INDIA

Incredible India! That is what all the advertisements read. But after traveling there all I could think was that India was incredibly poor, incredibly dirty, and incredibly traditional. Still being pushed outside my comfort zone and seeing things so incredibly different was what made India so interesting to me.

My SAS trip didn’t leave until the second day in port so when we arrived I decided to venture out into Chennai with some friends. We only made it two blocks before we turned around and headed back to the boat. I got caught in a dirt storm that turned my entire face brown, Katy got splattered with black oil when a giant truck hit a pot hole near us, and Max got pick pocketed by one of the little kids that swarmed us as we were walking. Needless to say we were not ready for India. Back on the boat we showered and then decided to play it safe and each lunch in the dining hall. However, my poor packing left me no choice but to go back out in search of conservative clothes. The boat was requiring girls to cover their shoulders and knees at all times and because my mother insisted that I would never use a long peasant skirt, I had nothing to wear. So back out in the hot and humid weather that would make Georgia in the summer feel cool, we headed for the shopping mall. Outside the sign read, a shopper’s dream come true, inside my friends and I tried to wake ourselves up form this awful nightmare. We searched forever before we finally found a women’s clothing store. Because all the women wear the traditional saris here, there were only two women’s stores that sold fabric for the saris. Otherwise all the stores we saw were for men. I was pretty desperate and ended up purchasing gaucho pants for $2.50 (yes Michelle I wore gaucho pants, the incredibly unflattering high-waisted to mid-calf pants that look like a skirt but are really pants, similar to skorts, the other bad fad of the nineties).

Depressed by the shopping we all decided to do some sightseeing, so we piled in two little autos (Indian taxis) and asked them to take us to a famous temple. An auto is a lot like if you were to take a tit-a-world cart, put it on wheels, add a lawn mower like engine, and a seat for a driver. They weave in and out of traffic like Mario cart and we quickly came to learn they are all quite corrupt (which most of India is). We had asked to go to the temple but sure enough the drove us straight to this little art shop. We became quite familiar with this little scam, we named it “my cousin’s shop”. Because the typical auto ride cost about 3 dollars, we learned that the cabbies make their money by bringing tourists to their friend’s shops who in turn give them a commission for bringing people in. It was so irritating! I don’t think I got in a single cab that would take me exactly where I asked to go.

We eventually made it to the temple that looked pretty much like the other 100 temples I have seen on this voyage so we called it a day. But I learned one thing on that first day, never would I be in a country where I was so aware of my race and gender.

To be continued…………..