Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Malaysia

Holy cow, it’s already the end of October. This trip is flying by.

Malaysia was so much fun. It was the first port where I didn’t have any planned activities or obligations. I was able to spend some real quality time with a great group of people. It’s amazing how close you get with people when you travel.

We arrived in Penang, Malaysia on October 22nd. The weather was really yucky. I don’t know the exact reason but we couldn’t dock the ship right up at the pier, instead we had to anchor in the bay and take a smaller boat to and from land. This process is called tendering. It was kind of fun, especially since the water was really choppy, but it was also a pain. After the first day, they only had one tender running per hour, so to come back to the boat would take a huge chunk out of your day. In addition, the last tender stopped running at 1 am, so if you wanted to stay out later than that you had to provide your own accommodations. I had only planned to stay off the boat for two nights, but ended up being gone the entire time. I left the boat at 11:30 am the day we arrived and didn’t see the boat again until 3:30 pm the day we left.

The first day in Penang, me and three other friends explored the city by foot. It was so nice to be able to walk around and not feel like you were going to get run over by a rickshaw. Malaysia is extremely culturally diverse. I had no idea what to expect before I got there. What I found was a pretty clean city with lots of different architecture and influences from many different Asian cultures. In a matter of a couple hours we walked through China Town and Little India. You can get all kinds of food: Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Malaysian, and it’s all incredible. Malaysians make the best tea and coffee I have ever had. We’ll see how that stands after I visit Costa Rica. I finally had the opportunity to experience really spicy food. One day I ordered spicy seafood soup. After I had consumed about half of it, I was disappointed that it wasn’t actually spicy. Then I saw what I thought was a green bean and popped the whole thing in my mouth. Big mistake. That was the spiciest thing I have ever tasted. I swallowed about half of it and spit out the rest. My mouth and throat were on fire for a while. My eyes teared up and I got really hot and sweaty. Lesson learned – sometimes things that say they’re spicy, aren’t really spicy, they just have insanely hot peppers in them.

After hanging out in Penang the first day and night (we stayed in a hotel so we could stay out late) we caught a bus to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. I was traveling with a group of 10 girls. That was pretty intense, so we usually broke off into two groups of five. Kuala Lumpur is a really cool city. It’s super nice, with lots of shopping, places to eat, and great nightlife. On the second day in KL we went to the Petronas Towers. I think they are in the top five tallest buildings in the world. I got to go up to the skybridge, which is the highest one in the world. Our second night in KL was girls’ night out. We got really dressed up and one of the girls treated us to an entry fee at a really nice R&B club. For the first time in my life I wore 4 inch heels. I have gotten used to being significantly taller than all of the people in the countries we have visited, but that night I really stood out – standing at about 6’3”, dressed up, wearing make-up, and being American. I couldn’t walk from one side of the club to the other without people wanting to shake my hand and asking me if I was a model or actress. It was really fun pretending to be someone important for the night.

I am slightly embarrassed to say that while we were in KL we stayed at the Ritz Carlton. It was considerably less expensive than it would have been in the United States, and split between 5 girls it wasn’t too pricey. Plus, the accommodations were incredible. We had a personal butler 24 hours a day, the most awesome pool I have ever seen, free wi-fi, and access to the spa. We could walk just about everywhere we needed to go, but if we needed rides the hotel arranged it for us. It felt slightly awkward getting such royal treatment having just come from India, but it was nice to relax for a while. On the last night we took a bus back to Penang. This bus was pimped out. It was a double-decker that had TVs with video games in every seat, the chairs reclined really far back and had massage things in them, and they served us a meal. It was the nicest 4.5 hour ride of my life.

The last day Emma and I made a quick trip to Batu Ferringi, a nearby beach. We just wanted to check it out and do a little shopping. We were so bummed that we didn’t have our swimsuits because the weather was incredible and the beach was beautiful.

So that was Malaysia. I definitely want to go back sometime. Tonight there is a crew talent show. I’m really pumped for that. In a couple weeks we’re having a student talent show and I am actually participating. I normally wouldn’t be a part of something like that but I’m dying to choreograph and dance, so my dancer friend from Atlanta and I are doing a piece together.

Lastly, I hope everyone has a fun Halloween! We’re having a costume party on the ship and I think four other girls and I are dressing up as the “Big 5” – lion, leopard, rhino, elephant, and buffalo. I get to be a leopard. If we decide to go as other animals in the safari I got unanimously elected to be a giraffe.

We arrive in Vietnam in 2 days!

Friday, October 24, 2008

PICTURES!

So right now I am in a Ritz Carlton in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I finally got the free wi-fi going and managed to upload some pictures from my trip so far. This is only a tiny fraction of the amount of pictures I've actually taken, but I thought I needed to show something. They are completely out of order so I tried to write the location in the title.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31745921@N06/

Let me know if you can't view them.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Delhi and Agra

On Day 2 in India I began my trek to Agra, where the Taj Mahal is located. We woke up at 6:00 am and didn’t reach our final destination until 11:30 pm. The trip consisted of multiple van rides, a plane ride, and a train ride. The traveling alone was an experience all on its own. At airport security there are two separate lines for women and men. After going through the metal detector, the women are sent behind a curtain to get patted down, whereas the men are checked out in the open. The plane took us to Delhi where we ate lunch and saw the Ghandi Memorial, then we hopped on the train to Agra. The train ride was intense. We were in a first class car with AC but you wouldn’t have known that unless you looked at our ticket. The car had an awful stench and with fifty SAS students in it, it felt hotter than outside. The distance we travelled was only 200 kilometers (roughly 125 miles) but it took us five hours. It is quite frustrating knowing that in the U.S. the same distance would have taken us under two hours. It was a unique experience.

We arrived at our hotel in Agra at 11:30 pm and the staff had dinner waiting for us. It was a feast. There were tables of food and I’m pretty sure I tried everything. I love Indian food, although I think they dumbed down some of the flavor for us. We were warned that Indian food can be very spicy so we should be careful, but I didn’t have anything that required drinking water immediately after. I was told that the staff prepared the food less spicy for us wimpy Americans. The hotel was incredibly nice. We had a TV in our room, so I watched a show for the first time in 2 months – Seinfeld. After Seinfeld was over, you’ll never guess what movie came on next…ATL! I jumped out of bed I was so excited. How random is that? We’re in a hotel in the middle of India, with only a couple of stations in English, and a movie about my hometown comes on. There are several scenes with the Atlanta skyline so I got to show Emma were I had my senior prom. It made me a tad homesick.

The next day we woke up at 5:30 and went straight to the Taj Mahal for sunrise. It was one of the most breath-taking images I have ever seen. There is no way to describe my initial impression when I made that turn through the gate and saw the Taj Mahal for the first time. It is so massive and beautiful that I didn’t even know how to take pictures of it. By the way – I had no idea why the Taj Mahal was built until this trip and it is a really great story so I’ll share it with you. In the early 1600s there was a Mughal Emperor Shahjahan and his wife, with a family of 14 children. The wife had a premonition of her own death and made her husband promise to never remarry and to build her the most beautiful tomb anyone had ever seen. The wife did in fact die and the Emperor held true to his word. He never remarried and he built her the Taj Mahal, which is now a symbol for eternal love. Their bodies lie next to each other just inside the main hall.

Later in the day we saw the Agra Fort and the Abandoned City, both were beautiful. That night we took another train ride back to Delhi. The train stations in India are quite an experience. We were warned not to wear any open-toed shoes, yet there are people barely clothed sleeping on the ground with rats, barefooted children asking you for money, and people with deformities that I had never seen before. I’m not sure what it is about the train stations, but people just congregate and seemingly live there. This time the ride only took 2 hours. We stayed at another incredible hotel in Delhi. In the morning I flipped on the TV and caught game 5 of the ALCS. Unfortunately I had to leave as the score was 7-7 in the bottom of the 9th. For the next few hours we got a city orientation of Delhi, ate lunch and then caught our flight back to Chennai.

We are now 12 hours ahead of Atlanta time. I haven’t adjusted the time or date on my computer so I am often wrong about what day it actually is. We’ll be arriving in Penang, Malaysia on Wednesday. My tentative plans are to spend a couple days in Kuala Lumpur (the capital city) and a couple days on the beach. Time is going to start flying by as we go through Asia since we only have 2-3 days at sea in between ports.

Love and miss you all.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Chennai, India

I should preface this entry by saying that my experience in India cannot be put into words. I can tell you what I did, but I don’t even know how to begin telling you what I saw and felt. It was a jam-packed 5 days and for that reason this entry will probably be very unorganized.

We arrived in Chennai, India on Tuesday the 14th. When I got out of bed, the first thing I noticed was the smell. You could smell India from inside the ship. Walking from my room to the outside deck I noticed that the inside of our ship had been covered in plastic and cardboard. Once I ventured off the boat, I realized why. The streets in Chennai are extremely dirty. You can’t walk more than a few feet without your shoes turning black and having to leap over cow manure. Speaking of cows, they are considered sacred here so they roam all over the place and are given the right of way in the streets. Tough luck if you get stuck behind one during traffic. I heard many people liken the traffic in Chennai to New York City. I would have to disagree. It’s more like New York City on crack, with no rules and a lot more animals. It is common to see a three lane road with five cars across it. Our main mode of transportation was by three-wheeled rickshaws. Every ride in them is an adventure as you weave through the other cars, buses, motorcycles, and cows – close enough to reach out and grab the person in the next rickshaw. The pollution is so bad I feel like I lost about 5 years of my life.

Emma and I spent most of the first day exploring the city and shopping. In India the women are expected to keep their shoulders covered and not show their legs. In 90 degree heat, intense humidity, and little to no air conditioning Emma and I learned very quickly that jeans and t-shirts were not going to cut it. So we went on a hunt for long skirts and thin shawls. Great success. After spending just a few hours in Chennai I felt dirtier than I did on my three-day safari in Africa without showering. After coming back to the boat and cleaning up we went out to a hookah bar with a group of friends. It was my first time smoking hookah, so I was the center of many jokes. We had a really good time and I’m glad I can say my first time was in India.

Now I’m going to skip to my last day in Chennai. I will write about my trip to the Taj Mahal in the next entry. Emma and I went to an Internet café to do a little skype-ing. We were exhausted from our trip to Agra, so we just wanted to take it easy on the last day. We left the Internet café at 3:30 pm, thinking we had plenty of time to arrive back on the boat by 6:00. We were wrong. A ride that should have taken a half hour ended up being a 2 hour adventure. There was some sort of festival/event going on so the traffic on the streets was at a stand still. After an hour in the rickshaw our driver told us he couldn’t take us any further and that we would have to walk. Emma and I knew the general direction of the port, but we had no idea how far away we were, how long it would take to walk, or where to turn. Nevertheless, the driver left us and we started walking. The streets were so packed with people it was hard to even walk quickly. Side note: If you don’t make it back to the boat by 6:00 then you receive dock time. That means when you arrive in the next port they hold you on board for extra hours after everyone has already left. Not knowing how long it would take for us to get to the boat, Emma and I were hauling butt. People were trying to shake our hands and take pictures with us the entire time. People also tried to get us to hold flags and join their buses. I’m pretty sure we were part of a parade at several points. Then it started raining. It totally felt like a scene out of “The Amazing Race” – trying desperately to get to our destination as fast as possible but encountering so many obstacles along the way and not knowing how close we were. After about an hour of walking (with 2 computers in my backpack) and consulting with guards along the way, we finally made it to the boat. We swiped in at 5:40, just in the nick of time. Thank goodness there wasn’t a line waiting to get on the boat.

India has definitely been the biggest culture shock yet. For the first time on this trip I felt like I was in a place that was truly foreign to me. There is so much to take in: the food, dress, smells, poverty, wealth, traditions, rituals, temples, people, the list goes on. I’m still trying to comprehend and make sense of everything I saw.

Random facts about India: They currently have a female president. They are the largest democracy in the world. They are home to 1/6 of the world’s population. Chennai is the 3rd largest metropolis in India.

So that was Day 1 and 5 in Chennai. I’ll write about 2-4 in my next entry. There is so much more to talk about...

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

More Boat Life

Finally a nice, warm, sunny day!! It hasn’t been warm enough to wear summer clothes since before we reached Namibia. Both Namibia and South Africa were surprisingly cold. Now, as we are heading back towards the equator, I was finally able to put on my swim suit and read on the deck. It was a much needed activity.

We are now 8 hours ahead of Atlanta time. It’s weird going to bed and thinking that Julia is just getting out of school for the day.

Not too much has happened on the boat in the past few days. The most exciting things to note include a dolphin and whale sighting, and watching the Presidential and Vice Presidential debates (which we got recorded and sent to us). A number of people on the ship are getting sick so I’m doing my best to stay well.

Since we have eleven straight days at sea (which would typically mean 11 days of class), we get Friday off from class. Semester at Sea doesn’t like to give us free days so they always schedule events on our No Class days, but this time I’m really excited for it…we’re having the Sea Olympics! The teams are based loosely on our halls. My team color is white, which is kind of lame. There will be quite a range of events: everything from pizza making to board games, work out contests, dodgeball, synchronized swimming, crazy relays, and hot dog eating, to name a few. I will be competing in the human knot competition, flip-cup (using a non-alcoholic substance), and the Olympic Relay. I’m super excited. After a full day of events, we will be having our first ever ship dance: the Gods and Goddesses ball. Emma and I bought sheets in Cape Town to make our costumes.

Time to go write a paper…

Friday, October 3, 2008

Suggestions?

I would love to post pictures on a website for everyone to see. This blog site requires me to resize my pictures and that is too time consuming. So, if anyone knows of a site that is free and easy to use, let me know. I just want to be able to upload a ton of pictures for everyone to see. Leave a comment or email me at alfuster@semesteratsea.net if you have any suggestions.

T.I.A.

So, for my last three days in Africa in was in Kwazulu Natal, a national game reserve. At 4:15 am on Tuesday, thirty very sleep deprived students met on the ship to begin traveling to the reserve. I was so afraid of not waking up in time that I stayed awake all night. The traveling consisted of a 45 minute van ride to the airport, a 2 hour flight to Durbin, and then a 3 hour drive to the reserve. Even though I slept through most of the traveling, I was exhausted when we finally reached our destination.

Our accommodations were pretty nice – platform tents with bunked beds. I made sure to get a top bunk so the hyenas would eat the people on the bottom first. After we got settled in we did got a safety talk and heard about the agenda. Our camp was literally in the middle of the reserve so wildlife comes through there all the time. The most important rule was to always walk with someone at night. Our guide told us, “You don’t have to outrun the animal, just the person you are walking with.” There is no electricity anywhere so the only light we had at night was our campfire and a few lanterns. At night we could actually hear the hyenas around camp.

The next day we got to drive around the reserve in these really cool open-air vehicles. I want one. We saw giraffes, rhinos, baboons, wildebeest, impala, hyenas, antelope, zebra, nyala, vultures, warthogs, elephants, and buffalo. We saw 3 of the “Big 5,” missing out on lions and leopards. We may not have seen lions, but we did hear them. On the second night, we were around the campfire singing when one of the guides called the others over to her. Then they came over to the fire and instructed everyone to quickly move to the deck. The deck was our go-to place if anything was wrong. All of the students pretty much ran to the deck, we were all so scared. Once we were up there we all went silent and we could hear lions roaring what sounded like 15 yards away. I can’t put into words how cool it was. There was no light except for the campfire, the sky was full of stars, and thirty scared college students were huddled together listening to lions roaring. One of the guides pulled a truck up to the deck and used some powerful lights to look for the lions. We never got to see their bodies, but you could see their eyes glowing through the grass.

Oh yeah, we also got chased by an elephant. Our guide had just finished telling us how elephants can kick around a truck like a soccer ball, when we came to one in the middle of the road. It was the biggest elephant we had seen so far and it was just standing there eating a tree. We parked the vehicle for a while so we could all take pictures. After a little while the elephant turned around and started coming right at us. Our vehicle had to reverse for a ways down the road before the elephant stopped. It was pretty exciting and I got some nice pictures.

After three straight days of waking up early (we woke up at 5 am on the safari), I basically sleep walked my way back on the ship yesterday. It’s so hard to catch up on sleep on this trip because everyday at sea is a class day, and when you’re in port you don’t want to waste time sleeping in. We usually only have about 4-5 days on land and we cram in as much stuff as possible, so once you get back to the boat you’re exhausted but you have to get back into class mode. The next 11 days will be pretty rough. I have about 3 papers to write and all of my classes have midterms before we get to India. But hey, I’m not complaining, I’m traveling around the world.

This is Africa. (Blood Diamond, anyone?)

Cape Town, South Africa

Wow. The past 14 days have been so crazy. We spent five days in Namibia, two days at sea, and then a full week in South Africa. I have been so busy at port and on the ship that I haven’t had a good opportunity to sit down and write what’s been going on. I was planning on writing this blog entry last night, but we hit the roughest water we have encountered so far and for the first time I thought I was going to vomit. I just went to bed at 9:45 and didn’t wake up until 11 hours later. The Cape of Good Hope is where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Indian Ocean, whose current goes in a different direction, so the waves can get pretty big. Last night they made an announcement to secure our belongings in the room due to rough waters ahead. I couldn’t even walk down the hall last night without running into the walls. I went outside on the deck to check out the waves and when I jumped, I ended up several feet down the deck. Emma and I duct-taped our drawers closed because they frequently open and slam shut. When we woke up this morning all of the stuff on our shelves was on the floor, but the waves are not nearly as bad today. Now we are at sea for the longest stretch of our trip – eleven days without a port, and only one day off from class.

But, most importantly, South Africa. It is an incredible place. There is so much to do there and it is probably the most beautiful city I’ve ever seen. The area by the port is extremely pedestrian friendly, with lots of cute shops and great restaurants. The downtown area is much like a city in the United States, so I didn’t spend much time there. Table Mountain is a key feature of the city. It stands tall in the background, looking over the city and the sea.

On the first day in Cape Town, I went to the District 6 Museum and a Township. District 6 is an area that was home to many black South Africans, and was totally eradicated during the apartheid. The people in power didn’t want so many blacks living so close to the city so they wiped out all of their homes and displaced them to an area farther away. After the museum visit, we got to see a nearby township. It was an eye-opening experience. It’s so hard to believe the conditions they are able to live in. We got to see a building where several families lived. There were about four bedrooms, each housing a separate family. These rooms were about the size of my room on the ship except they were home to a family of four or more. Oftentimes, the adults sleep on the bed and the children sleep on a mat under the bed. All of the families living in the building share one common area and one kitchen. Despite the harsh conditions, everyone we met was extremely friendly and so excited to see us. From the moment we got off the bus children were running up to us, singing and dancing, and wanting to give us high-fives. It is so bizarre to go from being in a busy, bustling, tourist-friendly port to a poverty stricken township in just a 30 minute van ride. I think the effects of apartheid are still very evident here. Most stores and restaurants have signs outside that read “Right of Admission Reserved.” I thought that was similar to our signs “No shirt, no shoes, no entry,” but I wondered if it was rooted in segregation.

The next day in Cape Town I climbed Table Mountain. It was a grueling 2 hour hike, but it was well worth it. I went with a group of four and we stopped at a grocery store beforehand to get some picnic food to eat on top. That lunch was probably the best lunch I’ve ever had. Chips, sandwiches, cheese, and a bottle of wine with three other friends, after a 2 hour hike, sitting on top of a mountain, looking over the coast of South Africa. It doesn’t get much better than that. We spent three hours just hanging out on top, looking at the different views. On the way down we opted for the cable car. So basically, you need to come to Cape Town and you have to climb Table Mountain.

The last three days I spent on a Safari, but I’ll write about that in my next entry, seeing as this one is already very long.

Amy – I remembered “Rabbit” but had no way of getting in touch with you. It made me smile.