India: The Adventure Begins

Pulling into India was quite an adventure! We were all pretty exhausted from seven straight days at sea of classes and of course the Sea Olympics, which I will write about eventually! I want to remember the stuff from the countries first! I woke up around 6:30 to see us arrive in Chennai. Unlike the other ports, there was no real grace or beauty about pulling into Chennai, formerly known as Madras. It was incredibly humid and muggy and my camera lens would not defog up on seventh deck. There is an incredible difference between the frigid interior of the ship and the humidity outside! I stood next to Jane Wisner, the woman who ran our shipboard dependent children’s group and someone whom I confided in on the voyage and was a great woman with whom to spend time. She told me some about her experience on her previous voyage that traveled to India and she said it was one of those countries that you will never forget because of all of the vibrant sights, sounds and smells. There was a different feeling up on deck 7 as we pulled into Chennai, however, Because of the actions of some students in Mauritius who trashed the villas they stayed in and did not represent the ship, or the United States well, they gave us a little talking to during pre-port. Beth Hellwig-Olsen, our student life director pleaded with us to continue to be careful, Dean Larry asked to continue to be lifesavers and Dean Mike took on the major role of being the one to say that we all were hurt because of part of the student body’s actions. And…we were warned that India is often the turning point in the voyage. In some ways, it was all fun and games up until India and we had no idea what lay before us in Asia.

Preport the night before also starred our wonderful interport lecturers Sherad and Prujval. Dean Mike did his PhD research with Sherad with California and so they are old friends and can harass each other the way that only old friends can do. They are from Bangalore and along with their two children Ahbimanyu and Ashutosha has thick accents, but even the children can speak four languages. I put on a spelling bee on the way to India as well fo the children and Ahbimanyu decided he wanted to participate and he spelled all of the words correctly! Okay: back track to the spelling bee. It was awesome. Almost all of the parents showed up, and Jeff came to be my sticker man. I took the words for the kids to spell from their own vocab or spelling books and so Sage and Mischa Zimmerman, Maddie and Michael Milner, Sopahn, Hannah Maniates and Ahbimanyu spelled their wy to greatness. There was always an awkward pause as one of the children incorrectly spelled a word while Tela, Sarah, Jeff and I would wait for one of the parents to say: Nice Try or something to that effect. I ended up with 4 kids who spelled every word right which meant that I was buying frozen yogurt or a snack on 7^th deck for all four of them. Maddie and Michael regularly got treats from their shipsister who spoiled them anyways, but the other two were pretty excited. I got keychains for those who missed one word and then everyone got a Semester at Sea temporary tattoo. If you can’t tell already, I really like the kids I had.

Anyways, back to preport. The admin team and some of the faculty and lifelong earners participated in skits for us to teach us about India. Ohhhh Dr. Matt and his preport skits. At one point Sherad played the part of a rickshaw driver and as Dean Mike said: that is the best performance of a rickshaw driver I have ever seen a man with a PhD do! Haha It was pretty great. Dr. Dan, our global studies coordinator, also played a starring role in trying to get to the Taj Hotel. Haha It was good.

So back to pulling in happenings…Brianne, Ashley and I went to eat breakfast around 7:00 and then at 7:20 I headed up to deck 7 again for the Eucharist in Dean Larry’s cabin. This time it was Brenda the nurse and us students. There were only seven of us plus the Singells and the Tutus at the Eucharist. I definitely got teary-eyed again. It was wonderful and Mama Tutu has a wonderful singing voice. I went to my room and relaxed after that until the first round of Indian immigration. I went up when they called the trip CHE01 and had my face to face meeting with them, and we had our passports stamped. T one Chinese student on our ship, Zhimin, was not allowed to get off the boat at all in India. How sad. We were never given an exact reason, but it clearly has to do with the tensions in Asia.

I went to my yoga demonstration for my Mysticism course and began watching the students perform their asanas, which are the positions used in this form of yoga. However, we had to return to the faculty staff lounge to receive our Indian landing cards and customs forms. After about ten minutes we returned to the Union and finished watching them contort themselves into various positions. There was a chance at the end to try it out, and perhaps I should have, but I quickly stepped out. I grabbed lunch with Caitlin, Christina, Liz, Katie, Jen and some others which was nice.

I then went to the Union at my appointed time. As it turned out, Wes, my Internatioal Relations prof and shipdad was the trip leader, which meant quality time with Maddie and Michael too. Wes and Susan kept saying if I didn’t want them to sit with me it was okay and all of that, but I really enjoyed the company of those two kids. Maddie sat with me on the way there and we folded lots of different origami things, took a lot of crazy pictures and played hangman and the square dot game. Before we knew it we were pulling into the driveway of the farm.

We exited the bus and boy was it HOT. We had to walk a little way into the farm because the bus could not pull up far enough to drop us off exactly where we needed to be. We walked past two pretty big bulls with big horns and trying to keep Michael back from them was interesting. Haha We went to the backyard of the house and sat down while the owner of the farm told us all about his operation. I wish I could remember off of the top of my head what it was about, but at one point Maddie shot me the dirtiest look in the world and if looks could kill, it would have. It was some fact that one of us was right about and the other said was wrong, and I was right. I am really going to have to think to remember what it was because it was funny.

We began by eating a lunch prepared by him and his family. It was quite spicy and there were a lot of fried doughy kind of things, but boy oh boy was it good! Liz was on the trip which was nice and then after we ate, there was a demonstration by one of the workers as to how they harvest the coconuts from the trees. He scaled up the tree similar to the way in which our Amazon guide shimmied up the tree. He climbed up with his feet bound together by rope so they could hug the tree more easily and he shimmied up and then cut the coconuts down. Another man on the ground began to cut them open and give us straws with which to drink the coconut milk. I was really excited…this was my first taste of coconut milk and I had heard such fantastic things about the sweetness of it. And I was disappointed. It was warm water consistency nastiness. If I never drink another drop of that stuff, it will be just fine. However, I did get a wonderful picture of me taking a sip of it, so I guess that’s okay haha. We also had Coke and Pepsi in the old fashioned glass bottles which was a nice little throwback.

Then we began our tour of the farm. We started off by going to the coconut tree area of the farn. He described the process he has gone through to make this part of the farm successful. He used to irrigate the area and he had more trees with more fruit, but he has stopped irrigating it and has less trees with less fruit, but he still makes more money because the irrigation system was costly in its upkeep and in the water bills. We all took pictures by the trees and I got an amazing picture of Michael trying to break a coconut open on one of the trees. His face was just so intense and he was trying so hard with no luck. We then visited the eucalyptus area of the farm which smelled pretty good! Michael asked us what eucalyptus was used for and we all paused for a second and responded with “oil.” Haha The owner of the farm set us straight and told us it was used for just about everything, including paper and cooking.

We walked around the farm some more and then loaded the bullock cart to go to the village. We were all looking forward to the village part of the visit, but because we spent so much time on the farm that we did not have as much time to see people in the village. However, one of the highlights of this part of the visit was once again the children. Some people had brought things to pass out and one girl brought little containers of bubbles. She handed one to a boy of around 8 or 9 and he didn’t know how to use it. So, I took it from him and pulled out the wand and blew the bubbles and he was so excited! I then got a great picture of him blowing bubbles at me which was priceless.

I had walked this far into the village and then I hopped onto the bullock cart for the rest of the ride. The bullocks were long horned, big and scary looking and I was glad to be riding on the cart now and not walking in front of them praying they didn’t suddenly get some energy spurt. Plus, it was pretty hot and I enjoyed being a little lazy. Michael sat next to me and so I took it as my own personal duty to make sure he didn’t fall off the cart. One of the best moments of the cart ride was when we made the turn onto a very busy and fast road. We were still a slow slow bullock cart. We had to hurry, as fast as we could, to get all the way over to the left side of the road! Luckily, some of the vehicles slowed down for us to get across, but not many! What a spectacle we were! A bunch of mostly white people riding on the back of a cart in the middle of rural Chennai! Our next destination was the rice field of the farm which was across town. I mean, it was nice to see it and all, but most of us would have rather spent more time in the village than going to the rice field.

We boarded the bullock cart back to the farm and had one final coca-cola in a glass bottle and then began to leave. There was a Hindu temple on the property and so I snuck away from the group for a minute to check it out and take a few pictures. It was very ornate for being on private property and I became more convinced that this farmer was not one who was just trying to make it, but was doing pretty darn well! I got some great pictures of the Shiva linga out front and of the temple exterior. There was a locked fence around the temple, so I was not able to get a glimpse of what the inside was like. I went back to the group and they had already gone off, so I ran to catch up with the group and made it while they were making sure everyone was there.

One of the most heartbreaking moments of my trip until then happened on the bus ride back to the ship. We were stopped in traffic and an elderly women stepped off the sidewalk and came up to our bus and held her hands up to us, just pleading. She would alternate holding her hands up to us an bringing one hand to her mouth indicating she needed food. She was clearly emaciated and simply looked exhausted. It was heart wrenching that I did not have anything to give her and there would have been no way for me to get it to her short of demanding that the bus stop and pull over. What struck me even more is that she had her hands outstretched in the same way we do in church when we receive the bread at the Eucharist: right hand over left. And it just left me sitting there wondering what the hell was going on. When I approach God at the Eucharist I receive spiritual nourishment in the body and blood of Jesus Christ, but here was this woman, just pleading for physical nourishment, and she was not receiving. The image of her is burned into my head and it haunts me. She was the turning point in me realizing that the notion of being out in the world and helping people was not just something I wanted to do, but something I NEED to do.

It was a long day out on this trip, and even though I had a ticket to the Welcome Reception, I decided not to go. I had never skipped a SAS trip before this, but I was exhausted, and running into this woman on the way was something that needed some time for myself before leaving on my marathon Taj and Varanasi trip. I ate dinner with my ship family which was great. They did not adopt any students through the actual shipboard family program, but I got lucky and they adopted me anyways J Susan and Wes are great for conversation and it actually feels like someone gives a damn about me on the trip when I am with them. They ask how I am, what is going on and I feel lucky to be a part of their ship family Even though I originally stayed back from the Welcome Reception to have alone LeeAnne time, Michael and Maddie asked if they could come back to my room for awhile to hang out and I agreed. Along the way we went past the Piano Bar and I immediately gave in to their requests for a little snack. I’m seriously a sucker for them. We went to my room and watched a little bit of Remember the Titans, but Michael got bored and so he played Snood while Maddie and I talked, and then we had this brilliant idea to have a pillow fight…and videotape it. Well, if you have ever spent time with an 11 and 7 year old, you will know that this is a bad idea. So we pillow fought and I ended up with two small children on my back and at that point, it was time for them to go home! I packed for my trip and then went to bed around 10:30. My roommate came back and kept clicking lights on and off and packing and was pretty noisy. At one point when she was in the bathroom for a long time I just got up and turned her light off because I needed to sleep!

Day Two: Travel in India…

Now, our trip left really early in the morning. I woke up at 3:15, packed my last minute stuff and then called home right before I left home at 4. I called down to Gram because I thought Bob and Collene were going to be over and I wanted to talk to Isaac. However, they were there the previous night so no such luck. So…it is a bit hard to get to the Union by 3:30. I really understand. Leaving at 2 am for the Amazon was better than this because there really wasn’t a point to going to bed. So..there we were. Our trip leader was Bob McGowan and our bus leader was Lesley the RD. So, Lesley shows up at 3:30 like the rest of us punctual people to get everything ready and she starts calling roll. Finally, everyone was there, except some guy named Bob. So, she keeps calling and calling his name, until we all finally realized that the person who was not in attendance was the trip leader. Bob finally showed up and it was quite an interesting start to the trip.

We boarded our buses, and I was not really close to a lot of people on this trip, but my friend John from international relations was and so we became bus buddies for the trip. There were actually a ton of us from Wes’s IR class which was fun. We drove to the airport in Chennai and experienced some new things. We had to turn in all of our batteries into our trip leader to put in a checked bag because the Indian airport guidelines are so strict. I could not pry the battery out of my alarm clock, so I just chucked the whole thing in the bag. Haha. We arrived at the airport at the same time as three other Taj trips and so it was a little confusing to try to stay with the correct group while weaving through the airport. I mostly just looked for John because he was so tall. We were all huddled outside looking crazy and they began calling our names to give us our passports and plane tickets. We made our way inside of the airport and almost all of the signs were in Tamil and Hindi so we would have had no clue without our guides.

Workers began to give us tags for our carry on luggage, but they never said whether they were mandatory to have on our bags or not, so a lot of people who already had nametags on their luggage did not grab these. Logically, they weren’t necessary. I grabbed some for my scrapbook, and then I saw one of my friends get all the way to the security people and then have to go all the way to the end of the line to get tags to put on their bags. When I got to the front of the line I became aware of how it worked…Security guards with large rifles would stand at the entrance to the security area and would check to make sure all carry ons had the appropriate tags. Then, men and women would send their bags down the same 4 or 5 xray machines.

Men were permitted to go right through the metal detectors, but women were pulled aside to one single separate line. Not only did this separate us from our bags for an inordinate amount of time, we were taken behind a screen to be wanded and felt up by female security officers. Then, the tickets of females had to be stamped saying we cleared security. During this first time through the wanding, I left relatively unviolated, but more was to come… We would then go retrieve our bags, and luckily some of our guys friends were nice enough to watch our bags as we went through our screening and we would watch bags for the other girls who were still going through. When we finally received our carry on bags, the tags that we were required to attach were not also stamped with something that declared our bags had indeed been through security.

WHEW. It was intense. We had to wait at the gate for a little bit and we bought out the cookie and soda stand. We were then allowed to proceed through the gate. Here at the gate, they once again checked to make sure we had the appropriate tags affixed to our bags. One person’s bag was not stamped through security and so he had to go back to security and have the appropriate tag affixed to his carry on. Our flight to Delhi was uneventful…we ate breakfast on the plane which was a little sketchy, but we all ate it because we were hungry. I slept for a little while, but not very long or well. We had a short wait before our next plane took off for Varanasi. That flight was also uneventful but we had an excellent lunch! It was spicy, but definitely spiced down!

Now…the Varanasi airport is almost beyond words. It was not too bad from the outside, but obviously small. There was a sign on the exterior of the airport saying “Holy City Welcomes You.” We proceeded inside from the tarmac and we saw one baggage claim and an incredibly small space! We boarded our buses which took us to our hotel, the Radisson. Varanasi itself is not a wealthy place and it was incredibly awkward to see this fabulous hotel rising up out of the small buildings around it. However, the hotel lobby had a fountain in the shape of a quatrefoil which was incredibly exciting! It is my sorority’s symbol and it reminded me of how much I missed my sisters at home. We could not go to our rooms immediately because they were not all ready so we proceeded to the restaurant on the pool deck. We all made sure to take our Pepto Bismol, and the meal was once again excellent! Plus we had lots of naan, which was exciting beyond belief. When they announced roommates my name was never called, which may not be a good sign. As it turns out, my assigned roommate had a friend going on the trip and switched, so I ended up with Molly from International Relations and she is fun.

We had a little bit of time to relax and then met in the lobby to depart for Sarnath. As we pulled out on the bus we saw a man with a monkey on a leash and the monkey was playing with a gun. The whole bus laughed and wanted to see it, because it was just such an incredibly odd sight that we couldn’t help but be absolutely curious. Sarnath is where the Buddha gave his first sermon. As soon as we got off of the bus we were swarmed by people trying to sell us things. We made it into the gate but then some of them followed us in, which put a little damper on the fun we had. It was amazing to see the excavation work that has been done and one of the originals stupas had been entirely uncovered. There was also an old Buddhist monastery on the grounds and I got a picture in front of it holding my religion department sign.

While we were there a group of monks, nuns and other practitioners were also there chanting in front of the stupa. I took a few pictures and felt really bad for doing so, until one of the monks reached into his bag mid prayer and slid one of the Malotte boys his video camera to document the occasion! On the way out of this particular location, an older Indian woman saw the people selling goods inside the gate and began chasing after them to get out. We walked just down the road to an archaeological museum. We were not allowed to take any bags or cameras in, so we had to leave them on the bus which was a little unnerving. The museum was full of artifacts found in Sarnath, which was mostly Buddha figures and other symbols. The swastika is prominent in the artwork and one of the Jewish members of our group became indignant and almost a little rude about it. People kept telling Josh that this symbol was around before the Nazis used it, that this one is the other way, but he just didn’t get it. We kind of breezed through the place because there were not many explanations next to the artifacts and many of the exhibits had been sent to China. I could only appreciate so much without more knowledge!

After leaving the museum we visited a Buddhist temple. It had gorgeous paintings on the walls and a beautiful Buddha up front. I died a little on the inside when a girl leaned over and asked me if that was Shiva. Four words: “THANK YOU ELLEN POSMAN.” I just told this girl no. As we left the temple there was the usual crowd of beggars, and we were actually starting to become accustomed to them, which was unsettling. Before we left any building, there was a collective groan about having to go out and maneuver past the people. I never ever want to become complacent about such poverty and have to remind myself every time to not just look past them, but to at least in some way acknowledge our shared humanity. Seeing the children is what breaks my heart. I don’t care if it is just their parents sending them out – it is a horrible situation to be in.

I think this specific experience with the beggars affected me more than any other because a woman actually reached out and touched my arm. While I had that moment of panic before I saw who had lightly grabbed my arm, I turned around and saw a woman who I’m sure looked older than her years. Touch is that direct connection between two people and when you are touched, everything changed. I could no longer ignore or try to push out the suffering of all of them, and specifically her. I still don’t know what I should have done. I didn’t do anything. I smiled at her and squeezed her hand back but then got on the bus. Maybe I should have given her some rupees, maybe I was right in not doing…its all a game of second guessing myself.

We got on the bus and they announced that we would be going directly to the optional shopping trip which was okay with me because I was going to go anyways. After a long and too difficult process, I ended up buying a tie for Ken, a mail holder for Mom and Chris, a wall hanging and pillow case for me and then at the last minute I added this awesome bag. It is patchwork with different colored asterisks and its pretty cool if I do say so myself. The shopping trip lasted much longer than it should have, but we made it back to the hotel in time for dinner. Afterwards a lot of people were going out to the bar, but I just decided to go to bed and so did Molly. We watched Friends and Seinfeld before dinner and then part of Ocean’s Twelve before we went to bed. Hooray for a little familiar television!

Day Three: The reason I came on this voyage

Our wake up call came way too early at 4:30 am! We quickly prepared for our day and were in the lobby for tea at 5:00. The lobby was quite crowded and so many of us were on the floor and just sucking in as much sugar in our tea as possible! Our buses departed at 5:15 and I could not contain my excitement! It was a 30-40 minute drive and the bus let us off about a kilometer from the river, because the roads from there on out could not accommodate the weight and width of the buses. We were dropped off right at the middle of a busy intersection without a stoplight and crazy driving, so that was scary in and of itself.

We walked down the narrow streets past the crowds of people and cows. There were stalls for vendors to sell items, people praying before the altars for gods and everything in between. We were huddled together walking down the street and then suddenly the group split into two on either side of the street because a lovely cow was sauntering down the street, daring someone to try to get in its way. There were once again many homeless people just sleeping on the side of these small dirt streets. I was disgusted with the actions of a few SASers on my trip who were just taking a ton of pictures of these people. On one hand, I don’t think that I took the perfect route. It was just too hard to look at for more than a couple seconds for me, and I think I should have looked just a little longer to really let it sink in. I can’t always shy away from things because they are “just too hard.” On the other hand, these people took it to an absolute extreme of paying too much attention and mocking.

Right down by the river there were people lined up and down the stairs begging for money and food. There were children sleeping right there on the ground and those images are burned into my brain. When people ask me now what affected me the most on the trip, I recall these images in my mind. We navigated around the hawkers and reached the banks of the Ganges River!! This is what I wrote my SAS essay on this was the point of my voyage around the world! Each bus had a boat, so we were packed in pretty tightly at 35 people in each boat. A boy came on board selling little bowls with flowers and a lit candle for a dollar for us to make an offering on the river. It was especially awesome until the muffin cup the wax was in caught on fire! At about that time I blew my fire out and placed by offering on the Ganges River. One girl asked our tour guide the specific reason for placing these in the river, and he replied that it was a way of honoring the holiness of the Ganged. Even amidst the hullabaloo of starting out on the Ganges, it felt great to be participating in something that has gone on for centuries.

We first went to the right when looking at the river and we saw people washing at the banks and many more scattered up and down the ghats. There was a married couple holding hands as they walked in and there were children just swimming about. Sumit, the tour guide, told us that if people are in the river before 10 am it means they are there for the cleansing and if it is after 10 am it means they are just there for a bath. We also saw several illegal acts against the Ganges! You are not supposed to lather up with soap before you get into the river, because it affects the balance of the river…however…the river is the dirtiest one in the world, so the rule makes me laugh a little. Also, you are not supposed to wash your clothes in the river, and we saw that as well.

A “Ganga supermarket came up to us and we bought postcards and beads and he had everything imaginable. Another boat pulled up to us with a TV and a DVD player and a child was selling DVDs of Varanasi. It seemed like a cool souvenir and I can’t resist children, so I purchased one for 200 rupees. Upon returning home, I now know that it does not work in any DVD player, so I was duped for 200 rupees, but in the scheme of things, oh well. We began to go down the river towards the crematorium.

On the way down we saw something rather large bobbing up and down the river. Well, our tour guide told us that it was a body that had risen to the surface from below. This is because some people cannot be cremated. People of the untouchable class may not be cremated, despite the fact that they are one who are responsible for the cremation of others. Prostitutes, Pregnant women and children under the age of 12 must also be sunk to the bottom of the Ganges. They are wrapped in a shroud and then rocks are put into the bottom so that they sink. However, the problem is that the stones often escape and the bodies float to the surface.

We came to the cremation area and it was not what we expected, mostly because no bodies were being cremated. There was a pile of burned ash, which was once a body, and then we saw bodies wrapped in the shrouds and lying on sticks waiting to be cremated. They ask that pictures not be taken at this site, but I will admit to not adhering to this. I only took one picture and was discreet, not that it makes it right, but there you have it. It doesn’t smell bad at all down by the cremation because they use sandalwood. Women are also not allowed to be present down by the cremation mounds. There is a fear that women will commit sati, which is burning themselves on their husband’s fire. It has been outlawed for some time, but the fear of it happening is still there.

We paddled back to shore and they let each of us row who wanted to. I was the first person to ask and it was a little cool because I had my Baldwin-Wallace Rowing shirt on. We saw three white guys at the bank of the river and they jumped in…I’m not sure I would have done that! We also learned that getting three drops of water on you from the Ganges means that you have been cleansed, so I stuck my finger in the Ganges and placed three drops on my hand. See, I’m still alive! As we pulled up to the shore there was a big groan once again because no one wanted to face the hawkers or the poverty again.

Walking to the bus was the one time I actually cried on the streets. These babies were horribly emaciated and tiny. They were smaller than baby dolls and certainly much thinner. There was just no question about the fact that they are not getting enough to eat. These mothers and older siblings followed us the whole way from the river. One person tried to get me to take the baby from her. I reached the bus and took my seat, but then they stood outside of our bus windows. I didn’t want to look, but I didn’t want to be a jerky American and close the window blinds on them. These hawkers kept telling our trip leader, Bob, that he looked like Michael Jackson and then called him pops. Haha It was the one funny part about the hawkers at this point. For the rest of the trip, we would call him Michael and pops.

We departed from there to visit the Mother India Temple, which wasn’t really temple like. It was a map of India on the ground and a large picture of Gandhi, but other than that, fairly unimpressive or worth the stop. We returned the hotel immediately after that which was a very good thing because I had to use the restroom and I was really trying to avoid using the squatty potty. We had an excellent breakfast that included real egg omelets!! The other was decent, but having real eggs was a treat for us, because the ship has fake eggs. After the meal there was another optional shopping trip, but most people just went out into Varanasi on their own. I, however, just chose to sleep, because I was going to be miserable the rest of the day if I didn’t. I slept until Molly came back to the room with her purchases. We finished packing all of our stuff and headed down to the lobby. I bought some stamps and then we boarded the buses to the airport.

Once we arrived at the airport two girls on our trip remembered that they left their passports in the safe deposit box at the hotel. Seriously? They tell you over and over again before we leave any location to make sure you have that stuff, so it was just a poor mistake. People from our tour guide company went back to the hotel to get them, but luckily we had a long time before our flight. The other group doing the same trip we were doing, but in reverse order, were arriving at the airport when we were leaving, so we got to say hi to them which was fun.

We proceeded to enter the airport and then walked up a flight of stairs to a restaurant. Well, I should use the word restaurant loosely. Haha It was like a diner in the states, but take away air conditioning and add in a lot of small flies and bugs. The food was excellent though, albeit quite spicy and hot. We had to pay for our cokes, which once again came in old glass bottles, and cost way too much, but it was hot. We were up there for quite a while, but then it came time to head through security for our flight. Once again the women had to go through a separate line to be searched, and this women was a little more thorough that the security officer in Chennai. I really don’t like being felt up by strangers. Haha Then we had to wait for a pretty long time to board our plane, during which time I wrote in my journal and slept…Delhi was next!

early morning on the Ganges River...

more soon Auntie Anna!