Costa Rica / Coming Home

Family and Friends,
I had only two days and one night in Costa Rica, and I had just finished finals the day before I got there so it was pretty much the last time to hang out and have a good time with my friends, most of whom I will never see again after this week is over. The first morning I spent “rafting” down the Corobici River which was about an hour away from where the ship docked in Puntarenas. I put rafting in quotes because the experience didn’t quite match up to the description that was given. It was just my friends George, Mike, Paul and I sitting in a raft without paddles going downriver at about the same pace as the Eagle Trace Golf Course’s famed creek. Regardless of how disappointing the adventure was, it was still a lot of fun to be with friends doing something in a foreign country. Costa Rica was an easy country to overlook because it is the last stop before coming home and it seems that people had that on their mind more than the fact that we were in a place where people save their money to go on vacation. It seems that this was a good indicator for me of how overwhelming this trip was as a whole, that a place like Costa Rica could be overlooked. On my lone night there, I went with some friends to Jaco Beach, a tourist spot where many other Semester at Sea students were headed. I didn’t get arrested by the Costa Rican police, so I considered the night a complete success and I will leave it at that. I spent the second day picking up some souvenirs and walking around on the beach, but I have been a bit under the weather lately and I found myself exhausted about half way through the day, so there weren’t really any blog worthy events that took place.
The last few weeks traveling across the Pacific have flown by, even though I was finishing up classes and taking tests. I thought it would feel like the longest stretch for sure, but it is almost unbelievable to think that I will be home on Friday night. I have bittersweet feelings about coming home, which has nothing to do with lack of excitement but rather with the fact that this voyage that I had been looking forward to for so long will actually be over. It seems like only a few days ago that I was so nervous and anxious about leaving the world that I knew for an extended period of time. It has turned out to be the most rewarding thing that I have ever done and I wouldn’t take it back for anything in the world. Even with that considered, I don’t think I can completely quantify how all that I have seen and experienced has affected me until sometime in the future. It is strange because I have felt so disconnected from the world I have known for my entire life that I feel as if I have stepped into a time capsule that I will leave on Friday when I see my family again.
I definitely need to thank my parents, who sacrificed a considerable amount to let me go on this trip. I will be forever indebted to them for giving me the opportunity to see and experience the world like I never imagined I could. Thank you also to everyone who took the time to read my longwinded blog and all of you that gave me so much support and sent me messages throughout my trip. I can’t wait to get home and not only share my stories with all of you, but also to hear what everyone has been up to since I have been away. I guess this is the end of my life as a blogger, I hope you all have enjoyed it and I am so excited to see all of you very soon.

Conor

Hawaii

Family and Friends,
On Tuesday I had one of the greatest experiences of my life. Early on in the trip, George, Dani and I joked about going skydiving in Hawaii. I took it as just that, a joke. When George actually asked me to sign up with him I was unsure, but I figured I could still get out if I wanted to. We got picked up at noon from the ship and driven about an hour away from Honolulu. On the way there, I essentially signed away my life and all of my legal rights just so I could get strapped to someone and thrown from a plane. There were a lot of people waiting to go when we got there so for about two hours I sat and watched the planes go up and then waited for the parachutes to float down. My instructor’s name was Mike, and he has been living in Hawaii and doing tandem dives for more than ten years. He has been skydiving since he was fourteen, so I felt reassured when he told me how it was all going to happen. Getting on the plane, I was extremely nervous. My two top fears are heights and flying, and I have never even flown in a plane that small so even getting in to the air was going to be a challenge. There were four tandem groups on the flight, and the only other person I knew was my friend Patricia. As we took off and kept getting higher and higher, we kept exchanging silent glances that meant “what are we doing?! This is crazy!” Once the plane got to 14,000 feet, one of the instructors opened the door and the wind came rushing in. I saw the first tandem get sucked out of the plane, and at that point I knew that there was absolutely no going back. I didn’t watch the next two divers go out because the first one freaked me out so much, so before I knew it, it was my turn to go. I scooted to the edge of the plane, trying not to look down, and let my feet dangle over the edge. The moment I looked downward, I froze. Mike had to scream at me to cross my arms and put my head back, and I did as I was told and then he started the countdown from three. I leaned back once and then I was out. I did a barrel roll and then flattened out so I could see the clouds and ground below. Mike pointed outward and I looked out to see the plane I just jumped out of doing a nosedive about 50 yards away from me, and the pilot was smiling at us and flashing the hang loose sign. The free fall is essentially impossible to describe, it is more like flying than falling. After a minute of free fall we passed through a cloud and Mike pulled the chute. The next five minutes were completely silent and peaceful, I could see the entire North Shore and Mike pointed out where some of the landmarks like Waimea and Pearl Harbor. Our descent was smooth, but my landing wasn’t exactly graceful because all of my extremities were numb and I did a full on face plant. I was glad to be back on the ground, but I probably would have done it again immediately if I had the chance. Thinking back on it, even as fresh in my mind as it is, I can’t believe I actually did it and even though I didn’t get the DVD or picture packages I stole some shots from George so I can show everybody the view from the sky. I would like to say sorry to my dearest Mother for any distress I may have caused her, but I made it Ma! It was a day that I will never forger. Well I am on the last leg of the voyage that includes class and I will write my final entry in the beginning of May after my two days in Costa Rica. I hope that everyone is doing well and I am very excited to be coming home and to see you all again soon.

Conor

Japan

Family and Friends,
My time in Japan went by faster than any other country. It was one of the countries I was most excited about visiting before my trip even started, so to see it come and go has been bittersweet. I bought a Japan Rail Pass before I got there so I was able to travel by train around the country. I must say I was amazed at the Japanese railway system. The Shinkansen high-speed trains travel at 180 miles per hour, but if you didn’t look out the window to see the countryside in a blur you would think that you were cruising along at 60. All of the trains are one time and there is a train to the other side of the country just about every thirty minutes. I couldn’t help but imagine how nice it would be to have a similar mode of transportation in the U.S. To be able to show up at the station 10 minutes before the train leaves and not have to worry about checking bags or anything like that.
The first morning my friend Mike and I took off for Hiroshima. We spent the afternoon at the Peace Memorial Museum and Park. The museum showed through pictures, artifacts, and personal accounts what happened when the bomb hit and the destruction that has ensued in the years after. It was another place that made me look back on the history that I had learned during my time as an American student and think completely differently about it. To see the pictures of a quaint city full of innocent civilians and the corresponding pictures of the destruction caused by the bomb was hard to understand. Obviously, the war was a backdrop for all of this to put it in to context, but much like the Vietnam War Museum that I visited I came out of the building shocked that we continue to find our way in to wars that destroy countries and families alike. The park around the museum is very pretty, and it is filled with various peace monuments. If any of you know the story of Sadako and her effort to make 1000 paper cranes, there is a monument dedicated to her and it is surrounded by glass cases full of paper cranes made by children from around the world. Another monument in the park is the A-Bomb Dome, which is the only structure in Hiroshima that withstood the bomb and has been left standing to this day. All that is left of what used to be the Industrial Promotion Hall is the steel frame and a few bricks, and it is a harsh juxtaposition to the beautiful city that has flourished around it, but it serves as an effective reminder of what happened to the city.
My only night in Hiroshima Mike and I decided we wanted to experience a Japanese baseball game, and luckily enough there was a game in town that night. We rooted on the hometown Hiroshima Carp against the Nagoya Dragons. I bought us two tickets the day of the game at the box office for thirty bucks apiece and when we got in to the stadium we realized that our seats were in the first row on the first base line directly behind the home team’s dugout. The team wasn’t great, they always finish below .500 and could be called the Kansas City Royal of the Far East, but the fans were wild and we even got on the jumbotron during the seventh inning because we were doing some serious cheering and crowd pumping.
The next morning I split off from Mike who was headed to Tokyo and I headed to Kyoto. When I got there in the afternoon I had no place to stay, which I thought wouldn’t be a problem, but getting a room in Kyoto on a Saturday night during cherry blossom season is a difficult task. I walked to a few hostels before realizing that nowhere had vacancy and I must have called ten different hotels and hostels before I decided to just take my bag and see what I wanted to see that day with or without a room for the night. I traveled across the city by subway and visited the Heian-Jingu Shrine, which can be seen in one of my favorite movies, Lost In Translation, which gave it a little extra personal significance. It was very pretty but also very crowded. I ended up finding the last available bed at a hostel that was decent and stayed there for the night.
On my third day I took a train to Nara, a small city near Kyoto that was Japan’s first capital and is full of famous temples and gardens. I had a guidebook with me and it suggested a walking tour that took me about 6 hours in total. My favorite part of the day was my visit to a Japanese garden that I discovered while wandering around. When I got inside I realized that I was the only person there, and it was a refreshing change from not only the Japanese tourist sights, but also all of the other cities that I had visited in the previous month. It was exactly the kind of natural Japanese beauty that I had been looking for. It was a relatively small enclosed area with a pond in the center lined with moss covered rocks and beautiful flowers. I ended up staying there for over an hour just listening to the fountains and streams, it was my own personal version of meditation. The rest of the day I spent walking around the city seeing many different shrines and temples and then I made my way back to Kyoto for the night.
On my final day in Kyoto I took the bus around to three different temples that I had wanted to see. The first temple I saw was the Kiyomizu-Dera temple, which is famous for having a waterfall which is split into three streams that are supposed to give you good luck or wisdom. Needless to say I drank from all three of the streams and I have since won the lottery (I spent it all in a Pachinko parlor, don’t ask) and been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. In the afternoon I visited Kinkaku-Ji, which is a golden temple that was originally built in the 14th century but was burned to the ground in 1950 by a monk and fully recreated in 1955. The outside of the building is completely covered in gold leafing and it sits across a pond against the hills of Kyoto. My last stop for the day was the Ryoan-Ji temple, which is famous for it’s giant Zen rock garden. It was created by an anonymous monk in 1450 and he gave no reasoning behind his design which includes 15 rocks spread throughout the bed of pebbles. After leaving the garden, I walked through the largest group of cherry blossom trees that I had seen. It was like stepping in to a different world. The ground and the sky were covered in pink petals and the petals were constantly falling like snowflakes in slow motion. I took a lot of pictures to try and capture what I was seeing, but it really didn’t do it justice. I ended up taking a short video, which I think shows it a little better, but it could have been one of those moments that can’t be reproduced.
After my train back to Kobe where the ship was docked I met up with George and Dani for a Kobe Beef Dinner. Let me say that regardless of the price, if you are ever in Japan you need to try it. The restaurant that I was at was set up like a Benihana, minus all of the showy tomfoolery, shenanigans and hullabaloo of the chef. I have eaten quite a few premium steaks in my life, but none of them were quite like this one. I wouldn’t have had to chew the meat if I didn’t want to because it immediately melted in my mouth. It was a fabulous finish to a great trip and I know that Japan is a place that I want to go back to see the places I didn’t get to see sometime in the future. It completely lived up to every expectation that I had, which is saying a lot.

Conor

China

Family and Friends,
I just got done with my six-day visit to China, and now two days later I am in Japan starting my travels here. This is a picture from my photo shoot on the Great Wall, Mo wanted me to be like the America's Next Top Model girls so I did it for her. The thing is, I liked it! I am actually never going to come home and I will continue to travel the world modeling for whoever will pay me. Yeah!! The ship initially docked in Hong Kong, and I was there for only a day. I spent the day walking around the city and taking the ferry between downtown and where the ship was docked. I was amazed at the Hong Kong skyline, it’s the most amazing one I have ever seen. They day I was there it was very foggy though so I couldn’t get any good pictures to bring home. It is an amazingly metropolitan city, all of the shopping malls are full of high-priced designer stores and there are Mercedes and Rolls Royce’s everywhere. I expected it to some degree, but the city’s size and modernity was very impressive.
The next morning I took off for Beijing on a Semester at Sea sponsored trip with a bunch of my good friends. The flight was long, and we didn’t do much when we got there, so we decided we needed to do something fun on our first night there. We decided on KTV, or karaoke as we call it in the states. There were nine of us and we rented our own private room for the night. I started off the night with my own rendition of N’SYNC’s “A Little More Time On You”. The rest of the night followed suit with such classics as “Afternoon Delight”, “Puff the Magic Dragon”, and Mike McQueeny’s unforgettable take on “Lady in Red”. I recorded some of us singing so I could bring the tapes home and try to get some of us signed on a record label. In all honesty, the singing was pretty terrible but it was one of the most fun nights that I have had on the trip.
The second morning I spent at Tian an Men Square. It was by far the most crowded tourist spot I have been to on the trip. The amazing part about it is that the square is huge, but still it was packed like the mall during Christmas shopping season. Obviously the story behind the place is important and very intriguing, but there is nothing like masses of people to take away from the ambiance of a historical monument. After that I visited the Forbidden City where the emperor used to live. It was a lot like a museum, you could look at a lot of things, but most of it was behind glass so it didn’t feel quite authentic.
I considered everything before the third day a precursor to the thing I was most excited about seeing in China, the Great Wall. I really had no expectations going in to my Great Wall visit, all that I had heard from some other people was that it was quite a hike to actually get to the wall. I spent about three hours in total on the wall, thankfully the rumors weren’t true and it only took 15 minutes of stair climbing to get there. The weather wasn’t exactly beautiful, a very foggy and chilly grey morning, but I think the fog added a little mystique to the experience. It’s my story and I am sticking to it. Along with a few other sights I have been fortunate enough to see on this trip, the wall is something you have to see with your own eyes. It has a certain indefinable quality that needs to be experienced firsthand. It seems to stretch on forever, and when I was done the guide told me that to travel the entire wall at a good pace it would take three months.
As far as being in Beijing during the current turmoil between China and Tibet, it didn’t affect my stay at all. I never saw any protests or anything that seemed out of the ordinary. I will be interested to see how China is perceived as an Olympic host country. The language barrier is the most difficult I have experienced so far during my trip and even cab drivers and hotel employees aren’t sure of the English names of certain places. I drove past the Olympic complex, and the building for the opening and closing ceremonies was very cool looking. It looks like something from outer space, a bird’s nest made of a spider web. They were still doing construction so I couldn’t get very close to the building, but it is all very centralized in the heart of Beijing.
The fourth day was spent mostly in transit between Beijing and Shanghai. Shanghai is more of the financial center of China. I would compare it to New York and Beijing to Washington D.C. It is a huge city, and considering I only had one day to spend there, I saw about one neighborhood. It was also pouring rain the day that I was there so it wasn’t the best day to be out and about seeing the sights.
This entry was definitely a little on the short side, considering how much time I spent in China, but it is due to the fact that I have only had two days between countries so the time I spend on the ship is mostly catch up on sleep time. There is less than a month left on my voyage, and the majority of the countries are behind me. Hopefully Japan will live up to my lofty expectations and then I will be off to cross the Pacific. I hope everyone at home is well and I hope to talk to you all soon.

Conor

Vietnam/Cambodia

Family and Friends,
I had a great time in both Vietnam and Cambodia. I wish that I could have spent more time in both places because I feel like I only scratched the surface. I spent my first day in Ho Chi Minh City and did a Semester at Sea trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels. The Viet Cong used the tunnels during the wars against both the French and the Americans, and it was interesting to see the tactics that the opposing side used during the war. They were very crafty and smart with the techniques that they used, and even though they didn’t have a lot of money, they used their knowledge of the area to create the elaborate tunnel system that helped them fight off the French and the Americans. It was a bit of a tourist trap but it was informational and effectively showed how some of the Vietnamese soldiers lived during the war.
The second morning I was off to Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. I was placed in the parent’s trip, which was fun because not only did I get to meet new people, I got to meet their parents as well. We spent the afternoon touring the imperial grounds within the city and visiting an art museum. As the sun was setting we boarded a boat and floated down the Mekong River. While on the boat we saw a floating village, which is just that, a village of small homes that float on the river away from the surrounding communities because the people who live there are actually Chinese and not allowed to be in the country. The most special part of the day though was our visit to an orphanage that evening. As with every other country where I have done something with children, they were all very excited to have visitors and they brightened everyone’s day. When I got there, a little boy jumped in to my arms and didn’t leave me side for the entire time I was there. The orphanage where they live is run by private donations and over 100 children live and go to school there. We got there after it was dark, and there were no lights on, but the kids wanted to play anyways so we played on the swing-sets and played soccer with them, and once again it was hard to leave them behind knowing the hard lives that they will have to face.
My experience the following morning affected me more than probably anything I have ever seen. In the morning I went to one of the killing fields where Cambodians were ruthlessly murdered by their fellow countrymen in the late 1970’s. A political party called the Khmer Rouge and its leader Pol. Pot. came into power in 1975 and sparked the mass killings that ensued. The field that I visited was used simply as a place to murder people after they had either given a confession of being a spy working for another country or refused to give one. Over 9,800 people, women and children included, had been murdered and buried in the field. I walked around the area and read the signs that described the details of the massacre, which I will leave out of my blog but I would more than willing to talk with anyone about when I get home. The area was still littered with bones and clothes from the victims, and all of the mass graves have been left as open holes, as if to symbolize the loss of such a large percentage of the population. After four years of genocide, 1,700,000 people, 25% of the country was dead. Perhaps the most affecting part of the killing fields was the building in the center that has been erected in remembrance of the victims. The building is about 4 stories high, with 17 levels from top to bottom filled with the skulls of the excavated bodies. It’s one thing to hear the numbers of people that were killed, but to see the numbers in such a raw form was shocking and disturbing. After leaving the field I traveled to a former prison and interrogation center that has been converted into a genocide museum. It showed the horrific conditions that the people were kept in and depicted the ways that prisoners were interrogated and tortured. The museum also has a collection of hundreds of mug-shot style photos of the prisoners that were taken right before they were either tortured or taken to the killing fields to be executed. I don’t know if there is something more profound or affecting than a person’s eyes, and these pictures proved that. Just by looking into the eyes of all of these people, I could see that they had given up hope, they were already dead inside. I could do nothing more than to walk around and shake my head in disbelief that something like this occurred thirty years ago. Violence, hate and destruction of that kind is almost incomprehensible, one would think that the people of the world would learn from the mistakes of the past and learn from them, but these types of things are still going on today in different places around the world.
The entire morning was obviously emotionally draining, and I spent the rest of the day traveling to Siem Reap, another city in Cambodia to visit the temples of Angkor Wat. The Angkor Wat temple complex is the largest religious site in the world. It is more than 400 square kilometers and holds 292 temples. The most recognizable temple is the main temple at Angkor Wat and if all goes well then I should be able to post a picture of it on the blog. I woke up for to see it at sunrise, and it was definitely worth the lack of sleep. I took some of my best pictures from the entire trip during the perfect sunrise that rose directly behind the temple. After the sun came up, I spent the rest of the day going to other temples in the complex. I was surprised at the amount of people that were there to see all of them, but when I was finished with the day I understood why they were all there. The temples are essentially temple ruins, most of them were built in the 12th century and they are now covered in moss, which makes them a beautiful contrast of grey stone and emerald green. My favorite temple from the day was one that was in the movie Tomb Raider, and there are 52 giant faces carved into the stone. It’s hard to explain exactly how they look, but they are so big, and every piece of stone was hand made, so each face is unique. I felt like I was at an amusement park or in a movie the entire time I was in the temple ruins because they looked so surreal. I think the pictures that I took are nice, but they don’t do it the same justice as being there in person. After an entire day of temple hopping I flew back to Ho Chi Minh City for my last day in port.
I visited the Vietnam War Remnants Museum the last day in port, and it was another experience that was much different than anything I had ever done before. The museum’s main building was full of stories of civilians who had been affected by the war. There were photos of Agent Orange babies, napalm victims, and the victims of some of the atrocities committed by the American troops. It was a new experience for me to see a museum from the other side. All of the photographs made me think about all of the wars that happen in the world and ask myself why they continue when they bring out the worst in people. It also showed me that terrible things happen from both sides of the spectrum, and the bad things that you hear about are relative to the country in which you live. The museum was probably the most worthwhile thing I did in Vietnam. The rest of the day I spent cruising around the streets of the city on a scooter. Vietnam is full of scooters; literally hundreds of scooters will stop at every red light. It makes everything seem very hectic in the city, but I think I got used to it pretty quickly. As far as poverty goes, Vietnam and Cambodia have poor people just like India does, but the poverty is not nearly as widespread or as visible in the cities. To see the extreme poverty you see everywhere in India you usually have to go to the rural areas. The two countries are very similar to each other, I would actually call Cambodia a more quiet and rural version of Vietnam. I really loved my time in both of the countries and they are both places that I would absolutely want to explore further in the future if I ever get the chance.
I hope everyone is doing well back at home. I know everyone in my family has a heavy heart right now because of the death of our beloved dog Pip. He was a great pup and we will all miss his presence around the house. I will be in Hong Kong tomorrow, and then the next four days I will spend in Beijing on a trip with some of my best friends on the ship, which I know will be a great time. And until my next post, good night and good luck…

Conor

Penang, Malaysia

Family and Friends,
I had absolutely no expectations about Malaysia, and I honestly didn’t know much about it going in, but I was pleasantly surprised with the trip that I had. The ship socked in Penang, which isn’t an extremely large city but had plenty to do for the few days that I was there. My first night in port I had an SAS sponsored trip to a Malaysian shadow puppet performance. The set up of the audience and the performers is much like that of American theater, with the exception being that all of the performers and musicians are behind a large sheet that is drawn across the stage. There is one puppet master who manipulates the puppets and does the voices of the characters and there is a group of musicians that accompany him throughout the story. The puppets are intricately made of cow hide and resemble the fancy paper snowflakes that people make around Christmas time. It was interesting to hear from the performers about how the art form has changed very little over the 500 or so years that it has been practiced.
The next morning I boarded a train for Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. The countryside of Malaysia was very different from that of India. It was essentially a jungle of lush green trees and plants. There were times on the train where it seemed like we were moving through a natural tunnel of foliage. Considering the fact that the large cities in India didn’t resemble anything I had every seen in America, I expected that Kuala Lumpur wouldn’t either. It ended up being very much like a large American city. It was a very clean city full of skyscrapers, mosques, and beautiful gardens. I stayed at a hostel in downtown Kuala Lumpur, which was my first hostel experience. I lucked out because the hostel had opened for business two days before I got there so everything was brand new and my friends and I were essentially the first customers.
My first morning in Kuala Lumpur, I visited the most famous building in the country, the Petronas Towers. They are the tallest pair of twin towers in the world and are truly a marvel to see. They are composed of glass and stainless steel, which gave them a surreal appearance because I had never seen anything like it. I went up to the sky bridge that connects the two towers at the 40th floor and pulled out my best Sean Connery impression as I crossed from building to building. Alas, I had no Catherine Zeta Jones to accompany me on my bank heist and I was subsequently apprehended by the Malaysian police (I hope at least one person picked up that reference). While the towers look cool in the day, they look even better at night when they are lit up. They look like they are their own light source, and on a cloudy night, all of the surrounding air is illuminated and it has a ghostly effect. I plan to post a picture so you guys can see what I am talking about. The entire skyline lit up at night looked like Gotham City.
I was in the city at the same time as the Formula One racing circuit’s annual stop in Kuala Lumpur. I met a lot of people from all over the world throughout the weekend, and almost all of them were there just for race weekend. I watched the entire race on Sunday with George because he is a big time follower of the sport and especially Felipe Massa who is a Brazilian driver who races for Ferrari. Sadly enough, Massa crashed about half way through the race and Dani and I spent the rest of the day trying to console George and bring him out of his misery.
The most interesting observation I had about Malaysia was that I didn’t find it to have any particular national identity. I never ate anything that was specifically Malaysian and other than the shadow puppets, I didn’t see or experience much that I would say was identifiable with Malaysian culture. This may be because of the fact that Malaysia has a large number of people from other countries that would rather identify with where they came from then where they live, but it was interesting to see after coming from India where many of the things that I saw I have never seen anywhere else. Well now I am on my way to Vietnam for five days, but for three of those days I will be traveling to Cambodia. I can’t believe how quickly all of this is going by, it seemed like so long ago that I was imagining being in all of these Asian countries, and now I am in the heart of the trip. I am so excited for the experiences that still lay ahead of me in these countries. I hope everyone is enjoying the blog and doing well at home. I look forward to hearing from you all soon.

Conor

Chennai, India

Family and Friends,
I know that this post is coming on the same day as my entry from Mauritius, but don’t worry, I haven’t been traveling in warp speed, the blog website wasn’t working for a couple of days but now it’s up and running again. If anyone would like to know, I actually won the pie-eating contest by more than a minute and I am now a ship-wide legend for my Kobayashi-esque eating skills. But even with my gold medal in our grasp, my team only finished fourth out of ten groups and needless to say we were greatly disappointed.
India was a complete culture shock for me and everyone else that had never been there. Many of the professors had been there and tried to tell us that it was going to be a completely overwhelming experience. I tried to listen to what they said, but it was much more than I had ever expected. Just stepping off of the ship was overwhelming because of the distinct smell and feel of the Indian air. The smell can best be summed up as a mixture of curry, dirt, and a toilet. I know that probably sounds awful, I know it did to me when people tried to explain it, but you get used to it quickly and it soon became a non-issue. I spent most of my first day in transit from Chennai, where the ship was docked, to Delhi. The whole first day I was waiting for the culture shock to set in, but since so much time was spent in a plane or a bus trying to get somewhere it was hard to get a feel for the country. The next morning during our 4 A.M. train ride to Agra was where it started to hit me. I cannot sleep on a plane or in a train, and usually this is to my disadvantage because I lose a lot of sleep that I could be having, but this trip was different because I wanted to take it all in and see everything I could. We traveled past many small towns and villages on our voyage, and almost every home had a stack of dried cow-dung cakes outside of it to be used as fuel for fires and cooking. I saw a woman walking directly behind a cow and saw her collect its dung and start forming it in to a cake and I knew that I was in a totally different place than I had ever been. Also along the sides of the train tracks were essentially the village toilets, because most people cannot afford running water, so it was a common sight to see people squatting right outside the train windows. We spent the afternoon in Agra visiting a few different historical sites. The first was an abandoned city made out of sandstone that was run by a Moghul emperor in the 16th century. It was a cool place to see and it was amazing to see how well the buildings had withstood time. After that we visited the Agra Fort in the center of town, which was built of the same shade of sandstone. From one of the fort’s terraces I got my first view of the Taj Mahal. It was probably 2 miles away, but it didn’t matter, that first glance was truly spectacular. Let me say that after catching a glimpse, the people in my group got very excited about leaving the fort right away and getting to the Taj. When we made it to the Taj site, there were a lot of souvenir shops selling miniatures and t-shirts and I thought for sure because of this the building itself would have lost some of it’s original luster. I was wrong. When I entered the gates for the site I saw a fort-like surrounding made of sandstone and I kept looking around trying to get my first real look at the building. I made a right turn and walked through a giant arch and there it was. The day was probably wasn’t the most picturesque, the sky was a dull gray mix of fog and pollution, but it didn’t matter. It seemed to actually give the building a completely surreal look; it was like looking at a giant postcard because it is a picture that I have seen so many times. It was so much bigger than I had ever expected, I am not sure of the actual measurements, but it must have been 400 feet tall. The inside did leave a little something to be desired because it isn’t a palace, but rather a tomb with no lighting and no pictures are allowed to be taken once you are inside. The symmetry of the monument was astounding, and everything was perfect crafted. Just to understand the story behind the whole thing was amazing in itself (I won’t bore you with all of the details, but do look it up if you are interested). I spent more than two hours there, and I felt like I could have spent a lot more time there because it is truly a wonder of the world and I found myself completely mesmerized at some points. I was sad to have to leave the place, but it will always be something that I can that I have seen and experienced and it was well worth the trip.
There is a saying about India that says something to the effect of whatever you see in India, you will see the exact opposite as well; Extravagantly rich and deathly poor, beautiful and disgusting, things that seem to fill your soul with happiness and also equally with pain. I found this to be true of my experience of the Taj Mahal and my experience directly after it. After our long day we took a bus back to the train station to head back to Delhi. The Agra train station was one of the most harrowing scenes I have ever come upon. I had to part a group of homeless people just to get in the front door, but it definitely didn’t end there. The station was full of disabled and homeless people who begged for money as their only income. Many of the people had physical deformities that you don’t often see in the U.S., such as polio. A few of the least fortunate had to literally crawl around on their hands to get from place to place and their hands and feet were cracked and bleeding from the unnatural amount of strain and use. Most of these people were adults, which is one thing to see, but then there were the kids. There were three children who must have been living at the train station, their hair matted with dirt and their skin was more grey than brown because of their living conditions. Two of the kids were young, probably 4 and 6, but they were both holding and taking care of a tiny child who was most likely close to two years old but looked almost as small as a newborn. They walked around and asked for food, so my friends and I bought them some food and played with them. They didn’t speak any English, but they were very thankful for the food and enjoyed the games that we played with them. It was almost unbearably sad to see them and to know that they live in a train station. And it hurts me to think about them now because as I am moving on to another country, they are still at that train station begging for food to stay alive.
We spent the next morning traveling to Varanasi, which is one of the oldest cities in the world. The city was founded over 2500 years ago and some of the monuments and buildings have been excavated and are still standing. It is one of the holiest cities for both the Hindu and Buddhist religions. The reason that it is important to Buddhists is because it is the place where Buddha gave his first sermon. This is one of four places that a Buddhist must make a pilgrimage to in their lifetime, along with the place where he was born, the place where he achieved nirvana, and the place where he died. I was fortunate enough to get to visit the site where he preached his first sermon. The whole are had been excavated many years back, and it wasn’t much to look at, but I could tell that this was a very special place because of the way that the people around me were acting. Most of them were dressed in white and sitting in a circle chanting, it was a beautiful thing to see.
Later in the evening, we tried to make our way to the banks of the Ganges River to experience the Hindu cremation ceremonies. As a group, we rented bicycle rickshaws to get to the river, because with the narrow streets and the traffic a bus would have never made it. A bicycle rickshaw is essentially a bike with a two-person back seat for passengers to get around the smaller cities. It’s a lot like what you see riding around Denver after a Rockies game, except not quite as nice. My friend Brian and I decided to ride together, which was a big mistake because we are both pretty big guys and I am pretty sure that the seat was made for two small Indian people, not us giant Americans. We started out with a group of about 30 rickshaws and we were heading along just fine until we made a turn and found out that the Prime Minister was visiting the river the following morning and we wouldn’t be able to attend the evening ceremony. Our guide wouldn’t take no for an answer and told the rickshaw drivers to take a different way to get to the river. This is when the madness began. 30 rickshaw drivers, and I would say maybe 3 of them spoke any English. Ours did not. We found our way into a bunch of different traffic jams caused by the PM’s security, and the rickshaw groups continually split up and dwindled down. After about two hours, Brian and I were completely by ourselves with a driver that knew no English riding through the dark alleys and back roads of Varanasi, India with no idea where to go. Most of the streets look exactly the same because they are all full of people and small shops that all sell similar things. At one point I had to remark that there was no way that we could get any further from home. After a total of three and a half hours, our amazing rickshaw driver found his way back to where the bus was parked. I was disappointed about not seeing the ceremony that night, but looking back, that experience was completely unique and amazingly fun because I was completely out of control.
My final morning in Varanasi, I got up before sunrise and went with the group to the banks of the Ganges River. When we got there, we boarded a couple of boats with about 20 people apiece. We floated along the river and saw the people coming down the steps and bathing themselves in the brownish-grey water that they consider to be the most sacred thing on Earth. There was a solemn feeling in the air, and not much was said by anyone probably because everyone sensed how special a place this was. We went upriver for about half an hour and then turned back and headed towards the crematorium. I saw the smoke from a couple hundred yards away. There was one body that was being cremated when we passed by, with a large column of smoke rising from the body on the sooty steps. The family of the man was standing around grieving (they stay for the entire process which usually lasts 6-8 hours). There was another cloud of smoke rising from the bank of the river, which was from the pile of ashes that were left over from the previous night’s cremations. Two men were sifting through the ashes like miners panning for gold, and when I asked the guide what they were doing he told me that they were doing just that. They were actually sifting through the ashes of the still smoldering dead to try and find jewelry to sell and feed their families. It was the perfect portrait of the poverty that is spread throughout the entirety of India.
On the last day, after some extensive travel to get back to the ship, I visited a disabled children’s home in Chennai. More than a hundred kids from the ages of 6 to 21 were living in the home. The range of the disabilities is pretty evenly split between physical and mental. I spent the morning helping to clean the facilities and painting one of the children’s classrooms. I was able to spend the entire afternoon playing and interacting with the kids in the home. I quickly made friends with a boy named Ashok, who at the age of thirteen was about the size of a six year old. He had a very good grasp of basic English and we talked for a long time about school and the U.S. I played some games with a group of girls and passed out all of the toys that I brought with me (Thanks Corey!). I saved my best toy for my good friend Ashok. I showed him how to use a yo-yo that I brought and he loved it. He was by no means great at using it, but he had never seen one and he thought it was the coolest thing ever. I had a great time playing with all of the kids and at the end of my time there I found out that 10 of the students were coming to the ship with us to take a short tour. The kids were so excited when we got there. None of them had ever seen a ship of that size from the outside, and they thought the inside was amazing. Ashok was actually one of the students that were selected to come with us so I got to show him around. His favorite places were the pool deck and the weight-room. He thought it was incredible when I curled the 30-pound weight. I also took him in the elevator, which he had never seen before. It was great to be a part of his new experiences and I am so glad that Semester at Sea gave them the opportunity to see the ship. It was hard to say goodbye to the kids for the same reason it’s hard to think about the kids in the train station. I may have made an impact on their lives, but it was only for a day and they are now back to the same lives that they were leading before.
India was a complete sensory overload. I had seen it in pictures and on film, but it is something completely different to see the poverty, the over-population, and the people firsthand. And even though I didn’t get much sleep during my trip, it was well worth it because of the things I saw and the subsequent stories that I can now tell. Tomorrow I will be in Malaysia and I am going to take a two-day trip to the capital, Kuala Lumpur. I hope everything is going well back at home and I will write again after I leave Malaysia.

Conor