Hello India...

We arrived in India around 8 AM on March 11.   The neatest thing happened as I was having breakfast outside as we were pulling into the harbor: we went right by a group of Indian fishermen who were all waving, ecstatic that we were there!   They were waving frantically and just looked happy to see the Explorer pulling into Chennai or Madras as it was called.

Customs took a long time and we finally were able to get off the ship at around 12.   Our only plans for the day were a walking tour we’d found per a recommendation from a former SAS student.   The port was very, very dirty and it was about a mile walk from where the ship was berthed until we got out.  That was kind of a pain as there was oil, dust and all kinds of disgusting things around us.  We were literally swarmed by auto-rickshaw drivers wanting to take us places.   It was very overwhelming and hard to handle at some points.   You just have to say NO very emphatically, several times, and they get the picture. 

The first thing you notice while walking around is how dirty the country is.  Garbage is everywhere.  Men are urinating ten feet away from you and it’s no big deal.   This probably has been the only time I was really just shocked so at what was going on.  I mean it’s gross.  Bathrooms don’t have toilet paper (we carried it) and clean water is a true commodity.   When we went to lunch we got bottled water and it wasn’t sealed.  We spent at least ten minutes deciding whether or not it was just a super glued cap.   Some people were brave and had some but I didn’t.  I just had sodas.  I will truly, truly never look at water the same way again back home.   We really do take for granted the cleanliness of our water.  It comes out of the sink and it’s just there and perfectly fine.  Here it’s not.  I washed my hands in a bathroom to get the sweat and dirt off and then hand sanitized them.   We will be brushing our teeth with bottled water in any hotels we stay at while on the Taj trip.  It’s something we take for granted back home, I know I said that before but I’ve honestly never thought about it.  Up until now sealed bottled water was no problem to find.  Here it really is a rarity and just different.   Bathrooms too.  Think of the dirtiest, little gas station bathroom that you would hate to have to go in and then multiply it by a thousand.  Even that dirty, little, gas station bathroom is 1000x nicer then the toilets in India.  Talk about culture shock. 

When I told people about my SAS trip before I left I got a few curious looks when I said India.  I mean it is undeveloped, ridden with poverty, and homelessness..why would anyone go there, right?  I’m glad I’m seeing this.  I really cannot imagine looking at things the same way back home. I really see how blessed we are and how much we take for granted. Families are cramped into little makeshift tents with rags as the bed: no electricity (I hate when the power goes out in the summer…it’s the end of the world without that air-conditioner), no chance in hell there’s running water (the shower takes forever to get hot…such a pain), and no anything.  Just their little tent, and yet the people seem happy.  Twice kids came up to us today and hugged us with the biggest smiles on their face.  For no reason other then the fact we were American.  Parents had their kids look at us, wave and just stare.  Our lifestyle to them is one of a king and queen, and compared to theirs it is.  

We really just spent the day wandering, and taking the entire city in.   All of us were going to the Taj and we wanted to see what “real” India was like before we got the tourist side.    We also met an auto-rickshaw driver who had postcards, and letters from former SAS students.  He was a really friendly guy and tagged along with us for a good portion of the day.  His names is Jalhal (I’m butchering the spelling) Hussein, but “not like Saddam Hussein he’s a bad guy.  US kill him.”   He said all of Chennai looks forward to SAS coming.  I think he was serious.  People certainly did seem to know us, and where we were from.  Chennai is almost always a port of call on all fall and spring SAS voyages. 

So I have to be up at 330 AM for my trip to Delhi and the Taj Mahal.  I’m so excited.  It’s a four-day, three night trip and I promise to get an update here right when we get back.  I’ll also have one and half days in the city of Cochin in western India.  We meet up with the ship there...I'm excited/nervous to see what the rest of India is like.