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...