India, Malaysia, Vietnam and China

Wow India was so long ago but since we have been to India the rest has turned into about tornado speed. We had (have) 5 ports in a row with only 3 days in between to recover except this last one where we only have 2 days. Talk about exhaustion. We are about a day away from Japan before we start our really long crossing the Pacific leg of this voyage. But first I will give you the highlights of our last couple ports. When we were in Mauritius I met our Indian inter-port student Swathi, the next day was sea Olympics and Swathi and I got to hang out a bit and we got to know each other. The next two days I ended up spending in bed because my malaria medicine made me really sick. I finally made it out of bed in time to prepare for India. In India I flew from Chennai to Delhi where we were picked up by a bus and then taken to our hotel. Once we got there we got our rooms and most of us went to bed because it was after midnight and we had a long day ahead of us. The next morning we started off with trip to Rajghat which is where Gandhi and his wife were both cremated, this is a big deal in the Hindu religion. Then we went to the train station to catch our train to Agra, what we found instead was that all the trains for that time had been canceled for some reason so we had to call our bus back and took the bus all the way there. We did make it to Agra about 5pm and only because we skipped lunch. We went straight to the Taj Mahal We got there half an hour before they closed the gate and got to see it as the sun set. I have some amazing pictures there! Next we were taken to a marble factory where descendants of the actual workers who built the Taj Mahal now work, some of them were doing inlay work while we were there and watched. We were then given the opportunity to buy some stuff (ok we are all students why exactly do they think we have money for marble decorations??? Better yet where the heck are we supposed to pack marble stuff in our luggage?). We then went to a traditional Indian restaurant for dinner before heading to the train station to catch our overnight train. We were told that we were going to be in second class and have a car for just our group but things got messed up and we ended up in economy with a bunch of locals. So I used my backpack as a pillow and got the best night of sleep in port that I have gotten so far! A few people from our group complained that we weren’t in the car that we had paid for but I was fine. We made it to Varanasi and checked in to our hotel and got lunch. Then we went on a tour of the city and to a silk factory community where again we were given the opportunity to buy stuff after watching some people working (starting to see a theme in India?). It was really cool because the roads were so congested and small instead of taking a bus for the tour we took a bunch of rickshaws! That night we went to the Ganges River and watch a cremation ceremony (remember I said it was a big deal) and we got to take a boat ride by moonlight down the river a bit and saw the cremation site. The next morning we woke up really early so we could watch the sunrise over the Ganges again took a boat ride and got to see a lot of people doing the rituals at the Ganges. Then we went to the airport after lunch and flew back to Chennai. Our last day in India a couple of us went around Chennai and perfected our bargaining skills (ok maybe not perfected them but definitely practiced) before making our way back to the ship and saying goodbye to India.
Malaysia was our next port of call and a rather short one at that. With only 3 days between India and Malaysia we barely had time to recover, plus we lost time every single day. Then we only had 3 days to explore Malaysia. The first day I had an FDP where we walked around Georgetown Heritage Site and got to see pretty much every temple, mosque and church in the city. The next day I went to a tropical fruit farm and also a spice farm. It was really cool getting to try all these fruits that are exotic for us and also to see so many spices that I have only ever seen in spice containers at the grocery store. I got to see citronella growing and black pepper, cinnamon and vanilla. The last day I went to an orphanage in the city, we got to play games with the kids and color with them. I managed to go out with friends and have some fun quite a bit. One of the exciting parts for most of us was the fact that our ship couldn’t stay at he dock for the entire time so we had to tender. Tender means the ship goes and anchors in the harbor area and then we take the lifeboats back and forth from the ship to the shore. Just so everyone knows, my assigned lifeboat works well as it was used for the tendering.
After 3 more short days at sea we arrived at Vietnam. Mom and Tim actually flew to Vietnam to meet up with me and we had almost a week together. The first day we went to a tailor and got measured for having some clothes made. Tim got a suit, Mom got a couple of blouses and trousers, and I got a traditional Vietnamese dress. The next day we had to get up really early and go to the airport to fly from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi where we then got on a bus to Ha Long Bay. We spent the night there and the next morning got on a boat to explore the Bay. The limestone cliffs are beautiful and except for the amazing number of other tourist boats it was rather peaceful. We then had the opportunity to stay on the boat or go and explore the cave, it was very similar to Luray Caverns and Tim and I had a good time going through there and mom enjoyed staying on the boat with several of the life-long learners. We then got back on the boat and had lunch on board. When we got back to land we got on the bus again and went back to Hanoi. That night we went to a water puppet theater show and even though we had no idea what they were saying or what was going on it was really cool. The next day after a city tour of Hanoi and a bit of free time to get lunch we went back to the airport and flew to Ho Chi Minh City. Day 5 we went to the Cu Chi Tunnels, Tim was the only one of the 3 of us that made it the whole way through the section of the tunnel that we were allowed to go through. It was a really interesting place but there was a lot of anti-American sediments, which is understandable but one second they tell you the war is in the past and they are very welcoming of Americans and the next you hear that they are teaching everyone how evil Americans are; a very interesting combination. We picked up mom and Tim’s clothes but my dress wasn’t ready. The last day I got my dress and wandered around the city with Rachael, it was a typical last day of hanging out near the ship and spending the last of our money.
We only had 2 days at sea between Vietnam and China and by this time we were all thoroughly exhausted and not recovering our sleep. I seriously want to call Hong Kong the Land of malls and escalators; I don’t think I was able to go 15 feet without another escalator coming into sight. Also when Julie and I finally made it out of the mall that we docked at (yeah we docked at a mall, got the best parking spot possible because we couldn’t get out of “port” without going through the mall) we decided to try and find something else to see Hong Kong because we were only there really one day and ended up in another mall. Hong Kong is known as the vertical city but I think Land of the Escalator sounds so much more fun, either way they are both the truth. The next day I met up with the group I was traveling with and we headed to the airport. We flew to Beijing and were able to explore a little bit, most of us ate dinner and went to bed. I watched Kung Fu Panda 2 on the plane (fitting right? I was in China after all and it was either that or Mulan) and enjoyed a traditional Chinese dinner that night. The next day we got on the bus and drove about 2 hours north to the Great Wall! We hiked up to the Wall and then hiked about 5 km on the Wall. It was a lot of fun and the only down side was I randomly got altitude sickness but I powered through it and will never forget my experience. That night we bundled up in all our clothes, gloves, hats and grabbed tents, sleeping bags and mats and after our filling dinner hiked back up the Wall and set up camp. Yep I slept on the Great Wall, not many other people in my group got to say that because while I was asleep we ended up being kicked off the Wall in the middle of the night and had to move camp down to the base of the wall. I will end that story there because it is rather complicated and possibly more fun for me to tell in person :P The next morning we went back to Beijing and had lunch there. After lunch we went to Tian’anmen Square and the Forbidden City, at this point our guides were shocked that we ran into other SASers….again. Every day we ran into people from the ship and our guides couldn’t understand how in a country as big as China we would randomly meet up so often. That night we took an overnight train to Shanghai where our ship had moved to during our adventure. This train was a completely different experience from India; we had cabins on the train and only 4 people to a cabin. Each bed had a TV at the end of it and we could lock our cabin door. Everything about it was so much nicer then the India train. We then had a day and a half to explore Shanghai and that is what I did, with no particular plan I just wandered around the city, for me it wasn’t too exciting because it was just another city and I don’t think anything could top my previous China experience.
We had, yet again, 2 days at sea between China and Japan. Currently I am on the ship as we transit from one Japanese port to the other. We started in Kobe and are now sailing to Yokohama. The reason I chose to transit on the ship is because of how expensive it is to do anything in Japan. It is the only country that rivals the US in prices, and in some instances may be more expensive then the US. So many of us are taking the ship and enjoying a relaxing day of nothing. Also of my group of friends that are transiting almost all of us are battling colds right now, I think we are all run-down and exhausted and that is why this cold is going around. I certainly enjoyed sleeping in this morning and now it is just a lot of chill out time and homework catch up time. I will give you a Japan post after our two days in Yokohama.