Namaste,
How is everyone doing?? We just left Singapore and now are heading to Vietnam; this voyage needs to pump the brakes, it’s going so fast!
The second day in India I left at 9:00 AM in route to Chennai Airport with a group of sixty SAS students, heading for Delhi. Flying outside of the United States has been such a different experience. All of my flights typically have great snacks, usually a shuttle takes you right to the plane, less leg room if you can believe it, and much more lax on security matters. All the flight attendants can speak English so they will translate what they say over the intercom into English. I have only seen women flight attendants and they always have the cutest outfits on. The flight to Delhi was 2.5 hours and when we arrived the tour company was there with coach buses waiting to get our trip started.
The first afternoon we went to the place where Gandhi was cremated. After the cremation his body was scattered in numerous places around the world. A candle is lit 24 hours a day seven days a week in his honor. As I walked though the garden by myself, taking in the magnitude of that place I noticed that there was no minority or majority of people there. I heard at least ten different languages and saw people from all parts of the world. There was no color, no ethnicities, no biases, and no religion when we were in this place together. Everyone understood who Gandhi was and the revolutionary goodness that he brought to the world.
We checked into our hotel, La Meridian a five star hotel and I was not happy. Yes, it was beautiful but I felt like I became an active member of the disparity that is not real to what most citizens of India know. That night when I went down to dinner all the power went out for about fifteen minutes and I viewed that as a reminder to all of us that yes life inside the hotel may feel like 1st class but all around us is extreme suffering. As I travel I am realizing that there are very different poverties. In Ghana it was a clean poverty, India it was filthy poverty and in South Africa it was suppressed poverty.
That next morning we were on the bus at 5:00 AM heading towards the train station. We could hardly walk through the train station because the floor was covered with sleeping families. A mother holding her babies tight, some people already begging. It was unbelievably heart breaking. The train ride to Agra was 2.5 hours. One of the most gruesome things I saw the whole trip was that morning as we were getting off of the train. I looked to the left and there stood a man with feet the size of a basketballs (I know I tend to exaggerate but not this time). He has a disease called elephantitis. When I saw his feet I immediately looked away and I regret doing that. I wish I had looked instead to his face and made eye contact with him. I doubt many foreigners ever look to his face, how awful would that be never having people make eye contact with you. A huge cultural difference in India is that they are not afraid to stare. Everywhere I went people would catch my eye and we would just stare at eachother. I really enjoyed this about Indians because staring into eachothers eyes is a view into eachothers souls. In America making eye contact with someone can be uncomfortable and you immediately shy away from it, why is it so taboo? In India people were curious about me and I was curious about them so why not just look at eachother. People from India have the most beautiful deep eyes. I found it to be such a pure moment when I was passing by in a rickshaw and would hold the gaze of an India woman in her beautiful sari. We would look at eachother and then smile. It was a way of saying hi and showing curiosity. Dozens of times people wanted to take pictures with me, I think its because of how much taller I was than all the women there and most of the men. It was fun being on the other side of the picture taking because usually I am the one asking to have my pic with someone.
We arrived to the Taj Mahal, one of the seven man made wonders of the world as the sun was going down. The Taj was built 354 years ago by the king in honor of his most favorite wife. It is made of all marble and took 22 years to build. The entire structure was built by hand with no machines. The Taj was magnificent. The shapes of the architecture made you stop dead in your tracks. When I looked at this building it just said pure love and devotion for another. That’s what it looked like, I can’t put it any better than that. The Taj Mahal was magical. The curves of the structure, the sheer beauty brought a tear to my eye.
Our tour bus guide only gave us 40 minutes there, which was ridiculous, I wanted to stay for hours so I decided to risk it and get on with the other SAS tour bus. I was able to see inside the Taj, so worth it! You are not allowed to wear your shoes inside or around the Taj anywhere so I left mine right outside. Everyone else wore these red footys that they gave us but I am all about being bare foot all the time, however this time is backfired. As I was trying to leave I realized, “oh man, where are my shoes” and high tailed it back, grabbed them all the while being an obnoxious American and making a scene looking like I was being chased by the bulls in Pamplona but somehow made the bus, success baby!
While I was waiting in line to get into the Taj a women wearing a traditional sari asked me to take the picture of she and her son. It turns out she is originally from Africa and then moved to Canada with her family when she was ten in order to pursue a better life. Much of her family lives in India and she was visiting for two months. Its people that you meet and stories you hear along the way that makes traveling so fun.
At this point it’s about 7:00 PM and we are about to get back on the train to Delhi. We were given huge box dinners to eat on the train prior to arriving at the train station. When we got off the bus kids started swarming us in hopes that we would give them our dinners. Some SAS students gave them the whole box and that created frenzy all around. Little kids started grabbing, pushing, shoving, this is a true example of survival. I was so disturbed by the reaction of some SAS students around me. I heard things like, “they do not even seem appreciative, why don’t they say thank you”. At one point I saw a little girl holding a handful of food that a SAS student gave her and my peer said, “that’s greedy, why does she not share”. What my friends do not understand is that these children are trying to survive. Manners and sharing go out the window when you have not eaten in two, three, four days and not one of us on SAS can fully appreciate the magnitude of that. That little girl was hording food instinctually, that food will be what keeps her alive for the next week.
For the next two and a half hours on the train I had the best heart to heart with my friend Britt and really created a new connection with her. This is a reoccurring event when you travel with people, constantly connecting on deeper levels, I live for that.
That next day we left for Delhi airport at 12:00 PM and boarded a flight to Varanasi, India. Varanasi is the oldest city in the world that people still live in and it’s the most holy place to the Hindus. We checked into the hotel (again too nice), dropped our stuff and took off on an adventure to the river Ganges; this is where all the Hindus practice different forms of worship each day. When we arrived the evening ceremony of putting the river to peace was just beginning. I walked away from the group (as I often find myself doing) and found a spot to sit among the locals as they chanted. I bought some chai tea from a man walking around selling it. It came in a little clay cup. Sitting there witnessing a practice that has been going on for thousands of years was unforgettable. A woman approached me and offered me a little floating basket with a candle and flowers in it. At first I thought she wanted money so I said no but she was persistent so I accepted it. She then showed me that I should put it in the water, which I did. I offered her money and she just smiled, shook her head and walked away. Later I found that fire represents power, strength and rebirth for the Hindus and by setting that candle into the river Ganges I was meant to make a wish.
Hinduism preaches being one with body, mind, and spirit. In my mind it is not so much a religion but a way of life that I think we could all benefit from.
That night after the ceremony we went and had dinner at the hotel. They had a dance floor set out for us and we danced to great Indian music for hours. The DJ had some American tunes like Brittney Spears and Mambo # 5, it was so much FUN! I have found that dancing is a huge part of the cultures I have experienced so far. Moving your body to music is such a great release. I feel like I am dancing my way around the world. There has not been one night when I have gone out and not danced. What makes it even better is that the people I am with are interested in fun dancing and looking goofy because no one feels self conscience anymore, we are all becoming more secure in ourselves as we get older.
The next day we were up at 5:00 AM to go witness the morning ceremony at the Ganges. This ceremony is when they cremate dead bodies along the river and then release the ashes into water. All Hindus bathe in the river every morning as a form of cleansing, do yoga, and then start their day. At one moment this is what I was seeing: a body being cremated, the sun rising streaking the sky with red, on the other side the moon was still standing high in the sky, hundreds of people bathing to the left, cows drinking from the river, wild dogs swimming, and Chinese monks sitting on a ledge meditating. We were witnessing all of this from canoes.
We got off the canoes and started making the ten-minute walk back to the buses. To get to and from the Ganges you walk through a huge market filled with thousands of people and it’s so wild. Varanasi is where I saw the worst of the poverty. Hundreds of people pleading for money, everywhere I looked people had missing limbs, mutilated bodies, three year olds walking down the street by themselves, babies crying. People swarming us all around asking for anything and everything. At one point I just started to cry as I walked, feeling so stunned, so angry that people have to live this way. I thought to myself this is another world but it’s not! We are all citizens of one world and what I was seeing is reality. How could leadership let this go on? It was strange that culture shock hit me for the first time with that morning walk. At that point I had been walking around India for days and had done that same walk from the Ganges three times, but all of a sudden shock hit. I did not let anyone know how I was feeling but I did not want to leave the hotel. I was not scared for my safety; I was just so totally overwhelmed and scared for these people. We were eating breakfast and our guides had a whole morning of activity planned for us. At this point I made the best decision I have made since coming on SAS, I decided to split away from the guided tour for the morning and go do the same walk from the Ganges because I wanted to leave that place with a good feeling. I went with my friend Meg and Ellie. Shopping in that market on my own for a couple hours helped me get back on the saddle. When you are with a huge group of Americans you become a moving target for beggars but when it was just the three of us we were able to talk with locals and be more immersed. We spent an hour with a scarf vendor just talking and doing business, so nice. Some of the women I saw begging with their babies before were no longer begging but talking with friends and they let me be. We made friends with two 20-year-old boys and they were so cool. I wish we had more time to hear their stories. Meg got one of their numbers haha. Everywhere I went they kept saying I looked like Goldie Hawn’s daughter, I was like “she’s little and blonde” haha. Maybe they were mistaking me for my sister Ellie Jane!
We flew back to Chennai that night. Four flights in four days, we covered some serious ground in India. India changed me forever. I saw things that no human should have to live with. It was a place of beautiful, awful functioning chaos.
This was the first side tour that I did with SAS and it was much more structured than anything else I have done. I find traveling with a small, like minded group at a more spontaneous pace is more satisfying and more enlightening. That is what I will be doing the rest of this journey.
My Papa's birthday is coming up so I want to take this opportunity to wish him happy birthday! Thank you Papa for this experience, you have made all my dreams come true. I love you.
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