a demonstration. This was one of my favorite animal experiences for entire time in Thailand. After they took us to a souvenir shop, big surprise they tried taking us to jewelry stores every time. Normally I don't buy anything but I did get a pair of linen pants to wear in Cambodia so I can be a little covered up but not nearly as hot. After that we went to the Central mall, there are malls all over the place, and got dinner at this really nice Thai restaurant and then found some sticky rice with Mango on the street which was also delicious. We shopped for a little bit, which definitely did some damage but I feel that I got a lot for not too much money. Then we just took the taxi back to the ship and I hung out with the roommie, Cassie, watching my newly bought Twilight video, yes we are a little bit of nerds.

The last day in Thailand was pretty interesting. I went to the Nong Nooch "cultural" village. Now what I had expected was a rural village where we get to experience the culture a little bit more. This was another show environment, but I didn't mind too much because they had some beautiful orchids and gardens in general. It made me want to go back to Longwood gardens, ideas for the trip back up Dad? There was also a performance of different types of Thai dancing from the different regions in Thailand. This was really neat because they do the crazy hyperextension of the wrists that makes the hands look really graceful but incredibly painful. After that they did a mock Muay Thai fight, I wouldn't have wanted to see a real one because I don't think I could handle it, but this was at least interesting. The last part was another elephant show that was really circus-y but I've found that a lot of what we experienced in Thailand was really touristy. I haven't found too many people that got a real Thai local experience because most of the people don't speak English, unless it is a touristy place. At this place I also fulfilled the stereotype by getting some cheap Pad Thai but it was delicious. I swear that was the only time I got it so don't judge! We stopped again at the Harbor Mall on the way back but this time Rebecca and I went in search of a non-sketchy massage parlor. We found one and I got my first massage ever! This was 200 baht or the equivalent of around $6 US for an hour long ridiculously awesome traditional Thai massage. I also think this was one of my favorite points of the trip. I could have done it for longer but we needed to get back on the ship and work out our postcards. Thailand was definitely a shock to us but I enjoyed it because I never really felt as threatened as I did in some of the other nations. Nobody really harassed us at all and they were very friendly and nice people that didn't seem like they were always trying to squeeze as much money as they could out of us. It was a really neat place and I LOVE THE FOOD!!!!!

Our first "Saturday" experience all semester!

So the day we returned to the ship for the first time at sea we actually did not have any classes, the first time while at sea, which was fantastic. Although it was really on a Tuesday, it was the first time we had had a "Saturday" with nothing to do for a very long time. IT was just nice to sleep in for a little bit! They have had several smaller activities recently to keep us interested, like showing "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and then tonight they are showing "The Office" tonight along with "Gran Torino". In addition, they were playing "Clueless" on the circuit so we have been having actual dosages of movie time.

I also recently saw my courses for Geneseo which, as the nerd I am, I definitely got excited about. I did a lot of research on my schedule and hopefully it'll all work out. Unfortunately we're having difficulty figuring out when I will be registering and how, but I think it'll be fine in the end. We had HIV/AIDS awareness day and all wore red, in addition to a presentation on HIV and AIDS in ports. In Thailand, this is a major issue because of the high amount of prostitution there. This was really interesting until our friend Scott got sick all over his room later after that presentation. He felt the need to show us pictures too...not funny! I did give in and actually get a hair cut while at sea, but I'm figuring because we have reached and passed the halfway point of the ship that it was needed. Hopefully I won't have to get another one until I get back and see Jill! Also, we decided which style of dance we will be doing and we will be doing the Hukilau hula, which is the most common contemporary.

Later that night we had a karaoke night where even one of the little kids on board, who is unfortunately leaving the ship in Thailand, sang oen of the cutest little songs along with a whole bunch of silly students. They have given us pretty good food lately, including fudge brownies, fries, butterscotch pudding, torteloni, and Thai food for dinner tonight. Our Cultural pre-port was pretty good, as presented by one of our Life long learners who lived in Thailand for several years. She is also in my dance class and had a lot of info in general about neat places to go and what is good to eat. Also, we were actually bunkering in Singapore which was neat because I got to see the skyline from the ship's deck while I was at Pilates class. It looked gorgeous and it made us feel like we were back on the east coast looking at NYC. Like I said before Thai dinner tonight was great, but it was also an extended family dinner which was neat. Our "dad" bought us cookies and cake in addition to our awesome Thai dinner which was great. Well we're off to Thailand tomorrow and I will be going to a Tiger zoo, visiting the Grand Palace in Bangkok, a service visit to an Orphanage in Pattaya, an elephant village and lastly a visit to a rural village called Nong Nooch. I'm really excited for these trips and I'll have more stories about what we do in our off-time after these day trips are done with. Wish me luck!!

Sorry Mom, I've decided to stay in India and become either a Bollywood dancer or elephant driver

India was actually a whole lot of fun and I really enjoyed it, but South Africa is still ranked numero uno for me. The first morning we got on our buses to be taken to the airport in Chennai for our flight to Delhi. It took a long time to get out of the port, but once we got checked in and finally onto the plane it was probably the best service I have had on as airplane in a long time. They included a free meal with juices, coffee and candies afterwards. It was kind of strange how the pollution affected the clouds by making them seem less "fluffy" and definitely not perfectly white as usual. Semester at Sea actually keeps certain dining halls open while we are in port, and they closed the pool deck snack bar because of the pollution so that there wouldn't be as many people opening and shutting the doors to get in through there. Once we were finally in Delhi they had us walk down what seemed like a red carpet to find out tour leaders, which is pretty intense considering there were 90 of us in the group. That night we were divided into 3 hotels and ours was the smallest group but it was pretty nice, definitely better than expected. We went on a fairly long excursion to find an ATM and after as we were retracing our path into the market. We ate at a fairly nice restaurant but there were no definitions of what certain foods were, and we were a huge group, so I just ordered some chicken strips with french fries. My friend, Dylan, and myself did discover one of our favorite Indian foods there though, NAAN!!!! Its basically a flat tortilla-like bread normally with butter and garlic on it, but there was this amazing cheese one with feta inside. I have found that a lot of the wealthier children in the restaurants we went to liked to sneak around to us, normally myself, and then just sit there and stare at me. They only talked a little so I couldn't really hold on a conversation with them, and were very sweet natured, but were simply fascinated by us. After dinner that first night we hung out at the hotel for a little bit and made our way to the terrace on top of one of our hotels. There we actually saw several groups of fireworks which were apparently for the various weddings going on aroun the town.

We woke up very early almost every morning, usually at about 5 AM, when we would get breakfast. The second day we did a morning tour of some sites in Delhi, starting with they called the Birsa Temple. This is hindu temple where we had to remove our shoes and leave our cameras in a locker. The outside had a ton of funky spires and was colored in a deep red. I was happy that I recognized some of the gods in the various paintings and statues, but we didn't pick up our tour guides until Agra so our travel agents just told us a little bit about it, which was pretty unfortunate. The temple was actually dedicated to Vishnu who we are told maintains life in between creation and destruction. Once outside we had some of our first experiences with people trying to sell random objects, from bindis to kama sutra books. The next stop was a fountain at the gate and the Indian Gate. It is dedicated to the Indian soldiers who died in the Afghan War. It reminded me of the Arch de triumph in France. At this stop there were some children doing acrobatics for money, but I honestly couldn't think if I could actually give them money when they were doing some of the same tricks girls on my dance team in high school used to do, literally exactly the same, but they got quite a bit of money in general. The last stop in Delhi was a huge area of ruins that was a mosque of some sort, but because we didn't have good guides I didn't catch even what it is called. I'm planning on asking my art history professor on the ship what it is based on my pictures. There was this huge minuret and a tomb of someone, but it would've been much cooler if we had known who and what. After these sites we had a good lunch then hopped on the bus for a long drive to Agra. It didn't seem that long because we napped and the bus was actually really nice. One of the things I found interesting is that no matter what city we were in, in Northern India, the people were always trying to sell the exact same things to us. Also, I didn't see too many cows in the street in Delhi at all, bit in Agra and Jaipur there were definitely more. At one of our stops there was a little girl dressed up in finery and dancing for money while an older man played some stringed instrument. She seemed fairly unhappy while everyone was watching her, but when I came back later getting on the bus at the last minute I caught her dancing by herself and she seemed so much happier than when everyone else was around. Once we arrived in Agra they took us to a shop where they were receiving a commission, and it was really expensive so a lot of us were very upset because we weren't close to any cheap stores or market. After a bit of frustration at our travel agents we convinced them to take us to our hotel, all of us in the same one this time though! We got an amazing dinner in the rooftop rotating restaurant which we didn't realize at the time, because it was dark, but you could actually see the Taj Mahal from it! That night we found some really cheap internet and international phone calls so we were up til very late playing around with that.

The third day we had a tonga ride, or a small horse drawn carriage ride, to the Taj Mahal Eastern Gate. Unfortunately, quite a few were late so we missed sunrise, but we were still excited because we were at the freaking Taj Mahal! It was really neat to get all of the neat pictures that you see everywhere on MY camera. We had these little footie things so we didn't have to take off our shoes when we went inside, but you aren't allowed to take pictures inside so I have none of those. There were several neat things that the guide talked about, like the optical illusion of the v in some of the columns, the way light passes through the stones of the flowers inlaid in the building and the symmetry. There was supposed to be another Taj Mahal replica in black across the river for the Maharaja himself, but his son wanted to take over and imprisoned his father, thus stopping the construction. The foundations were laid though so you can see those. Plus, there are two mosques on either side of the Taj and the one on its right is a real mosque facing Mecca, while the other one is a dummy simply for symmetry's sake. The neat thing was that in several places around the city you could see the Taj and we got so excited almost every single time. It was so much more intricate than I ever thought! After that we went to the Agra fort which had a lot of history relating to the Mughals and the Taj. It was absolutely huge at around 2 kilometers around it. It was actually really beautiful, with the palace structure inside of the fort's protection. There was a huge dip for a moat outside but inside gorgeouse apartments for the wives and great intricacy in the designs. Once we came outside we discovered several monkeys just hanging out so there was definitely a photo shoot that followed that. After lunch we saved some of the Naan and gave it to some beggars outside. The interesting part was that the children begging were incredibly grateful and ate it immediately. The women with babies that were asking for money, for food, seemed upset when they just got food instead of money. This disturbed us a little, but the beggars were everywhere so we couldn't give every single person money. We had a long drive this afternoon as well in which we drove to Jaipur.  We had to stop twice at overpriced handicraft stores, but I did not buy anything there because we found most of it for cheaper in the market or otherwise. Once at our final hotel we had a performance from a young boy dancing with us and then also a cute puppet show portraying the different personalities in India. We went to dinner in the hotel which was absolutely amazing, probably the best food of the whole trip, but the service was the worst. Some people never got their meals and the entire process of getting our food and bills took around 2-2.5 hours total. Needless to say that ate up a lot of our night so we went right to bed afterwards. I was kind of upset because they were throwing this powder paint for the upcoming festival and we couldn't do it because the food took so long. Our roommate Chris did it though and he looked very funny and even left little hand prints on the key cards when we turned on the lights.

We barely grabbed breakfast the next morning before heading to the Amber Fort in Jaipur. There we got to ride elephants up the step incline to the high fort. This was really fun but I'm also planning on doing more elephant riding in Thailand, but it was still neat! Once in the fort we saw so many beautiful arches and mainly this awesome living area for the emperors that was coated in all sorts of mirrors. There were also 12 different apartment complexes that were super confusing for the 12 wives of the emperor at that time. After exploring all of the fort we came out and there was a woman doing henna so I got both of my hands decorated in it. I am a klutz so I messed up on wrist a little while trying to get money for her out of my money belt, but she fixed it instantly. After the fort we stopped and took pictures of this beautiful palace located in the middle of this body of water. I believe it was translated to the Palace of the Winds but I might be confusing that with the next palace we went to which was the City Palace. Before that palace though they took us to this carpet designer and textile printer store where we saw how they printed all the different designs on their clothes and the intense process of making the different rugs. The rugs were way to expensive for us to buy, but definitely a lot cheaper than you would find in the states. The funny part is that these are the ones imported to the U.S. and Europe in the stores and they are much more expensive because of the corporation getting a cut. In their fabric shop I did buy this beautiful skirt, which was more expensive than the ones of its kind in the market, but it was more detailed and intricate than the rest I had seen. The entire time I wore it in India I received some great compliments from the local women who said I had purchased one of very high quality, even though they didn't even know me. I am quite pleased with that purchase, especially considering its the item I spent the most on in India. The City Palace is incredibly beautiful and where the current Maharaja stays whenever he is in Jaipur, as you can tell based on whether there are two flags on the roof or one. We saw some neat historical items, like the clothes of this huge Maharaja, but my favorite part were these four arches representing the four seasons, which had all sorts of neat designs on them. This was one of the places where they had people selling items to us even inside some of the monuments, although not as desperately. After exploring the palace we had to return to the hotel because our bus had taken our bags back there. After that we went to the market where I got some neat scarves and shoes for cheap. We decided that that night we wanted a little taste of the U.S. because we had mostly eaten Indian food the whole time and didn't want to eat at the hotel again, thus we tried to find Pizza Hut. Our rickshaw driver got incredibly lost and we had to be very forceful in reinforcing the price we had decided on and it turned into  fiasco where we spent 45 minutes in a rickshaw piled high with six girls. For those that do not know what a rickshaw is, it is a 3 wheeled open vehicle that drives crazy in the insane traffic in India. They can be a little scary and fun because they are such an adventure. The pizza hut was a lot nicer than in the states and was probably the best that pizza hut had ever tasted to us, possibly because of our rickshaw adventure. The rickshaw back to the hotel was much better,but we had to ride backwards in it so we faced traffic, very scary when motorcycles are getting so close to us. At one light we were surrounded by motorcycles, which are another common vehicle in India, and all we could think about was them being a motorcycle gang, although they were just regular old citizens. It was still pretty scary! Normally I was assigned as the person that had to yell at the rickshaw driver until they stayed with our price and location to go to but I often found it hard to stay serious afterwards, it was just amusing to me having to fake being angry. That nights we came back and just hung out in the hotel for a while, but my two roommates had left that day because they were worried our flight would be too late and we would get dock time. I didn't give in to this because I didn't want to lose my money for our flight and the hotel that night, in addition to paying an extra 130 U.S. to get the flight back. I talked to them afterwards and they said they had a good time in Chennai, but they missed all of the fourth day Jaipur events and paid so much extra. Dylan, a girl a dad I swear, stayed with me in my room that night and we watched Erin Brockvich until we passed out, which was actually fairly early considering how tired from getting up early we were.

The last day we woke up to catch our flight back to Chennai. I was pretty sure Mom was terrified when she heard we had to stop quickly in Mumbai for gas and picking up more flyers, but I'm alive I swear! This flight we didn't get anything free to eat so I just waited until I got on the ship, which was definitely too late in the day. Most of the day was spent worrying about getting on the ship and flying but we got there with a couple hours to spare so we took a quick rickshaw to pick up some stamps and back to the port. There we discovered they had these handicraft stores where I bought my cool statue of Shiva Nataraja, or the "Lord of the Dance". Appropriate? I think so. I also picked up a couple more neat scarves. One thing I didn't notice until I got back was how dirty the ground was in Southern India in comparison to Northern, this might've just been in the port where we mainly stayed, but I definitely had a sock line on my foot once I got back on the ship. India was absolutely amazing and I saw some of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. The colors that the women wear are astounding and they stand out so much. It just makes you want to break out every single neon colored item you ever had, and then you realize it is nowhere near as beautiful as their sarees. The poverty wasn't actually as overbearing as I though it would be for me, and I'm not sure if it is because we have now traveled so much, but I definitely felt prepared so the experience. I would've liked to spend more time in Southern India and possibly do some form of a service visit or something along those lines, but I definitely enjoyed what I did and felt I got my money's worth and more. Hopefully Thailand is just as good if not better!

Just a quick update I am currently in Agra and got the opportunity for cheap intener so I am changing the format so that people can red it more easily. If you have any questions e-mail me at scnelson@semesteratsea.net Peace Out!