Friday, December 12, 2008
Bienvenidos a Panama
Hola family, I'm writing you from the Panama Canal. It takes about 8 hours to go through and we've gone through a bunch of locks (the tanks that fill up and move the ship). Now we're in one of the man-made lakes which is huge. You wouldn't even realize the lake was man-made if it weren't for the locks we had to go through to get here. There's a bunch of small, densely forested islands in the water and for whatever reason I had imaged Lake Tahoe style water when they said lakes but no it's more like muddy, brown water. Over the next few days I'll just be packing and hanging out. They have random workshops we can attend but I think I'll mainly just finish things up and hang out. The ship will be getting into the port around 8am but I won't be alllowed off until 1 or 2 o'clock but I'll be back in the US soon! Everyone's getting a bit nostalgic which is sweet and sad though I'm still looking forward to being home. I can't wait to decorate for Christmas and everything. I hope you're all doing well.
Monday, December 8, 2008
Costa Rica
I just wanted to go a quick update that I'm in Costa Rica for my last stop before the US. Costa Rica is absolutely beautiful with luch hills and tropical blue water. I'm in San Jose staying with our lovely family friends Juanita and LeRoy. We've just been relaxing and exploring San Jose. I already can't wait to come back!
Cambodia
Thus one actually goes after Vietnam but I can't figure out how to move it.
I had a once of a lifetime opportunity to travel to Cambodia for three days. I flew from Ho Chi Minh airport to Siem Reap Cambodia. Ho Chi Minh airport looked identical to SFO International but shinier and with fewer people. The Siem Reap airport looked like any small airport in Hawaii oddly enough. Parts of downtown Siem Reap look a bit like a beach town downtown with all the travelers coming through, ice cream shops and Internet cafes. Much of the Siem Reap on the way to the main entrance is either dirt roads and jungle or rows and rows of new condos and hotels. There is so much construction going on. In five years it’s going to be filled with sterile new hotels and condos. We did a sunset tour of Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat is a huge temple complex built and rebuilt between the 7 and 11 century as a Hindu then a Buddhist religious and administrative site at the height of the Khmer civilization. I believe during the 11th century it was the largest city in the world. After too many invasions from Thailand and wear on the temples the king moved the capital to the current capital of Phnom Penh. After this the jungle retook the complex until the arrival of the French. It’s unbelievably surreal to wander this site. You can basically walk on anything and touch anything in this massive complex. At first I thought it was smaller than I thought it would be with only the famous site of the main temple with its five towers but the next day I realized that I was only at the west gate as in 1 out of 4 sections of the complex. It’s really interesting because many Cambodian 18 year old men still have to become Buddhist monks so there are still many saffron robed monks wandering the temple.
At night we went to a cultural show and dinner in which dancers performed. They dressed and performed like the pictures I’ve seen of Thai or Balinese dancing and the food it similar to Vietnamese and Chinese. The food in general is amazing. I could eat it almost everyday for lunch and dinner. At breakfast they eat things that just seem so foreign to me that are fun to eat once in awhile but I couldn’t want it everyday. At breakfast they drink sweet coffee or tea with a soup made of broth, rice noodles, lemon grass, bean sprouts, maybe stir-fried beef and a dumpling (with additions like lime, chili or other spices) or they have what we would think of as a curry with rice and maybe chicken. The fresh spring rolls are amazing here though they are seriously lacking in the dessert department. Every time we ate out dessert consisted of a gelatin cube thing- like squares of sturdier Jell-O flavored with fruits or I didn’t know what (one of the signs said Grass Jelly and it was green and did have a grassy flavor). At a buffet there might be 5 or 6 varieties of these gelatin products!
The next day, I can’t believe I even get to write this but I watched the sunrise over Angkor Wat. Later in the Angkor City section of the complex I went to the Bayon Temple of the complex, which is an edifice of 54 towers, each with the four faces of Buddha carved on them and bas-relief events. Every corner of every wall is carved with dancers, temple scenes, ships, animals, market scenes, and everything else imaginable. While staring at the carving and trying to sneakily take a picture of some nearby monks one of the monks comes up to me and does the universal hand motions for “can I take a picture with you?”so I got someone to take a picture for my camera too. After taking a picture with one of the monks the monk taking the picture with the digital camera also “asked”if we could take a picture! In a lot of the shops here women and children have petted and pulled my hair while one of my friends whose parents are from Ghana got legitimately stared at and whenever she made eye contact with anyone they started giggling hysterically. We wander tons of temple sites for the rest of the day. At the Elephant Walk you can walk across the pavilion the king sat on to watch performances and parades. Across from where he sat there are 5 carved towers, which they used to put rope between and have trapeze acts perform. At the Leper Terrance a king who prayed have his leprosy curved built a temple to thank the gods and the bas relieves often have three levels with get of the figures progressively going through the stages of leprosy carved into the stone! Another site used to be a university for the Buddhist monks while another was a hospital with a man made pond in the middle and in the four corners are altars for lack of a better world to the four main elements. So when you were diagnosed with an illness it meant one of your elements were out of order so you would then go pray or bathe in that element’s section. At sunset we climbed to the top of this huge temple in the jungle and watched the sun set with the Thai border behind us and the main 5-towered Angkor Wat temple complex in front of us. Once you get away from the main famous temple the number of people decreases so you really feel like it’s your own private adventure. At night we went into Siem Reap to the night market, which was really fun except for the bargaining which for me is kind of stressful and I’m not very good at it.
At the temples near the entrance there are musicians playing traditional music who are land mine victims. There are still so many landmines in Cambodia and most people are so poor that many try to find and take apart landmines to sell for scrap metal. An unfortunate irony is that the very dangerous scrap metal from the landmines (many of which haven’t detonated yet) is then sold and smuggled across the Thai border where it is converted into steel, which is then resold to build the new hotels and condos in Cambodia. There are many children and women selling tourist things at these sites but since most of the families can’t farm their land in order to make way for the tour buses and the children go to school in shifts and sell souvenirs in the off time. The poverty here was so different than India for example because I almost felt more sympathetic towards the Cambodians. In India there was more a feeling that the social structure and society were to blame for the massive poverty but in Cambodia I felt worse almost for the people because of the American role in the instability extending the Viet Nam War into the region (more bombs were dropped in the country of Cambodia than were dropped on all of Europe during WWII) and the horrors of the Poi Pot / Khmer Rouge Regime who killed between 1 million and 3 million of its own people. There is a greater sense here that the poor and underprivileged Cambodians are working towards a solution- the children go to school, people try to learn English, people make crafts to sell, farmers try to clear the land… Our tour guide for example was orphaned at age 7 when the Khmer Rouge killed both his parents one night. In the orphanage he started to teach himself English and when he was 18 he became a monk (which he said was a way to honor his dead parents). Now he is a teacher and a tour guide in addition to volunteering at orphanages. His wife while pregnant was hit by a motorcycle and though the baby survived his wife is bedridden while he tries to save the money for her operation. The sheer pride he has in his family and his drive to provide a better life for his family was so inspiring. He said he wanted his daughter (who he intentionally gave the American name Jamie) to become a public school teacher because even though it doesn’t pay well he wants he to be able to help more Cambodians. He never told his life story or current problems as a way to gain sympathy but rather as a matter of fact account of the lives of many Cambodians. I felt very proud of my fellow students and faculty members (the 50 of us on the trip) in one day raised $1300 in cash to completely pay for his wife’s operation. The operation cost $900 but for comparison value the guide’s rent for a single room apartment is $80 a month. The cautious optimism and “pull yourself up by your boot straps”idea were prevalent in many Cambodians.
The second largest freshwater lake in the world (after Lake Baikal which is mostly frozen in Russia) is the Tonlé Sap in Cambodia. In the morning we took a boat trip up the lake to visit the floating villages of the Vietnamese and Cambodians living on pontoon boats and structures. All along the banks are rows of homes and shops. The buildings aren’t like the houseboats you see in San Francisco or vacation houseboats- they are all one story and still very mobile. Most are painted a cheery blue color and have a “porch”in front they use to farm fish on and in front some of the houses had large pots of chrysanthemums. Churches, a police station, grocery stores, restaurants and even a billiard hall and a basketball court line float on the water. Women in boats go “door to door”selling groceries and we even saw the Cambodia water version of a U-Haul moving one of the houses up the water. One of coolest sites we saw in Cambodia was later that day when we went to Ta Prohm know for it’s eerie atmosphere result from the encroaching jungle and more importantly as the main filming location for Tomb Raider! Huge trees grow up, over and through the abandoned temple. The temples here aren’t like Christian churches or synagogues or mosques but rather tend to be many series of small rooms, tower and hallways in which to pray and meditate hence it’s a very individual type religious observation. Especially at this temple there is a feeling of being out of the ordinary climbing on 900 hundred year old temples that are intertwined with trees easily 100-200 feet high out in the middle of the jungle with the smell of burning incense and the grass smell from the dense vegetation and the strangest high pitched noise from the insects and the faint sound of string instruments and drums from the landmine victims. As I said- surreal but amazing.
I had a once of a lifetime opportunity to travel to Cambodia for three days. I flew from Ho Chi Minh airport to Siem Reap Cambodia. Ho Chi Minh airport looked identical to SFO International but shinier and with fewer people. The Siem Reap airport looked like any small airport in Hawaii oddly enough. Parts of downtown Siem Reap look a bit like a beach town downtown with all the travelers coming through, ice cream shops and Internet cafes. Much of the Siem Reap on the way to the main entrance is either dirt roads and jungle or rows and rows of new condos and hotels. There is so much construction going on. In five years it’s going to be filled with sterile new hotels and condos. We did a sunset tour of Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat is a huge temple complex built and rebuilt between the 7 and 11 century as a Hindu then a Buddhist religious and administrative site at the height of the Khmer civilization. I believe during the 11th century it was the largest city in the world. After too many invasions from Thailand and wear on the temples the king moved the capital to the current capital of Phnom Penh. After this the jungle retook the complex until the arrival of the French. It’s unbelievably surreal to wander this site. You can basically walk on anything and touch anything in this massive complex. At first I thought it was smaller than I thought it would be with only the famous site of the main temple with its five towers but the next day I realized that I was only at the west gate as in 1 out of 4 sections of the complex. It’s really interesting because many Cambodian 18 year old men still have to become Buddhist monks so there are still many saffron robed monks wandering the temple.
At night we went to a cultural show and dinner in which dancers performed. They dressed and performed like the pictures I’ve seen of Thai or Balinese dancing and the food it similar to Vietnamese and Chinese. The food in general is amazing. I could eat it almost everyday for lunch and dinner. At breakfast they eat things that just seem so foreign to me that are fun to eat once in awhile but I couldn’t want it everyday. At breakfast they drink sweet coffee or tea with a soup made of broth, rice noodles, lemon grass, bean sprouts, maybe stir-fried beef and a dumpling (with additions like lime, chili or other spices) or they have what we would think of as a curry with rice and maybe chicken. The fresh spring rolls are amazing here though they are seriously lacking in the dessert department. Every time we ate out dessert consisted of a gelatin cube thing- like squares of sturdier Jell-O flavored with fruits or I didn’t know what (one of the signs said Grass Jelly and it was green and did have a grassy flavor). At a buffet there might be 5 or 6 varieties of these gelatin products!
The next day, I can’t believe I even get to write this but I watched the sunrise over Angkor Wat. Later in the Angkor City section of the complex I went to the Bayon Temple of the complex, which is an edifice of 54 towers, each with the four faces of Buddha carved on them and bas-relief events. Every corner of every wall is carved with dancers, temple scenes, ships, animals, market scenes, and everything else imaginable. While staring at the carving and trying to sneakily take a picture of some nearby monks one of the monks comes up to me and does the universal hand motions for “can I take a picture with you?”so I got someone to take a picture for my camera too. After taking a picture with one of the monks the monk taking the picture with the digital camera also “asked”if we could take a picture! In a lot of the shops here women and children have petted and pulled my hair while one of my friends whose parents are from Ghana got legitimately stared at and whenever she made eye contact with anyone they started giggling hysterically. We wander tons of temple sites for the rest of the day. At the Elephant Walk you can walk across the pavilion the king sat on to watch performances and parades. Across from where he sat there are 5 carved towers, which they used to put rope between and have trapeze acts perform. At the Leper Terrance a king who prayed have his leprosy curved built a temple to thank the gods and the bas relieves often have three levels with get of the figures progressively going through the stages of leprosy carved into the stone! Another site used to be a university for the Buddhist monks while another was a hospital with a man made pond in the middle and in the four corners are altars for lack of a better world to the four main elements. So when you were diagnosed with an illness it meant one of your elements were out of order so you would then go pray or bathe in that element’s section. At sunset we climbed to the top of this huge temple in the jungle and watched the sun set with the Thai border behind us and the main 5-towered Angkor Wat temple complex in front of us. Once you get away from the main famous temple the number of people decreases so you really feel like it’s your own private adventure. At night we went into Siem Reap to the night market, which was really fun except for the bargaining which for me is kind of stressful and I’m not very good at it.
At the temples near the entrance there are musicians playing traditional music who are land mine victims. There are still so many landmines in Cambodia and most people are so poor that many try to find and take apart landmines to sell for scrap metal. An unfortunate irony is that the very dangerous scrap metal from the landmines (many of which haven’t detonated yet) is then sold and smuggled across the Thai border where it is converted into steel, which is then resold to build the new hotels and condos in Cambodia. There are many children and women selling tourist things at these sites but since most of the families can’t farm their land in order to make way for the tour buses and the children go to school in shifts and sell souvenirs in the off time. The poverty here was so different than India for example because I almost felt more sympathetic towards the Cambodians. In India there was more a feeling that the social structure and society were to blame for the massive poverty but in Cambodia I felt worse almost for the people because of the American role in the instability extending the Viet Nam War into the region (more bombs were dropped in the country of Cambodia than were dropped on all of Europe during WWII) and the horrors of the Poi Pot / Khmer Rouge Regime who killed between 1 million and 3 million of its own people. There is a greater sense here that the poor and underprivileged Cambodians are working towards a solution- the children go to school, people try to learn English, people make crafts to sell, farmers try to clear the land… Our tour guide for example was orphaned at age 7 when the Khmer Rouge killed both his parents one night. In the orphanage he started to teach himself English and when he was 18 he became a monk (which he said was a way to honor his dead parents). Now he is a teacher and a tour guide in addition to volunteering at orphanages. His wife while pregnant was hit by a motorcycle and though the baby survived his wife is bedridden while he tries to save the money for her operation. The sheer pride he has in his family and his drive to provide a better life for his family was so inspiring. He said he wanted his daughter (who he intentionally gave the American name Jamie) to become a public school teacher because even though it doesn’t pay well he wants he to be able to help more Cambodians. He never told his life story or current problems as a way to gain sympathy but rather as a matter of fact account of the lives of many Cambodians. I felt very proud of my fellow students and faculty members (the 50 of us on the trip) in one day raised $1300 in cash to completely pay for his wife’s operation. The operation cost $900 but for comparison value the guide’s rent for a single room apartment is $80 a month. The cautious optimism and “pull yourself up by your boot straps”idea were prevalent in many Cambodians.
The second largest freshwater lake in the world (after Lake Baikal which is mostly frozen in Russia) is the Tonlé Sap in Cambodia. In the morning we took a boat trip up the lake to visit the floating villages of the Vietnamese and Cambodians living on pontoon boats and structures. All along the banks are rows of homes and shops. The buildings aren’t like the houseboats you see in San Francisco or vacation houseboats- they are all one story and still very mobile. Most are painted a cheery blue color and have a “porch”in front they use to farm fish on and in front some of the houses had large pots of chrysanthemums. Churches, a police station, grocery stores, restaurants and even a billiard hall and a basketball court line float on the water. Women in boats go “door to door”selling groceries and we even saw the Cambodia water version of a U-Haul moving one of the houses up the water. One of coolest sites we saw in Cambodia was later that day when we went to Ta Prohm know for it’s eerie atmosphere result from the encroaching jungle and more importantly as the main filming location for Tomb Raider! Huge trees grow up, over and through the abandoned temple. The temples here aren’t like Christian churches or synagogues or mosques but rather tend to be many series of small rooms, tower and hallways in which to pray and meditate hence it’s a very individual type religious observation. Especially at this temple there is a feeling of being out of the ordinary climbing on 900 hundred year old temples that are intertwined with trees easily 100-200 feet high out in the middle of the jungle with the smell of burning incense and the grass smell from the dense vegetation and the strangest high pitched noise from the insects and the faint sound of string instruments and drums from the landmine victims. As I said- surreal but amazing.
Hawaii
Sorry it's been so long but I just got finished with finals. On Thanksgiving we spent about 12 hours in Honolulu to celebrate Thanksgiving. After being at sea for 9 days and having been out of the US for about 3 months we were very excited. I spent the morning serving dinner at the Salvation Army for mainly the homeless and elderly. It was very fun and even though we weren't there for long I at least got some turkey, rolls and pumpkin pie. I spent most of the rest of the day grocery shopping and hanging out on the beach. Waikiki Beach was crowded but beautiful. The weather was perfect and since it's such a tourist destination everything was still open. While it was a far cry from cranberry, mashed potatoes and pecan pie at home, swimming and reading on a tropical beach wasn't too bad.
It was very strange to be back in the US after so long. Everyone was so much louder and more energetic than most of the Asian countries I had just come back from. Everyone was much heavier and more colorful than the Japanese especially. I went to Safeway (it's a big grocery store like Shaw's or Gerdardi's or Alberstons) to stock up for the long haul to Costa Rica and it was a bit of a culture shock. Firstly I forgot that everything is air conditioned so much in the US and all the drinks come with so much ice. When I first walked into Safeway I was, well freezing and also completely and utter overwhelmed with the number of choices. I just wandered the aisles in a daze before I started to get back in the swing of things. I did regress a bit when I decided to get some yogurt and when I got to the dairy section I was overwhelmed with non-fat, low-fat, no sugar, fruit on the bottom, fruit flavored, low calorie, made with Splenda, dessert style, European style, small, medium, large, Dannon, Yoplay, etc. I ended up just getting some plain yogurt, pretzels (which I haven't had since South Africa) and Diet Coke (since the "Coke light" tastes more like Dr. Pepper than Cola in other countries).
After our fuel stop in Hawaii (we also had stops in Puerto Rico, Mauritius and Singapore but we couldn't get off) we were back in the Pacific. The weather was beautiful and we spent most of the days studying for finals or pretending to study and enjoying the great weather while sunbathing out on the deck. I don't actually tan and chill outside as much as people might expect because I'm either too busy or the weather isn't good. Off the Pacific though, the weather was perfect with great sunsets and I even saw some dolphins. Finals are over so we're totally done with school before we get to Costa Rica. I can't believe it's almost over!
It was very strange to be back in the US after so long. Everyone was so much louder and more energetic than most of the Asian countries I had just come back from. Everyone was much heavier and more colorful than the Japanese especially. I went to Safeway (it's a big grocery store like Shaw's or Gerdardi's or Alberstons) to stock up for the long haul to Costa Rica and it was a bit of a culture shock. Firstly I forgot that everything is air conditioned so much in the US and all the drinks come with so much ice. When I first walked into Safeway I was, well freezing and also completely and utter overwhelmed with the number of choices. I just wandered the aisles in a daze before I started to get back in the swing of things. I did regress a bit when I decided to get some yogurt and when I got to the dairy section I was overwhelmed with non-fat, low-fat, no sugar, fruit on the bottom, fruit flavored, low calorie, made with Splenda, dessert style, European style, small, medium, large, Dannon, Yoplay, etc. I ended up just getting some plain yogurt, pretzels (which I haven't had since South Africa) and Diet Coke (since the "Coke light" tastes more like Dr. Pepper than Cola in other countries).
After our fuel stop in Hawaii (we also had stops in Puerto Rico, Mauritius and Singapore but we couldn't get off) we were back in the Pacific. The weather was beautiful and we spent most of the days studying for finals or pretending to study and enjoying the great weather while sunbathing out on the deck. I don't actually tan and chill outside as much as people might expect because I'm either too busy or the weather isn't good. Off the Pacific though, the weather was perfect with great sunsets and I even saw some dolphins. Finals are over so we're totally done with school before we get to Costa Rica. I can't believe it's almost over!
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Konichiwa!
The ship first docked in Kobe (home of the famous beef) on the southeast side of Japan. Most of Kobe was destroyed in 1995 in an earthquake so the parts that survived or have been restored are extra special and more money is put into their preservation. The first day I went to lunch for some amazing traditional Japanese food then I went to a Shinto temple. The temple was a beautiful bright red color with a fountain to purify yourself in by washing your hands, a huge bell you pull and make a wish/prayer on, lanterns, scrolls with the imperial crest on them and mediation/prayer areas. I went to a random wood-working museum for a class which was sort of interesting. At sunset I explored a beautiful garden, which was once privately owed by a wealthy silk trader. You can meander by the pond which has huge trees with red and orange leaves, rows of chrysanthemum bushes and lovely mini gardens. The weather is perfect luckily- fall crisp breeze and sunshine.
My second day in Japan I took the train about two hours outside Kobe to these restored 17th watchtowers and a shopping center. After that I went to a completely restored ginormous castle/city complex from the 1600s called Hijemi. It's used in a lot of samurai video games and movies. It's a bit hard to explain but basically has gardens, stables, towers, barracks and castles inside a big moat. The buildings are a bright white color with metal roofs up on a hill with beautiful trees of fall colors around it. The central building is about 7 stories and completely restored wood interior. It looks so new you could move in tomorrow. The really cool thing is that the feudal lords used it as the final defenses in case of attack so it has tons of hidden rooms, moving walls, arrow slits, hidden gun racks and shelves to the outside wall which they used to drop tar or rocks on invaders. I don't think it's the kind of thing everyone would like to spend hours in but I definitely could. The world really can be a small place- while taking pictures a family asked me to take a family photo for them and of course they were from Los Altos, CA (which is next to my town for non-NorCal people). Around the castle were these guys dressed as ninjas who would pretend to attack you so you could get a cool photo. The odd thing was that they didn't ask for money or anything or seem to be official photo ninjas just two guys that dress up as ninjas for kicks.
Many people elected to get a bullet train pass and travel around Japan that way and just meet up with the ship in Yokohama the last day but I decide to stay on the ship. Japan has a super efficient, clean and extensive public transportation system. You can get anywhere in Japan via the subway, bullet trains or local trains. Almost everything is super expensive here (especially in comparison to the pervious countries we've visited). For example a bottle of Febreeze is $10 or a decent cup of coffee is about $4. You can definitely find food that isn't too expensive but almost everything else you really have to search out in order to not break the bank. Staying on the ship saved a lot of money and was actually kind of relaxing. When we got to Yokohama I spent most of my time exploring, eating and walking along the shopping malls and skyscrapers. A couple friends and I took the train to Tokyo. Tokyo is huge though the area I was in seemed to just be malls, hotels, offices, restaurants and train stations which was fun for an afternoon though I don't know what tourists do during the day after a while here. There are actually more people in Tokyo than the entire continent of Australia. The greater metropolitan area of Tokyo has over 30 million people (LA's metropolitan area has about 13 million to give you an idea of Tokyo's size). Tokyo is very impressive as a testament to modern abilities- it's very clean and efficient with miles of skyscrapers, office buildings and shiny glass malls. There is something a bit sterile though about parts of it. I've heard that unless you know locals you'll never see the real Tokyo. All the interesting/fabulous places you apparently have to be "in the know" to know about which I apparently am not. The sections of Tokyo I was in looked a bit like 5th Ave or the financial district of New York but much cleaner and less colorful. There are so many really nice shopping malls here selling Dior, Tiffany's and really nice boutique style Hello Kitty/Sanrio stuff. You can buy everything from a toaster oven to wedding cake toppers with Hello Kitty on it! There seems to be Starbucks on every corner here too but they're cleaner and more polite. The Starbucks and malls were all covered in Christmas decorations too- music, garlands, trees, the whole shebang but it seemed as authentic as green-obsessed St. Patrick's decorations in America must seem to Irishmen.
On my last day in Japan I explored Yokohama, which I actually liked better than Tokyo. It's still a huge modern city but less people and more colonial architecture- it seemed to just have a bit more character than Tokyo. I explored yet more shopping malls and skyscrapers while walking along the city. I really enjoyed wandering the Yokohama Museum of Modern Art, which isn't very big but has some famous Western artists like Salvador Dali, Kandinsky, Picasso and Brancusi. It was really nice just being away from all the Semester at Sea people but not looking at yet another temple. Two other students and I had fun exploring a really high-end mall and gourmet food stores.
The food is amazing here. Sushi, sashimi, tempura, miso soup... yum yum yum! There are tons and tons of bakeries often selling croissants, madelines, brioche, and such. There are also a surprisingly large number of waffle stands which are actually really nice and expensive to-go stands in subway terminals and major financial centers. Apparently it's a very popular hostess and Christmas gift to send boxes of food like these petite pound cake-like pastries from department stores. At the bottom of the department stores (most are like Saks Fifth Ave or Nordstrom's) the have a "food court." They look like an expensive store's makeup counter but instead it's rows and rows of gourmet food. It was heavenly! Counter after counter of fresh sushi, salads, chocolates, cakes, mochi, fish, etc. If I lived here (which would require tons of money) I think I would never cook and eat every meal from these department store food courts. For whatever cultural reason though there's never anywhere to sit or get a drink in these food courts. I think people must go home or back to the office to eat since there was never anywhere to sit and eat. Another popular Japanese dessert is mochi, which is a ball of dough filled with different flavors. It's a very strange consistency but the best way I can explain it is imagine raw pie or pastry dough about the size of a dinner roll with a custard/whipped cream filling that comes in every flavor from green tea to café au lait to apple pie to sweet potato. They are actually pretty good though I'd choose an éclair if it came down to it.
Everyone was very polite (with the exclusion of cultural norms which are different such as holding the door for the person behind you, handshaking or eye contact) and often when we were trying to figure out the subway system someone would come and help. People would make such an effort to communicate with us in broken English, hand signals or having long conversations with us in Japanese even though we obviously had no idea what they were saying. I rarely saw people laughing loudly or shouting. People in general are very reserved and in control. No one ever stared at us or asked to take our picture though we obviously stood out. I don't know if they just didn't care or are so used to foreigners that it's no big deal though in most places I went there was only a few, if any non-Japanese people out of hundreds of Japanese. There is a bit of a two faced quality it seems to me about many Japanese because you see so many people in severe, expensive business suits or uniforms working six days a week acting pretty reserved and restrained but then you see a girl dressed like little Bo Peep and no one bats an eye or rows of arcade/gambling places packed with smoke, alcohol, female "companions" and really hung over looking businessmen on a major street at 2 in the afternoon!
Almost everyone is very well dressed though they looked a bit high maintenance. The men looked a bit fussy and metrosexual with their choppy blow dried hat, tight jeans, shiny belts and layers of clothes compared to the casual/sloppy American boys on the ship. The women obviously put a lot of effort into their look- no one looked even remotely casual. Most looked like the women in New York on Fifth Ave though no bright colors or prints- thin, styled hair, outfits not just clothes, high heels, definitely not low-maintenance. They looked pulled together with lots of layers of clothes though not necessarily sharp or classic looking. I never once saw a person in sweats, a sweatshirt, a baseball cap or in a bright color like red, pink or aqua. I don't know if all schools have uniforms but every high school/elementary school aged person was in uniforms even on Saturdays! All the uniforms were dark blue and most of the girls ones included long skirts and a sailor motif, which definitely would not fly at most American private schools. On the subway you'd see big groups of girls or boys in these modest dark uniforms with leather book bags/messenger bags and really nice cell phones with an anime or manga cartoon charm attached to it.
You know the expression the grass is greener on the other side of the fence? Well they should change it to the grass is greener on the other side of the ocean because Japan literally paints the grass bright green. Sad, dejected, brown grass gets zapped greener by a guy with this industrial sized paint sprayer in public spaces.
The quintessential image of Japan I left with was in one of the many high-end malls in Tokyo with an older businessman and his younger wife/girlfriend. The man was dressed in an obviously expensive suit and browsing while waiting for the woman and text messaging on his phone, which had a cartoon antennae charm which everyone in Japan seemed to have. The woman was in traditional Japanese clothes- the less formal version of the kimono and wearing one of those white surgical masks, which people do actually wear here. In these traditional clothes and surgical mask she spent serious time shopping in a massive and expensive Hello Kitty store from which you could easily have outfitted your entire life in Sanrio gear.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Ni Hao from China
Hello family,
I just got back to the ship in Shanghai from Beijing. I'm going to bed now but I will write more tomorrow night. Beijing was really interesting and fun. We hung out and stayed over at Peking University in Beijing (which is one of the top two universities in China). We hit up all the major sites- the Great Wall, Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, acrobatic show, Tiananmin Square, went by the Olympic sites and we even went to a karaoke bar/private room place with the students which was an experience to say te least. Most of the sites were much larger than I excepted- also didn't realize that you have to hike way up the stairs to get to the top of the Great Wall. Beijing is huge. It's sprawling with signs for the Olympics everywhere. In most of the places there weren't many Western tourists- mainly Chinese tourists everywhere though it didn't really feel crowded just massive. I had so many people take my picture and one night a friend and I went to see James Bond and we were literally the only Westernizers for miles around. There is a fairly prominent military/uniformed guard presence at most of the major sites- though at a couple there were troops of soldiers on a field trip for lack of a better word. Other than the Mao and Communist souverniers, random red stars on buildings and the soldiers you could easily forget in Beijing that it's a Communist country. There are so many banks, luxury goods stores, hotels, car dealerships and Westerner chain restaurants in the financial and tourist areas. I'm in Shanghai now and will try to explore the city tomorrow which is our last day in China, then we have two days before Japan. I hope you're well and reveling in our new president elect.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Viet Nam
City Orientation
The downtown section is still called Saigon and retains much of its French colonial flair. The French architecture is very well preserved and the streets in the downtown area near the Opera House, Notre Dame Cathedral and Post Office wouldn’t look out of place in Paris with its cafes, bakeries, and tree-lined boulevards. Granted the streets are crammed with motorcycles and bicycles. They just passed a law requiring everyone where helmets so there will be 2, 3, 4 people and a baby on the motorcycle they all have shiny new helmets on! Crossing the street here is not for the faint of heart. You’d never think it was a Communist country that had a devastating war thirty years ago. In the downtown area the streets are pretty clean, not much visible urban poverty, clean shops and tons of brand new skyscrapers and financial buildings going up. In the Rex Hotel for example which was the favorite haunt of the American officers and press corp. during the Viet Nam War wouldn’t look out of place in San Francisco or London with its rooftop bar, jazz club, restaurants and Marc Jacobs boutique inside.
I went to the National History Museum, which reminds me of a really old school museum with dioramas, no air conditioning, no audio tour, etc. I saw a water puppet performance which is a small stage filled with water so instead of the puppets being controlled from the top they have poles under the water. It was kind of cool but the human figures had a bit of an “It’s a Small World After All”creepy factor. We went by the former American embassy, which is now the American consulate and suffice to say looks different than the famous coverage of the helicopters leaving the embassy and the South Vietnamese trying get clamor on or over the embassy gates. Down the street from the embassy is Reunification Palace which the former South Vietnamese president’s house. It looks identical to a 1970s Howard Johnson Hotel. As you walk in right off the lobby which looks just like a hotel reception room are famous sites like the room in from which the South Vietnamese called the surrender of the South to the North. In the underground floors they’ve left much of the rooms as they were in the 1970s with the original war maps on the walls, typewriters, switchboards, the presidential bedroom, etc. It’s definitely a bit surreal especially as you exit the palace. There’s a famous photo of the end of the war of the North Vietnamese tank crashing through the gates of the palace. The “original”tank that crashed through is next to the gate but now the gate opens and closes for the big tour buses to come through. A few blocks down were the tanks had rolled down are a bunch of wi-fi Internet cafes!
That night I went to the night, which is jammed with, stalls selling blenders, jeans, knock off bags, intense, noodles, key chains…The stall owners are aggressive to saw the least. While it’s kind fun to do a few times I definitely wouldn’t want to do all my shopping this way. I ate at one of the street side restaurants which was all locals except us and the food was so cheap and good. I had fresh spring rolls, a coconut shake, a rice flour pancake filled with bean sports and shrimp and a fried rice dish. They had a tank set up where you can pick your fish, lobster, etc. and they also had a string that gave me a panic attack because I looked up and looked at a string with frogs on it that then moved! They were still alive! I didn’t get a chance to have anything made since I was only in Vietnam one day at the beginning and an evening at the end.
On my last day in Vietnam I went to the Mekong Delta in the south. The Mekong River goes through a number of Southeast Asian countries. We went to a bunch of markets and temples though after a while unfortunately start to look really similar and less exotic. We saw rice paddies and it turns out that they really do wear the wide, triangle rice paddy hats. We took a boat ride down the Mekong River and stopped at some of the islands. On one island after sampling exotic fruits and listening to traditional music we took a canoe/boat ride down the canals. They eat fresh pineapple with a salt/chili powder on it, which they think is healthy since the chili makes you sweat. We took a horse down carriage through the town to a coconut candy factory, shops and honey farms. They made this amazing tea drink of fresh honey, jasmine tea and fresh kumquat juice. For my last night I went to a wi-fi café and tried to upload pictures unsuccessfully. I made amazing iced coffee, which is this fancy set up of condensed milk and fresh brewed coffee then poured over ice. I’m really going to miss the food here in Vietnam.
The downtown section is still called Saigon and retains much of its French colonial flair. The French architecture is very well preserved and the streets in the downtown area near the Opera House, Notre Dame Cathedral and Post Office wouldn’t look out of place in Paris with its cafes, bakeries, and tree-lined boulevards. Granted the streets are crammed with motorcycles and bicycles. They just passed a law requiring everyone where helmets so there will be 2, 3, 4 people and a baby on the motorcycle they all have shiny new helmets on! Crossing the street here is not for the faint of heart. You’d never think it was a Communist country that had a devastating war thirty years ago. In the downtown area the streets are pretty clean, not much visible urban poverty, clean shops and tons of brand new skyscrapers and financial buildings going up. In the Rex Hotel for example which was the favorite haunt of the American officers and press corp. during the Viet Nam War wouldn’t look out of place in San Francisco or London with its rooftop bar, jazz club, restaurants and Marc Jacobs boutique inside.
I went to the National History Museum, which reminds me of a really old school museum with dioramas, no air conditioning, no audio tour, etc. I saw a water puppet performance which is a small stage filled with water so instead of the puppets being controlled from the top they have poles under the water. It was kind of cool but the human figures had a bit of an “It’s a Small World After All”creepy factor. We went by the former American embassy, which is now the American consulate and suffice to say looks different than the famous coverage of the helicopters leaving the embassy and the South Vietnamese trying get clamor on or over the embassy gates. Down the street from the embassy is Reunification Palace which the former South Vietnamese president’s house. It looks identical to a 1970s Howard Johnson Hotel. As you walk in right off the lobby which looks just like a hotel reception room are famous sites like the room in from which the South Vietnamese called the surrender of the South to the North. In the underground floors they’ve left much of the rooms as they were in the 1970s with the original war maps on the walls, typewriters, switchboards, the presidential bedroom, etc. It’s definitely a bit surreal especially as you exit the palace. There’s a famous photo of the end of the war of the North Vietnamese tank crashing through the gates of the palace. The “original”tank that crashed through is next to the gate but now the gate opens and closes for the big tour buses to come through. A few blocks down were the tanks had rolled down are a bunch of wi-fi Internet cafes!
That night I went to the night, which is jammed with, stalls selling blenders, jeans, knock off bags, intense, noodles, key chains…The stall owners are aggressive to saw the least. While it’s kind fun to do a few times I definitely wouldn’t want to do all my shopping this way. I ate at one of the street side restaurants which was all locals except us and the food was so cheap and good. I had fresh spring rolls, a coconut shake, a rice flour pancake filled with bean sports and shrimp and a fried rice dish. They had a tank set up where you can pick your fish, lobster, etc. and they also had a string that gave me a panic attack because I looked up and looked at a string with frogs on it that then moved! They were still alive! I didn’t get a chance to have anything made since I was only in Vietnam one day at the beginning and an evening at the end.
On my last day in Vietnam I went to the Mekong Delta in the south. The Mekong River goes through a number of Southeast Asian countries. We went to a bunch of markets and temples though after a while unfortunately start to look really similar and less exotic. We saw rice paddies and it turns out that they really do wear the wide, triangle rice paddy hats. We took a boat ride down the Mekong River and stopped at some of the islands. On one island after sampling exotic fruits and listening to traditional music we took a canoe/boat ride down the canals. They eat fresh pineapple with a salt/chili powder on it, which they think is healthy since the chili makes you sweat. We took a horse down carriage through the town to a coconut candy factory, shops and honey farms. They made this amazing tea drink of fresh honey, jasmine tea and fresh kumquat juice. For my last night I went to a wi-fi café and tried to upload pictures unsuccessfully. I made amazing iced coffee, which is this fancy set up of condensed milk and fresh brewed coffee then poured over ice. I’m really going to miss the food here in Vietnam.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Hello From Malaysia
Hello All,
Things are fine here. The friends and roommate situations still aren't great but traveling is amazing so it balances out. I have two more days of classes and then arrive in Viet Nam! I can't wait for Viet Nam and Cambodia. It's so surreal to think I'll be there.
Malaysia was a nice rest after India. The ship docked in Penang, which is a colonial city right off the mainland. It was a nice break after the chaotic experience in India. Parts of it reminded me of LA mixed with parts of Honolulu with SF’s Chinatown and then added in an Indian and Muslim influence. There's Indian, Malay, British and Chinese populations here. On a single street you can see an Anglican church, a Hindu temple, a Confucian clan house, a Buddhist temple, a mosque and probably a 7-11 or Starbucks! Many people speak English and a lot of German, Chinese, Saudi Arabians and British tourists come here for the shopping, cuisine and the beaches. There are tons of restaurants, religious sites and shopping malls.
The first day I went on basically a required field trip with my professor to a tropical orchard where I got to try some crazy fruits and juices like nutmeg juice (it didn’t really taste like the spice though) and a spice garden. That night I went into town and ate at a really good Japanese restaurant. You can find almost any Asian food stall or restaurant you want here. It felt so safe and calm compared to India and Brazil.
I admit though I did go to Starbucks, which tasted amazing. It looked identical to American ones but there were fewer young professionals milling around and I didn’t see any young women by themselves or in groups without a parent or husband. The food was more formal desserts instead of muffins and cookies. There was no non-fat milk or sugar-free syrups and only regular sugar and sugar syrup to sweeten drinks. Equal sweetener was available only if you asked for it. The Europeans (there weren’t many Americans) and some of the Arabs were the only fat people there.
I went to Langkawi Island, which is an island off the north coast near Thailand for a few days where I didn't exactly have a life altering cultural experience. I mainly went swimming, ate, slept, and walked on the beach. Honestly though it felt amazing just recouping for a few days. It looked a lot like an Asian Hawaii with more Chinese, Indian and Thai food and a lot of Arab tourists. I lost count of the number of families I saw in which the husband and children were completely westernized in jeans, baseball caps, tight logo t-shirts and sneakers while the woman was completely covered in black. I don’t know if they use the term burqa but so many young women had only the eye slit or maybe the face visible. It was sort of a strange sight because it was a modern tropical hotel so when we were in bathing suits at the pool and next to me on a lounge chair would be a really pale British couple on honeymoon then a heavy Germany family then Arab Muslim woman with only her face or eyes visible watching her family in the pool. The other strange part was that often the women had designer sunglasses, purses and sandals with them in addition to eye-liner and mascara on. Also, the black robes sometimes had embroidery or beads on them. One of the days it rained so I had a wonderful day of doing nothing. I did watch a couple random American movies. So much of the language and content was censored out though. The usual words were silenced- instead dubbing or bleeping them it just went mute over any swear word or sexual reference, even the word “hooker”was muted.
On the last night I went to a night market, which was really fun. I’m trying unsuccessfully to do Christmas shopping but I never seem to have the time and I would have loved to spend more time at the night market. They have tons of good knock-off bags, shoes, wallets, clothes, perfume and dvd’s, souvenirs, food and random stuff set up in rolls of stalls a bit like a really crowded farmers or craft market but less “local”or “traditional”stuff.
Penang is an island with a big hills filled with dense jungle-like fauna on the backside of the city. I went to the top of Penang Hill, which is a bit cooler than the very hot and humid city. When the British controlled the island they built hidden mansions up on the hill to get away from the heat so in between dense trees and ferns are crumbing mansions some of which people still live in though it is seriously curvy and steep to get up there (especially since the funicular is broken). We had tea at an English teahouse at the top overlooking the city, which was a relaxing and an interesting dichotomy. Afterwards I went to the Botanical Gardens, which actually a huge state park rather than formal flower gardens. It was pretty though the faculty I was with wanted to analyze and take pictures of every fern, leaf and blade. Since it’s not really my interest after awhile I would have rather eaten every fern we’d already seen than spend another 5 minutes staring at another tree root. I realize that if we were at an art museum it would have probably been the reverse. The Gardens have tons of macaque monkeys and huge iguanas, which for me were best viewed from a distance.
The ship wasn’t actually docked at the port. Instead we used a “tendering”process in which the lifeboats took us from the ship to the port it was sort of fun one time but it was really hot and the set schedule often conflicted and limited our plans. Ironically enough one of the people sitting next to me on the boat was from Medhem, NJ and Uncle Kevin had been her basketball coach! It’s amazing how often that happens on the ship or in port.
I do miss parts of the US (other than my family and friends obviously), especially the organization and efficiency of the government, restaurants, transportation, businesses, etc. which I took for granted. It's certainly worth giving up in exchange for this amazing trip and it's interesting to see how the majority of the world lives. The outsider perspective on the US, especially since it's an election year, is also very interesting. I love traveling though by December I suspect I'll be ready to be back in the US. I hope you're having a lovely fall and gearing up for election day. I'll try to write later but surprisingly enough I actually have class (shocker - I actually have class in between drinks by the pool, shuffle board, bingo and skeet shooting) :)
Things are fine here. The friends and roommate situations still aren't great but traveling is amazing so it balances out. I have two more days of classes and then arrive in Viet Nam! I can't wait for Viet Nam and Cambodia. It's so surreal to think I'll be there.
Malaysia was a nice rest after India. The ship docked in Penang, which is a colonial city right off the mainland. It was a nice break after the chaotic experience in India. Parts of it reminded me of LA mixed with parts of Honolulu with SF’s Chinatown and then added in an Indian and Muslim influence. There's Indian, Malay, British and Chinese populations here. On a single street you can see an Anglican church, a Hindu temple, a Confucian clan house, a Buddhist temple, a mosque and probably a 7-11 or Starbucks! Many people speak English and a lot of German, Chinese, Saudi Arabians and British tourists come here for the shopping, cuisine and the beaches. There are tons of restaurants, religious sites and shopping malls.
The first day I went on basically a required field trip with my professor to a tropical orchard where I got to try some crazy fruits and juices like nutmeg juice (it didn’t really taste like the spice though) and a spice garden. That night I went into town and ate at a really good Japanese restaurant. You can find almost any Asian food stall or restaurant you want here. It felt so safe and calm compared to India and Brazil.
I admit though I did go to Starbucks, which tasted amazing. It looked identical to American ones but there were fewer young professionals milling around and I didn’t see any young women by themselves or in groups without a parent or husband. The food was more formal desserts instead of muffins and cookies. There was no non-fat milk or sugar-free syrups and only regular sugar and sugar syrup to sweeten drinks. Equal sweetener was available only if you asked for it. The Europeans (there weren’t many Americans) and some of the Arabs were the only fat people there.
I went to Langkawi Island, which is an island off the north coast near Thailand for a few days where I didn't exactly have a life altering cultural experience. I mainly went swimming, ate, slept, and walked on the beach. Honestly though it felt amazing just recouping for a few days. It looked a lot like an Asian Hawaii with more Chinese, Indian and Thai food and a lot of Arab tourists. I lost count of the number of families I saw in which the husband and children were completely westernized in jeans, baseball caps, tight logo t-shirts and sneakers while the woman was completely covered in black. I don’t know if they use the term burqa but so many young women had only the eye slit or maybe the face visible. It was sort of a strange sight because it was a modern tropical hotel so when we were in bathing suits at the pool and next to me on a lounge chair would be a really pale British couple on honeymoon then a heavy Germany family then Arab Muslim woman with only her face or eyes visible watching her family in the pool. The other strange part was that often the women had designer sunglasses, purses and sandals with them in addition to eye-liner and mascara on. Also, the black robes sometimes had embroidery or beads on them. One of the days it rained so I had a wonderful day of doing nothing. I did watch a couple random American movies. So much of the language and content was censored out though. The usual words were silenced- instead dubbing or bleeping them it just went mute over any swear word or sexual reference, even the word “hooker”was muted.
On the last night I went to a night market, which was really fun. I’m trying unsuccessfully to do Christmas shopping but I never seem to have the time and I would have loved to spend more time at the night market. They have tons of good knock-off bags, shoes, wallets, clothes, perfume and dvd’s, souvenirs, food and random stuff set up in rolls of stalls a bit like a really crowded farmers or craft market but less “local”or “traditional”stuff.
Penang is an island with a big hills filled with dense jungle-like fauna on the backside of the city. I went to the top of Penang Hill, which is a bit cooler than the very hot and humid city. When the British controlled the island they built hidden mansions up on the hill to get away from the heat so in between dense trees and ferns are crumbing mansions some of which people still live in though it is seriously curvy and steep to get up there (especially since the funicular is broken). We had tea at an English teahouse at the top overlooking the city, which was a relaxing and an interesting dichotomy. Afterwards I went to the Botanical Gardens, which actually a huge state park rather than formal flower gardens. It was pretty though the faculty I was with wanted to analyze and take pictures of every fern, leaf and blade. Since it’s not really my interest after awhile I would have rather eaten every fern we’d already seen than spend another 5 minutes staring at another tree root. I realize that if we were at an art museum it would have probably been the reverse. The Gardens have tons of macaque monkeys and huge iguanas, which for me were best viewed from a distance.
The ship wasn’t actually docked at the port. Instead we used a “tendering”process in which the lifeboats took us from the ship to the port it was sort of fun one time but it was really hot and the set schedule often conflicted and limited our plans. Ironically enough one of the people sitting next to me on the boat was from Medhem, NJ and Uncle Kevin had been her basketball coach! It’s amazing how often that happens on the ship or in port.
I do miss parts of the US (other than my family and friends obviously), especially the organization and efficiency of the government, restaurants, transportation, businesses, etc. which I took for granted. It's certainly worth giving up in exchange for this amazing trip and it's interesting to see how the majority of the world lives. The outsider perspective on the US, especially since it's an election year, is also very interesting. I love traveling though by December I suspect I'll be ready to be back in the US. I hope you're having a lovely fall and gearing up for election day. I'll try to write later but surprisingly enough I actually have class (shocker - I actually have class in between drinks by the pool, shuffle board, bingo and skeet shooting) :)
Monday, October 20, 2008
Taj Mahal, New Delhi and Chennai
Oct. 16
In the morning I woke up to the sound of the Muslim call to prayer, which was certainly a first. We woke up early for a sunrise tour of the Taj Mahal, which was absolutely beautiful. The Taj is a series of buildings built in the early 17th century by a Mughal emperor as a testament to his dead wife. Oddly enough it’s sort of down a random street in Afra- there’s no gift shop, parking lot, restroom complex… It’s a fairly big complex with fountains, gardens, the Taj mausoleum, a mosque, and a prayer area built to balance out the mosque on the other side of the Taj. The Taj itself is the same on all three sides though there’s a river on the backside. It’s made of a special Indian marble that is translucent to light so at sunrise and sunset it picks up the colors of the sky. Unfortunately the pollution is incredibly bad so the affect was some what muted. By far the majority of tourists are Indian and I saw a surprisingly large number of Muslim women (the Taj is obviously a Muslim mausoleum) in the complete black burka for lack of a better word. The security lines here as in the airports are segregated by sex actually.
In the afternoon we went out further into the countryside to an abandoned palace complex called Fatehpur Sikri. It’s a silent and petrified sandstone city where time has stood still for the last 400 years. According to legend, Emperor Akbar (the emperor who built the Taj’s grandfather) was without a male heir and made a pilgrimage to a saint who foretold the birth of a son. After the birth of the heir he transfer the capital to the site of the pilgrimage. He built a new and splendid city with for example three separate palaces for his three wives (his Hindu wife, his Muslim wife and his Christian or Buddhist wife), an artificial lake, halls, a bazaar, a mosque, etc. In his palace though he had one huge bed that could accommodate him and his wives at the same time, which I supposed cut down on scheduling concerns over his three wives and concubines. In one of the courtyards was a life-size board game similar to Parcheesi but they used concubines as pieces so the winner would win the other player’s women at the end. There was a big courtyard for public grievances in which the people could come to the emperor with problems and inside it was a huge elephant tied to a stone. If the emperor condemned someone to death he was immediate brought to the elephant which the drugged who promptly stomped the prisoner to death in front of the whole court- supposedly crime rates were pretty low back then. The city was abandoned not long after because of difficulties with water supply so it’s still remarkably preserved. Like the other monuments in India nothing is off limits. Basically, you can walk anywhere, touch anything, and take any pictures. It’s much different than say Revolutionary area sites in the U.S. where everywhere has a parking garage, gift shop, registered guides, areas for trash and restrooms, designated areas for visitors and absolutely no touching let alone the glass and ropes around everything. In the U.S. there’s glass and ropes around an chair in an now air-conditioned room where George Washington may have once sat.
Later that day we went to the Agra Fort, which is actually a perfectly preserved Mughal city built at the height of the empire’s splendor. It’s a fort but also a city within a city for the emperor, nobles and government officials. Shah Jahan who built the Taj was the 5th Mughal emperor and spent huge sums of the treasury to built the Taj and was eventually imprisoned here by his son. He was imprisoned in the very palace he built for his favorite wife Mumtaz Mahal for eight years until his death. The palace had views of the Taj so he ended his days imprisoned in the palace he built for the love of his life staring at the monument he built after her death. Mumtaz Mahal was a commoner whom the Shah met in the palace bazaar where she was basically a shop girl. The British used the former emperor’s bazaar for ladies’ tea parties. The complex is huge with gardens, offices, courtyards, white marbled palaces, gold leafed buildings, fountains, etc.
At sunset we went back to the Taj to see the changing colors. You can’t take pictures inside the actual tomb part where the coffins of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal are and you have to take off your shoes or wear shoes covers as a sign of respect. They don’t have lights so after sunset the Taj closes since you can’t see anything. The vast majority of tourists were Indians from all over then there were a fair number of British and American tourists. Again so many people wanted to take pictures of us which was fine because we wanted pictures of them.
Oct. 17
Luckily we took a nicer train back to Delhi and spent the next day in Delhi. We took a bus tour of Delhi and New Delhi (the British built section of Delhi) though honestly I was so tired and hot I basically passed out and don’t remember seeing half the stuff. I did get a chance to stop at on of Mother Theresa’s orphanages. We got to look round and interact a bit with the children who have mental and mainly extreme physical disabilities. Most are between 1 and 13 and have too many physical problems to go to a regular school. It was certainly a humbling experience and served as a stark contrast to the lovely hotels and restaurants we went to.
On the other side of the spectrum, we stayed at an amazing hotel in Delhi. Ironically in the hotel bar we ran into more Cisco employees. India has a strictly enforced drinking age of 21 and alcohol is only available in government stores and Western hotels/bars where it's taxed 70-80%! Apparently the beer isn't refrigerated well so when they manufacture it in order to preserve it they put low-level amounts of formaldehyde in it! It was one of my friend’s 21st birthday so she got to celebrate in India. The hotel I think accidentally upgrade one of my other friend’s suites (on SAS trips we are assigned one roommate though we can switch) to an amazing corner suite complete with a chocolate cake, apples, nuts, wine… so we had a great celebration first in the hotel then down in the hotel bar which stayed open later for the Americans and by later I mean 2am. They had a dance floor and DJ who played mainly techno but the bar was on the first floor and look out onto the street. At one point I was dancing an looked out the window and made eye contact with a Muslim woman waiting for her husband/chaperon covered from head to toe with only an eye slit to see out of which must have made for an interesting contrast if someone looked at both of us. The next day we flew back to Chennai.
The last night in India we decided to go out in Chennai and went to one of the Taj hotels. We wanted to go dancing but they were doing last call for drinks before closing- at 11pm! Instead we just went out to dinner but we couldn’t believe how early everything closed especially after spending so much time in Cape Town. In general the food was pretty good though I didn’t eat the really spicy food and ate in a lot of hotels which provided silver wear (as opposed to using rice or naan to eat with). The food was a mix of flavors and textures with a wide use of spices and vegetables in the cooking. While it was good and filling, I don’t think I could eat like that every day. By the end of the trip I really wanted a nice salad or lighter fare like Thai or Vietnamese food. Almost everything was cooked and there was very little meat (chicken or mutton if anything). I saw almost no seafood (which is a bit odd considering there’s water on three sides) and I never saw beef or pork on the menu. There’s no ice and we could only drink bottled water.
On the last day in India I went shopping with some other students in Chennai. Everyone basically gets around on buses (which are incredibly packed and generally sketchy to my American sensibilities) or rickshaws that are either with motors are peddled which can be a fun, cheap, dirty and occasionally nerve-wracking way to get around. Everything even in stores in the mall is open for bargaining. I absolutely hate bargaining for things and generally don’t really care that much, which the salespeople probably catch onto and jip me for prices but I suppose the extra 50 cents or dollar is my contribution to the Indian economy. On the streets the haggling is insane though even in the mall the salespeople wait outside the shops and are incredibly aggressive, which I found to be very uncomfortable though some find the experience fun. I used to think the salespeople in shoe department at Nordstrom’s were aggressive but now I realize that they are more like a gnat in your face compared to a swarm of mosquitoes and wasps. In the shops and the mall at first I couldn’t get over the number of times I saw women completely covered in black with only there face or eyes visible shopping like it was Black Friday and chatting on really nice cell phones.
I definitely could never live in India and if I had a choice between Paris and India I would chose France. To me, there’s was nothing soothing about the country. After a while I needed a break from the constant attention and stimulation and made me appreciate why many would turn to meditation and yoga in order to mentally regroup. I’m certainly had a good time and I’m glad I’ve seen it though it was overwhelming to all my senses.
Chennai
Oct. 14:
The ship has docked in Chennai (formerly Madras), which is the in south east and part of the technology triangle. It’s the forth largest city in India with 13 million people. India has three times the population as the U.S. but is a third of the size so basically there are 9 times as many people in each square mile so it’s crowded especially in the urban areas to put it mildly.
Today was my first day in India. I met the diplomats from the Consulate this morning and gave them a tour of the ship. We got to talking about living abroad and they gave me some good tips about it. One of the diplomats is here on his first post and I asked what he did before this. We narrowed it down and ironically not only was he from Palo Alto but he lived on California Ave and worked at Cisco like my mom! It was one of those "of all the gin joints in the world" sort of moment. I’ve gone half way around the world and basically run into my neighbor.
India is definitely a whole new world. It's like having all your sense on overdrive. The streets and everything are soooo dirty and the smell is pretty strong. Imagine the dirtiest alley in inner city New York in the middle of summer and you were standing next to a dumpster and you can get a feeling for the smell. People use horns as a means of communication and lanes and sidewalks are just a suggestion. I used to think people were exaggerating about random cows in the street- they're not. There were goats and cows just roaming all over the place and Chennai is not rural. The streets are jammed with buses, auto-rickshaws, bike rickshaws, cars, bikes, motorcycles, walkers and carts with oxen like cows pulling them all together. Chennai is in a pretty conservative area of India so we didn't see any Western style clothing on any women. All the women were in saris in pink, orange, teal... There are significantly more men then women out in public- I never saw a female waiter, police officer, cab driver and only rarely did I see one working in a shop. They really stand out partly because there’s so few out and because of their dress, bright colors and flashy/noisy jewelry. Everything just jammed on top of each other. There'll be a snack shack next to a cell phone dealership next to a shanty house next to a restaurant next to a temple. Poverty here is like nothing in the U.S. The sheer amount of poverty is indescribable. After a while you can become jaded by the beggars and hawkers on the streets. There are random living situations going on all around too. Even on major roads there's string on the walls with people's laundry drying on them. Even at major intersections there's towels, sheets, underwear, pants... right next to us. By the end of day I really felt the need for a shower and some physical and mental space from everything. As an American I can't imagine the constant assault on your senses- especially personal space and hearing. I could never live here- to me there was nothing soothing about the country. After a while I needed a break from the constant attention and stimulation and made me appreciate why many would turn to meditation and yoga in order to mentally regroup.
I spent the day at a Dalit neighborhood painting a school. Dalit is the term used by the people instead of Untouchable. It means oppressed in Hindi. We thought we were just going to go to a random community center, paint some stuff and leave but not quite. When we got off the bus (there were about 20 of us) a marching band led us down the street. Women put garlands of jasmine around us and the bindi of powder on our foreheads. A huge crowd followed us from the bus down to the school. Everyone was staring and waving. It was basically like that the whole day. Apparently since this is such a poor inner city area most people have never seen foreigners especially not a group of young Americans. We were like celebrities- everyone wanted to touch us and shake our hands especially the kids. You'd think we were the biggest thing to hit India since the invention of rice. It was pretty overwhelming.
When we got to the school it was a compound with a primary school and a high school. It was two stories and had a big courtyard in the front. It kind of reminded me of pictures of Soviet era housing complexes that are the first thing to be torn down in the move to capitalism. They had a chairs and an awning set up with singers and children dancing. The administrators gave speeches in front of this huge laminated sign welcoming us and hundred of kids clamored to touch us and meet us. One woman put henna on my hand. Every child wanted to shake our hand and ask our names. Some times there would be three or four hands over mine with the kids repeating my name, saying nice to meet you and doing the Indian head bob thing which is neither a yes nor a no and looks like a figure out. The kids were supposed to stay in the classrooms while we painted the hallways and railings but people (adults and kids) kept coming out to watch us. As we were painting, classroom-by-classroom the kids were all allowed out and they would run to the over side of the railing while I was painting and ask (and by ask I mean scream the way only 10 year olds can do) my name, say their's, reach over, shake my hand, say nice to meet you, and then stare at me as I move on to the next kid. Eventually they started asking for our signatures and they clamored on me to sign my name in their notebooks. We felt like celebrities- I've never signed my name so many times. The kids have uniforms and are segregated by sex. The teachers were all female but the administrators and random people in the courtyard were all men. They never stopped staring as we painted for the next two hours (the kids or the men) and the kids would get so excited when we waved or signed our names. Kids would try to sneak out of class to talk to us or get us to sign our names and the teachers would come out and yell at them. If the kids didn't move they gave them a whack with a long, narrow wood stick! There were no doors on the rooms, no glass in the windows, no desks, no books, no toys... just chalkboards, a few maps and paper decorations on the walls. The kids sat on the floor with binder like things, which they wrote on and in and took off their shoes before entering.
While we painted (a girl and I were partners) there was a man who stood behind us for the entire time and added paint to our buckets when it got low and during the other times would point out where we still needed to paint. I don't know if was because we were women or what but after I while I got so fed up I was like, "Why don't you actually grab a brush and we could finish the whole school by the end of the day?" He goes, "no no- I supervise." Me: "Don't you trust me" Supervisor: "no." That put an end to that conversation and at this point I'm still not sure what his role was. We when left the kids went crazy and the parade of the bizarre sight of so many Americans started up again. It wasn't necessarily bad just odd. I can't imagine being an actual celebrity and having people constantly stare and get really excited when they saw you. It was interesting because we're in India basically as tourists but in the Dalit neighborhood I felt like the tourist attraction. Again it wasn’t not bad just odd.
Oct. 15
I flew to Delhi to see the north and Agra where the Taj Mahal is on a Semester at Sea planned trip (as opposed to independently traveling the country). In Delhi which is also a huge, urbanized, chaotic city I went to the Gandhi Memorial where his ashes are buried. It’s basically a big green park in the middle of the city with a monument area in the middle. It’s a bit strange because it’s a fairly large expanse of green lawns and quiet but on the edges you can see shanty towns up on hills or industrial smoke towers or electrical wires. As we sneakily tried to take pictures of the beautifully colored saris of the Indian women one of them walks up to us and whips out a camera phone and asks if she can take a picture of us. More often people take pictures of the girls since they don’t see many young, white girls in public (as opposed to maybe seeing older American or European businessmen in say Delhi). The men are fairly aggressive or blunt when staring or directing comments to foreign girls and on the whole it isn’t socially acceptable for the Indian girls to be so forward with foreign men. With our light hair and skin (my curly hair), cameras, sunglasses and Westernized clothes we definitely stood out and we as big a tourist attraction as Gandhi.
Later that day we took a train to Agra which was an experience that I never feel the need to repeat. The station was absolute mayhem- I couldn’t imagine trying to navigate the station on my own- sooo dirty, people sleeping everywhere, children begging, rats, trains coming and going, and just general chaos. We were on one of the “nice” trains which wasn’t air conditioned though it was supposed to, creaky, smelly and we were afraid of falling asleep on the 4.5 hour ride because of the huge bugs. I’m glad I’ve done it just to know what it’s like for the majority of Indians though once was certainly enough. Luckily I met some nice students on my trip to talk to one. One of the girls it turns out is from San Francisco and her grandparents live in Atherton (which for non-Bay area people is almost next to my town) and actually goes to Boston University though we had never seen each other on campus or on the ship.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
South Africa Update
Cape Town is such a lovely city with the different mixes of architecture, bay in front, Table Mountain in back and wide variety of cultures. The ship is docked at the Victoria and Albert Waterfront in Cape Town which is a fabulous location since it has tons of shops, restaurants, bars, a mall, an aquarium, hotels and is the ferry depot. When we’re in port most people still sleep on the ship and there’s still meal service if you don’t want to pay for meals or whatever in port. On the first day I shopped and had lunch at the Long Street Café. In Namibia and South Africa I’ve noticed they always have milkshakes and fruit shakes on the menu- nice restaurants, cafes, fast food places, everywhere. There are a few things that I miss about the U.S. (other than my family and friends obviously) such ice (it’s rare to get and to get much if you do), free safe water at restaurants (it’s all bottled and you have to pay for it), free refills and decent iced tea (it’s all canned Nestea or Linton nastiness). The soda cans here are smaller and made with heavier aluminum. Instead of Diet Coke there’s Coke Lite, which isn’t actually calorie/sugar free. It still has very low amounts of calorie oddly enough. I ordered a small tea at a café but forgot the sizes are smaller outside the U.S. A small is 8 oz, medium is 12 and large is 16. In the U.S. a small is 12 oz, medium is 16 and large is 20 or 24 oz!
On Long Street, some friends and I got awesome Don Pedro milkshakes at a place Caroline recommended called Mr. Pickwicks. There’s a bunch of cool shops on Long Street selling boutique clothes, beads, crafts, cakes and surf gear. It reminds me a lot of parts of San Francisco like Union Street or Chestnut Street or part of Haight Ashbury, except that we also wandered a market of African crafts and South African tourist stuff.
On Saturday I did an FDP, which is a faculty directed practicum. It’s a SAS trip led by guides and a professor. Every class has required FDPs that we have to do with the professor though you can still join other professor’s FDPs. SAS has a bunch of day trips planned in every port which you have to pay for but often are worth it if it’s a hassle to plan stuff on your own, the country’s not super safe, it’s the first day, or if we don’t have much time. On this day trip I went to the Malay Quarter, which is the Muslim neighborhood of Cape Town. The houses, shrines, mosques and shops are extremely brightly colored which apparently is a new decision because during Apartheid they were allowed to live in the same neighbor but had to paint their buildings gray. After Nelson Mandela became president and proclaimed South Africa the “rainbow nation” he gave a speech in the Malay Quarter to thank Muslims for their service during the fight against Apartheid. In celebration of Nelson Mandela’s speech and the end of Apartheid they echoed the rainbow nation by painting the area in pinks, blues, greens and every shade of the rainbow.
Before going to some of the township we went to the District 6 Museum, which is a former church converted into a museum about the forced removal of Blacks and Coloureds out of areas so that they could be converted into White neighborhoods during Apartheid. In South Africa the terms Black, White and Coloured aren’t considered politically incorrect or rude though it’s a bit jarring the first time someone used the term Coloured to my American ears. Thousands of people were forcibly removed from their homes though there was such a backlash and construction crews refused to work that the homes were razed but a new neighborhood was never built. Some of the property has been returned to the old neighborhood members (though obviously most are older and have started over in other parts). The Museum was an interesting explanation of Black and Coloured life in the townships during Apartheid.
Then we went to the Khayelitsha and Langa Township to meet with local people. It’s a bit of an odd experience to drive up in the big tourist bus to these huge townships of squatter homes and poverty right outside the city. Cape Town has an official population of about 3 million but an additional 1 million unofficial population mainly in the townships. At first it feels a bit like a human zoo and if you don’t interact with the people it will definitely feel like that. We met with a local business owner who opened a B and B in the township and uses it to fund community services like day care. Meeting the people, especially the hordes of children are for the most part inspiring abet also disconcerting.
We went to lunch in a different more developed township in which the government has been building new housing. The woman who owned and operated the restaurant said that she’s a member of the Xhosa tribe/nation/people. She thought it was interesting the way White people had specific times and food for specific meals. Specific breakfast, lunch and dinner times and certain foods associated with them that aren’t eaten with other meals was a foreign concept for her. We were eating around 3 so she was saying, “is it lunch? dinner? can I serve the same for one or the other?” She was saying that they eat what they have, when they have it. I’d never even though of meal times and specific meals as not being a cultural universal. The food was really good (though not something I’d necessarily feel the need to eat everyday for every meal). There were a lot of root vegetables, corn, stewed meat and starches.
After lunch we went back to the waterfront past all the World Cup Construction in preparation for South Africa’s hosting of the 2010 men’s World Cup, to get the ferry for Robben Island. It is an island in the bay right in front of Cape Town. It’s like a really big Alcatraz but mainly for political prisoners. People still live on the island though during the last century most of the non-prisoner population was guards and their families. It still has it’s own elementary school, gas station, etc. It has a long history as a leper colony, WWII fort and prison (for past native leaders like Zulu chief men or Malay mutineers). It’s most famous role is as a prison until 1994 for anti-Apartheid leaders like Nelson Mandela who spent 18 years and wrote “A Long Walk to Freedom” while incarcerated here. Visitors arrive on the same ferries, which took the prisoners to the island and former guards and inmates conduct the prison tours.
We saw the quarry where the prisoners until the 1970s did manual labor. There’s a cave that the prisoners had to use when they needed to go to the bathroom where the guards didn’t go. When the prison began to be mainly political prisoners very few were literate but they started writing the in sand in the cave in the quarry and taught each other to read. Nelson Mandela’s eyesight is poor as a result of the blinding sunlight while working in the quarry. There are tons of rabbits on the island (something like 10,000) apparently because Cecil Rhodes brought them and the guards used to shoot them when they were bored. There are also deer and adorable penguins on the island.
A former inmate conducted my prison tour. My guide spent 7 years there in the late 1980s for terrorist activities (illegally entering and leaving the country in order to gain military training, membership of the ANC, illegally having a weapon, sabotage- destruction of government property). He told us all about living in the prison, type of labor, separation of the races in the prison, etc. We sat on the same bunk beds the prisoners like the guide slept on as he told us about the different levels of food for the prisoners. The guards tried to divide the prisoners by giving the Whites and Coloureds better food but it backfired and they would try to share food. He told us about his interrogation/torture and “trial”- said he has never forgotten the full names of his interrogators. The political leaders lived in solitary cells with windows only with bars so they were cold in the winter and hot in the summer. We got to see where Nelson Mandela worked, lived and wrote “A Long Walk to Freedom.” Our guide had an amazing sense of humor- cracked jokes about the prison and the tour. He spoke of the importance of reconciling the future with the past- importance of passing on knowledge, experience but also of moving forward in the interests of the nation. Robben Island was an amazing example of the best and worst of human ability and determination.
On Sunday I climbed Table Mountain, which surrounds the city of Cape Town. The hike was surprisingly difficult hike up the mountain- I had to use my hands in many places. It was often straight up with zigzag trail of steps. Most of the hike is straight up a ravine with views of Cape Town in behind you. The trail can be wet because there are random natural waterfalls next to the trail. I climbed pretty fast and it took me two hours. I went through an entire water bottle on the hike up. In front of me were three German college girls- one of whom wasn’t really prepared for how strenuous the hike was but it was funny because some things don’t require a translation- the pants, sighs and plaintive questions of what I assume were things like “oh dear god how much longer?” or “why did I think this would be a good idea?” By the time I reached the top I definitely had a great sense of accomplishment. At the top it really is flat like a table and has a stunning view. I met up with other people at the top for lunch and we took the cable car down (hiking down would have been even more difficult)- there was wonderful view of the Cape area. Apparently people who climbed it on the last day got to hang out with Dave Chappell who was in town after they asked him to take a picture for them and then realized who it was.
Monday:
Today I went to the Wine Lands outside of Cape Town. The Cape Town region is in the Mediterranean climate like much of Northern California, Chile and obviously the Mediterranean so it has the right conditions for producing wine and has been doing so for centuries. Two girls and I hired a driver/wine tour guide to take us out of the city to the wine region. Only about a hour outside the city is the wonderful wine region. The weather in general has been beautiful- low 60s/late 50s with clear skies but on Monday it was rainy so we decided to leave the city- it looked like San Francisco in January or February. We went to three different wineries and tasted and learned about wine. I’m still not a big wine person but it was interesting having a personal wine guide helping explain things. Unlike in Napa where most vineyards have Mediterranean or Spanish colonial architecture these are obviously mainly all with Dutch Cape architecture- a white Dutch colonial look. In the Post-Apartheid period the number of wineries has gone from 300 to 600 and South Africa imports basically no wine- it’s incredibly expensive to get any other type of wine though native wine is incredibly cheap.
Monday, September 29, 2008
South Africa
I'm in Cape Town!
I'll write more later but for now Africa is great. Parts of Cape Town are so Westernized you'd think it was Europe or the US. I went to a township, Robben Island, a museum about Apartheid, the Muslim Malay Quarter and the shopping district. I climbed Table Mountain yesterday which was intense but amazing. Today I went to the winelands. The weather was horrible but the guide and the wine were great. There were also cheetahs at one of the vineyards which were amazing to see up close. I'm going on safari tomorrow and leave for India as soon as I get back.
Namibia
Sept. 23
We’re in Africa!
I just spent 5 days in Namibia and for those that don’t know Namibia is just north west of South Africa on the Atlantic Ocean. It’s pretty crazy to think we are on the opposite side of the same ocean as the eastern U.S.- that my family on the Jesery Shore is on the same ocean as the one I’m looking at. The only country with an even lower population density is Mongolia. It’s mainly desert with about three major cities (the capital Windhoek, Walvis Bay and Swakopmund). It gained independence after having been a German and a South African colony in 1990 (Walvis Bay got independence in 1994) so it’s a very new country with a heavy German and Afrikaner influence. The ship docked in Walvis Bay which is the commercial center and nothing to really write home about. It’s really small even though it’s one of the largest cities. Swakopmund is the main tourist spot and is an hour or so taxi ride north. The country has a pretty good infrastructure because of it’s relationship with South Africa- for example in Walvis Bay the streets are paved, there are two major groceries stores, restaurants, major banks, stoplights and though the buildings aren’t very high it looks pretty modern. It’s sort of odd because there’s the relative small but modern port area of Walvis Bay then on the road to Swakopmund there’s the suburb for lack of a better word which is much less developed and so obviously the poor area where the vast majority of the Black people live. After that there’s basically nothing but sand and ocean until sort of out of no where Swakopmund arises. It’s a coastal resort “city” of about 30,000.
Swakopmund reminds me of Epcot but imagine a German Disney deciding to do Africa. Everything is German/Afrikaner with random reminders that it’s Africa (mainly the tourist shops and sand). It’s all German, British and Afrikaner tourists who come here for the beaches, the extreme sports and European feel. I spent two nights here touring and exploring. The restaurants all served European food (with random reminders that it was Africa like game stew or gazette on the menu). All the food and wine is imported from South Africa. After a while I realized that one of the reasons it looked so odd was that everyone was basically white. The only Black people were young/middle aged and worked as taxi drivers, waiters, in shops… There were no Black families shopping in the grocery store, couples out to dinner, etc. The only time I saw differently was a cab ride through the opposite side of the city, which was so obviously poorer (roads in poor condition, houses more run down…) and suddenly my friend and I were the only white people as far as I could see. Apparently some people went on safari or traveled north, which they said was less touristy, less Afrikaner and more agricultural. In general the people were so friendly and welcoming. I felt so much safer here than in Brazil where there was a sense of constantly needing to be on edge/very aware of your surroundings.
I went 4 x 4 all terrain vehicle driving across the desert. It was sooo much fun driving around the Namib Desert. We went out across and up and down the sand dunes. It was amazing looking around and only seeing sand- no buildings, other people or roads. Eventually we drove out to the ocean and the sand dunes just went straight into the ocean. On another day I climbed Dune 7, which is the highest sand dune in Namibia. It’s out in the middle of nowhere (which is fairly easy to find in Namibia). It was so high I thought I was going to die- I literally climbed up on my hands and knees. Every time you stepped the sand in front started to fall. At the top though it was an amazing view.
We drove out to the salt mines and lagoon. The salt mine was about as interesting as it sounds though I did learn some random info like that salt is mainly used for plastics not consumption. Fascinating right? On the drive out there we went through the suburbs and vacation areas, which look like Dutch modernism meets American adobe meets African safari style. It looks so random especially since the suburbs seem to just pop out of no-where. They also look a bit off since every house has huge walls and no landscaping. Namibia is famous for the flocks of flamingos but we only saw a small group though we also saw a bunch of jackels. I did go sea kayaking another day, which was amazing. It was so cold out we all were like, “I can’t believe this is Africa- it’s freezing cold out.” We went ocean kayaking but it was actually in between the lagoon and salt flats that went out to the Atlantic. We saw dolphins, which came right up to us. There were thousands of seals- I’m not exaggerating there were thousands of baby and adult seas on the beach and in the water. Hundreds of seals started swimming next to our kayaks. It was pretty crazy because they were open kayaks so the seals were hitting the kayak and biting my paddle. The seals smell really bad and sound like drowning sheep or just like Chewie from Star Wars. Apparently on other trips the seals got on the kayaks or jumped over but most people know that I’m not really an animal person so that really would have freaked me out.
We arrive in South Africa in two days and everyone is so excited. The pictures of it look amazing so I can’t wait to explore!
We’re in Africa!
I just spent 5 days in Namibia and for those that don’t know Namibia is just north west of South Africa on the Atlantic Ocean. It’s pretty crazy to think we are on the opposite side of the same ocean as the eastern U.S.- that my family on the Jesery Shore is on the same ocean as the one I’m looking at. The only country with an even lower population density is Mongolia. It’s mainly desert with about three major cities (the capital Windhoek, Walvis Bay and Swakopmund). It gained independence after having been a German and a South African colony in 1990 (Walvis Bay got independence in 1994) so it’s a very new country with a heavy German and Afrikaner influence. The ship docked in Walvis Bay which is the commercial center and nothing to really write home about. It’s really small even though it’s one of the largest cities. Swakopmund is the main tourist spot and is an hour or so taxi ride north. The country has a pretty good infrastructure because of it’s relationship with South Africa- for example in Walvis Bay the streets are paved, there are two major groceries stores, restaurants, major banks, stoplights and though the buildings aren’t very high it looks pretty modern. It’s sort of odd because there’s the relative small but modern port area of Walvis Bay then on the road to Swakopmund there’s the suburb for lack of a better word which is much less developed and so obviously the poor area where the vast majority of the Black people live. After that there’s basically nothing but sand and ocean until sort of out of no where Swakopmund arises. It’s a coastal resort “city” of about 30,000.
Swakopmund reminds me of Epcot but imagine a German Disney deciding to do Africa. Everything is German/Afrikaner with random reminders that it’s Africa (mainly the tourist shops and sand). It’s all German, British and Afrikaner tourists who come here for the beaches, the extreme sports and European feel. I spent two nights here touring and exploring. The restaurants all served European food (with random reminders that it was Africa like game stew or gazette on the menu). All the food and wine is imported from South Africa. After a while I realized that one of the reasons it looked so odd was that everyone was basically white. The only Black people were young/middle aged and worked as taxi drivers, waiters, in shops… There were no Black families shopping in the grocery store, couples out to dinner, etc. The only time I saw differently was a cab ride through the opposite side of the city, which was so obviously poorer (roads in poor condition, houses more run down…) and suddenly my friend and I were the only white people as far as I could see. Apparently some people went on safari or traveled north, which they said was less touristy, less Afrikaner and more agricultural. In general the people were so friendly and welcoming. I felt so much safer here than in Brazil where there was a sense of constantly needing to be on edge/very aware of your surroundings.
I went 4 x 4 all terrain vehicle driving across the desert. It was sooo much fun driving around the Namib Desert. We went out across and up and down the sand dunes. It was amazing looking around and only seeing sand- no buildings, other people or roads. Eventually we drove out to the ocean and the sand dunes just went straight into the ocean. On another day I climbed Dune 7, which is the highest sand dune in Namibia. It’s out in the middle of nowhere (which is fairly easy to find in Namibia). It was so high I thought I was going to die- I literally climbed up on my hands and knees. Every time you stepped the sand in front started to fall. At the top though it was an amazing view.
We drove out to the salt mines and lagoon. The salt mine was about as interesting as it sounds though I did learn some random info like that salt is mainly used for plastics not consumption. Fascinating right? On the drive out there we went through the suburbs and vacation areas, which look like Dutch modernism meets American adobe meets African safari style. It looks so random especially since the suburbs seem to just pop out of no-where. They also look a bit off since every house has huge walls and no landscaping. Namibia is famous for the flocks of flamingos but we only saw a small group though we also saw a bunch of jackels. I did go sea kayaking another day, which was amazing. It was so cold out we all were like, “I can’t believe this is Africa- it’s freezing cold out.” We went ocean kayaking but it was actually in between the lagoon and salt flats that went out to the Atlantic. We saw dolphins, which came right up to us. There were thousands of seals- I’m not exaggerating there were thousands of baby and adult seas on the beach and in the water. Hundreds of seals started swimming next to our kayaks. It was pretty crazy because they were open kayaks so the seals were hitting the kayak and biting my paddle. The seals smell really bad and sound like drowning sheep or just like Chewie from Star Wars. Apparently on other trips the seals got on the kayaks or jumped over but most people know that I’m not really an animal person so that really would have freaked me out.
We arrive in South Africa in two days and everyone is so excited. The pictures of it look amazing so I can’t wait to explore!
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Sept. 22?
Hello everyone! Today is my last day in Namibia which is a strange but cool country. There's very few people here. Most of the country is just desert and the main tourist city looks like Epcot if German Disney did Africa. I'll write more later but I just wanted to put up some photos.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Sept. 16
Sept. 16
During these long crossings SAS really begins to feel like an extended sleep away camp. It’s like being at camp with group activities, a talent show, bad food, inability to leave, etc. Don’t get me wrong I’m glad there’s stuff to do since we still have three days to Namibia. Since we don’t have television, cell phones and have to pay for the internet people spend their time talking, watching movies, eating, tanning (when the weather’s warm), going to different activities or playing games. Last night we played cards and charades for example. Every night at 10 (or 2200 as it’s called) we have “snack o’clock,” where they put baked goods out in the dining hall and the leftover sandwiches. Normally it’s like white cake or banana bread though you cannot even believe how exciting people get over it. Today we have the day off since we don’t have a Monday to Friday class schedule during long crossings we get a day off in the middle. We’re in the middle of the Atlantic so it’s cold on deck so most people are doing homework, travel research or just hanging out. We get to Namibia in a few days, which will be crazy to see. I have two classes each day though since I’m an IR major I feel like I’ve already learned the majority of the information so it’s not too hard. We picked up two inter-port lecturers in Brazil and are taking them to South Africa. Inter-port lecturers are professors or speakers from other countries who are an expert in the country we are going to. They give lectures and the day before we arrive give a cultural or logistical presentation about the country. Sometimes we have inter-port students who come with us for part of the trip. We all complain about it taking so long to get to Africa though I think of what it must have been like for our ancestors or even 100 years ago. I feel like things will only get more and more different as we go east.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Sept. 11
The Brazilian countryside was our destination today. We took a nice air-conditioned bus out to farm communities and walked around. At all these style SAS tours we have transportation provided and a local guide to show us around. The market there was huge and selling all kinds of locally grown products like papaya, tomatoes, manioc, tobacco and various meats. We went to a farming community, which is part of a local farmers ownership program. The movement seeks to empower farmers and communities by providing them with their own land rather than large private landowners sharecropping the land out or in most cases leaving in undeveloped. We went to one of the co-ops which specializes in cacao growing along with their plots of subsistence farming. The cacao plant grows in these big pods and when you open in there’s this white pulp over the beans. The pulp tasted like a slimy sweet and sour candy sort of and the beans were really bitter. The final chocolate product, which was basically the cocoa powder with a little coconut packed together so it has an almost crumbly texture and lacks the milky favor associated with store bought chocolate. The Brazilian countryside was so green and hilly and pretty underdeveloped- lots of random livestock, crumbling buildings, dirt roads…
We went to the town/city of Cachoeira which was at one time the capital of Brazil in part because of its prominence as the center if the sugar plantations. It holds significance in the Brazilian fight for independence and is the heart of the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomble. It’s a colonial town that’s still fairly agricultural though you see random satellites for tv and cell phones on these crumbling Baroque architecture buildings. We went to various sites in town like a Candomble sisterhood center where women have joined together sort of like an abbey for the part Catholic and part African cult religion of Candomble. We also went to a cigar factory and museum, which actually smelled wonderful. We saw the women roll cigars in the traditional way and the long and somewhat complicated process, which adds value to the cigars and makes them expensive in the U.S. I obviously didn’t get any cigars but it’s always interesting to see what the local goods are, who makes them and who buys them. For example most of the tobacco growing labor is done by men, but the rolling and manufacturing is done by women and 80% of the cigars are exported out of Brazil.
Apparently it’s election time here in Bahia (the state of Brazil we are in) and the election process is a bit different here. On a side note people have come up to us and wanted to talk about the American presidential element often and all are Obama supporters. I’ve seen Brazilians with stickers, pins and T-shirts with Obama on them. Brazil actually has one of the most sophisticated ballot counting systems. It’s all on computers which have the candidates name, picture and the candidates election number and they use touch screens so illiterate people can vote. It’s mandatory to vote in Brazil and Brazil’s political system and many government system have major corruption problems but since the voting is computerized and extremely quick they’re created an almost fool proof electronic voting system. The campaigns are different too because as I said each candidate has a number so you see posters and graffiti with the name and the number like “Carlos Martinez 1415” on a wall. There are tons of big posters on the streets, on the sides of buses and on people’s car windows (like the entire back window is a color photo and name). Candidates and supporters’ cars covered with the picture and info drive around the city with speakers blasting music, which I guess are like the theme songs for the candidate. In a span of like 15 minutes in a major square like three candidates’ covered cars will drive by blasting the music.
While I wandered Bahia other people traveled to other parts of Brazil. SAS planned overnight trips of hiking, waterfalls, the Amazon and Rio de Janeiro. People can also travel independently as long as they are with other people though in this port I obviously elected to stay in the original port. This combination of port activities, SAS planned overnight excursions and independent travel possibilities are how the rest of the ports will also work. Tonight we left Brazil and headed out to the Atlantic. We have seven days until Namibia- 6 class days and one free day. I have to get use to the motion of the boat again. I already got sick though I’ve just medicated up again so hopefully it will be fine.
If anyone has good ideas for what to do for three days in Namibia or Cape Town (or for that matter any of the other ports) let me know!
We went to the town/city of Cachoeira which was at one time the capital of Brazil in part because of its prominence as the center if the sugar plantations. It holds significance in the Brazilian fight for independence and is the heart of the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomble. It’s a colonial town that’s still fairly agricultural though you see random satellites for tv and cell phones on these crumbling Baroque architecture buildings. We went to various sites in town like a Candomble sisterhood center where women have joined together sort of like an abbey for the part Catholic and part African cult religion of Candomble. We also went to a cigar factory and museum, which actually smelled wonderful. We saw the women roll cigars in the traditional way and the long and somewhat complicated process, which adds value to the cigars and makes them expensive in the U.S. I obviously didn’t get any cigars but it’s always interesting to see what the local goods are, who makes them and who buys them. For example most of the tobacco growing labor is done by men, but the rolling and manufacturing is done by women and 80% of the cigars are exported out of Brazil.
Apparently it’s election time here in Bahia (the state of Brazil we are in) and the election process is a bit different here. On a side note people have come up to us and wanted to talk about the American presidential element often and all are Obama supporters. I’ve seen Brazilians with stickers, pins and T-shirts with Obama on them. Brazil actually has one of the most sophisticated ballot counting systems. It’s all on computers which have the candidates name, picture and the candidates election number and they use touch screens so illiterate people can vote. It’s mandatory to vote in Brazil and Brazil’s political system and many government system have major corruption problems but since the voting is computerized and extremely quick they’re created an almost fool proof electronic voting system. The campaigns are different too because as I said each candidate has a number so you see posters and graffiti with the name and the number like “Carlos Martinez 1415” on a wall. There are tons of big posters on the streets, on the sides of buses and on people’s car windows (like the entire back window is a color photo and name). Candidates and supporters’ cars covered with the picture and info drive around the city with speakers blasting music, which I guess are like the theme songs for the candidate. In a span of like 15 minutes in a major square like three candidates’ covered cars will drive by blasting the music.
While I wandered Bahia other people traveled to other parts of Brazil. SAS planned overnight trips of hiking, waterfalls, the Amazon and Rio de Janeiro. People can also travel independently as long as they are with other people though in this port I obviously elected to stay in the original port. This combination of port activities, SAS planned overnight excursions and independent travel possibilities are how the rest of the ports will also work. Tonight we left Brazil and headed out to the Atlantic. We have seven days until Namibia- 6 class days and one free day. I have to get use to the motion of the boat again. I already got sick though I’ve just medicated up again so hopefully it will be fine.
If anyone has good ideas for what to do for three days in Namibia or Cape Town (or for that matter any of the other ports) let me know!
Sept. 10
Today I just toured the city more and explored. I’ve noticed that the U.S. seems very orderly by comparison. Streetlights seem optional, peddlers hawk stuff on the streets, transportation in general is a bit of a free for all, the houses often have some level of disrepair… At night we drove across town to a Brazilian sports bar I guess would be the U.S. equivalent. It was a big restaurant with open sides on two sides, tvs everywhere and a big projection screen playing the Brazil versus Bolivia football game. It was really fun hanging out with locals and experimenting with different foods and drinks. The meat and seafood in Brazil is really good though in general Brazilian food (at least northern Brazilian food isn’t really going to be one of my favorites- too much of it is spicy or with beans, peppers or bananas/plantains which for those who know me might remember that I hate those foods). They made these awesome drinks of fresh fruit and cane juice or alcohol mashed together though too many of those will have you dancing on the tables singing “0le ole ole.” The game was slow but the atmosphere was great.
Sept. 9
Today a bunch of us decided to go out to the beach. There are a bunch of beaches near by and islands around Salvador. The beaches around here are kind of famous. There are beaches on the bay and the ocean- some for swimming and some more for the bars and restaurants on the beach. We ended up going to Itaparica Island. Unfortunately we got on the wrong boat- instead of the tourist skooner to the island we got the working class boat to the other side of the island. We hired a driver to take us to the beaches on the other side. We got a taste of the real Brazil as we drove through the countryside. There are lots of beach front “restaurants” all outdoors with basically the same stuff- through restaurants is how you get beach chairs. It was definitely a local’s beach looking out across the bay and back to Salvador. We ordered local food and drinks. They have this great soda called gurana (?) made from an Amazonian fruit and often used in American energy drinks. The water was warm, shallow and very salty. It had mostly nice sand once you get away from most of the boats. You could look out to the water or at the crazy dogs and horses, the Brazilian families or the boys doing Capoiera- the martial arts form on the beach.
We got a driver to take us back so we crammed into a little car and cut back through the town. Brazil is definitely a developing country. There were very few houses that had all doors, walls and windows. Most were made of exposed brick with dirt or pot holed paved roads. People looked at us as we drove through. There’s something definitely vibrant about the country. I wouldn’t want to live here but it’s interesting to see. We took the local ferry back again and had fun trying to talk to the boat workers and other passengers. It was such a much more fun and authentic experience. I learned that most of the tourists to Salvador are from other parts of Brazil or other people from Latin America. It’s just so different- having to negotiate to get a driver and a decent price then cutting through the rural countryside (seeing random roosters, cows and children in the road) or the smell of plants and burning forest or looked out across teal, smooth water to beautiful other islands, the third largest city in the 5th largest country and on the other side the flames from oil refineries or eating local food (only after eating two pepto bismols to counteract the likelihood of getting sick off local food). We had to keep looking up to see where the sun was because we were told not to be on the island after dark which here is like at 5:30 pm. All in all it was an exciting and fun experience. Who knows what will happen tomorrow?
Sept. 8
Today we went into the old town part of the upper city and walked around. It’s very pretty and the semi-seedy aspect of part of it is just part of the experience. A friend and I had some errands to we went to the mall here. Taxis are pretty cheap and the only real way to get around. The mall was huge but filled with tons of small stores that basically only sold the same style clothes. Electronics were ridiculously expensive and all the pharmacies and Target style places sold the most variety of the candy Mentos than I had ever seen. The stores all had like 9 different types of Mentos oddly enough. There were tons of shoes, electronics, bags and even clothes that you could purchase in payments (like car payments), like 5 payments of R$19 for five months. Apparently there’s no interest on the payments and every month an amount is just taken out of their credit cards. Credit cards are huge here and debt is becoming a big problem for Brazilians. On the way back to the ship our cab driver spoke very little English yet knew all the words to the American songs on the radio- I’ll always remember our Brazilian cab drive singing “How deep is your love” through the streets of Salvador. I still feel like I don’t know that many people and really don’t get along with my roommate so still have a ways to go.
At night I went out with a couple of students and faculty to meet up with a former inter-port lecturer (someone from a particular country who gives a presentation upon embarkation to the students about that country). We went to this very swanky bar/restaurant and met up with Javier (who’s originally from Spain) and his wife and Brazilian friends. Javier and his wife and extended family and friends were from all over and the epitome of the warm, vivacious Spanish and South American people. It was a beautiful modern bar over the water. It had glass on three sides with sliding doors but unlike what it would be like in the U.S. the sliding doors opened and there was about a foot of cement and nothing else between you and the drop into the water. I tried a caperienia (sp?)- the Brazilian national drink of a cane juice alcohol with lime and water and sugar. It tastes sort of like a really strong not slushy margarita. It was great hanging out with a wide range of locals (most spoke good English). It made the experience somehow more personal.
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