India........................

You might be asking yourself why there is a large number of ellipses after India....the answer is because I have no idea where to even start. India is, hands down, the most complicated place we’ve been to thus far, from the stunning and iconic beauty of the Taj Mahal to the thousands of homeless, orphaned and crippled. The majestic landmarks standing in a constant cloud of pollution. Maybe more than any other, India is a country of stark contrasts, one that doesn’t fit into any category and, simultaneously, every category. During the pre-port sessions prior to arrival, we were told by several people that they wouldn’t be able to explain India, it was just something we would need to experience to understand. And after experiencing it, I haven’t even come close to understanding it. I will put forth an almost-surely futile attempt at describing India to you all, but at the end of the day, India really must be seen to be believed.

We were greeted on arrival by a suffocating cloud of smog, the smell of which can hardly be described and was only made worse by the 90 degree heat. Being the cautious travelers that we are on the first day of every port, we followed the usual strategy of picking one singular architectural landmark, hiring a taxi to take us there and seeing what happens after that. Despite my extensive experience in dealing with taxi drivers, India’s slapped me in the face (figuratively, of course, though I was about to return the favor to them, not figuratively.) There’s this fun little game where they will agree on a price and a destination, and then about a minute in they will inform you that they’re taking a little detour to their friend’s shop. But don’t worry, they’ll say, you don’t need to buy anything. You just need to look. So after visiting our destination (the San Thome Basilica, one of only three churches constructed above the burial site of one of Jesus’ apostles) we decided we wanted to go to a Hindu temple in the middle of town, which led to stop number one, but that wasn’t the worst part. We had 9 people, which meant three rickshaws. Two of them were brothers…mine was not. So after seeing the temple, we took off in a completely opposite direction from the others and ended up at (dramatic pause for emphasis) another shop! The flaw in this man’s plan was revealed when we refused to go in without our friends there. He insisted they were on their way and not to worry about it, but when we kept refusing, he began getting very angry (which didn’t really matter…I’m 6’7”.) Anyway, accepting our fate we had him drive us to the local market and bid him farewell, where we caught a different rickshaw back to the ship. This time, another exciting adventure ensued when the driver thought we said “fort” (as in Fort George) instead of “port.” We arrived at the fort and sought the assistance of some locals, my conversation with whom went something like this: “you’re at the fort.” “no we need the port.” “yeah this is the fort.” “no no, the PORT.” “Oh you like sports?” Eventually I grabbed a map and pointed, but conveniently there was a line through the “Port of Chennai” making the P look remarkably like an F. After finding a pen, I wrote down exactly what I wanted and the driver looked at it for a second before saying “…….oh the harbor!”

I departed for my trip to the Taj Mahal at 4 AM on the 12^th accompanied by my friend and trip liason Prof. Jim Huffman, who was also my liason on the safari as well as a valued member of our trivia team. The flight was uneventful except that in the true spirit of India, there were about 5 more rows in the Indian planes than American ones, which means smaller rows. Remember when I was just bragging about my height? On arrival in Delhi our guide Umesh greeted us and we embarked on a driving tour of the city. We stopped for lunch at a nice restaurant where we were welcomed in by the owner, Umesh. After a wonderful lunch, we proceeded to the train station where our train was 2 hours late. But that’s OK, Umesh assured us, I called your guide in Agra and he’ll be waiting for you. What’s our guide’s name? we enquired. He laughed heartily before exclaiming “Umesh!” I’m not making this up. The train arrived and we hurried into our first-class seats…which were little more than broken frames covered in strips of leather and stained with dirt and who knows what else. A lovely little cockroach even stopped by to say hi. The trip was four hours, over which I dared not even enter the bathroom. My already existing crippling fear of public restrooms combined with the state of the train car contributed to me going without a bathroom that day for 22 hours. Yeah, I think that’s a record. India is no match for my bladder of steel. I was rewarded with a 5-star hotel in Agra.

We rose at 5 AM the next day to visit the Taj Mahal at sunrise, and what a spectacular experience that was. It was nearly empty, the weather was cool and the sun cast a soft pink light on the white marble. Folks, there are many buildings in the world that are cool to see but don’t offer anything more than the pictures do…this is decidedly NOT one of those buildings. It might have been the pollution, but it took my breath away. It was interesting because I’m taking an architecture class, and the class on the Taj Mahal was spent discussing how it’s a mausoleum for Shah Jahan’s late wife, but he actually built it as a throne for Al’lah on Judgment Day and disguised it as a mausoleum. The main dome is in the shape of a traditional Islamic crown, the four minarets are alleged to represent four angels, the garden in front symbolizes the paradise garden in heaven, and the script around the entrance (I think I took a picture) is actually a Qur’anic passage about Judgment Day. Of course, when we asked our guide about this, he cheerily said that it was the morning prayer. Of course it is. After our visit we went to Fatepuhr Sikri, a city built of sandstone that served as the capital of India for 5 years before running out of water. It had an eerie ghost town feel to it and the architecture was beautiful. One of the highlights was Indian men who strip off all their clothes and dive about 20 feet into a pool covered in algae to try and get tips. When we asked the guide how deep the water is, he chuckled and responded “not deep enough.” After Fatepuhr, we went to the Agra Fort, the third UNESCO World Heritage Site in Agra. It was nice but far from life-changing…more than anything it offered views of the Taj in the distance. Our guide was pleasant but spoke only broken English and began each “tidbit” in a unique way. For example: “Excuse me my children this is the courtyard…” If someone was apart from the group, he would summon them in with cries of “my son” or “my daughter, come here.” On the way out, some of the group was talking about how India hadn’t been as shocking as we had been warned…which is right about when we ran into a man with no legs, a leper and several starving children. But that’s India…the beauty and the beast coexist side-by-side, and more often where the white people go. I don’t blame them…it’s difficult to hold out. Many people don’t. It’s different for everyone. I eventually just put my sunglasses on and was left mostly out of the pool of easy targets, but that didn’t mean the images of what I saw are not still burned into my mind.

We returned to the Taj Mahal for a sunset viewing, which offered better light in exchange for about 20 times more tourists. The sunrise viewing was definitely the better of the two, but you will never hear me complaining about getting to see the Taj Mahal twice in one day. We traveled to the Agra train station to catch our express train to Delhi, where we found more men without legs, a man with elephantitis in both feet, a man without eyes, and more starving children. Even inside the station there was a little girl and a little boy who pleaded with their eyes…it didn’t help the train was 2 hours late. The girl was especially heartbreaking…she was wearing a dress that I know looked beautiful at one point, but both the physical stains of dirt and oil as well as the emotional stains of a life begging in a train station had long since tarnished the beauty that once was. On a brighter note, this train was leaps and bounds nicer than the one to Agra and took about half the time. They even had ice cream! We came into Delhi close to midnight and checked into the Royal Palace, another 5-star hotel in downtown Delhi. It was interesting how there were many very shady looking hotels, and one or two amazing places in each city. Even in Agra, one of the biggest tourist destinations in India, there was only one super fancy hotel. When we arrived at each of these places, they had to check the undercarriage of the bus for bombs. Not something that comes up every day in the States. Oh, and speaking of bombs, the Delhi police found a car with 5 kilograms of explosives and two detonators parked in a garage underneath a train station through which we passed, another stark reminder of the fact that this isn’t vacation and there are still very scary situations happening every day in the world.

Upon returning to the ship, some friends and I went to Spencer Plaza (basically a Western-style mall) in the search for internet and some much-needed communication. The girls also wanted to do some shopping in a place where they wouldn’t have to haggle (trust me, it gets old fast.) Two of us wanted to go back since we’d be up early the next day, so we began the process of finding a rickshaw driver. They flocked to us like foreign taxi drivers to white tourists, but they wanted 200 rupees at least (about $4) and some wanted 200 rupees a person. We insisted that we were not stupid tourists and knew that was too high, and eventually one guy came down to 100…as long as we went to his shop. About ready to give up and walk, a man pulled up in a brand new rickshaw with new leather seats and everything. He only wanted 120…what was the catch? Well, it turns out there wasn’t one. He was actually just a really nice guy. Turns out there still are honest people in the world. Since the port was so busy, we had to take a shuttle from the entrance to the ship. On said shuttle I sat next to Marty Zafman, an 11-time voyager and 10-time visitor to Chennai. Though a man with a heart of gold, his joints are decidedly less robust and he said he was struggling at the end of a 6-day stay. One thing led to another and I ended up inheriting his day trip to Mamallapuram and Kancheepuram for the final day. Kancheepuram is littered with some of the most ornate temples you’ve ever seen, almost all of which are still very much working temples. We got a tour of one that consisted of a massive column-lined loop with solid gold statues of some of the more famous gods with people praying to them. Quite the experience. Mamallampuram is the site of the “Five Rathas” (google it), which are 5 temples of various sizes and complexities literally carved out of giant rocks. There is also an enormous mural carved into the side of a cliff, complete with massive elephants. In between our two destinations, we had lunch at a traditional Indian restaurant, served on banana leaves and everything. Some of the food was spicy, some of it was very weird, but all of it was delicious. At the end, we just folded up all the scraps back up into the banana leaf…how about that for clean-up? Overall a great day…thanks Marty.

So after all was said and done, India turned out to be my second-favorite destination (because South Africa is going to be really hard to beat and Mauritius doesn’t really count). Days 1 and 2 were incredibly uncomfortable, and I wanted to be anywhere not named “India.” But by day 3 I began to cast aside some of my preconceptions and accept it for what it is: a large, impossibly crowded, impossibly dirty country, but one that has as much culture in its little finger than many do over their entire areas. It was traveling like I’ve never experienced traveling before, but at the end of the day it was an incredible trip.