India

So these blogs may be vary abbreviated because I have just not had that much time to think about my opinion concerning India or simply write what I did. So here goes…

They warned us so many times that India would be an assault on our senses, that it would be a place of simultaneous contradictions, a place that would challenge us. Going in with this mindset of encountering something lifechanging, I was a bit unsettled with India. Yet, I was excited because I had anticipated this moment the entire trip, awaiting the day I could go and find the sitar I wanted to get for my brother. So, I wasn’t really sure of how to approach India from the get-go.

Well, as soon as we could get off the ship, I gathered my friends to go with me as I followed a lifelong learner who had been here 10 times before (that’s right, this is his 11^th voyage) to a store that had ‘everything’. This year, however, there are new rules that we can’t walk inside of the port because people were getting hurt and killed, which meant that we had to take a shuttle. This put us too far from our destination inside the port for the lifelong learner to walk (which was perfectly fine and understandable), the only problem is that I planned on following him. By this time, my little group had expanded to about 20 people for me to shepherd to this fantastic store. Except that I had no idea how persistently annoying the tuk tuk drivers (imagine a motorized tricycle where the driver sits upfront in the middle and there is a bench in the back for passengers to sit on) would be. Once we got directions from the lifelong learner, we started walking to find the front gate. Those tuk tuk drivers told us the wrong direction to the gate and then followed us for quarter of a mile along the main road, telling us that the place that is 750m from the ship is 10km and is ‘much too far for you to walk’. We were all about to smack one of them because they just wouldn’t listen to any of us, no matter our persistent assurance that we wanted to walk. Fortunately, we bumped into a woman making her way to the ship to be a tour guide and she straightened it all out for us. We met the owner of the shop who came out to the gate to meet us, but his car could only hold so many of us so he told us to wait there and he would be back in 5 minutes. The problem with this is that we’re not allowed to be inside the gate (remember, that’s why we have to take the shuttles) and so then this other man walks over and is trying to get us to leave that spot (even though we were out of the way). Finally, the owner came back and explained to him that he was transporting us. It was such a trial getting to this store. When we got there, it was linens and figurines, a little hole-in-the-wall shop. Not exactly what I was picturing from the description. The good thing was that the owner told me which music store was the best and how much money I should pay to get there. So after this whole ordeal, I went back to the ship.

I found some other people who wanted to go with me to the music store and we then waited around for my friend Johnny to come back to the ship from his SAS trip. He was due back at 330 and I had a trip at 630 so we had just enough time to go and get the instruments. So we promptly arrived at the gangway at 330 hoping his bus would be on time. We waited for about 15 minutes before deciding that we really had to leave or I wouldn’t be back in time. I really didn’t like this idea because he was looking for an instrument too (a sarod) and I knew how much he wanted to go with me. So we tried to see if he was in any of the passing buses as the shuttle brought us to the gate to get our passports checked (I must say, this was incredibly annoying because anytime you wanted to go in or out, they had to check your passport and customs card, even though those items were checked before we could even get off the ship). Low and behold, as our shuttle was almost through the gate, his bus showed up and we got his attention. He couldn’t get off of his bus for some reason though, so as soon as we got off, one of my friends ran over there and somehow managed to get him off the bus. Meanwhile, the rest of waited and were harassed by more taxi drivers. This time though, they got my name by a girl who called it out to ask me a question and they got Johnny’s name. They then proceeded to follow us, calling out our names and telling us how we should ride with them. I have to say, I was really expecting them not to follow us this time because we were only 5 people as opposed to the 20+ from earlier, but they still did anyway. Once we reached the street, my friend Jessie had the brilliant idea to run across the street. That certainly stopped them from following us because they weren’t’ about to drive into oncoming traffic to follow us. We walked a ways and found this really nice taxi driver from Sri Lanka who had driven students from 31 voyages. He was so proud of it that he showed us the large pile of post cards he’d received from his many SAS passengers. It was pretty cool. He brought us to the shop, where I proceeded to find the sitar. The had an entire room filled mostly with other instruments (I forgot the name, they’re like the sitar but much less complicated) and a few sitars. I’d never actually seen one in person, so I wasn’t sure how to identify a good one. Fortunately, Johnny has one in the States and had taken some lessons before, so he told me which one was the best. I also got the drums my brother wanted and by that time we needed to leave. The taxi driver realized that there wouldn’t be space for everything (we’d already crammed 5 people into a 3 person car) so he called one of his friends to pick us up. We got back to the boat with enough time for me to drop them in my room before going to the welcome reception. I have to say, he was probably one of the nicest taxi drivers you would find there. Also, the drivers in India are kind of crazy, but Morocco still takes the cake. In India, they honk their horns when they’re about to pass you, by going into oncoming traffic. They let you know that so you can help them to get back over before they collide with someone. That’s why it’s so loud and car horns are going off all the time there. Morocco, they just all seemed to have ESP or something, but they certainly went anywhere they wanted to in order to get to their destination.

When we arrived at the welcome reception, they placed flower leis on our necks and gave us red dots. We entered the courtyard next to a nice hotel, where there were several stations set up around the perimeter. There was a free henna station, a tea station, a buffet, vendors, and a stage for a dance performance. I got some free henna first. I asked for a tiger, but the girl wasn’t sure if she was allowed to, as it would take a lot of time and basically every girl there was in line for henna. So she just doodled on my hand and made a cool pattern. The dance performance was spectacular. Two students learning the traditional dances performed a few different kinds of dances for us. They had on very ornate outfits, much like you see portrayed in movies, with nose rings, bells around their ankles and shiny, brightly colored clothes. They also explained some of the dance moves to us later. The coolest part is that they incorporate their own sign language into the dances, so that they are literally communicating sentences when they dance. Along with that, they portray the 9 emotions in their traditional culture. It was a much better ending to a day where I kind of got slapped in the face with Indian culture.