Erin's Travel Blog

Day 51 Chennai, India Kelly and I woke up early one last time; it was the last day in India. :( We wanted to be off the boat early and back on the boat early to avoid the lines. We also decided to wear our saris The staff loved it at breakfast. They served us like queens, asking if we wanted more juice, coffee, cereal, anything. It was wonderful. As soon as we got off the boat it was a different story. The Indians just stared at us as we walked to the gate. That is not the reaction we had anticipated. We grabbed a rickshaw and told him to take us to Pondi Bazaar. Surprisingly, he did. Not surprisingly, he took us to his friend's shop. They were really nice though. They opened up the shop early just for us. They helped us try on several different things before we found the perfect ones. Unfortunately, as we were leaving the monsoon rain started. It was pouring. The shopkeeper was so shocked that we didn't have umbrellas, and he offered to let us borrow his. We knew that ...

Day 50 Somehow we all woke up at 0430 for our wake-up call, although several people were passed out on the bus all morning. We left the hotel to head back to the Ganges to watch the morning bathing ritual. Guess who was there to greet me as I stepped off the bus. The same boy from last night. He was still trying to sell me bindis. He wanted Kelly and I to buy a whole sheet of them. Each sheet had about 20 cards, each with six or seven bindis on them. We told him we would buy maybe one or two cards, but there was no way we would get an entire sheet. What would we do with that? He wouldn't sell the cards separately, though. He said he had to buy the whole thing as one, and that's how he sold it. Plus, he wanted $20 for it! We told him sorry, we weren't going to buy that much. I felt bad because he had been so helpful the night before, and we wanted to repay him somehow. We just weren't going to pay even 200 rupees for something we didn't want. So we climbed i...

Day 49 Our wake up call came at 0600 this morning. We had to be packed up and eating breakfast downstairs at 0630. We left at 0715 for a tour of Delhi. We drove past the Birla Temple, which was the first Hindu temple to allow untouchables inside. Next we saw a Sikh Gurdwara, then past the war memorial, parliament house, secretariat buildings and the official residence of the president of India. Then we had to drive to the airport for our flight to Varanasi. Once in Varanasi, we went straight to the Hotel Radisson and had a great lunch there. The waiters were wearing jump suits, which threw me off a little bit. I was glad to be able to relax and enjoy a leisurely lunch followed by tea before we left to see some Buddhist temples. The first one was in Sarnath, an ancient city. We visited a new Buddhist temple first. It had amazing paintings of the Buddha's life on all the walls. In the front was a big golden shrine of the Buddha. Prayer flags hung from trees and fences outside t...

Day 48 A wake up call came at 0415. It felt like we had just fallen asleep a minute ago. We were ready to go and down on the bus by 0445. The box breakfasts the hotel provided did not live up to my expectations. It had a croissant, toast, a muffin, a banana, an apple and a strange curry patty. There was jam and orange juice. That may all sound good, but the curry patty was less than tasty, we couldn't eat the apple because it was washed in tap water, and the toast was soggy. The drinks in India are also strange. They like this lime water, which you would think tastes like water with lime, but really it tastes like margarita mix. It's salty, not refreshing. The orange juice is also salty. I can't explain it. From the hotel we went to the train station. We were taking a train to Agra to see Fatehpur Sikri, Agra Fort and the Taj Mahal. On the way to the station, I saw people sleeping outside on the ground or sidewalk. There weren't just a few; there was one at least every ...

Day 47 We arrived in India this morning. It was just like Christmas for me because I woke up early and couldn't sleep. Or that could be contributed to the boat vibrating. When we're slowing down, the whole ship vibrates because of the engines, which in turn makes a lot of noise too. But I was still very excited to be in India. This is the country that I was looking forward to most. And now we're here! I always pictured India as a place where I would love to visit, but wasn't sure I'd ever find a reason or a chance. (Well, I guess I thought the same way about all of these places.) After my Hinduism class I especially wanted to go and see all the rituals in action in the place where they began. We were the first ones off the boat this morning. We wanted to get out early so we could fit some stuff in before Kelly and I had to leave for our Taj Mahal/Varanasi trip. We had to walk through an industrial area (not a shock) to a busy street and along the busy street t...

Day 38 I have made a fatal error. I missed the deadline to study abroad in Madrid for the spring. I was so sure it was October 15. No, wrong. It was September 15. What am I going to do? My heart is broken. Yesterday, I was thrilled to have finished the required essays and used the rest of my internet rations for the semester to upload them. I was engrossed in the view of the eastern South African shore with its enticing green and foreboding mountains and mysterious fog and crashing waves. There were rumors of whales swimming alongside the boat. But all that is sour now. Why didn't I check, check and check again the deadline before I left?! I made sure to call my advisor and ask him what I needed to do. I faxed the appropriate forms to him. Why didn't I just fill out the application sooner and get it over with? Oh, maybe because I was too busy trying to get my yellow fever vaccination, malaria pills, chinese, indian and brazilian visas and figuring out what to pack for the...

Day 35 I made it to the meeting on time. 0400, remember. They piled about 30 of us into vans to go to the airport. I've never seen an airport so disorganized. The line for security went from one end of the airport to the other, and the check-in line was parallel to it in the reverse direction. We all sat in a spot on the floor because there were no chairs and waited for the travel agent to return with our boarding passes. The decorations in the airport cracked me up because they were all Native American theme, with buffalos and tepees. The gates were actually just desks spaced evenly in a big tent. We had to take a bus to get to the plane. It was the same at the Johannesburg airport. These aren't small airports, either. It was weird. So, the change of plans had been that we would take two flights instead of a flight and a long drive. At the tiny airport in the middle of the bush, we clambered into two different vans to be transported to the Manyeleti Game Reserve. Even on...

Day 31 Kelly and I were supposed to meet Kelsey and her dad, Larry, early the next day to go shark cage diving. We were going to try the coffee place that Trevor had recommended, Mugg & Bean. So, we woke up early, got ready to go and made our way to the mall to find the place. Everything was deserted. We went into the section where Mugg & Bean should have been according to the mall map, but couldn't find it. A security guard told us it was all the way at the opposite end of the mall, and it was closed. Wouldn't open until 0900. What kind of a coffee place doesn't open until 0900?!? We had no idea what to do. Every other place was closed; it would take too long to get back on the boat for their nasty breakfast. Thankfully we were docked right in front of a hotel, and we went to breakfast there. The staff was so nice. They brought us boxes and to-go cups. We got to look at their entire buffet, all of which looked great, but we could only take finger foods. And i...

Day 30 Kelly and I had made plans to go paragliding this morning. We got up early and waited off the boat at 9:30 for our guide, Manu. He arrived a little late–late enough to make us nervous–because he couldn't find the pier. Nevertheless, we were out on the road by 1000. Manu made all kinds of jokes about safety on our way to meet our other guide, Pete. We had to change plans because the winds off of Table Mountain were no good, so we drove to some other ridge about an hour away. The winds weren't ideal there either; they could have been stronger. But other paragliders were out. We pulled off the highway into a parking lot, which boasted a sign prohibiting the feeding of baboons. Manu said they will get ya and pull your hair if you have food. We decided to use a different launch pad than the one right off the parking lot. Getting to the launch pad required crossing the highway and a bit of a hike up a ridge. It was welcome exercise for me. My stomach grew more and more...

Day 29 Our first night in Cape Town was rather slow-paced. We had the most delicious meal of my life. There are no words for it. Kelsey's dad, Larry, came to spend the time with her, so Kelly and I went out to eat ourselves. Once off the boat, we weren't quite hungry yet. We wanted to do some wine tasting if there was any possibility. In a swanky-looking restaurant a short distance off the boat we asked if they did any wine tasting. Nope, they said, but we could try the bottle store up the street or one in the mall. Well, the store up the street sounded and looked the most promising, but it was closed. I didn't have much hope for the wine shop in the mall, but, to our amazement, they were doing a free wine tasting from 5-7 pm! And it was 6 pm! We shuffled our way on inside. The guy at the counter was pretty busy selling things to people, so he told us to help ourselves. We tasted seven South African wines: one called Italian Job, whose maker was a movie fanatic, a s...

Day 27 Today was our last day in Namibia. :( I am going to miss it. We woke up this morning at about 0800 to go to the grocery store for some breakfast and to get some batteries for Kelsey. Then we stopped at an African antique shop on our way back to the hotel. Kelsey and Kelly found some really nice hand-made scarves. There was lots of really cool stuff. I wanted to buy everything. They had masks, malachite jewelry, carved statues, painted ostrich eggs. There were signs hanging all over the place that said, “protected from stealing by witchcraft” or “voodoo protected.” Kelsey needed to get some more money out of the bank before she could buy her scarves, so we decided to come back later. At 0930 our guide picked us up in a van outside of the hotel and took us to Desert Explorers Adventure Centre for Quad Biking. We thought an hour and a half was a perfect amount of time, plus it was N$100 cheaper than for two hours. Our very cute guide fitted us up with helmets and quad bik...

Day 26 I woke up the next morning to go on the Sea, Salt and Sand tour of Walvis Bay. We were supposed to see flamingos and pelicans at the lagoon, tour the salt mine, taste Namibian oysters and see Dune 7. Unfortunately it was a cold day, and I decided to wear shorts thinking it would warm up. We all piled into vans and drove to the lagoon, but we didn't see many birds. Our guide said it was too early in the year, and the flamingos hadn't migrated yet. But we saw a few pelicans and a group of young flamingos way off in the distance. Next we drove to the salt mine. We wouldn't get to tour it because the tours were a distraction to the workers, and they had stopped giving them. So, we stood in the cold outside the gate of the mine listening to our guide tell us the process of harvesting salt. We also weren't going to taste oysters because apparently that part of the trip was never booked. Plus, it was a Sunday, and everything would be closed. We did get to go to...

Day 26 Kelsey, Kelly and I woke up at 0600 in our hotel in Swakopmund because I had to be back at the ship for my Namib trip at 0730. By chance we found a taxi at that time, and I made it just as the vans were about to load. Kelsey and Kelly decided to skip their trip and sleep in on the boat. We made plans to meet back at the hotel at 1430. I wasn't expecting the 4x4 exploration of the natural and geological wonders of the Namib to be too exciting. And at first it wasn't. I thought we were going to be on four-wheelers, or at least in jeeps, but we were in mitsubishi vans. But along the way they proved themselves, climbing over big rocks and through tough places. We stopped first to look at the Moon Landscape. It is an ancient river bed stretching from South Africa to Angola that looks like the surface of the moon. It was formed by the erosion of the quartz rock. Quartz is made up of several different minerals. In the intense heat and cold variations between night and da...

Day 25 After I got back from the stargazing overnight, Josie and I drove out to Swakopmund to walk around for a few hours. The taxi ride was quite the event. The diplomats had told us the drive should cost about N$20, but, when we got out of the gate to the port, the taxi driver waiting there said he wanted N$200 per person. I thought, “um, no, I don't think so.” When we started to walk away, another cab driver said he would take us to Swakopmund for N$40. Where he actually took us was some parking lot in the middle of Walvis Bay. There were no other tourists there, only Namibians, some street vendors and other taxis. We were terrified. Our driver told us to get into another taxi; they would take us to Swakopmund. Well, we didn't know what else to do, so we got into the other taxi. The new driver gave the original driver N$20, and he drove off. The new driver asked us if we wanted to go to Swakopmund. We told him that the other driver had said he would take us for N$40. A...

Day 23 We arrived in Walvis Bay on Friday and went through the same customs chaos as Brazil. The diplomats were much more interesting at the diplomatic briefing, though. One of them told us a story of how he got stabbed the night before in a B&B. Crime rate is at the crisis level apparently. I finally got off the boat with Josie at about 1000. We grabbed a taxi at the gangway and paid 50 Namibian dollars (NAD) to go approximately 5 miles, maybe. The diplomats said it shouldn't cost more than N$ 5 within the city of Walvis Bay. But we've been gipped several times since then too. Anyway, we went to a bank to get some cash, then we wandered the city until we found a post office. Both of us had to be back at the boat at 1330 because our stargazing/camping trip was leaving then. Everyone clambered into vans on the dock. The vans drove us out past dune 7, the moon landscape and down into a valley. Our driver was pretty cool. His name was Robert. He was basically the only o...