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

Port Louis, Mauritius (a little late)

Dearest Brethren,
Mauritius is a place that many of you probably know little or nothing about. I knew absolutely nothing about it until I decided to do Semester at Sea, and even then I just looked it up on a map. It is a small island just east of the coast of Madagascar and it was colonized initially by the French and later by the British. The French culture is what has stuck around, and while most people did speak English the native tongue is a Creole mix of French and English. The first two nights I spent there I traveled to a beach house in a small town called Flic en Flac with some friends where a lot of the other Semester at Sea students were staying. It was fun to have a vacation time, but at the same time it wasn’t that exciting to see the same faces I see every day on the ship in a foreign country so I decided to come back to Port Louis where the ship was docked.
I spent my third morning on a service trip to an old age/disabled home and a small school for teens run by an NGO. The stop at the home was an eye opening experience to say the least. Our guide for the day told us that an average nursing home in the U.S. is comparable to a four-star resort in Mauritius. It was like stepping into a time capsule from early 20th century America because of the treatment that the patients were receiving and the conditions that they were living in. All of the people in the home had no family and that’s why they were there. The usual practice in Mauritius is for the family of the elderly to take care of them and keep them in their own home. The experience was overwhelming and very sad, but it was interesting to see how another country handles something that is a relevant issue in the U.S.
The school that we visited in the afternoon was a great change of pace. It is called the Teen Hope Project and the reason it got started is because in Mauritius after a child finishes primary school (equivalent to 5th grade), they have to take a test to see if they can move on to secondary school. If they don’t pass the test they can try one more time, but if they fail it again they are cast out of the schooling system and there is no way for them to get back in. The THP was set up to keep those kids who failed the test twice in school and off the streets. I had a about an hour long conversation with seven boys who went to school there about what they liked to do, their favorite sports and their favorite movies. Almost all of our conversation was done through a translator, because they spoke very little English and the extent of my French knowledge is “oui oui!”. I told them that I study film and they thought that was amazing. They asked me about my favorite movies and they also wondered if I had ever met Arnold Schwarzenegger or Rambo. After our conversation the school did a song and tried to teach us how to do the local dance moves. I was the first one chosen out of the group to try it out (probably because they saw a little Michael Flatly in my eyes) but their moves were far more advanced than the “broken lawnmower” and the running man, which are the only moves I have in my repertoire. The experience at the school was great and I got the email of the woman who runs it so I can send them the pictures that I took and keep in touch.
Speaking of pictures, the internet has been very slow in the last few ports so I haven’t been able to upload my pictures. I will continue to try, but I don’t think it will get much better until I reach Hong Kong or Japan.
I thought since I didn’t say that much about Mauritius that I would tell everyone a little more about my life on the ship. The ship community is unlike any other I have ever experienced. Everyone is very friendly and open to meeting new people. I have made friends with people from all over the U.S. I am part of the extended family program on the ship, where a group of students is “adopted” by either a faculty member or lifelong learners, who are retirees who attend the classes of their choosing and come along for the ride. My ship parents are Alvin and Lydia Foster, they are from Boston and are both retired lifelong learners. We meet once a week for dinner on the ship, and it is a good way to interact with the adults on the ship. Tomorrow is the ship-wide Sea Olympics competition. It runs all day long and consists of at least 20 different events. The ship is split into seven groups, or “Seas”, that consist of 60-90 people and we are competing for pride and also for the opportunity to leave the ship first when we get to Miami at the end of the voyage. I am a proud member of the Aegean Sea and I will be competing in basketball and the competitive eating competition. I will let you all know how it goes, wish me luck. Another thing that I did on the ship recently was a coffee house night where students who play musical instruments or write poetry could perform so I signed up and got to a play two songs, which was a lot of fun. I really enjoy the classes that I am taking on the ship. The professors are great and it’s nice to be able to get to know them because the classes are so small compared to CU.
I hope everyone has enjoyed the blog so far. Please feel free to leave comments or even ask questions if you have any for me about the places I am visiting or about the ship. I am now on my way to India, and I have a four-day trip planned to visit the Taj Mahal and the Ganges River. After I get to India on Tuesday, I have a 35 day span where I am in port for 25 of those days, so the blog might not be as detailed but it will be updated more often as it is the stretch of the trip where I will visit the most countries. I hope everyone is well at home and I love and miss you all.

Conor