Mauritius/India

Mauritius

Although we were only in Mauritius for 1 day, it was a very good day! About 30 people pitched in to rent a Catamaran for the day so we had a driver who took us all around the island to different beach spots. I really enjoyed swimming and snorkeling because the water was so warm and blue. We had a BBQ for lunch and just spent the day relaxing in paradise. The scenery was really breathtaking, mountains all around and the clearest blue water. It was a nice little break from being on the boat and then we got back on and made our way to India.

India

India is a crazy place! There is so much to see and so much going on all the time, it was actually exhausting. As soon as we got off the boat, we were bombarded with taxi drivers, auto-rickshaw drivers and bicycle drivers asking where we wanted to go. An auto-rickshaw is basically a 3 wheeled car that is open and can fit 3 people. We ended up in one of these and that was an experience in itself. I’ll try to set the scene for the streets in India. There are cars, buses, motorcycles, auto-rickshaws, bicycles, cows, pedestrians and who knows what else ALL over the roads. There are not really any driving laws so people just do whatever they want and everyone is constantly honking and practically running over things all the time. The irony here is that no one wears seatbelts either! It is quite scary but you just kind of close your eyes and hope that you reach your destination safely. These rickshaw drivers don’t make much money so they have deals with different shops where if they bring people to the store they will get a commission. Basically what this means is that you have to stop at a few different stores before you get to your destination and there is really NO way around this. So the rickshaw driver took us to a saree (traditional Indian dress) store where my friends and I each purchased one and proceeded to wear around all day. This brought a lot of attention to us for some reason, I think because no one was used to seeing a white person wearing the traditional dress. We were getting compliments left and right. I had a city tour the first day, which entailed seeing some different churches, a Hindu temple and then going to an Indian home. At the house, they served us snacks, played an Indian guitar like thing, and showed us some traditional dancing. It was a very cool experience and this is where I first realized how welcoming and nice the Indian people are. They will always invite you to their homes and offer you food even if they don’t have much for themselves. After that I went to a welcome reception where we got to meet some Indian students, enjoy food, and watch more dancing. I hadn’t eaten all day so by this point I was starving and exhausted but once I got some food I felt much better. One thing about India that you can’t really avoid is getting dirty. Just from traveling around all day, I literally had a coat of dirt all over my skin so it was a great feeling to get to shower back at the ship and feel clean again.

The next day was the beginning of my 3 day home stay, which I had been looking forward to for the entire trip. I’ll preface this story by saying that this was definitely one of the best experiences I have had so far on my trip. There were about 30 people doing home stays so we all got on the bus to go meet our host families. We were paired up with another person and mine was a girl named Ali from Austin, Texas and we got along really well. I would say we kind of got lucky because our hosts were a young couple named Shilpa who is 22 and Tejus who is 26 and they just got married 6 months ago. I say we were lucky because we could really relate to them because they were close to our age and we got to see what it is like to be young in India. The norm in India is when you get married, you both move into the husband’s parent’s house so we also got to spend time with Tejus’ parents. Their family runs a travel agency together and also owns a little ice cream parlor, which we had the pleasure of eating at later on. The first thing we did was go to their house for lunch, which was a traditional South Indian meal. The house was really nice and I think was representative of the way a middle to upper class Indian family lives. They had about 5 servants who helped cook and clean, which was interesting, but I realized that that is a pretty normal thing for the upper classes in India. Something I wasn’t prepared for was that they eat with their hands and although they said we didn’t have, Ali and I both tried it out. The meal was 4 courses consisting of rice and 4 different toppings that were mixed with it. It was kind of hard to get the hang of eating goopy rice with your hand but I got better at it after a while. Also they only eat with their right hand because the left is considered unclean in their culture and religion. The meal was very good and they explained to us that there is a very big difference between North and South Indian food. What I am used to eating in the U.S. is North Indian food so this was quite different. Most Southern Indians are also vegetarians so I didn’t eat very much meat while in India. Next, we did some sightseeing and it was quite humorous because I felt like the tour guide since I had seen the sights the day before. Shilpa just moved to Chennai when she married Tejus so she hasn’t really seen much there and Tejus’ just hadn’t seen most of these places in a while so I knew more about them than anyone else. That night, we went to a reception at their rotary club, which was the organization that puts on these home stays with SAS every year. It was nice to feel so welcomed by them and one Rotarian made a speech that really made me realize the great reputation that SAS has in these countries. He just talked about how he helped start the home stay program 15 years ago and what a great program SAS is. He also helped start a program where Indian students come on the ship for a week or so, so that they get to experience the program as well. That program is now very popular in many of the countries we visit and we have had inter-port students and lecturers in many of the countries so far. His speech made me really proud to be a part of SAS because it is so well regarded by so many different places around the world. One other thing that was interesting was how many people knew where Cupertino and Silicon Valley was! I swear more Indian people know where that is than all of the students on SAS who are from the U.S. Many of them had even been there because they worked for a software company or something so I could relate to them on my hometown.

The next day all of the SAS home stay students were taken sightseeing for the entire day. We got back on the bus and visited many different places, which was cool but very tiring. It was about 100 degrees and humid and we were out in the sun walking around the entire day so we were all exhausted at the end. We went to a bunch of different temples that were carved right out of the rock, which was pretty amazing. Throughout the day we were constantly bombarded with vendors trying to sell us things, which gets pretty annoying after a while. One of the Indian students who came on the ship was with us and she was helping us bargain with the vendors because they were charging us like 10 times the normal price. It was funny because they were getting really angry with her since she was telling us the truth about what the items were worth and so they couldn’t take advantage of us. For lunch we went to this beautiful farm house, which was right on the beach and they prepared a meal for us. After lunch we went to a crocodile farm, where I saw the biggest and largest number of crocodiles I have ever seen in my life. We got to see them feed and they basically just ate big chunks of meat right off the bone and just crunched the bones right up. That night, it was actually Tejus’ birthday so we went straight out to dinner when we got back from sightseeing. We met some of their friends at a Spanish tapas bar that is popular among young people in Chennai. The food and the company were very good and we had a great time there. One of their friends works for a software company that is based in L.A. and he is probably going to go to California for training this summer. I gave him my e-mail and I told him that I would love to show him around if he makes it out there. He actually just e-mailed me a very nice note and said “If I travel to California I am kind of optimistic that I have a friend there, ”which I thought was very sweet.

On our last day with them, we went to a really cool place with lots of Indian crafts. I purchased some things that were made right in front of my eyes, which was really amazing. We then had lunch at Pizza Hut since pizza is Tejus’ favorite food! He spent 3 years in Australia studying and he says he ate pizza for every meal. Pizza Hut in India is not exactly the same as in the U.S. but it was still really good. I got to try some Chicken Tikka pizza, which was quite delicious actually. After lunch, we took Shilpa and Tejus on a tour of the ship, which was really fun to show them where we have been living for the past 2 months. We said goodbye and we both agreed that we want to stay in touch. I also really hope that they can come to California one day so that I can show them around and give them the wonderful hospitality that they provided for me. It was really a great experience and I am SO glad I chose to do the home stay rather than go to the Taj Mahal like most of the other students did. I can see the Taj Mahal later if I really want to but I will never have the opportunity to do a home stay again. The last day in India, I just did some shopping with my friends. There are so many beautiful things in India so I got a lot of gifts to bring home. I learned so much about their culture from Shilpa and Tejus and they were curious about U.S. culture as well. Tejus has visited the U.S. a few times but they both had many questions for us and we had lots for them. Overall, I had a great experience in India and definitely think I will come back someday. Although it is a crazy place, there are so many interesting people, great food, and beautiful sights that you could really never see and do it all but I want to come back and experience more of India.