Days Leading Up To India

---

March 3rd---

The Indian Ocean is hands down my favorite ocean. The sea is so smooth which means NO sea sickness!!! Today in class somewhere in between talking about the Popul Vuh and ancient Mayan cities, a girl spotted a whale outside the window of the classroom. It was sooo cool! Too bad class had to ruin a perfect whale watching opportunity.

Anyways, last night was the ultimate SAS’er competition. It was kind of like a Miss America pageant but instead of bathing suit ware, they had international ware. And the question and answer session was about why they thought they were the ultimate “global citizen”. It was entertaining but I didn’t stay to the very end because I had a ton of homework and reading to do. They give us so much reading to do on this ship…its insane!

Before the competition, me and group of friends started planning our 5 day stay in Japan. Our plan is to buy a rail pass in Chennai (hopefully) for $300 and go to a different place in Japan every day. We will start in Kobe and end in Tokyo (but get back on the ship in Yokohama). Also, we have been talking about Hawaii. My friend is from Hawaii so she has been giving me a lot of good tips. Hopefully we will be able to camp on the beach.

It’s crazy, because you try to focus on the next port you are going to, but all these other countries keep spinning around in your head. You try to plan everything at once. It’s fun because you get all excited about every country, but then you also get extremely overwhelmed!

After dinner, I went to an information session about India. It is led by one of the students on the ship who is originally from Chennai and the inter-port students. It was pretty helpful to hear them talk about all the things to do and see. I love when one of them looks at the outfits we are weraing now and say something like "I respect what you are wearing, but I would never be able to take you home to my mom looking like that". I think it's really funny, the difference between Indian and American clothing. It's soooo different!

After that, our ship turned off all the lights so everyone could star gaze. We all went to the top deck on the front of the ship (overlooking the top point) and laid down. It was really crowded because people wouldn’t sit down and kept stepping on you to find their friends. That was the only bad part. But other than that it was amazing! Everything was so clear and pretty! Kind of like a giant planetarium! We all ended up staying out there until they turned the lights back on (which was around 11). At this point, I forgot that clocks were adjusting yet again…this time only a half an hour….weird! But this still meant less sleep ugh!


MARCH 4th---

I’m pretty sure everyone wants to just get off the ship already. I think we have heard so much about India (mostly things that just freak us out), that we just want to go already! We still have 2 more days and they are definitely dragging at this point. We actually could have been there already, but our ship goes really slow because we need to have the school days to complete the trip. In our library they have a computer that shows Google Earth and you can watch the little "ship icon" move to see where we currently are. Appearnetly we are either near or in the Bay of Bengal and somehwere around Sri Lanka (as of last night).

Today I started my malaria medicine once again. India is a hotspot along with Africa I guess. Just one of the many amazing things about Africa and India: Disease Friendly! My biggest concern right now is clothing. I really don’t have anything to wear. I was listening to my friend Ritika talk last night about appropriate clothing at the pre-port India seminar and it really started to freak me out. She was like your legs, feet, stomach, shoulders and head need to be covered. Okay so let’s think about this….it’s over 100 degrees, it is dirty (they said anything you wear can get ruined) and if you don’t wear this stuff people will stare or spit at you! I think my best bet is leggings, sneakers and tanks with a zip up. I just can’t imagine wearing dark jeans or leggings (that attract heat) and zip ups everyday…..I’m going to be sweating to death!

My plan is to go to a market place the first day with some friends. So hopefully I can find some scarves or a sari or something (maybe a long tunic) that I can wear. I know that there are dress differences between the North and South of India but the South (where I’m going first) is the most conservative and traditional. She told me places like Agra and Mumbai might be more modern (wearing shorts and tanks), but even that is still rare.

As for the food….they pretty much looked at us and said, “I’m really sorry but you WILL get sick…at least once.” GREATTTT…..can’t wait to puke all night! I’m pretty sure I’m going to live off of Pepto. Today in class we somehow go onto the topic of how much stuff is used on the ship (such as food, soap, water and stuff like that). Apparently the ship invested in thousands of rolls of toilet paper in Mauritius to stock up for India…..enough said!

The food is different in the North and South too. The Americanized Indian food you get at food courts is from the North and things from the South normally revolve around rice and curry and eaten off of banana leaves (to get a different but uniqe taste). But they eat with their hands in both regions….that is going to be fun!

Tonight is Show and Tell, which is really just a fancy name for the SAS talent show. I think there is also a Bollywood or Indian dance performance tonight as well. I guess I’ll just have to wait and find out.
Tomorrow is our last day of classes before India. We have pre-port tomorrow, so hopefully that will help with safety, food, dress and religion questions in India. I’ll try to keep everyone updated once I go explore Chennai the first day!

---