India

I was anxious about getting to India. It was a place I had wanted to visit for as long as I could remember. In the Fifth Grade I was mesmerized by the Taj Mahal and dedicated almost any project in school I could to it. I can still recall the hours spent in Miss Mahocka’s art room painstakingly working on what seemed to me then to be an enormous chalk drawing of this monument. In preparing for this voyage with Semester at Sea about the only thing I was certain I wanted to do was go to the Taj Mahal. I chose not to sign up for one of the guided SAS trips to Agra because I figured I could make my way there less expensively and would need the freedom to stay as long as my spirit held me. Instead I borrowed a travel book from Kristina, copied the entire section covering this northern region of India and tried to prepare myself mentally for what I anticipated to be some of the more jarring experiences of traveling in India.

Somewhere between San Diego and Hong Kong I decided going to the Taj Mahal was a dream that would remain unlived on this voyage. The port city of Chennai is the IT capital of India and a strong competitor of Bollywood in the film industry. It is also more than a few hours of travel away from Taj Mahal in Agra. After having spent our limited five days (in reality less than five being that the immigration process can take several hours to complete once we arrive in each port) in Japan and China, I realized how much I did not want to spend all my time in India sitting on a plane, train and bus to get to the Taj Mahal when I could be doing so much more. And so the Taj Mahal waits for me.

I did not see the India that many of the SAS participants experienced. Jennifer Mowad, another one of the Resident Directors, invited me to travel with her and a friend of hers who lives in India. Prasad and a friend of his picked us up at the docks and whisked us off to one of many sights in our non-stop tour of south India. We knew that we wanted to travel as far into south India as we could the first night, and therefore planned to take an overnight bus to Madurai. In the interim we visited Mamallapuram, a city about two hours south of Chennai famous for its rock carvings. Cadhir provided us with a historical tour of some of the structures built in the 4th Century. It became a running joke that while Prasad acted as our companion and guide throughout our entire time in India, he was dependent on his friends and family to provide the substantive information about the places we visited. If we ever had a question, he would quickly phone a friend.

Without a doubt there are travelers out there who are much more trustful of others than I, some foolishly so and others who seem to have spot-on instincts. It was difficult for me to leave my bag and my chacos (those are my sandals for those of you not in the know) in a room outside the Sri Meenakshi Temple complex in Madurai. Of course, I took anything essential with me on my person (passport, money, camera, etc.) and everything I left behind could be replaced with time. For added security we gave the man watching the room a small tip before we went inside. Each night we slept on a bus, which was every night except one, I made sure everything of great importance was well-secured under layers of clothes and stuck in places I was fairly certain would cause me to awake were there any attempts to get to them in the night. I have heard far too many tales of undetected thefts occurring on buses. Generally, I felt as if there were fewer safety concerns in India compared to some of the other places we had visited along the way. Not that I felt as if I was in a precarious situation at any time anywhere else.

One of the highlights of our time in India was our overnight stay in a wildlife sanctuary in Mudumalai National Park in the Western Ghats. Prasad’s family connections secured us free accommodations and meals in a place that would have otherwise cost us quite a penny. The house and natural environment reminded me very much of my first days on Tol (Peace Corps) except in this case we had indoor plumbing. The house where we stayed was concrete with a large outdoor porch and simple furnishings. There was a quiet I had not experienced in many weeks and in some ways it felt as if we were the only people around. We were led by Muney on a short walk through the sanctuary. It was so wonderful to be out of the city! After dinner two men came to take us on a night safari to look for elephants. Jennifer, Prasad and I climbed into the back of a jeep eagerly anticipating sightings. Before finding any elephants, we came upon wild boar, spotted deer, rabbits, etc. Eventually, we found a small herd of elephants. Crossing the road in front of us were an elephant and her baby. Unfortunately, our presence in this moment did not please other members of the heard and our drivers had to reverse us out of there quickly to avoid being charged from both sides. On our way out of town the next day we saw a few more elephants along the road who were less phased by our passing.

My greatest accomplishment in India, though, may be having avoided getting sick. The food in India is fabulous! It was such a treat to eat. And we did, A LOT. Most of the time we ate in restaurants connected to hotels. In many countries I would consider this to be the travelers easy way out, but in India it seemed to be the norm even among the locals. Every time we arrived in a new destination Prasad would ask locals where they recommended finding a meal (and we were wise enough to hide while he was asking, so our white faces would not skew the answer) and every time they pointed us towards a hotel. We ate in a couple swanky places, but most of our meals were fairly every day affairs. It was difficult to get back on the ship knowing these delicious meals were coming to an end.