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!