Good Morning Vietnam!

First off, only 5 weeks and 2 days till I’m back in Miami. That is like no time at all. Only bad thing is 25 of those days are spent on the boat. I hope they have some fun stuff planned for us. Ok, now onto Vietnam. What a wonderful city. Of course, like always, the people on semester at sea told us to be careful with our stuff and whatnot, but I have officially stopped listening to them. I’m not sure if it is because they do a shitty job at preparing us for a country, or if it is because there is no way they could prepare us for a country. No matter what they warn us of or tell us to expect, I am still never satisfied with what I know prior to a country. I was interested in a couple specific things about Vietnam. How American invasion has affected the country, their culture in general and of course the food. Those are things that are hard to teach in a classroom. Luckily part of my classroom is spent immersed in a foreign country.
I’ll start with their bizarre driving techniques. This seems to be a reoccurring theme in my blogs. One of my favorite parts of Vietnam is the way they cross the street. Vietnam has very few cars, buses, or trucks but the entire city of Ho Chi Minh is pack full of little motor bikes. Similar to in other countries, these bikes are so plentiful that they have their own lanes in most cases. They have very few traffic lights and they drive on the right side of the road!! (on a side note, a road was just completed that connects many south eastern Asian countries. The hilarious part is some countries like Malaysia drive on the left, and some like Vietnam drive on the right. I have no idea how they handle that situation.) Because of the communist government, SAS had to provide a bus that would take us into the city. I think it has something to do with a lot of taxis lining up outside of the port, but I didn’t even fully understand the reason for it. The shuttle bus was great for us tho, we spent way less money on taxis (that money went directly to souvenirs, but I’ll talk about that later.) The bus came every half hour-ish and dropped us off right in the center of Ho Chi Minh. Because there are so many motor bikes, the lines in the streets don’t mean much. Honestly, we have become accustomed to little or no traffic laws so that didn’t bother us much. I think all of the world should cross the street like the Vietnamese do. Instead of waiting for the green man to signal that it is safe to walk, they just slowly walk across the street. All of the motorized bikes just go around you as you are crossing. As long as you are looking in the correct direction and walking slowly enough, you are safe. They honk their horns a lot when driving, but they never honk at people crossing the street. They just casually steer to the left or right to avoid you. Perfect system. The only problem comes when people aren’t obeying those general rules. We were walking around on my second day in the city. I was watching this man run down the sidewalk, he must have been in a hurry to do something. Because there are so many motorbikes parked on the street, he ran in front of a parked car and attempted to run alongside of the parked traffic. Instead, he ran directly into the corner of a large taxi cab. Yeah, you read it right. I watched someone get struck by a vehicle. Of course everyone around the guy started freaking out. As he lay there, a crowd formed and he started to have seizures. I guess that is how your body deals with getting hit by a car. I have never seen a serious situation taken care of so poorly. I’m not sure what to do when someone starts going into a seizure, but from Juli’s experience with Amo (her departed Brittany spaniel) I’m pretty sure you just make sure the person, or dog, doesn’t choke on his/her own tongue. For sure, you don’t pick up the person and hold them in your arms. As he was seizing, someone that knew him came over. I think she was his wife or sister or mother because she started getting hysterical. She was looking for someone to call the ambulance or take some sort of action. Before an ambulance came, some people around picked up the guy and jammed him into a cab and I guess they went to the hospital. Now lets recap: someone gets hit by a car, so you pick this man up and shove him into a taxi. Did those people know if he had a spinal chord injury or internal bleeding? Probably not. If I spoke a lick of Vietnamese, I for sure would have stopped them. I have no idea if the man lived or died, but it was quite the experience for me. If someone can get that messed up while running, could you imagine how easily their life would be taken in a motorcycle accident. No thanks.
Now lets talk about the American dollar in Vietnam. It is illegal to use any currency other than the dong to purchase something in Vietnam. However, that law is completely disregarded in every establishment that I walked into. You get a better rate if you use dong, but if you have none, the dollar is always accepted. I felt like a millionaire here, partially because I was. The conversion is $1 to about 16 dongs. 2 million dollars is about $125. Needless to say, whenever I walked away from the ATM, I felt like Bill Gates. At the same time, whenever they told me the price of anything, I was so outraged. I ended up spending a lot of money here. I don’t know what I expected, but I heard everything was so cheap. Some things were super cheap, but not everything so you had to pick and choose what to spend your money on. The Northface hiking bags were anywhere from $10-$30 – Cheap. (I got one) But things like chopsticks were like fifty cents each. I bought sooooo many bootleg dvds. They were like a dollar a dvd, but these dvds hold like 4 times the information. So a full season can fit onto one cd. I’m still checking to see if they all work, but my collection currently consists of such seasons as Sex and the City, Scrubs, the Sopranos and The Blade Trilogy. Totaling $33. Love it. I also got a dress made. It’s a full length white silk dress. It’s pretty, but I have no idea where I’m going to wear it.
The food in Vietnam was not anything to write home about. However, I am writing home about it. Take that however you want. The smoothies were to die for, but the food was just normal. I tried turtle (sorry joule.) It was tasty, but lots of tiny bones. It was almost annoying to eat. However, I am sooo good at eating with chopsticks. I’ll probably eat most of my meals with them from now on. Mal has a theory that all Vietnamese are thin because it takes them so long to eat that they realize they are full before Americans do. In addition to that, they don’t eat portions that are quadruple the necessary size. Anyways, I had some pretty delicious noodles and of course lots of rice. If you need a lesson in chop stick using, you know who to come to.
One of the days, I went to the Cu Chi Tunnels and the the Cao Dai Temple. Cao Dai is a relatively new religion started here in Vietnam. It was formed because some guy wanted to please all of the people that were invading and waging war on Vietnam. Instead of having one god, they pray and accept and choose traditions from all religions. Mainly Hindu, Buddhist, and Catholic religions are most recognizable. In the temple, statues of gods from lots and lots of religions can be found. It was odd because spectators are welcomed and even expected. They have 4 services per day and just looking around; you can tell every religion is practiced at once. It was odd. I’ve never heard of a religion like that before. Normally, a religion is either based off of a prophet or someone that had amazing ideas. Sometimes it’s a unifying theme or even sometimes started by someone who sees a flaw in the current system. This religion is simply using the best parts of other religions. Weird.
After the Temple, we went to the Cu Chi tunnels. The tunnels were used as a strategic way to defeat the enemies without hand to hand combat. The tunnels zig zaged in a very confusing manner. The soldiers who used these tunnels to fight also used these tunnels to live. It wasn’t like these people just hopped in the tunnels, took some lives, then went home for dinner. They lived there for many years. This is an area in the south west of the country where part of the American invasion of Vietnam took place. Here, they refer to it as the American invasion of Vietnam because it wouldn’t clarify anything to call it the ‘Vietnam War.’ Vietnam was constantly at war with someone between the year 1900 all the way till 1990. That is 90 years of war. Whether it was to gain independence from France, or a Civil War against the North, or the American’s invading- Vietnam couldn’t get away from battle. The Cu Chi tunnels were dug in order to hide from invaders. Originally, the tunnels only covered 30 km of underground escape tunnels. At some time, the people who lived there were able to make the tunnels wider. When they were completed, they stretched 200 square km of land. By the time the American’s invaded, they little village was prepared to defend their area. Our guide said each soldier had 3 friends and they were assigned to one entrance to the tunnel (a square that was about 1’x2’) and they didn’t know where any other entrances were. This way if they were captured, they couldn’t give up the whole system. Their tunnels were perfectly camouflaged so just throwing some leaves over the door made them impossible to see. Our guide said a soldier would wait till the Americans were sleeping, climb to the tunnel that led up to the center of their camp, come up, and shoot the soldiers when they were sleeping. I know it sounds harsh and terrible, but you have to remember that we pretty much had no reason to be there anyways. And we had a lot of casualties, but Vietnam had about 8 times the number of deaths. It was a really terrible war, and we did some really terrible things over there. There is a museum in Ho Chi Minh called the museum of war remnants. It is a tough museum to get through because it has pictures of the things we did to these people when we were here. I know war is always messy and it will always be like that, and I also understand that they probably did similar things, but it’s not excusable in any way. There was a picture of a child being dragged behind a tank until his death. I’m not saying every child in Vietnam was killed in that manner, but it is really powerful to realize that your country did shit like that to other people. I guess it was so important to me because I didn’t really know much about the war until I came here. Back to the tunnels: we were able to crawl through a 200ft span of tunnels. I’ll just explain the tunnels by saying they were small. Vietnamese are much smaller than Americans. I was about a foot taller than the tallest woman there. I could imagine how it was almost impossible for the American’s to destroy the defenses of the Vietnamese. We had a chance to climb in them and we quickly realized that Americans are much larger than Vietnamese. I guess it’s hard to explain and no matter what I say, it won’t really do justice for what it was actually like.
I think I’ll leave it at that.
Fam- Your package is on the boat, but I haven’t gotten it yet because the ladies that do it was super busy with passport stuff so I’ll get it tomorrow.
Mark- I hope your letter is in the same situation as the box from my parents, because I haven’t received it yet. I know you wrote one tho.
Fetsko Fam- thanks for the Easter basket… or Easter box. The cookies actually survived. I think the bread saved them from being yucky. They are delicious and I really appreciate it. I cut out the picture on the box and it’s now on my wall. Thank you very much.
Joule- Go Bruins!!
Everyone- I read a couple of your emails because I was on the internet for a little, but I will reply to your Malaysia emails today and your Vietnam emails tomorrow when I get them before I get to CHINA!!!!

Love you all!

Ps, Go Pens (GO GINO)
Pss I’m sure you’re all ready, but it’s almost NFL draft time!!
Psss see you soon!

Ay May Lay

Ay May Lay!! Malaysia was nothing like I expected. Before setting foot in the country, I expected a country that was culturally diverse and very clean. What I found was a country that was a mesh of the places we’ve been and the places we will soon visit. Being from America, I can’t say anything negative about a country having many types of customs meshed together to create its own, but it wasn’t what I was expecting. I thought I would be able to buy Malaysian food, clothes that are specific to the country and possibly even learn a dance that is typically done in the region. What I found was Indian and Chinese cuisine, clothes that I had already seen in India and I didn’t see any dancing at all. I guess I was just disappointed because the country didn’t seem to have its own identity. After I got over that, Malaysia impressed me over and over again. It was a wonderful trip. Our boat did not dock in port because Penang is building a new dock. The boat stayed a few hundred yards off of the dock and we were boated onto shore. This was slightly annoying because it took a half hour to get on and off shore. It took us a long time to debark originally; we didn’t even get clear to leave until noon. We stayed on the boat for lunch so we didn’t get off until two. We walked around Penang for a while trying to get a set of plans together (since we had a VERY open schedule.) We decided to go to a Snake Temple. The description of this temple in all the brochures was a temple where snakes are hanging from beams in the sacred space. Because the place is filled with incenses, the snakes are very calm and never strike. When we got there, it was like 10 sleeping snakes and one huge python that you could pay to take a picture with. It was disappointing so we got our taxi driver to take us to the war museum that wasn’t too far away. This place was quality. It wasn’t a huge building like you would typically imagine a museum. This war museum was a British fort during WWII. (ps, yes the British did colonize Malaysia also.) The buildings and facilities that the British soldiers used during this war were filled with relics from the time period. It was super cool because people actually used these things at one time. Then when we were done looking through the museum, we played paintball. To be honest, I never imagined playing paintball in the middle of Malaysia at a fort that has been converted into a war museum. On the other hand, it was amazingly fun. It was rainy so no one else was there. Me and Mal played against our friend Davis and even if we got hit, we kept playing anyways. It was super fun and we took some awesome pictures of us looking like soldiers. After the museum, we went to eat in a Chinese restaurant. They asked if we wanted tea so we said yes (like we typically do because we normally don’t know what we’re doing) and they poured us tea into glasses. We all had a sip and realized it was hot. Who serves hot tea on a hot day? We roll with the punches so we just drank it and didn’t really worry about it. After we had finished, davis asked for water. They brought us all water and when we took a sip of that, we realized it was also hot. Wtf? Eventually, we got some ice cubes and it was all good. After dinner we went out to get a drink with some Malaysians. We walked past a sign that said “GIRLS DRINK FREE.” How do they make money? Well we went in to see what the catch was and it turns out, there was no catch. The whole night, Davis only spent 40 ringlets (like $15.) Then we went back to the boat to bed. The next day we hung around Penang again and decided to go to Cameron Highlands the next morning. Cameron Highlands is an area about 6 hours outside of where we were docked. The area is famous for growing strawberries and tea. I also heard it is a good spot for hiking. We were super excited to get out there eventho we had no plans or a place to stay. As we boarded the bus, some semester at sea people were getting off the bus. They told us to stay at Daniel’s Lodge. We got to the lodge and immediately fell in love with it. Daniel’s Lodge was a pretty large building that was portioned into areas. A couple rooms, some dorm room style bathrooms and barracks style beds. All of our beds were right next to each other and pretty much no privacy. But it seemed to be perfect. Especially each person’s stay only cost 8 ringlets. That’s like $2.50 per night. You can’t beat that. (o: there were lots of hilarious signs like “**** the lonely planet. Lord of rubbish.” Lonely planet is a set of travel books that everyone reads. I guess Daniel’s Lodge got a bad review. Another sign said “No food in the rooms = no jangle rats.” We have no idea what jangle rats were, but the sign was hilarious. It was super fun there because all the people staying there were backpackers from all over the world. It made me want to backpack sometime in my life. Most people had been going around South East Asia for the past few months. I was jealous of everyone who got to stay in China for 6 weeks or India for 3 months. I’ll do that some day. The next day we were set to go on a hike. $13 got us an 8 hour hike to a tea farm and a waterfall. As we were walking up to the jungle where we would hike, I sang a popular song that I changed to fit the situation “welcome to the jangle…..” hahaha for the rest of the day, we didn’t say jungle once, we only said jangle. Later, we wondered if our guide and the German girls were with us thought that American’s said Jangle rather than Jungle. The tea farm was amazing. The steep hills were filled with tea bushes. It was beautiful. The hills are steep because it rains hard, the plants would droned if they were grown on a flat area. Then we hiked to a waterfall. It was pretty, but the water was super cold. After we got out, it started raining a little. I like the rain and it hasn’t rained much on this trip so I was very excited. I would soon see how it rains in Malaysia. For the next 6 hours, the amount of rain that poured on us was of biblical proportion. I’ve never seen the rain come down so hard for such a long time. Although everything on me and in my book bag was soaked, it was a very fun time. The road we were walking on turned into a river. We just went with it and had a good time. We had to buy dry clothes, but I don’t even care. (o: The next day we went back to Penang and did some internet-ing and bought some groceries then went back to the boat to go to bed. I had a wonderful time and you won’t believe these pictures when you see them. This place was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. The jangle was so green and the trails we went on weren’t really trails. The tea farm was super hilly and it eventho it was tiring to hike, it was beautiful to look at. I think I was the only person, besides our guide, that didn’t slip the whole day. Well, that’s all for Malaysia. In 2 days, I’ll be in Vietnam. Then two days after that, China. I’ll try to post in between the two but we’ll see what happens. Wish me luck.

Mumma (relative)- I got my girlscout cookies (thanks you’re the best) but I didn’t get my malaria medicine. We’ll see how that pans out. Thanks for the package tho.

Poppa Bear- Love your posts. Anyone who isn’t reading the comments on my post really should. They are hilarious and you’ll probably read poppa bear’s comments more than you care to read my blog.

Rannie and Ryan- thanks for the Steelers AFC Central Division Pog. I have no idea where you found it but I was so excited when I saw it. it’s on my wall right now. Love you tons.

Mark- Love the emails and letters. I get excited to read all of them. For everyone that doesn’t know, Mark was the MVP of the all star game in his hockey league. Cute.

Juli- thanks for the email. (o: you’re the best.

Mumma (friend mumma)- I am going to call you from Hawaii and straighten you out. Till then, I love you and you are perfect.

Kristofer- You are almost done student teaching. I’m positive you are super excited about that.

Nano- I have no idea what you are up to, but I still think about you a lot and miss your gutz.

Laur- I loved your email. I’ll write back sometime…. Probably after Japan. Love you lots.

To everyone: please send more emails!!!

Ay May Lay

Hi everyon!!! Happy Easter!! expect my blog in a couple of days. i loved malaysia!! Lots of love from the other side of the globe!!!

India!!

By far, this is my favorite port so far. I’ll try to explain things a little more clear than I did for Mauritius. I guess a few of you were disappointed with my last blog. This one will be good for sure because I liked India much more than I liked Mauritius. (o: Okay, it started with us not being allowed to debark until about 10. Customs in India is apparently more thorough than any of the other ports we have been in so far. We had to get immigration papers and whatnot so it too much longer than normal. It was alright for me because I had a trip leaving at 11 so I didn’t plan on getting off the boat until then anyways. Where our boat docked was a couple minute drive from anything really so since I didn’t want to pay for a rickshaw ride, I just stayed on the boat. The service project that I did was in an ‘untouchables’ village. India lived with the caste system for many hundreds of years. Today, it has been outlawed, but you still see it in full swing as you ride down the streets. The ‘untouchables’ are the people who do worst and hardest jobs. I felt something I’ve never felt being in that village because all the people there seemed like normal people to me, but to India’s society, they are damned to live a life of poverty and filth because of where and to who they were born. My religions teacher said it fits into their religion because of karma. If you are a bad Hindu in one life, you are reincarnated into a terrible life. Many people believe that is why the untouchables aren’t worth anyone’s time. They were very nice and hospitable to us. In fact, they were oddly hospitable to us. There were about 35 of us on the trip. After driving past people sleeping on the street with barely any clothes on, right next to rich people with beautiful outfits we thought we were slightly prepared to see anything in the village we were driving towards. Actually, we weren’t even close to ready. As we got off the bus, we were greeted by people putting flowers in our hands. In every other port, when you first arrive, people put things in your hands then ask for money. I said no thank you to everything they tried to give me until I realized it was a welcome reception for us. They gave us bouquets and flower necklaces until we couldn’t carry them anymore. About 50 yards ahead of us, there was a band ready to lead us to our destination. As we tried to get through the crowd of people, many women gave us bracelets (bangles) then put a red dot between our eyebrows with a power they had in little tins. Other women put yellow paste on both of our cheeks. I still have no idea what this meant, but all of us had tons of stuff on our face when we were done. I have never felt so welcomed as I did as we were paraded through the town by the band. Can you imagine walking into Munhall and being greeted by steel valley’s marching band and women giving you bracelets, flowers, then blessing you? No, you can’t because it would never happen. That’s exactly what it was like. Amazing. We probably walked around their village 4 times before they took us to the actual building that we were going to work on. The village itself was not what I expected. In Brazil and South Africa, the poor villages were filled with little shacks made of any type of material. Sometimes they were made of metal sheets, but also cardboard or plants. Here, the buildings were old and dirty but they were made of blocks and stone like all the other places in India. Some were two or three stories and they looked much better than the huts we were used to seeing in poor places. As usual, they loved to get their picture taken. Not just kids, people of all ages wanted to pose with us and have their photos taken. I took a couple videos to try to capture the feeling of the whole event but I doubt it will encompass the feeling of the whole day. After we walked the streets, we ended in front of a community center. They thanked us for coming then put us to work for a couple of hours. They gave us very watery paint (we said it was died water) and paint brushes and pointed until we understood what to do. We painted the community building a pale yellow color. We began to paint up and down with long strokes of our brushes (like you typically do in America) then the guys in charge of the event would stop us and make us paint left to right instead. Then a couple minutes later, someone else would take our brush and make us do it up and down again. We just nodded and smiled and continued in that pattern until someone else yelled at us. From the time we got off the bus until we got back onto the bus, we were similar to celebrities because there were 4 or 5 guys with cameras from the newspaper. These guys were snapping photos like they were Randi at a wedding. We would be shaking someone’s hand and they would push kids around us move us so they could get the picture form the right angle then snap away for a couple minutes. Now, I know how Britney Spears feels and I know why she’s crazy. Every time I heard that shutter open, I thought about the fact that I wasn’t smiling or wondered if I looked dumb. Whatever though. We painted their building then they had a reception for us where they gave us wooden keychains (as if they hadn’t given us enough) (as if they weren’t the poorest village in India) and a couple little girls danced for us. They were wearing pretty saris and were very good at what ever kind of dance they were doing. *wow, I just realized how long this is and I’m not even done with day 1* After the ceremony, we walked back a similar root to the bus. Some women on the second floor of buildings would throw flower petals off the balcony. We were like royalty. It’s almost impossible to explain. On the way in and out, the women performed a little ceremony for us every once and a while. They had a dish of what looked like some type of oil. A leaf floated in the middle. Someone else would light a little piece of something white on fire then put it on the leaf. The women would move the dish around our faces, then put the dish on the ground. The leaf was pulled off of the dish and put on the ground. Then the oil was dumped out. The white thing was stomped out and then the women put another smudge of that red powder on our foreheads. This was done many many times so you can only imagine what our faces looked like when we got back on the bus. We looked at ourselves in a picture and were almost embarrassed. But at the same time, it was amazing and I don’t care that we looked like a hot mess. (o: We went to dinner after we got home and tried to figure out what to do the rest of the night. I found my friends (davis and jasmine) and they convinced me to go out and look for some coffee and internet somewhere. We walked from our boat to the area that you can get off the loading dock. Outside, there were 15 motorized rickshaw drivers waiting for our business. I’m not sure if anyone reading this has been to India, but if you haven’t you are not going to understand how they drive here. There is sorta a hierarchy in driving. There are line on the roads, but every one is ignored unless its an actual barrier in which case, they get as close as they possibly can without ruining their paintjob. From what I understand, there aren’t really rules, but whichever size vehicle you are in gets the right of way. Now you would imagine that pedestrians (since they aren’t surrounded in metal) would be given the right of way when the green man lights up to allow you to cross… but you would be wrong in that thought. Because of the hierarchy of size, pedestrians are LAST on the totem pole. Trucks and busses drive however and wherever they want. Then cars, then motorized rickshaws, then bike rickshaws, then motorcycles, then bikes, then people. In addition to the crazy driving rules, or suggestions, Indians love their horns. If I could make a soundtrack of the country, it would include many car horns. Even the embarrassing horn of our impala would be socially accepted as long as you beep it as much as possible. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP means “hey, I’m here, try not to hit me if that’s at all possible. BBEEEEEEEEEP BEEEEEEEEEEEP means “Um, hello, you just cut me off- but I’m not mad because it’s India. beep beep beep beep beep beep beep… means the light turned green a millisecond ago and I don’t understand why we’re not all moving yet eventhough you can’t go anywhere because the other traffic hasn’t even cleared the road yet but I’m impatient so I’ll honk anyways. Anyways, so we went in the motorized rickshaw and looked for the internet and didn’t find it so we wanted to get a drink instead. A majority of people in India are Hindu. Because you can’t drink if you strictly follow the religion there aren’t many bars. The majority of them are in hotels and they close by 11:30. We told our driver what we were looking for and he took us to a wine shop. We said “No, we want to sit down… like at a bar.” He drove like 20 feet and pointed ahead to a sign that said “BAR” in neon letters. He found one for us. We had a drink and on our way out, we saw some other SAS friends so we hung out for a little then went back to the boat. The next day was my homestay. I was soooo excited to go. I met my roommate (sarah) before I left the bus and soon met Atul (my host dad.) He took us to his apartment where we met Kshiti, his wife. They have 2 kids around 22ish, but they are both at school now. Their family lives in a nice sized apartment somewhere in Chennai. It was pretty large considering like 90% of India is in poverty. (it’s not that high, it was just an over exaggeration.) When we first got there, we hung out and met each other and got to know each other a little bit better. A little later, Sarah and I went to a museum where we saw 300 little schoolgirls walking around the museums in single file line. Everytime we saw them, we would wait for them to pass by us. Every third girl would say “hi, how are you” shake our hands then keep walking. It was super cute. They all had the same uniform on, and pigtails that were in braids with little white bows. Super cute. We went to some restaurants, we ate some home cooked food, and of course we had delicious deserts. The home stay was amazing overall. My host family was very open to our questions. They explained all the things that semester at sea wouldn’t explain to us. Things about the caste system and poverty rates were subjects that we didn’t learn in class for whatever reason… but they were happy to help explain. They had the most amazing coffee and tea I’ve ever had. The tea always had milk in it and I’m convinced that I can make it myself on the boat. I’ll try over and over again till I get it right. The first day on my home stay, we went to get coffee at this little place and I had a cappuccino. A little later in the evening we went to a Rotary meeting (the home stay was through Chennai’s Rotary club) and I had two more cups of coffee there. I have never had 3 cups of coffee in one day. Needless to say, I didn’t sleep much that night. The next day we went to Mamallapuram (ma-ma-la-pour-em) to see some of the oldest stone temples ever. At that time, wood was the preferred building material so the temples were started and never finished or consecrated. One set of 5 temples were carved from the same rock. Could you imagine the pressure those rock carvers must have been under. If they messed up, how could they fix it? You can’t just quit and start on another rock. You basically just can’t mess up. The people that sell things on the street here are unlike anyone else. In America, we have price tags and number on that tag is the actual price of the object. Here, like most other places in the world, there are no price tags. You can only guess and bargain for whatever price you are willing to pay. Sometimes you get hustled, and other times, you feel like you did a pretty good job for yourself. Here specifically, compared to the rest of our stops, I have done less bargaining. Because the things here are so inexpensive, I find myself just saying ‘ok’ when the price of 6 yards of hand made and woven silk fabric is under 10 dollars. I could probably get the price to $5, but I just don’t. I’m not sure what it is but maybe I think the person who made it deserves more than $5 or maybe it’s something else. Seeing how this is page four of my blog and I’m only on the third day of my India trip, I’ll just sum a couple of things up and call it quits. 1.) the awesome food here. Not only is it all delicious and a little spicy, you get to eat it with your hand. Don’t get it twisted, you can only use your right hand so it gets sorta complicated, but it makes eating so much more fun. I think we should bring that tradition to the states. A typical Chennai meal is rice in one part of the separated dish, then some yellowish food in another part of the dish, then something that looks kinda green and some little area saved for the desert. Then you proceed to use your right hand and smash some of the colored food into the rice till it’s mixed together. Then scoop it using your thumb, pointer, and middle finger- into your mouth. A quarter of it lands on your plate before it gets to your mouth but the rest of it is delicious. Sometimes, you get bread with your meal instead of rice (this is what I prefer.) The only problem with this is tearing a piece of bread with only your right hand. At first it was tricky, but I have defiantly mastered the art of right hand bread ripping. The bread isn’t like a loaf like we have in America, it’s more like a tortilla or a pita. Delicious in any form though. 2.) the head bobble. Until I talked to my first Indian, I didn’t know this head bobble existed. It is a left to right movement that occurs frequently during conversations. During an explanation, if what you’re saying is understood, Indians will bobble their head to show comprehension. It’s a subtle movement but it was constantly hilarious. The whole time, it never gets old once. I don’t even have any videos to show you to fully explain this movement but trust that its hilarious. That’s all for India. I’ll tell everyone tons of stories of this port when I get home because it was clearly one of the best places I’ll ever be. Good and bad news: my trip is half way over. I will be home in 54 days. During the upcoming month, I will be uber busy in port. In the next 36 days, we are in port 25 of them. That’s so ridiculous to me. I have a laundry day tomorrow and I don’t get another one till we’re in Hawaii because of the way our schedule is. That is like 5 and a half weeks away. I guess I’ll be doing a lot of laundry in my sink in the upcoming weeks. Wish me luck in the next couple ports. I will try to post after everyone but I can’t guarantee anything. Two nights before we reach any port, we have a pre-port lecture. It’s an hour long talk full of information (as if we don’t get enough info through other channels) Today, our first day back on the boat they made an announcement “cultural preport will take place tomorrow at 2000 hours.” Matea and I almost couldn’t believe that it was so soon. Very very exciting. Love you all more than I can explain! See you soon.

Just a couple of things:

Mumma: I haven’t gotten my additional malaria medicine. I don’t know if you forgot or it didn’t get to my port, but I don’t have it. I hope it will be in Malaysia because I need it for one more port. I also haven’t gotten any point books. I still love you anyways.

Rannie: Thanks for keeping up with my email. It really makes my life so much better that I don’t have to open every email myself.

Mark: thanks for being the only person that has written to me in each port. I appreciate it.

Kristofer: thank you for sending me letters to every port except one. And being the best ever. (o:

Juli: eventhough you haven’t sent me any mail… I still love your gutz.

Mumma: thanks for that little Valentine from Keagan.

And finally…

A special thanks to Poppa Bear. I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say your posts make most peoples day just a little bit better. (o:

Love you all! Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!

Almost India

Hey everyone!! i'm in india on my host family's computer. to all of you who were not on aim while i was on aim, you suck. to all of you who post on my blog cosistantly, i love your gutz. Just wait for this next blog, i promise it will be best yet. India is my favorite country that we've been to so far!!!

Mauritius

Mauritius was very interesting. When the Europeans founded this small island, there were no natives. When they wanted to grow sugarcane (slavery was already abolished by this point) they got indentured servants from India. Now, 60% of Mauritius’s inhabitants have roots in India. I guess you could say it was a preview to what India will be like. By the morning that we arrived in port I still didn’t have plans. I like to keep my plans open and just do whatever feels right but I was starting to think I cut it too close. When we were clear to disembark, I was planning on going to a villa with a friend so I left with him to meet his friends. They seemed okay, but I didn’t want to commit to spending the next 4 days with them so I found some other friends that were just gonna walk around and we got hustled for the first taxi we got. They charged us $5 each. I’m starting to realize that no matter what, the first couple things you do in each country, you are bound to get hustled. That taxi should have been $1 each person (which is what we paid later) but of course we just paid it because we had no choice. So we went into town and got some money out of the bank. The exchange rate is 27.6 Rupees to 1 dollar. Try doing that conversion I your head when you’re trying to barter with a merchant. Pretty difficult. Then we went back to the boat where I met up with Mal and Nel and the rest of my Pitt friends and we decided to look for some hiking and waterfalls. If you traveled from the north to the south of Mauritius, it would only take 2.5 hours, so we decided to take a bus and just drive around to find something cool. Port Louis is in the north western part of the island and we headed south east to find something cool. The bus was super inexpensive especially when compared to the taxis here. An hour bus ride was slightly over one dollar. I took the bus for the majority of my stay here. So we were on our way to what we thought was hiking and waterfalls in Curepipe. Anytime we had no idea where were going, we would just ask any local and they were very willing to help us to our destination. So we got to the main terminal in a town where we thought the hiking was. Turns out, we were in the middle of the island and all of the mountains are around the perimeter. Eventho we couldn’t really explain what we wanted to anyone at the bus station, we got directions to a crater, trou aux cerfs, that was about 15 minutes away. The bus stops were very random. They were just like in someone’s backyard or whatever and people would be waiting there and some people would get off. We were joking around saying we’d never get off at a stop like that because we would never know how to get back. So I turned to the woman next to me and asked her where to get off for the crater that we were now looking for. She pointed ahead and said the next stop, then make a right. It was the exact same kinda stop that we said we would never get off at. When the bus stopped, we were looking around at everyone and they were all pointing and telling us to get off here. We did. We had no idea where we were, but we made a right and started walking. We got there and it was beautiful. From what I understand it was an old volcano that isn’t active anymore. We took some pictures together at the crater and took in the view. We talked to some locals that were there and they sorta explained how to get to another bus station. We stopped in a little store to get drinks on the way back and found it very easily. Two of the girls went home from that bus so they could go on a SAS trip and the rest of us went to find the waterfall. We took another bus to a little town that was out of the way we got there at 5:50 and asked when the bus left for Curepipe. The man said it left in 10 minutes. Some local quickly walked us to a viewing point for the waterfalls and we ran back to the bus so we didn’t have to stay in that small town for the night. We got there in plenty of time. On the way back some man left his name and phone number on our seat so he could show us around. Then the guy on the bus that collected our money asked us where we were staying so he could hang out. I guess Americans are a hit with Mauritians.

The next day I was still unsure what to do. A friend that is in one of my classes asked me to go to a villa with him and his friends. Most of the semester at sea kids got villas at a beach called Flick n Flack but from what I heard it wasn’t as pretty as this place in the north called Grand Bay. I also heard Flick n Flack has more petty crime because that is where most of the tourists stay. Davis and his friends were staying at Grand Bay, so I went there with them. There were 5 of us going to the villa at the same time, then everyone else (like 10 additional people) were going to meet us there later. The other three girls going with us brought clothes to wash so they took a taxi. Davis and I travel light so we took the bus. It was much much less expensive and it didn’t take much longer. We got off the bus at a spot that looked familiar and were going to walk the rest of the way. As we were walking, we were bragging about how much cheaper our ride was and how it was such a good idea. Unfortunately, it took us like 25 minutes to find the place we were staying. Then when we did find it, the other girls weren’t there and we were locked out. We sat at the beach for about an hour figuring the other girls had left and looked for some food. When we got back, there was a pink post it on the fence saying there was no one to let us in and we should go to this other hotel that the travel agent put us up in. It was slightly aggravating because we had no idea how to get in contact with the other people that were coming up later that night. We called and left some messages at the boat and were on our way to the hotel. The hotel was soooo nice. There was a private beach about 25 feet behind our back porch. After we all settled down a little from the day’s events, we ordered pizza hut and swam in the Indian Ocean. It was beautiful. No waves, but you could swim out 100 yards and still be able to stand. Mauritius is almost entirely surrounded by unbroken coral reefs. (I didn’t go scuba diving or anything, but I heard it’s beautiful.) The next morning we woke up for the sun rise, then again at 9 to go to the villa we were originally supposed to stay in. The travel agency sent a taxi to pick us up and of course the taxi was running on Mauritius time and didn’t get there till like 11. Casa del sol was just as beautiful as the hotel we were staying in the night before. It was huge, it had 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms upstairs, a dining room, kitchen, living room, and laundry room downstairs. It was nicely decorated and there were only 5 of us staying there. After we put our stuff down we decided to call the other people in our group to see if we could find them. We took my lappy and Davis’s skype and looked for some internet. As we were walking to the main road, we saw one of the kids that was in the other group! It was a freak accident. He just happened to be walking when we were walking. I love these new friends of mine. They are defiantly some people I will visit when I come back. We had a good time together. We went to the beach that day and what not. The next day, a couple of us had to go back to the boat in the early hours so we could go on a trip. We woke up on time and got back to the boat with an hour to eat and take a shower. It worked out perfectly. That day, I had a trip planed called medicine in Mauritius. It had pretty good potential, they practice natural medicine rather than taking pills of chemicals, they use natural things from the island and from India to cure any problems they have. Even things like obesity and high blood pressure. (Rannie, you should look into this stuff. This doctor was talking about taking a pill of bark from a tree to cure stomach problems or something like that. I got his card so I can email him questions so we can get your life back on track. I know you like natural things over processed things anyways) The trip kinda sucked, it could have been much better but we did have lunch at a delicious restaurant. A family converted their house into a restaurant. The restrooms were the actual bathrooms in the house. You even had to walk thru a bedroom to get to the ladies room. Very cute. The food is traditionally served as a celebration for a wedding or a ceremony so it was super nice and super delicious. We ate on an elephant leaf cut into a square. The servers came around with a metal pot that had one type of food in it. First, they served potatoes, then spinach, then punkin, salmon, a curry dish, white beans, and something that I was not familiar with. They also served bread that you ate your food with. The coolest part was that there was no silverware. We just ate with our hands. Imagine a bunch of piles of mush on an elephant leaf that we’re all eating with our fingers. So fun. I slept on the way home, tried to get a phone card but realized how expensive they were. I went back to the boat and fell asleep for 14 hours. (o: Didn’t even wake up for dinner. While I was at Grand Bay in my villa with my new friends, Matea and our friend Christine had gone to their hostel. They planned on going running every day (that’s why I didn’t go with them) they were swimming in the ocean on the second day we were in port and a jellyfish from 100 miles away stung Christine. She said it didn’t hurt too much but the sting started getting worse so our friend Alex (there are two guys both named alex. One has hair and one doesn’t have hair. This was the one with hair) to ease her pain, peed on her arm where the jelly fish stung her!! Hahahaha that’s hilarious to me. You always hear that on tv and it’s funny that they actually did it. She said there was less pain but her body started freaking out from the sting. She said her back started cramping up and her heart was beating very fast. They asked locals on the beach if she was going to be okay and they said she was fine. They went back to the boat but she didn’t get any better. Then Matea and Christine went to the hospital where Christine was in critical condition for the night. She got a couple shots and some IVs and she ended up being okay. I wish I could have been there because Matea was basically there by herself while her bff was in critical condition. It ended up okay, but it was still very scary. Everything is alright and now we’re on our way to India. I’m excited about India. I am doing a work project and a home stay. I can’t wait for my home stay, its going to open my eyes. We watched a presentation today about how it’s socially unacceptable to have baby girls. All families prefer to have boys because when they are married off, they receive a dowry rather than having to pay the money. There are a large number of female fetus abortions. Families celebrate when a boy is born. If a daughter is born, the wife is sometimes beaten, sometimes divorced, and even killed. Very sad. Never the less, I’m excited about being in Chennai and I can’t wait to tell you all about it. (o: Love you all very much. Keep the email and mail coming. *kisses*