Hong Kong is a city straight out of a sci-fi movie. Everything is so clean and modern, giant windowed buildings, walking bridges that cover the city so that pedestrians do not have to fight the traffic in the streets, amazing stores, electronics everywhere, light shows at night, the subways are clean enough for you to eat off of the floor if you wanted to – the city just exudes modern beauty intermixed with a respect for nature, people, and the world itself.
When we got into Hong Kong, it was really overcast and difficult to see clearly into this amazing city – and pretty much for the whole first day that we were there, it was a little humid, overcast, and rainy – but even this did not destroy the beauty of this city. I hope that I can give at least a glimpse into this wonderful place! Our ship was docked on Kowloon, which is another island off the cost of Hong Kong (also an island). To get to Hong Kong, we could either take a ferry ride – the most efficient and clean ferry boat ride I have ever taken – it cost $1.70 Hong Kong Dollars, which is about $.25. ($1 = 7.8 HKD) – or we could take the subway (also incredibly cheap, so easy to navigate, and clean as can be – and really quite – the whole city is very quiet, there is no yelling, screaming, honking, or anything like that, instead the city is calm. At night, around 8pm the whole city puts on a light show with its buildings and it is so cool – I mean, what city in the US does a light show every night – I love it! Just shows how much pride and respect they have for one another and their city. Same thing with the trash, graffiti, etc. – there is none and I think its simply because the people have a profound respect for their environment. There weren’t signs directly telling people not to throw trash on the ground or eat in the subways or not to speak loudly – people just did it – now if only we could get people to do that in the US!
We spent the first day wondering around Kowloon and Hong Kong. We went to the electronics stores and saw all the new Ipods, cell phones, cameras, TV’s, etc. – everything was pretty cheap because they do not have sales tax, but still relatively expensive. I found an Ipod Nano 8G for $200 – I didn’t get it, but I really wish that I had! We also went to the Opal Mine and saw some beautiful opal stones, jewelry, pearls, etc. I spoiled myself and got an opal ring (heart shaped) in an 18 K white gold setting – I probably shouldn’t have spent that much money, but oh well, I think I deserve to treat myself every now and then ( I mean really – I am only traveling around the world!). We also spent some time in the Women’s Market, which was an outside market with jackets, clothes (that would never fit an American woman – I feel like a giant in most of these places), shoes (again – they laughed when I told them the size of my feet), hair stuff, funky stuff, dolls, etc. – just a ton of stuff for pretty cheap and of course you are supposed to bargain, which is always fun. We ate at a Thai restaurant and it was really good. We also got coffee at a Starbucks – sadly, we broke down (Michelle, you will understand I am sure). Later that night, we all went out with one of the guy’s from the ship’s cousin (who lives in Hong Kong) and we ate at an outdoor booth restaurant, underneath awnings, in the pouring rain, and it was fantastic.
The next day, Tom and I got up really early to try and get as much done as humanly possible in 1 day! We went to an orphanage in Hong Kong to donate money from SAS. Then we went on a tram ride up to Victoria’s Peak, which gives the most amazing view of the city and it was a perfectly clear day. The woman at the orphanage told us that a clear day only happens 20x a year, so we got really lucky on this one. We had coffee at the peak and then took the tram back down. We walked through the city gardens, saw pink flamingoes, a bird sanctuary, rose gardens, and lots of green foliage everywhere. Then we took the subway to Central Station and headed to another island off of Hong Kong, where we took a gondola ride up and across the island to this little village with a massive Buddha statue on the top of a hill. We walked up to the Buddha on a staircase with at least a hundred steps, took some great pictures, hung out with the giant Buddha for a bit, had some ice cream, did some shopping, probably the most comical thing about our trip to the Buddha was that he charged $20 HKD to visit! We then rode the gondola back down the mountain, got back on the subway, back to Kowloon and then we ate at the fanciest restaurant in Hong Kong – the Pizza Hut! I kid you not, Tom and I were underdressed for eating in this establishment! The menu was 20 pages long and most of it was not pizza, but different types of Chinese foods, Thai, Italian, it was pretty crazy. We ordered just a regular pizza and it pretty much tasted like Pizza Hut pizza, but I didn’t see anyone else actually eating pizza there. It was a fun experience and now I can say that I ate Pizza Hut in Hong Kong!
After our glorious meal at the Hut, we got back onto the ship and have now been sailing to Qingdao, China for the past 2 days. The ship is mostly empty, only about 80 people are on board because everyone else is traveling independently and meeting us in China. Its actually really nice being on the ship when its this quiet. I have gotten so much work done, slept in, the meals are better cause there are fewer people – its really fairly relaxing. The weather has completely changed course and now it feels like spring without any heat! I love it – finally, we are getting some cooler air. We arrive in China tomorrow morning at 8am and will be there until Sunday night. Then we are on the ship for 2 days and then we reach Japan, I cannot believe it – Japan – our last stop is almost here. But, I am not going to think about that, instead I am going to enjoy Quindao!
Friday, April 20, 2007
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
5 Days in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam & 3 Days at Sea
We traveled along the Saigon River as we came into port in Ho Chi Minh City – and what an experience. Surrounded by small boat houses/huts on the water, trees, lush green plants that extended into the river itself, navigating left and right along this little river that didn’t look like it would be deep enough for a ship to cruise through – the entire time, you find yourself thinking about how beautiful this journey is and yet at the same time thinking about how scary this must have been during the Vietnam War. All of Vietnam had this feel to it (for me anyways) – the sense that this place is so wonderful, welcoming, and beautiful – but it also had the remnants of pain, war, fear and a world that must have been terrifying for so many.
Ho Chi Minh was yet another very hot and humid stop in this journey around the world! I have grown so used to sweating all day long, that I cannot remember what it feels like to not sweat when you are outside. J Tom and I had some wonderful experiences in Vietnam and the Vietnamese people are so welcoming, forgiving, and wonderful that it was just a fantastic experience yet again. Ho Chi Minh City is very modern, easy to navigate, filled with more motorbikes that I could ever imagine – the traffic patterns are probably some of the scariest known to man, but they are also so fun! Basically, the cars, motorbikes, buses, etc. are allowed to do whatever they want – if you don’t want to stop at a red light, you simply honk your way through and people will go around you – if you feel like driving on the other side of the road, then by all means do so! Motorbikes outnumber cars by the thousands – at one point we got stuck in the middle of rush hour traffic and it just looks totally insane – thousands of motorbikes along the streets on the sidewalks – a pedestrian’s nightmare! To cross the street, you just have to go – there is no point of waiting for a signal, because it either will not come or it just doesn’t matter J So, if you just walk at a steady slow pace, the motorbikes and cars will just go around you – it got to be so fun by the end. We also took the motorbikes everywhere in the city for $1 you could get the driver to take you around all over the place. It was so much fun and luckily it wasn’t until the last day in Vietnam that we learned of all the students with muffler burns on their legs from the motorbikes – this may have prevented us from having so much fun on them! Happily – I have no muffler burns on my calves so I think I survived Vietnam quite well. My favorite experience with the motorbikes was when I got a “talking to” about why I was 26 years old and did not have any children! The driver could not understand why a woman at 26 would not have 3 children at least – and he kept asking me what was wrong with me! The entire ride he explained to me that it just was not good for me to be childless at this age and how is oldest daughter is 26 and she already has 3 children – after he dropped me off, he rode away saying 3 babies, you need 3 babies. It was quite the experience. Later, on a different tour we learned that most Vietnamese people actually feel sorry for American women. He explained that they feel proud to see all of the rights that American women have, but they also feel sorry for us because it seems that we have lost our primary life goal of the family. Vietnamese women take their roles within the family very seriously – and felt that American women had lost this valuable role within their rights.
The $1 does really well in Vietnam – 16,600 dong per $1 – and yes, we all talked about our dong at every chance that we got! The markets in Vietnam were great fun too and so great to get into the bargaining for different gifts for all of you at home – at first I really didn’t enjoy bargaining, but now I absolutely love it. Its so fun and you get such a sense of accomplishment at the end of the transaction – plus as you are bargaining, the sales person will typically tell you about themselves and their lives, so you end up learning so much about people in addition to getting a great gift. Tom and I spent one whole day in the markets (returning 2x to the ship to drop off all the stuff that we got). Then that night, we went to this amazing nonprofit shop called Vietnamese Quilts, where they helped women learn job training skills, get an education, and generate an income with their quilts. All of the money spent on the quilts was put right back into the store and the stuff was beautiful. We got a queen size quilt for $100 and it is just beautiful. The woman who ran the shop then told us about a great restaurant for dinner where the owner works with disadvantaged youth and trains them in the hospitality industry and teaches them English. They use the restaurant as a place to practice what they have learned and then move on to other industries once they have mastered their skills. The food was wonderful and the people were again so friendly.
I ate some of the best tofu dishes in Vietnam – everything that I ate had tofu included somehow and I am pretty sure that in the end, I was on tofu overload. We ate a lot of Pho, which is basically soup with noodles, spices, veggies and either meat or tofu. The Vietnamese eat soup all day long – there are vendors on the streets selling meals for under $.50 all day long. Their coffee is so amazingly strong and good that it puts any coffee in America to shame. They serve it really strongly, with condensed milk if you want it – but really, its so good that there is no need. They incorporate fresh veggies into everything and are so hospitable – they are not satisfied until you are full and happy with your entire meal. There were quite a few times when we just didn’t know if the meal would ever end because so much food kept coming out!
We took a day trip to the Mekong Delta and rode little banana boats and motor boats through the Mekong. Again, it was that feeling of being in awe over the beauty, while simultaneously seeing how scary this trip down the river would have been during the war. The river trees lean right over into the water and you are surrounded by them as you travel down the river. There are little villages and homes along the river as well, where the people live off of the river and land. So very different from Ho Chi Minh – a place so modern – but again, the people were so friendly. We also took at trip to see the Cao Dai Temples, which is a religion started with the mindset of ending war through religion. Basically the temples are a space where everyone can worship regardless of your religion and so they have statues of Jesus, Confucius, Buddha, Allah, etc. – dragon statues line the walls, every color under the sun is used in the temple – it looks like you just stepped into a colorful painting – so happy and bright and open. We also went to the Cu Chi Tunnels and watched a Communist film about the Vietnam – American War – that was quite an experience. The whole film was about how many American’s the village people were able to kill and how powerful the Vietnamese were, which of course makes sense. It was odd and good to hear the other side of this story. We got to actually crawl through a tunnel, which had been expanded to fit tourists, but I wouldn’t exactly call it large by any means. We sweat our butts off in these things and it was really quite scary to be in the dark, wondering through this tunnel, you can’t see 5 inches in front of you, the walls are circled around you, the air is really hard to take in – by the time we reached the top and got out of the tunnel, everyone was panting and sweating profusely. But, it really gave you a sense of the dedication and skill of the Vietnamese – they lived inside these tunnels for sometimes 2 years at a time – and the originals are tiny, and again it also really put reality to the fear and difficulties that American soldiers must have faced in that war. On another day, we went to the War Remnants Museum, which used to be called the American Atrocities Museum – so this gives you a hint as to what was contained inside the museum – horrific photos of brutal deaths, killings, bombings, agent orange children, fetuses in jars – it was an important and difficult reality to see how horrific human beings can act during a time of war. We saw the city completely destroyed – and yet 30 years later, the city is completely built back up. Its amazing how resilient people truly are and also forgiving – at no point during my stay in Vietnam did I feel any anti-American sentiment. As one of our tour guides explained, the people of Vietnam are just so tired of war and death – that they are just thrilled to be alive – and you could really feel this in the city and throughout the country. People are just happy – fully alive and happy – and its something that is so contagious that I hope that I can bring a little bit of this happiness back to America. Vietnam is a wonderful place and I hope that I will be able to return again soon.
And so we are now on our way to Hong Kong and are scheduled to arrive there on Tuesday morning for just 2 short days. Our time at sea is really going by so quickly now and yesterday marked the official one month mark to when we will dock in San Diego. I cannot believe it – one more month – it has gone by so quickly. I feel as though I will be so ready to be back at home in one month too – because although I am loving this journey, I am also so excited to bring my experiences and thoughts home with me. I hope that I will be able to convey some of the amazing feelings of happiness, the love of life, and the love of people that these short trips have provided for me. Its funny when you can actually feel yourself changing and growing – learning so many new things about yourself, the good and the bad – and just embracing each experience without preconceived notions of how things should/need to be, but rather letting the experience take you where you need to go. This journey has been nothing short of life-changing and I cannot wait to share these things with you all. I miss you all terribly and I look forward to seeing everyone again in just 1 short month!
Ho Chi Minh was yet another very hot and humid stop in this journey around the world! I have grown so used to sweating all day long, that I cannot remember what it feels like to not sweat when you are outside. J Tom and I had some wonderful experiences in Vietnam and the Vietnamese people are so welcoming, forgiving, and wonderful that it was just a fantastic experience yet again. Ho Chi Minh City is very modern, easy to navigate, filled with more motorbikes that I could ever imagine – the traffic patterns are probably some of the scariest known to man, but they are also so fun! Basically, the cars, motorbikes, buses, etc. are allowed to do whatever they want – if you don’t want to stop at a red light, you simply honk your way through and people will go around you – if you feel like driving on the other side of the road, then by all means do so! Motorbikes outnumber cars by the thousands – at one point we got stuck in the middle of rush hour traffic and it just looks totally insane – thousands of motorbikes along the streets on the sidewalks – a pedestrian’s nightmare! To cross the street, you just have to go – there is no point of waiting for a signal, because it either will not come or it just doesn’t matter J So, if you just walk at a steady slow pace, the motorbikes and cars will just go around you – it got to be so fun by the end. We also took the motorbikes everywhere in the city for $1 you could get the driver to take you around all over the place. It was so much fun and luckily it wasn’t until the last day in Vietnam that we learned of all the students with muffler burns on their legs from the motorbikes – this may have prevented us from having so much fun on them! Happily – I have no muffler burns on my calves so I think I survived Vietnam quite well. My favorite experience with the motorbikes was when I got a “talking to” about why I was 26 years old and did not have any children! The driver could not understand why a woman at 26 would not have 3 children at least – and he kept asking me what was wrong with me! The entire ride he explained to me that it just was not good for me to be childless at this age and how is oldest daughter is 26 and she already has 3 children – after he dropped me off, he rode away saying 3 babies, you need 3 babies. It was quite the experience. Later, on a different tour we learned that most Vietnamese people actually feel sorry for American women. He explained that they feel proud to see all of the rights that American women have, but they also feel sorry for us because it seems that we have lost our primary life goal of the family. Vietnamese women take their roles within the family very seriously – and felt that American women had lost this valuable role within their rights.
The $1 does really well in Vietnam – 16,600 dong per $1 – and yes, we all talked about our dong at every chance that we got! The markets in Vietnam were great fun too and so great to get into the bargaining for different gifts for all of you at home – at first I really didn’t enjoy bargaining, but now I absolutely love it. Its so fun and you get such a sense of accomplishment at the end of the transaction – plus as you are bargaining, the sales person will typically tell you about themselves and their lives, so you end up learning so much about people in addition to getting a great gift. Tom and I spent one whole day in the markets (returning 2x to the ship to drop off all the stuff that we got). Then that night, we went to this amazing nonprofit shop called Vietnamese Quilts, where they helped women learn job training skills, get an education, and generate an income with their quilts. All of the money spent on the quilts was put right back into the store and the stuff was beautiful. We got a queen size quilt for $100 and it is just beautiful. The woman who ran the shop then told us about a great restaurant for dinner where the owner works with disadvantaged youth and trains them in the hospitality industry and teaches them English. They use the restaurant as a place to practice what they have learned and then move on to other industries once they have mastered their skills. The food was wonderful and the people were again so friendly.
I ate some of the best tofu dishes in Vietnam – everything that I ate had tofu included somehow and I am pretty sure that in the end, I was on tofu overload. We ate a lot of Pho, which is basically soup with noodles, spices, veggies and either meat or tofu. The Vietnamese eat soup all day long – there are vendors on the streets selling meals for under $.50 all day long. Their coffee is so amazingly strong and good that it puts any coffee in America to shame. They serve it really strongly, with condensed milk if you want it – but really, its so good that there is no need. They incorporate fresh veggies into everything and are so hospitable – they are not satisfied until you are full and happy with your entire meal. There were quite a few times when we just didn’t know if the meal would ever end because so much food kept coming out!
We took a day trip to the Mekong Delta and rode little banana boats and motor boats through the Mekong. Again, it was that feeling of being in awe over the beauty, while simultaneously seeing how scary this trip down the river would have been during the war. The river trees lean right over into the water and you are surrounded by them as you travel down the river. There are little villages and homes along the river as well, where the people live off of the river and land. So very different from Ho Chi Minh – a place so modern – but again, the people were so friendly. We also took at trip to see the Cao Dai Temples, which is a religion started with the mindset of ending war through religion. Basically the temples are a space where everyone can worship regardless of your religion and so they have statues of Jesus, Confucius, Buddha, Allah, etc. – dragon statues line the walls, every color under the sun is used in the temple – it looks like you just stepped into a colorful painting – so happy and bright and open. We also went to the Cu Chi Tunnels and watched a Communist film about the Vietnam – American War – that was quite an experience. The whole film was about how many American’s the village people were able to kill and how powerful the Vietnamese were, which of course makes sense. It was odd and good to hear the other side of this story. We got to actually crawl through a tunnel, which had been expanded to fit tourists, but I wouldn’t exactly call it large by any means. We sweat our butts off in these things and it was really quite scary to be in the dark, wondering through this tunnel, you can’t see 5 inches in front of you, the walls are circled around you, the air is really hard to take in – by the time we reached the top and got out of the tunnel, everyone was panting and sweating profusely. But, it really gave you a sense of the dedication and skill of the Vietnamese – they lived inside these tunnels for sometimes 2 years at a time – and the originals are tiny, and again it also really put reality to the fear and difficulties that American soldiers must have faced in that war. On another day, we went to the War Remnants Museum, which used to be called the American Atrocities Museum – so this gives you a hint as to what was contained inside the museum – horrific photos of brutal deaths, killings, bombings, agent orange children, fetuses in jars – it was an important and difficult reality to see how horrific human beings can act during a time of war. We saw the city completely destroyed – and yet 30 years later, the city is completely built back up. Its amazing how resilient people truly are and also forgiving – at no point during my stay in Vietnam did I feel any anti-American sentiment. As one of our tour guides explained, the people of Vietnam are just so tired of war and death – that they are just thrilled to be alive – and you could really feel this in the city and throughout the country. People are just happy – fully alive and happy – and its something that is so contagious that I hope that I can bring a little bit of this happiness back to America. Vietnam is a wonderful place and I hope that I will be able to return again soon.
And so we are now on our way to Hong Kong and are scheduled to arrive there on Tuesday morning for just 2 short days. Our time at sea is really going by so quickly now and yesterday marked the official one month mark to when we will dock in San Diego. I cannot believe it – one more month – it has gone by so quickly. I feel as though I will be so ready to be back at home in one month too – because although I am loving this journey, I am also so excited to bring my experiences and thoughts home with me. I hope that I will be able to convey some of the amazing feelings of happiness, the love of life, and the love of people that these short trips have provided for me. Its funny when you can actually feel yourself changing and growing – learning so many new things about yourself, the good and the bad – and just embracing each experience without preconceived notions of how things should/need to be, but rather letting the experience take you where you need to go. This journey has been nothing short of life-changing and I cannot wait to share these things with you all. I miss you all terribly and I look forward to seeing everyone again in just 1 short month!
Sunday, April 8, 2007
4 Days in Penang, Malaysia and 3 Days at Sea
Malaysia was by far one of my favorite stops. It was the perfect place to go after India and I feel completely refreshed, happy, and more like myself than I felt after India. I had no expectations for what Malaysia might look like or be in anyway – and I was so pleasantly surprised. Penang is a city that I would love to return to later – the people were so friendly and the food was amazing – I had a wonderful time.
Tom on the other hand only got 2 days in Penang because he came down with the most violent stomach illness I have ever encountered. The night before we arrived in Malaysia he woke up throwing up like crazy – this continued until about 10am and the doctor had to come and give him a shot, which pretty much knocked him out cold for 2 days. The stomach flu was going around the ship and at first everyone thought that it was Delhi belly, but it turns out – it was not! Thus far, I have not gotten this stomach thing – but I will now knock on wood, because as many of you know – my belly is not the strongest of my organs! J
So while Tom laid in bed for 2 days, I went out with a bunch of people from the ship and hung around the city of Penang. Malaysia is a Muslim country, but there is also a strong Chinese culture mixed in. There are temples and mosques all over the city in between businesses, stores, and restaurants. Traffic was so manageable in comparison to India that we felt like we were back in the states. The food was amazing!!! More tofu and veggies and fruits – I thought I was in heaven! The first day we ate at a Chinese Restaurant and I had what can only be described as small bricks of tofu mixed with mushrooms and cabbage. It was soooo good. The shops in Penang had a distinctively ‘punk’ feel to them and this was really refreshing to see as well. I visited an internet café for a morning and re-discovered the glory that is the internet!!! It was so fast and beautiful…tear J
For 2 days, I basically ate everything in sight, shopped, and wondered around Penang with friends. We visited the temples, ate some more, sweat our butts off again – Malaysian heat makes India look like a slightly warm bath – it was so hot and humid that you could not even move without sweating profusely! I have yet to feel heat like this and apparently Vietnam is supposed to be even hotter…I cannot imagine – after India my limbs were swollen and my body ached from the heat and the same happened after Malaysia – so by Vietnam, I may just completely lose all feeling in my body. J
The only bad part for Malaysia was that we had to dock away from the actual pier and use our ship’s safety boats to get to and from the city. Now, initially this seemed like a lot of fun, but once you are stuffed into an enclosed lifeboat with 75 other sweaty people with no breeze – it is not so fun. So, after 2 days (and Tom felt better at this point) 5 of us went out to a beach community at Batu Ferengi for 2 days. It was beautiful! We had a bit of a rocky start though, we had initially reserved a “Guest House” but when we got there, we soon discovered that a guest house means a cement block with some pillow/mattress type things on the floor. The bathroom was just one open room with the toilet and shower in the same area – i.e. no curtain separating anything – and so you could literally shower as you used the toilet! Not exactly what we had in mind, so we upgraded to the Holiday Inn down the street for an extra $10. The Holiday Inn was one of the fanciest things I have ever stayed in – we had a massive room with a shower that could fit like 10 people, full bathtub, Malaysia TV – it was definitely worth the extra $10!
We rented scooters for the 2 days and rode all over the island. Scooters are so fun, that I may have to consider getting a motorcycle when I get back! Although really, I just enjoyed riding them and not really driving – too much to see from the bike to have to worry about driving it. We went to a Spice Garden, which was this great little sanctuary on a hill where we could wonder through forest trails, get eaten alive by mosquitoes, see a beautiful landscape and just be in a very peaceful, quiet place. We also went to a Butterfly Zoo type place, where you go into this back area and are surrounded by hundreds of thousands of butterflies. We also got to see some seriously nasty looking bugs and massive spiders too! Then we headed to the Tropical Fruit Farm, which was at the top of this giant hill and for 25 Ringette or $3.50, we could go on a tour of the farm (again, while getting eaten alive by mosquitoes) and then receive a free fruit drink and attend a fruit buffet. It was needless to say amazing – we tried 15 different tropical fruits, most of which I have never heard of before along with pineapple, mango, dragonfruit, starfruit, bananas, guava – it was fantastic. We wondered around the night markets and got some great bookleg DVD’s and a bunch of other fun stuff for people at home. We drank Tiger beer (another Coors Light basically) and ate over and over again. J I think after my tour through Asia, I will certainly be gaining some healthy world travel weight! On the last day, we traveled around the island by scooter – visited the Snake Temple, where Tom held a snake around his neck – and pretty much just drove through local towns and coast lines – we also tried to scale a mountain with our scooter, but that wasn’t really working all that well – but anyways, we stopped at this little market and got fried bananas 10 of them for 1 Ringette or like $.30 and mixed it with ice cream…I think its my new favorite food.
The one true cultural experience that we had happened at a local fish restaurant – Tom and I had gone along with another couple and when we sat down to order, the men were clearly favored. They got to order their food first and their drinks magically continued to be filled with our beers. The men’s food was brought to the table right away, while we didn’t get ours until after the guy’s had finished. If we asked for something, we were ignored and so we would have to ask one of the guys to order it for us – it was quite the experience and yet so obvious that we couldn’t really even get mad – we just sort of observed and took this experience in…very interesting.
After 4 great days in Malaysia, we boarded the ship for another 3 days at sea before arriving in Vietnam! I am sad that I no longer have a superfast internet connection or tofu, but I will soon – since Vietnam can be veggie heaven! These past 3 days, the ship has barely felt like it was moving cause the water is so calm and I have been doing a lot of GLI work, attending sessions on Marathon running, and just hanging out with people. I realized today that Easter Sunday is actually here…its strange to be so far away from commercialized life that you don’t even know what holiday is coming up – without the chocolate bunnies being thrown in your face, its so easy to forget what you are supposed to remember. At this point, the trip is flying by – so I will stop here and update after Vietnam.
Tom on the other hand only got 2 days in Penang because he came down with the most violent stomach illness I have ever encountered. The night before we arrived in Malaysia he woke up throwing up like crazy – this continued until about 10am and the doctor had to come and give him a shot, which pretty much knocked him out cold for 2 days. The stomach flu was going around the ship and at first everyone thought that it was Delhi belly, but it turns out – it was not! Thus far, I have not gotten this stomach thing – but I will now knock on wood, because as many of you know – my belly is not the strongest of my organs! J
So while Tom laid in bed for 2 days, I went out with a bunch of people from the ship and hung around the city of Penang. Malaysia is a Muslim country, but there is also a strong Chinese culture mixed in. There are temples and mosques all over the city in between businesses, stores, and restaurants. Traffic was so manageable in comparison to India that we felt like we were back in the states. The food was amazing!!! More tofu and veggies and fruits – I thought I was in heaven! The first day we ate at a Chinese Restaurant and I had what can only be described as small bricks of tofu mixed with mushrooms and cabbage. It was soooo good. The shops in Penang had a distinctively ‘punk’ feel to them and this was really refreshing to see as well. I visited an internet café for a morning and re-discovered the glory that is the internet!!! It was so fast and beautiful…tear J
For 2 days, I basically ate everything in sight, shopped, and wondered around Penang with friends. We visited the temples, ate some more, sweat our butts off again – Malaysian heat makes India look like a slightly warm bath – it was so hot and humid that you could not even move without sweating profusely! I have yet to feel heat like this and apparently Vietnam is supposed to be even hotter…I cannot imagine – after India my limbs were swollen and my body ached from the heat and the same happened after Malaysia – so by Vietnam, I may just completely lose all feeling in my body. J
The only bad part for Malaysia was that we had to dock away from the actual pier and use our ship’s safety boats to get to and from the city. Now, initially this seemed like a lot of fun, but once you are stuffed into an enclosed lifeboat with 75 other sweaty people with no breeze – it is not so fun. So, after 2 days (and Tom felt better at this point) 5 of us went out to a beach community at Batu Ferengi for 2 days. It was beautiful! We had a bit of a rocky start though, we had initially reserved a “Guest House” but when we got there, we soon discovered that a guest house means a cement block with some pillow/mattress type things on the floor. The bathroom was just one open room with the toilet and shower in the same area – i.e. no curtain separating anything – and so you could literally shower as you used the toilet! Not exactly what we had in mind, so we upgraded to the Holiday Inn down the street for an extra $10. The Holiday Inn was one of the fanciest things I have ever stayed in – we had a massive room with a shower that could fit like 10 people, full bathtub, Malaysia TV – it was definitely worth the extra $10!
We rented scooters for the 2 days and rode all over the island. Scooters are so fun, that I may have to consider getting a motorcycle when I get back! Although really, I just enjoyed riding them and not really driving – too much to see from the bike to have to worry about driving it. We went to a Spice Garden, which was this great little sanctuary on a hill where we could wonder through forest trails, get eaten alive by mosquitoes, see a beautiful landscape and just be in a very peaceful, quiet place. We also went to a Butterfly Zoo type place, where you go into this back area and are surrounded by hundreds of thousands of butterflies. We also got to see some seriously nasty looking bugs and massive spiders too! Then we headed to the Tropical Fruit Farm, which was at the top of this giant hill and for 25 Ringette or $3.50, we could go on a tour of the farm (again, while getting eaten alive by mosquitoes) and then receive a free fruit drink and attend a fruit buffet. It was needless to say amazing – we tried 15 different tropical fruits, most of which I have never heard of before along with pineapple, mango, dragonfruit, starfruit, bananas, guava – it was fantastic. We wondered around the night markets and got some great bookleg DVD’s and a bunch of other fun stuff for people at home. We drank Tiger beer (another Coors Light basically) and ate over and over again. J I think after my tour through Asia, I will certainly be gaining some healthy world travel weight! On the last day, we traveled around the island by scooter – visited the Snake Temple, where Tom held a snake around his neck – and pretty much just drove through local towns and coast lines – we also tried to scale a mountain with our scooter, but that wasn’t really working all that well – but anyways, we stopped at this little market and got fried bananas 10 of them for 1 Ringette or like $.30 and mixed it with ice cream…I think its my new favorite food.
The one true cultural experience that we had happened at a local fish restaurant – Tom and I had gone along with another couple and when we sat down to order, the men were clearly favored. They got to order their food first and their drinks magically continued to be filled with our beers. The men’s food was brought to the table right away, while we didn’t get ours until after the guy’s had finished. If we asked for something, we were ignored and so we would have to ask one of the guys to order it for us – it was quite the experience and yet so obvious that we couldn’t really even get mad – we just sort of observed and took this experience in…very interesting.
After 4 great days in Malaysia, we boarded the ship for another 3 days at sea before arriving in Vietnam! I am sad that I no longer have a superfast internet connection or tofu, but I will soon – since Vietnam can be veggie heaven! These past 3 days, the ship has barely felt like it was moving cause the water is so calm and I have been doing a lot of GLI work, attending sessions on Marathon running, and just hanging out with people. I realized today that Easter Sunday is actually here…its strange to be so far away from commercialized life that you don’t even know what holiday is coming up – without the chocolate bunnies being thrown in your face, its so easy to forget what you are supposed to remember. At this point, the trip is flying by – so I will stop here and update after Vietnam.
Sunday, April 1, 2007
5 Days in Chennai, India and 3 Days at Sea
India was one of the most amazing and difficult places that we have visited thus far and although I have had 3 days now to process my experiences in India – I am still not certain that I will be able to give a good enough description of this place – but I will try my best for all you amazing, wonderful people at home! J Ok – so Chennai, India was a completely fascinating, contradictory, traditional, liberated, clean, dirty – a place where dichotomies exist in full force and no one gives any rhyme or reason for it. After leaving India, many of us still could not put to words the experience of being in India and even now, as I write this blog – I am finding myself staring out into the ocean and wondering how in the world I am going to sum up my 5 days there…
The Chennai port is an industrial port, so we were surrounded by what looked like car dealerships, but then we also were next to a coal plant – so pretty much at all times of the day, the ship smelled of fuel and by the end of our 5 days the outside was almost completely black with coal soot. Everything from the ship to the inner corners of our ears was covered in black coal at the end of each day – and let me tell you, there are some strange things that can water out of your eyes or that you can sneeze out when you spend your days docked outside of a coal mine! J The city of Chennai was just as polluted as our port as well – cars, motorcycles, rickshaws (which are like death traps on wheels – little buggies that have a motor in them like a lawnmower – and you can fit 3 people if you stuff or like us 5 if you are really strapped for transportation!), cows, goats, dogs, bikes, people – the streets are the most stressful, chaotic and spastic streets I have ever seen – barely any lights, traffic means nothing, street signs mean nothing, driving on the wrong side of the street also means nothing – and somehow this all works. People travel around without any problems and we only saw 1 accident in the entire 5 days, which is utterly amazing considering that in many of our rickshaw experiences we came so close to the other cars, animals, people, etc. that we could have stepped into the other vehicle fairly easily.
Indians do this strange bobble head nod thing to let you know that something is acceptable or ok. Its kind of a side to side nod, so sometimes you think that the person has told you no when they are actually saying ok. Got a bit confusing when ordering food or asking for something, until we remembered what that head bobble meant! We spent all of our time in Chennai (while a lot of the people from the ship traveled to see the Taj) and we had a great experience. We saw some wonderful things and a lot of heartbreaking things as well. The first day was spent getting familiar with the city. We went out with 5 other people in a rickshaw and stopped for some market shopping and lunch. The funny thing about the rickshaw drivers is that there are specific businesses that pay the drivers to take tourists to their shops – they give the driver gifts and a commission. So of course, every time we got into the rickshaw we would have to fight with them to get them to not take us to this rug shop or souvenir shop, which were the most expensive places to go too! I think I went back to the same place 3 times and by the end of the 5 days we would just refuse to get out of the rickshaw, until they took us to where we wanted to go. Its quite fun – constant haggling for a lower price (usually arguing over a few cents), your lungs are clogged with the exhaust from all these vehicles, the streets are dirty, bathrooms are anywhere for men and for women, you have to squat over a hole in the ground. I learned to hold it until we got back to the ship! There are people that live on the streets, next to the rivers, trash is everywhere, people are begging for food, children so small and skinny tug at your arms for food, using the left hand is considered unclean because it is the hand used for wiping oneself after going to the bathroom, the food is super spicy – not really sure why one would want their mouth to burn so much, but it does clean out your sinuses! India is so hot that its almost oppressive – one day it was 110 degrees with 100% humidity – and yet the women are supposed to be fully covered (no shoulders or knees can be shown) so needless to say, I sweat my butt off again. By the end of the 5 days, my legs were actually swollen from the heat and in pain – a bunch of people on the ship felt the same way – I guess because our bodies are just not used to that type of heat – it makes NJ summers look like winter in comparison.
We visited Hindu temples so beautiful and intricate in design – statues of their gods were bold in color and carved into every part of the city. Shoes must be removed whenever going into a temple – and many a time we thought we would come back from the temples shoeless! But the people of India are very honest in a lot of ways – Karma probably has something to do with that and I think the heat too – you are just too hot to make any efforts for dishonesty. On the last day in India, we went outside of the city to Mamallapurum and Katchiaria to visit some temples created in the 8th and 9th century. It was just amazing to see the dedication of the people to preserving and using these spaces – no graffiti, no destruction – so un-American! We saw 5 temples carved out of 1 large stone from the 8th century, monks and regular people holding festivals for Shiva, hawkers selling every type of figurine possible to us (and of course, on the last day we were able to haggle them down in price so much that we got a bunch of statues of gods for $1 each – it got pretty fun!). The fabrics in India are amazing as well – so bright and beautiful and sooo cheap! I bought a sari, although I am not sure what I am going to do with it (maybe have it made into a dress or pillow cases or something) I got it for 550 Rupees and the US $1 is equivalent to 44 Rupees, so I got it for about $12 – not bad! I got a few shirts and a skirt too – the markets are just crowded with amazing things to buy and everything is really so cheap. Most of our meals only cost us $1 each. We drank a lot of soda because the water is so bad – its all cloudy and filled with bacteria and such. I had South Indian coffee, which was absolutely amazing. It comes in 3 parts – 1 part looks like coffee tar, then hot water, and then milk – it is a really dark roast and most Indians drink it black, which must keep you awake for centuries! I bought some tea, although it was surprisingly difficult to find because most people just get a cup from someone because they don’t have the means to purchase a lot on their own.
The majority of the people in India live off of $1 a day and yet there are others with advanced degrees and it seems that the country is slowly moving forward. We visited an orphanage which had about 300 children living there – of course the majority of the children were girls because, as the superintendent said, girls aren’t of any great value to the culture and are more an expense/burden than they are a blessing. I know that I know this – I mean, I work for girls’ education, have a women’s studies background and all – yet somehow in India it really hit me as to how girls and women are really seen throughout the world. I was constantly experiencing the feeling of being invisible, whether on the streets when men would cut me off, walk in front of me, etc. or when only Tom would be asked a direct question and I would be ignored or perceived strangely if I asked a question, women rarely speak directly to anyone – instead they wait to be spoken to – one woman said that the rickshaw driver was utterly shocked when he found out that she was married and “allowed to go out alone without her husband.” Men and women are not to interact in public spaces and arranged marriages still account for 70% of all marriages. If women are not married by the time they are 25 years old, they are seen as barren and ultimately sad/worthless. Publicly, men and women occupy completely different spaces and will never be seen touching. Yet, men are given complete freedom to be very affectionate with other men. It was not uncommon to see men holding hands, hugging, arms wrapped around each other, etc. – but this has nothing to do with their sexuality. Homosexuality is not a part of Indian culture – in fact it is hushed by the culture and not something that people could be open about. Women did not have the same luxury as men in being affectionate publicly with one another – so it was really an interesting experience and phenomenon to see. Most people do not own shoes, so the majority of the people in the city are walking around barefoot. Helmets are not something that anyone wears when riding a motorcycle – again, its amazing that more people haven’t died from accidents. We saw a few monkeys, but not many. Cows are sacred so if they go to cross a street or something – all traffic stops – this is the only time that traffic stops.
Ultimately, Chennai is just a chaotic place that somehow operates as one. The people that we met were wonderful and yet the poverty of the place makes your heart ache. Just seeing the way that most people lived, really brings home the amazing advantages that I have, that we all have – I think it will now be difficult to complain about most things, when I think about mothers walking around with small, malnourished children begging for a little bit of food, shacks on a river that smells so bad that I cannot even begin to describe the smell, full grown men only about 4ft tall because of malnutrition – the poverty of India is something that is so tragic and yet at the same time, so treatable – if only people would begin to care and not harden ourselves to their tragedy. This was the difficulty of India – the slap in the face of poverty, inequality, and social responsibility. As this trip moves along, the theme of poverty and gross inequality becomes not only linked, but thematic in many ways. From Puerto Rico, Brazil, South Africa, Mauritius to India – the poverty has built itself up on one another – and it all looks and feels the same – it changes you, for better or for worse – and I will never be able to let go of this disconcerting feeling of which I have no words to describe. And so instead, I sit on a luxurious ship – bathed, clean, fully clothed, in air conditioning where food is readily available and I think about this experience – sailing for 3 days to another place sure to jolt the senses – onto Penang, Malaysia – who knows what will come next…
The Chennai port is an industrial port, so we were surrounded by what looked like car dealerships, but then we also were next to a coal plant – so pretty much at all times of the day, the ship smelled of fuel and by the end of our 5 days the outside was almost completely black with coal soot. Everything from the ship to the inner corners of our ears was covered in black coal at the end of each day – and let me tell you, there are some strange things that can water out of your eyes or that you can sneeze out when you spend your days docked outside of a coal mine! J The city of Chennai was just as polluted as our port as well – cars, motorcycles, rickshaws (which are like death traps on wheels – little buggies that have a motor in them like a lawnmower – and you can fit 3 people if you stuff or like us 5 if you are really strapped for transportation!), cows, goats, dogs, bikes, people – the streets are the most stressful, chaotic and spastic streets I have ever seen – barely any lights, traffic means nothing, street signs mean nothing, driving on the wrong side of the street also means nothing – and somehow this all works. People travel around without any problems and we only saw 1 accident in the entire 5 days, which is utterly amazing considering that in many of our rickshaw experiences we came so close to the other cars, animals, people, etc. that we could have stepped into the other vehicle fairly easily.
Indians do this strange bobble head nod thing to let you know that something is acceptable or ok. Its kind of a side to side nod, so sometimes you think that the person has told you no when they are actually saying ok. Got a bit confusing when ordering food or asking for something, until we remembered what that head bobble meant! We spent all of our time in Chennai (while a lot of the people from the ship traveled to see the Taj) and we had a great experience. We saw some wonderful things and a lot of heartbreaking things as well. The first day was spent getting familiar with the city. We went out with 5 other people in a rickshaw and stopped for some market shopping and lunch. The funny thing about the rickshaw drivers is that there are specific businesses that pay the drivers to take tourists to their shops – they give the driver gifts and a commission. So of course, every time we got into the rickshaw we would have to fight with them to get them to not take us to this rug shop or souvenir shop, which were the most expensive places to go too! I think I went back to the same place 3 times and by the end of the 5 days we would just refuse to get out of the rickshaw, until they took us to where we wanted to go. Its quite fun – constant haggling for a lower price (usually arguing over a few cents), your lungs are clogged with the exhaust from all these vehicles, the streets are dirty, bathrooms are anywhere for men and for women, you have to squat over a hole in the ground. I learned to hold it until we got back to the ship! There are people that live on the streets, next to the rivers, trash is everywhere, people are begging for food, children so small and skinny tug at your arms for food, using the left hand is considered unclean because it is the hand used for wiping oneself after going to the bathroom, the food is super spicy – not really sure why one would want their mouth to burn so much, but it does clean out your sinuses! India is so hot that its almost oppressive – one day it was 110 degrees with 100% humidity – and yet the women are supposed to be fully covered (no shoulders or knees can be shown) so needless to say, I sweat my butt off again. By the end of the 5 days, my legs were actually swollen from the heat and in pain – a bunch of people on the ship felt the same way – I guess because our bodies are just not used to that type of heat – it makes NJ summers look like winter in comparison.
We visited Hindu temples so beautiful and intricate in design – statues of their gods were bold in color and carved into every part of the city. Shoes must be removed whenever going into a temple – and many a time we thought we would come back from the temples shoeless! But the people of India are very honest in a lot of ways – Karma probably has something to do with that and I think the heat too – you are just too hot to make any efforts for dishonesty. On the last day in India, we went outside of the city to Mamallapurum and Katchiaria to visit some temples created in the 8th and 9th century. It was just amazing to see the dedication of the people to preserving and using these spaces – no graffiti, no destruction – so un-American! We saw 5 temples carved out of 1 large stone from the 8th century, monks and regular people holding festivals for Shiva, hawkers selling every type of figurine possible to us (and of course, on the last day we were able to haggle them down in price so much that we got a bunch of statues of gods for $1 each – it got pretty fun!). The fabrics in India are amazing as well – so bright and beautiful and sooo cheap! I bought a sari, although I am not sure what I am going to do with it (maybe have it made into a dress or pillow cases or something) I got it for 550 Rupees and the US $1 is equivalent to 44 Rupees, so I got it for about $12 – not bad! I got a few shirts and a skirt too – the markets are just crowded with amazing things to buy and everything is really so cheap. Most of our meals only cost us $1 each. We drank a lot of soda because the water is so bad – its all cloudy and filled with bacteria and such. I had South Indian coffee, which was absolutely amazing. It comes in 3 parts – 1 part looks like coffee tar, then hot water, and then milk – it is a really dark roast and most Indians drink it black, which must keep you awake for centuries! I bought some tea, although it was surprisingly difficult to find because most people just get a cup from someone because they don’t have the means to purchase a lot on their own.
The majority of the people in India live off of $1 a day and yet there are others with advanced degrees and it seems that the country is slowly moving forward. We visited an orphanage which had about 300 children living there – of course the majority of the children were girls because, as the superintendent said, girls aren’t of any great value to the culture and are more an expense/burden than they are a blessing. I know that I know this – I mean, I work for girls’ education, have a women’s studies background and all – yet somehow in India it really hit me as to how girls and women are really seen throughout the world. I was constantly experiencing the feeling of being invisible, whether on the streets when men would cut me off, walk in front of me, etc. or when only Tom would be asked a direct question and I would be ignored or perceived strangely if I asked a question, women rarely speak directly to anyone – instead they wait to be spoken to – one woman said that the rickshaw driver was utterly shocked when he found out that she was married and “allowed to go out alone without her husband.” Men and women are not to interact in public spaces and arranged marriages still account for 70% of all marriages. If women are not married by the time they are 25 years old, they are seen as barren and ultimately sad/worthless. Publicly, men and women occupy completely different spaces and will never be seen touching. Yet, men are given complete freedom to be very affectionate with other men. It was not uncommon to see men holding hands, hugging, arms wrapped around each other, etc. – but this has nothing to do with their sexuality. Homosexuality is not a part of Indian culture – in fact it is hushed by the culture and not something that people could be open about. Women did not have the same luxury as men in being affectionate publicly with one another – so it was really an interesting experience and phenomenon to see. Most people do not own shoes, so the majority of the people in the city are walking around barefoot. Helmets are not something that anyone wears when riding a motorcycle – again, its amazing that more people haven’t died from accidents. We saw a few monkeys, but not many. Cows are sacred so if they go to cross a street or something – all traffic stops – this is the only time that traffic stops.
Ultimately, Chennai is just a chaotic place that somehow operates as one. The people that we met were wonderful and yet the poverty of the place makes your heart ache. Just seeing the way that most people lived, really brings home the amazing advantages that I have, that we all have – I think it will now be difficult to complain about most things, when I think about mothers walking around with small, malnourished children begging for a little bit of food, shacks on a river that smells so bad that I cannot even begin to describe the smell, full grown men only about 4ft tall because of malnutrition – the poverty of India is something that is so tragic and yet at the same time, so treatable – if only people would begin to care and not harden ourselves to their tragedy. This was the difficulty of India – the slap in the face of poverty, inequality, and social responsibility. As this trip moves along, the theme of poverty and gross inequality becomes not only linked, but thematic in many ways. From Puerto Rico, Brazil, South Africa, Mauritius to India – the poverty has built itself up on one another – and it all looks and feels the same – it changes you, for better or for worse – and I will never be able to let go of this disconcerting feeling of which I have no words to describe. And so instead, I sit on a luxurious ship – bathed, clean, fully clothed, in air conditioning where food is readily available and I think about this experience – sailing for 3 days to another place sure to jolt the senses – onto Penang, Malaysia – who knows what will come next…
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