PS: I ended up shaving and fixing a bunch of hair cuts because I was one of the few people who knew anything about clipping, and when they asked why I was so good I said "I clip a lot of cows" and I got a lot of strange looks :D
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Neptune Day
PS: I ended up shaving and fixing a bunch of hair cuts because I was one of the few people who knew anything about clipping, and when they asked why I was so good I said "I clip a lot of cows" and I got a lot of strange looks :D
Mauritius 2
India Part Two and Mauritius
I think I'll just condense the rest of the events and give the highlights!
We made it to Chennai, met up with Keggan's friend of a friend who showed us around and took us to the longest beach in India where we saw a Women's Day Demonstration which was pretty cool, and then we basically had to turn around and go back to the train station. Chennai was really out of the way and no was really quite sure why we made that stop first, but Hemant (the friend of the friend) got the tickets and I think he wanted us to meet up for everything to work, so anyway we were now heading to Goa. Goa was a 22hr train ride away ... yuck. Hemant had been trying to get me a ticket for this train but I was on the waiting list so I had to purchase yet another General Seating ticket but I got on their car from the get go.
Hemant made up a story for me saying I didn't know either him or Keggan but I saw Keggan's white face and ran over to talk with her, and I was in Chennai for the Women's Day demonstration for 5 days (almost true, I saw it), but my father just became gravely ill in Goa and it was pertinent I get there ASAP and I was unable to get on a flight and I could only get a General seating ticket and I was begging to get a seat in the car. So when the ticket taker came up about 2 hours into the train ride Hemant explained the "situation" I was in and commenced the yelling. Hemant and the ticket taker spent the next 10 minutes or so shouting in the isle, looking at me and back at each other (I was trying to look as sad as possible). The ticket taker decided to let me stay until Bangalore and didn't even ask me to pay extra for a seat and then Hemant was able to get me a ticket from Bangalore to Goa on the same train in the same car!
We met up with Keggan's friend Jon in Bangalore and another friend of Hemants and off we went to Goa. We didn't get to the train station until 11:30am and then took an hour and half cab ride with me crammed in the back with the luggage because there weren't enough seats. We had a really ummm interesting hostel. It had 7 or 8 beds that had mats and a sheet, tarps for walls, and a shower, no toilet, a fan, a partially open wall, and electricity that sometimes worked. Found a tick looking thing on me the morning after I slept there.... never really found out what that was...
We went to beaches in Anjuna and Baja for the next two days. I ate the best food I've eaten on the entire trip on the beach in Baja. If you have been wondering about things to get me for my birthday, and Indian cookbook is now at the top of the list. That and beer. Beer is topping the list now a days. We swam, rode motor bikes (I didn't drive), ate, drank, ate, ate, drank a little more.... sat on the beach, and ate some more. It was great. Our train ride back the next night was much less dramatic than our first two, which was a nice break ha.
We made it back to Kochi around 10am and Keggan and I did some shopping the rest of the day, got rid of the rest of our Rupees, headed back to the ship around 4pm and I finally showered after 5 days! Yes, I didn't shower for 5 days. I'm not making a good reputation for Montanan's personal hygiene on the ship....
And now a quick bit on my 7 hours in Mauritus!
We were in Mauritius for one day yesterday, it was so insanely beautiful. My friends Huw, Ed, Amanda, roommate Christine and I hiked the La Puce (The Thumb) and made a movie for a "72hour Film Festival" Contest on the Ship. About halfway up it started pouring rain, and we were high enough up that we were in the rain cloud for about 40 minutes but when we finally reached the top the cloud started moving and we could see the whole island. BEAUTIFUL! I'll post pics!
As always, thanks for reading and following!
My best!
L
We made it to Chennai, met up with Keggan's friend of a friend who showed us around and took us to the longest beach in India where we saw a Women's Day Demonstration which was pretty cool, and then we basically had to turn around and go back to the train station. Chennai was really out of the way and no was really quite sure why we made that stop first, but Hemant (the friend of the friend) got the tickets and I think he wanted us to meet up for everything to work, so anyway we were now heading to Goa. Goa was a 22hr train ride away ... yuck. Hemant had been trying to get me a ticket for this train but I was on the waiting list so I had to purchase yet another General Seating ticket but I got on their car from the get go.
Hemant made up a story for me saying I didn't know either him or Keggan but I saw Keggan's white face and ran over to talk with her, and I was in Chennai for the Women's Day demonstration for 5 days (almost true, I saw it), but my father just became gravely ill in Goa and it was pertinent I get there ASAP and I was unable to get on a flight and I could only get a General seating ticket and I was begging to get a seat in the car. So when the ticket taker came up about 2 hours into the train ride Hemant explained the "situation" I was in and commenced the yelling. Hemant and the ticket taker spent the next 10 minutes or so shouting in the isle, looking at me and back at each other (I was trying to look as sad as possible). The ticket taker decided to let me stay until Bangalore and didn't even ask me to pay extra for a seat and then Hemant was able to get me a ticket from Bangalore to Goa on the same train in the same car!
We met up with Keggan's friend Jon in Bangalore and another friend of Hemants and off we went to Goa. We didn't get to the train station until 11:30am and then took an hour and half cab ride with me crammed in the back with the luggage because there weren't enough seats. We had a really ummm interesting hostel. It had 7 or 8 beds that had mats and a sheet, tarps for walls, and a shower, no toilet, a fan, a partially open wall, and electricity that sometimes worked. Found a tick looking thing on me the morning after I slept there.... never really found out what that was...
We went to beaches in Anjuna and Baja for the next two days. I ate the best food I've eaten on the entire trip on the beach in Baja. If you have been wondering about things to get me for my birthday, and Indian cookbook is now at the top of the list. That and beer. Beer is topping the list now a days. We swam, rode motor bikes (I didn't drive), ate, drank, ate, ate, drank a little more.... sat on the beach, and ate some more. It was great. Our train ride back the next night was much less dramatic than our first two, which was a nice break ha.
We made it back to Kochi around 10am and Keggan and I did some shopping the rest of the day, got rid of the rest of our Rupees, headed back to the ship around 4pm and I finally showered after 5 days! Yes, I didn't shower for 5 days. I'm not making a good reputation for Montanan's personal hygiene on the ship....
And now a quick bit on my 7 hours in Mauritus!
We were in Mauritius for one day yesterday, it was so insanely beautiful. My friends Huw, Ed, Amanda, roommate Christine and I hiked the La Puce (The Thumb) and made a movie for a "72hour Film Festival" Contest on the Ship. About halfway up it started pouring rain, and we were high enough up that we were in the rain cloud for about 40 minutes but when we finally reached the top the cloud started moving and we could see the whole island. BEAUTIFUL! I'll post pics!
As always, thanks for reading and following!
My best!
L
Thursday, March 14, 2013
India Part 1
Midterms midterms midterms! When you only have 4 class days in between countries for all your tests it gets a little hectic! But, I wanted to try to partially catch up with my posts so I will tell part of my story in India!
We ported in Cochin, India. It's in the South in Kerala state. Kerala is one of the more liberal states in India, has the highest literacy rates, and the most women in one state in all of India! It also is one of the few (maybe only) state with a very prominent Communist Party that comes in and out of power about every 5 years.
My first day I had a field lab for International Law, and we listened to 6 or 8 speakers about Human Rights and Environmental Issues in India and Kerala. It was a really interesting discussion, but it was a very long day of sitting and listening. Great lunch though! :D
Some friends and I went out that night to celebrate my 21st birthday, but as India does not have a drinking culture, and women generally do not drink nor do they go into bars we didn't do too much bar hopping. We went to two places the whole night. One was kind of a whole in the wall, lights were way down and 20-24oz bottles were about $1.50! I was dressed very conservatively and had a scarf over my head a lot at that bar in some attempts to not get stared at. We went to a fancier hotel bar second, and when the bar tender found out it was my birthday he disappeared for a few minutes and came back out with a pretty good sized cake!
The next day, Laura and I had planned on leaving early and trying to go to an elephant camp or go kayaking through the backwaters of Kochi but she woke up with a killer migraine so I went out with some other friends just wondering around Cochin, but then another friend became really sick so I took her back to the ship. At this point I was starting to get really frustrated about what to do India as my plans kept dissolving. So, I was talking to my friend Keggan and she was leaving that night to go to Chennai via train to meet a friend of a friend and then head to Goa with her friend and she asked if I wanted to go. I jumped on the opportunity and off we went around 5 or 6pm to the train station.
In India to get good train tickets, you have to book online and you must have an Indian phone number, so Keggan had a ticket because her friends had booked her one but I had no such ticket. So when I got to the train station, we went to the ticket counter and I showed the ticket lady Keggan's ticket and said I needed one. She said no more other than general seating. I said, ok that's fine. The ticket lady's eyes got big, she shook her head, and said again 'General seating?' In my naïveté, I kept saying yea it's fine. She printed out the ticket, looked at me very quizzically and commenced shaking her head some more. Should have been my first big red flag.
Keggan and I went inside to the platform and waited, figuring out where we had to get on, where to go all the details, and the train rolled up and we thought we might be in cars next to each other but I started seeing people sprinting for the general seating cars so I looked at Keggan and said 'see ya' and started running. I hopped on the first car. Instantly I had every single pair of eyes on me in the entire car. The car was completely packed. Within the cars along the sides are benches in U shapes towards the isle and they continue on like that, and then above the benches are metal bars forming a kind of top bunk in the same U shape. Every single available seat had a male Indian in it. I was the only female. I was also the only white person. Gulp.
It felt like mass chaos. There were many of us standing, some of them said "let me see your ticket" "how did you come to sit here?" And then they would look at my ticket, make the same disappointed/quizzical face combo with the head shaking the ticket lady gave me. About two minutes in some guy said, "I'll take you to all ladies car!" I thought, "oh thank God." We sprinted to the very last car, I jumped on and what do you know.... all men. Not a single woman. Commence starring. I just started smiling at everyone, and laughing. My thought process was, if I made friends with a few they might stand up for me if someone tries to mess with me. Some old guy sitting on the floor told me to sit next to him next to the door. The General Seating cars don't have glass in the windows they are just slatted, and then they keep the doors open, so I was sitting next to the door kind of propping it open with my feet.
At this point I'm really thinking 'oh crap... this is a 12 hour train, I have 12 hours of this." Some guy walked up to the front and squatted next to us and started talking to me, asking me questions about the US, Barak Obama, George Bush, my thoughts on economics... come to find out he studied economics or taught (wasn't entirely sure) but he just wanted to work on his English so he was chatting with me for that purpose. The whole time I was talking to him I was pretty terrified.
The train stopped at the next station about 45 minutes later and I'm sitting talking to the same guy, and some Indian guy pops his head in the door, points straight at me and yells "You! Your friend! Come with me!" I didn't even question it, I just hopped up and ran. We had to run to the car, but I walked in and there was Keggan, smiling, sitting in a nice cushy chair surrounded by about 6 Indian guys. I don't think I've ever been so happy to see some one in my life! ha!
The guy who came to get me was named George, and he was able to talk to the ticket master and there happened to be an open seat with a bed and I bought a ticket on Keggan's car and all was well! George emailed Keggan and I and we are still in contact!
So I'll end part one here, but at the end of that day I told Keggan if there was one thing I've learned on this trip, it's that there are some really good people in this world. I'm also pretty certain there are some pretty powerful forces at work right then and it seems beyond a doubt there is someone above watching out for me.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Monday, March 11, 2013
Will post soon on India
Have many stories to tell about India and I can't wait to tell you all about them .... but I have several tests this week and a few papers so I'll get there when I get there! Hope you enjoy the pictures!
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Party like its my birthday!
Just in case any one was worried I wasn't having a good time on my birthday, my roommate ordered me a GIANT ice cream cake which I shared with about 10 friends and whoever else we could give cake too. The 10 or 11 of us also ate hamburgers and veggie burgers respectively up on the 7th deck (big treat for us ha) and I've been getting birthday wishes all day! My Chinese roommate made me a fabulous card that I love and gave me a book of Chinese animal characters, and my other Chinese friend gave me a few small tea cups and some of her favorite green and black tea.
It's been a great birthday, feeling so blessed! 21 years young, phew! Finally legal ;)
A few of us will be going to out to a hotel to have some drinks tomorrow night in Kochi to celebrate! A hotel because it is very uncommon for women to drink or go to bars in India. Hotels are more Western and a controlled environment so I and my other females should be a little safer there, but no worries we will be with some strapping young lads!
Thanks for all the birthday wishes!
It's been a great birthday, feeling so blessed! 21 years young, phew! Finally legal ;)
A few of us will be going to out to a hotel to have some drinks tomorrow night in Kochi to celebrate! A hotel because it is very uncommon for women to drink or go to bars in India. Hotels are more Western and a controlled environment so I and my other females should be a little safer there, but no worries we will be with some strapping young lads!
Thanks for all the birthday wishes!
Myanmar (Burma)
I've spent the last two or so days recovering from Burma but it really was fantastic. My goal was to go to Bagan, a city of 1000 temples, but I would have had about two days to make the trip and at least 20 hours would have been spent on a bus so we ended up staying a little closer to Yangon.
The first night we were there we went to Swedegon Pagoda, this ginormous golden pagoda in the center of the city. It was really cool to see in the moonlight, it is just so massive and impressive. We ended up wondering around in China town around 10 or 11pm finding a mildly cheap hotel and four of us crashed for the night. Not a lot of night life in Burma, it is not a drinking/partying culture so everyone is pretty much in their homes by 10pm. The second day we went to a market early and purchased "Longis" the standard dress for men and women. They are long skirts basically. Men's look like a big tube that you not at the waist to keep up, women's are a tie style so they wrap around. In general it is very rare to see any women with bare shoulders or their knees, so we tried to dress pretty conservatively.
My friends, Laura and Keagan, and I seperated from our big group in attempts to find a train or bus station, ended up meeting a travel agent who knew about the ship and what we were doing and set us up with a private car to a temple town about 2 hours away for the day, and bus tickets to and from a beach town as well as the hotel. So that day we went to a small village called Bago, and visited about 4 temples and pagodas and saw much of the landscape. Our cabbie was awesome, unfortunately I cannot say his name but I did get a picture! His car was probably a 1989 toyota, no AC, and keep in mind we are on the equator and its about 102 degrees Fahrenheit so the cars and buses overheat often so it is common to stop once or twice on a longer drive to poor water in the radiator coolant or on a bus they spray down the radiator I think (I might be wrong on exactly what they were hosing down on the buses, but you get the point). So on our way to Bago our driver pulled over next to a pond and said "water" pointing, this being our first experience cooling the cars you can imagine our confusion. We ended up helping fill water bottles in this pond next to the road... feel like I definitely got worms at some point in Burma...
Another reason to love our cabbie, he knew I was really excited every time we saw cows and steers hauling carts so on our way out of town he pulled over by a cart being pulled by some steers and had us get out and I got to pet some cows!! I was on cloud nine! Laura and Keagan were slightly stunned but they had fun with it and pet them too! Can't wait to post those pictures!
We had another early morning for the bus, up at 4am, met our cabbie at 5am outside the Port station. He brought his son with him that morning (I'm guessing he was about 20) probably because he went home and told his family about these white girls he had been driving around, but we actually dropped him back off at their house so we got to see the outside of a pretty middle class home (apartment really). His son asked to take a picture of us before he left which was pretty hilarious.
We were headed to a town called Ngwe Saung, a beach village North of Yangon. The bus ride took about 6 hours, but they have AC for most of it, and a TV at the front (the first bus they showed Skyfall and some Burmese music videos, but on the way back it was only Burmese music videos.... for six hours). We got to Ngwe Saung around 1pm, and the reason we went there was because there is an elephant camp right outside town where you can ride and see elephants. We found out they only come out in the morning so we missed our shot, but no worries we had a bungalow right off the beach so we headed there.
The beach was so breathtakingly beautiful. White sand beaches with almost no one on them except for a few fishing boats and some horseback riders and a few guys riding motorcycles across the sand. Also cannot wait to post pictures. Laura got stung by a jellyfish there at the end of the day but she recovered fairly quickly. We spent the night walking the street (singular) of the village and met some other travelers and talked to some other Semester at Sea students who were there. And then it was back on the bus....
When we made it back to Yangon we were pretty exhausted, but we did a little shopping and then ended heading back to the ship around 5pm.
Unfortunately our trip in Burma was cut a little short because they had to dredge the river in order for us to pull in, along with some issues with the tide that knocked our time of arrival in the port of Yangon back from 8am to about 4pm and we didn't get off the ship until 7pm, so we lost about a day there. Also the port was about an hour bus ride outside of Yangon, so my first day in Yangon started at 8pm. The last day we were scheduled to leave at 8pm meaning we had to be on the ship by 6pm, but the government changed our time of departure to 4pm, so we had to be on the ship by 2pm, and the last shuttle bus from Yangon to the ship left at 11am, so there was little point to go out the last day.
All in all, I absolutely loved Burma. The people were so friendly, and smiley, everyone is shouting hello at you and so happy to see you. I'm going to come back to the states really disappointed when all people stop greeting me so nicely :D The landscape is beautiful. Bright green rice patties, cows, pigs, chickens, ducks, goats, and thatched roof homes.
And what do you know, we'll be in India tomorrow..... how did I get so blessed?!
The first night we were there we went to Swedegon Pagoda, this ginormous golden pagoda in the center of the city. It was really cool to see in the moonlight, it is just so massive and impressive. We ended up wondering around in China town around 10 or 11pm finding a mildly cheap hotel and four of us crashed for the night. Not a lot of night life in Burma, it is not a drinking/partying culture so everyone is pretty much in their homes by 10pm. The second day we went to a market early and purchased "Longis" the standard dress for men and women. They are long skirts basically. Men's look like a big tube that you not at the waist to keep up, women's are a tie style so they wrap around. In general it is very rare to see any women with bare shoulders or their knees, so we tried to dress pretty conservatively.
My friends, Laura and Keagan, and I seperated from our big group in attempts to find a train or bus station, ended up meeting a travel agent who knew about the ship and what we were doing and set us up with a private car to a temple town about 2 hours away for the day, and bus tickets to and from a beach town as well as the hotel. So that day we went to a small village called Bago, and visited about 4 temples and pagodas and saw much of the landscape. Our cabbie was awesome, unfortunately I cannot say his name but I did get a picture! His car was probably a 1989 toyota, no AC, and keep in mind we are on the equator and its about 102 degrees Fahrenheit so the cars and buses overheat often so it is common to stop once or twice on a longer drive to poor water in the radiator coolant or on a bus they spray down the radiator I think (I might be wrong on exactly what they were hosing down on the buses, but you get the point). So on our way to Bago our driver pulled over next to a pond and said "water" pointing, this being our first experience cooling the cars you can imagine our confusion. We ended up helping fill water bottles in this pond next to the road... feel like I definitely got worms at some point in Burma...
Another reason to love our cabbie, he knew I was really excited every time we saw cows and steers hauling carts so on our way out of town he pulled over by a cart being pulled by some steers and had us get out and I got to pet some cows!! I was on cloud nine! Laura and Keagan were slightly stunned but they had fun with it and pet them too! Can't wait to post those pictures!
We had another early morning for the bus, up at 4am, met our cabbie at 5am outside the Port station. He brought his son with him that morning (I'm guessing he was about 20) probably because he went home and told his family about these white girls he had been driving around, but we actually dropped him back off at their house so we got to see the outside of a pretty middle class home (apartment really). His son asked to take a picture of us before he left which was pretty hilarious.
We were headed to a town called Ngwe Saung, a beach village North of Yangon. The bus ride took about 6 hours, but they have AC for most of it, and a TV at the front (the first bus they showed Skyfall and some Burmese music videos, but on the way back it was only Burmese music videos.... for six hours). We got to Ngwe Saung around 1pm, and the reason we went there was because there is an elephant camp right outside town where you can ride and see elephants. We found out they only come out in the morning so we missed our shot, but no worries we had a bungalow right off the beach so we headed there.
The beach was so breathtakingly beautiful. White sand beaches with almost no one on them except for a few fishing boats and some horseback riders and a few guys riding motorcycles across the sand. Also cannot wait to post pictures. Laura got stung by a jellyfish there at the end of the day but she recovered fairly quickly. We spent the night walking the street (singular) of the village and met some other travelers and talked to some other Semester at Sea students who were there. And then it was back on the bus....
When we made it back to Yangon we were pretty exhausted, but we did a little shopping and then ended heading back to the ship around 5pm.
Unfortunately our trip in Burma was cut a little short because they had to dredge the river in order for us to pull in, along with some issues with the tide that knocked our time of arrival in the port of Yangon back from 8am to about 4pm and we didn't get off the ship until 7pm, so we lost about a day there. Also the port was about an hour bus ride outside of Yangon, so my first day in Yangon started at 8pm. The last day we were scheduled to leave at 8pm meaning we had to be on the ship by 6pm, but the government changed our time of departure to 4pm, so we had to be on the ship by 2pm, and the last shuttle bus from Yangon to the ship left at 11am, so there was little point to go out the last day.
All in all, I absolutely loved Burma. The people were so friendly, and smiley, everyone is shouting hello at you and so happy to see you. I'm going to come back to the states really disappointed when all people stop greeting me so nicely :D The landscape is beautiful. Bright green rice patties, cows, pigs, chickens, ducks, goats, and thatched roof homes.
And what do you know, we'll be in India tomorrow..... how did I get so blessed?!
Sunday, March 3, 2013
Mrs. Powell's Class: Great Big World
First of all I am so glad to have you all following my journey, and I am so happy to share the experiences!
I hope you are enjoying learning about the world we live in and I hope I can give a little extra insight into the countries I visit!
This far I have been to Japan, China, Hong Kong (technically part of China but a separate economic system), Vietnam, Singapore, and Myanmar and in two days I will be in India! How incredible!
I think in this post I'll focus on Vietnam and Myanmar (Burma) because they are the most different from the US and other Western Countries. In both countries I was shocked how many people spoke English (at least a few words) and how open they were to Westerners (European and Americans).
In Vietnam there is quite a bit of wealth distribution in the main cities like Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi but the country itself is very agricultural and many people still live in rural areas. Homes in general are much smaller than US homes. There may be one or two rooms for an entire family.
In Myanmar (Burma) the level of poverty was much more visible. Many of the homes I saw were thatched roof and would have three sides and an open fourth.
Think about your own homes and how different it would be!
In both countries the people were so friendly. The United States has had sanctions against Myanmar for a long time up until about 6 years ago when the country was re-opened for US tourism, so the country itself is relatively unchanged by Western influence. Also because of this, most Burmese have not seen many white people or blondes for that matter so I was constantly stared at there.
As I continue on my journey I am constantly reminded how rich I am on a global level. In Montana, my family is pretty middle of the road, but our middle of the road is outstandingly wealthy compared to the rest of the world.
This world is full of incredible people and places and things to see, I hope you get excited about our great big world and dare to explore it!
Until India!
Laura
PS Look out for pictures whenever I'm able to finally post some!
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