So this is what I woke up to this morning… not bad. My second sunrise on the ship and this time it wasn’t by mistake (because I forgot to set the clocks back) haha :P
We’re only 6 hours ahead now from back home; we’re getting so close, it’s exciting!
Btw, we can see Africa from our ship! 2 more days!! Pretty psyched.
I’m ready for it.
AHA<3
I am looking forward to South Africa very much… I have a feeling it’s going to be one of the best ports yet, although every port so far has been amazing in its own unique and different ways. We’ll be in Cape Town, South Africa in 4 days and will be there for 5!! The picture posted is the view of Cape Town from the top of Table Mountain.
Here’s what I’m planning on doing:
1st day, Mar. 31—I’m going on a SAS trip to the Khayelitsha township. It’s going to be another eye-opening experience for sure, because the impression from the outside is fairly grim—many shacks line the outskirts and give no indication of the vibrant culture found within (taken out of the SAS field guide book). We’ll be visiting many places within the community to see the recent developments within the township. My roommate, Molly’s 21st birthday is Apr. 1st, so we’ll most likely be celebrating that night in Cape Town!
2nd day, Apr. 1—I’ll be going on another SAS trip to I believe the same township, but a different part of it to the Amy Biehl Foundation Trust, which was established by Amy Biehl who was a young American Scholar who helped in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. We spend the entire day there and get to tour the various facilities and programs within the township that are run by this foundation. Later that night a group of girlfriends (Abby, Abigail, Jenna, Andrea) and I will be staying at an Inn in Stellenbosch, where the wine lands are located.
3rd day, Apr. 2—We’ll be going on a bike tour through the wine lands where we’ll be able to wine taste all day :) We may stay another night at the Inn, or head back to Cape Town and stay on the ship.
4th day, Apr. 3—Depending on where we stay the night before we’ll either explore Stellenbosch some more, or Cape Town; sometimes not having a plan is the best way to go! Later that night we’ll be going to the Jazz Festival in Grahamstown, which is the world’s second-largest single cultural festival, attracting performers from not only South Africa, but the entire world! The festival attracts an audience of over 140,000 people… so it’s gonna be a great time!!
5th day, Apr. 4—Today we are planning on hiking Table Mountain and exploring more of Cape Town, then our ship leaves that night.
The day after South Africa I’ll be porting back in the US, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in a month!!! Crazy. I can’t believe how fast this whole trip is unfolding… it still seems so unreal to me that I’ve traveled to 5 other countries (Japan, China, Viet Nam, India & Mauritius) already. The sad part of it all is that they are slowly slipping away, which generally happens after you visit anywhere and leave it. Thank God I have thousands (literally) of pictures, as well as this blog and my journal I’ve been keeping. Who knows if I’ll be able to re-visit the places that I’ve been, but I’ll always have something to remember them if I happen to have difficulty re-calling what I did in the future. As I’ve exclaimed before, I feel so lucky and blessed that I had the opportunity to do this. Through all the ups, such as seeing and experiencing different cultures first-hand and all the downs, like missing home, friends, family and Anders, it’s all been worth it. I’ve become a better person because of all this and the memories and experiences that I have been able to create are gonna stick with me forever…
I am forever changed.
The one word that comes to mind when I think about Mauritius is: paradise. Definitely the most tropical place I’ve ever been to, but then again I’ve only been to a few haha. I am so bummed that we only had a day and a half to spend there… I didn’t wanna leave! When we pulled into Port Louis though yesterday it was raining!!! I was really bummed about that too, but it eventually subsided and actually was kinda nice when it sprinkled throughout the day, because it was hot. The weather though was a lot different than it was in India or Viet Nam. It was mostly dry heat without the humidity which was awesome and because of the rain there was a nice breeze; just perfect! A couple random facts I learned about Mauritius while I was there… it only takes an hour and a half max to get to anywhere from any point on the island. That’s how small this island actually is! Also Mauritius gets about 900,000 tourists every year, but very few are Americans, which makes complete sense because of how far away it is and how much of a hassle it is to get there. I definitely wanna come back here though at some point… I definitely didn’t get to do all the things that I wanted. I just have nothing bad to say about Mauritius whatsoever. If you ever have a chance to go, then go. Seriously!!! You’d be insane not to!
I had a pretty crazy time though; crazy as in it was kinda messed up haha but you’ll find out later, if you decide to read on… so as I mentioned before it was raining when we first pulled in and pretty much was cloudy with scattered showers the entire day. First thing I did when I got off the ship was actually go on a SAS trip to this adventure park where we got to zip line and maneuver through this challenge course that was set up in this forest, or jungle rather. We got to go on everything from foot bridges to swinging logs to cargo nets and a short zip line. It was so awesome and totally my cup of tea, I had a blast!!! I was kinda disappointed with the zip line though… hence the word “short.” It’s funny because the way the trip was advertised was that there was gonna be this long zip line through this jungle when it seriously only was 5 seconds long haha! Oh well. Just another thing to add back onto my list of things to do… here comes some bad news though: I got eaten alive… I am not exaggerating when I say that I had to have gotten over 100 mosquito bites on my legs mostly; really bad on the backs of my thighs. I put so much bug spray on though so I was pretty baffled of how serious I got bitten. I was so pissed at myself though because I wore shorts, because it was hot out, but doing this kind of stuff before I know to wear at least three-quarter length pants. It was just awful… I got an allergic reaction to the bites or something, because my thighs swelled up like balloons. I would put a picture up of what they looked like, but then again I don’t wanna freak anyone out! Haha I’m doing SO MUCH better now, but let’s just say that I was not a happy camper for a while. Benadryl and anti-itch cream have become my new best friends. I think I freaked everyone out on the second group that came right after us haha they were just so horrified when they saw my legs. THANK GOD there is no risk of Malaria in Mauritius, because if there was, I would definitely have it. Scary!!
After that crazy morning and afternoon I met up with some girlfriends and headed to the northern part of the island which is known as Grand Baie to meet up with more of our girlfriends! We had a fun time bar hopping and enjoying the night life and met up with a ton of kids from the ship… which is kinda what I wanted to avoid haha, especially when it’s the only people I see when we’re out at sea so when we’re actually in port I like to branch away. Whatever, we still had a fun time until we “lost” 2 of our friends. We didn’t get too worried at first, because we figured we would eventually run into them at some point before we all headed back to the hotel. First of all, these 2 friends of ours had the key to our hotel room… so a couple hours go by and we still haven’t seen them, so we begin to actually look for them and have no luck. We figured maybe they had went back to the hotel to go to bed early or something, but we were wrong. They were absolutely nowhere to be found and we were locked out of our room!!! It was miserable and to top it all off, for some reason there was no night staff at this hotel, but only these 2 security guards that were not helpful at all. Let’s just say that it was definitely not how I pictured my first and only night to be like in Mauritius haha. We had to crash on the couches in the lobby, but then again I didn’t sleep much because I was worried sick about our friends. They ended up showing up in the morning, which was a huge relief but still just very stressful. I’m just glad it’s over!!
We made up for the night by going out on this boat which took us offshore and we got to swim, see dolphins and snorkel around. I felt like such a little kid because of how excited and entertained I was while I was out there lol especially when I saw the dolphin! Definitely my first time actually seeing one that close. The girls I was with at this point, only 3 others, did this like underwater scooter scuba thing, which I was really looking forward to do, but it was also ridiculously expensive, but I still went on for the boat ride and got to just enjoy the last couple hours I had left of Mauritius. I got to feed the zebra fish that surrounded the boat, it was so cool. Not only is Mauritius gorgeous on shore, it’s also gorgeous underwater… everything was just SO colorful!!
I would have liked my time in Mauritius to have gone over a little bit more smoothly, but honestly looking back on it now, I can’t help but to laugh… it’s definitely an experience and place that will be hard to forget! We left Port Louis a few hours ago and are now on our way to Cape Town, South Africa! SO excited… I think it’s gonna be one of the best ports overall, I have so much fun stuff planned!!! But, I’ll explain in better detail about my plans in my next entry… probably in a couple days! Have 6 days on the ship anyways until we actually port.
Enjoy the pictures, although there isn’t as many as usual, sorry about that!
Tomorrow we’ll be porting in Port Louis on the tropical island of Mauritius… I’m beyond excited!!! It’s kinda like our spring break on the ship and unfortunately we’ll only be there for like a day and a half, but I’ll definitely be making the best of it! In the morning I’ll be going to an Adventure Park with SAS, in the heart of a 30-acre forest where I’ll be able to zip-line (finally!) and walk along the footbridges through the treetops that are 75-141ft. high! It’s gonna be exhilarating, I can’t wait, just up my alley. There’s also something like a ropes course too, which I will most definitely have to try out as well! After we get to go to Flic en Flac, one of the best beaches on the west coast of the island. It’s gonna be a great day… meeting up with some girlfriends later that night to stay at a beautiful resort with its own private beach. The second day I’ll probably just be a beach bum and maybe do this underwater walk where you’re in a “bubble” and get to walk on the sea floor… can’t wait! Stay tuned for an update :)
Today was probably the most beautiful day we’ve had at sea so far!! The water looked almost like glass and the sky just looked so beautiful. Saw one of the best sunsets we’ve had last night too. Apparently we crossed over the equator early this morning, so it won’t get much hotter than this, which is a plus. We are slowly making our way back home too… which I’m pretty anxious for! Tomorrow we have the day off from classes to have a day of relaxation. It’s also Neptune Day, which is a Semester at Sea tradition in which students are transformed from “polywags” to “shellbacks” (whatever that means lol) in an initiation ceremony, involving slime, fish kissing, and optional head shaving… shall be interesting!!! Haha and no I won’t be shaving my head!
Today we had a really good Global Studies class, which made me think a lot about what I’ve been learning this semester abroad. We talked about how it’s not all about seeing the sites in all the countries that we go to, but rather how we interact with the people that we meet and getting sucked into their culture. A panel of students talked about very personal moments that they’ve had with some of the people that they’ve met along this journey of ours. They talked about how the people that they met moved them in some way and left footprints forever on their hearts. We were all able at the end of the class to reflect on our own experiences and interactions with the people that we’ve met as well. I wrote about Minnu, the 13 year old Indian girl who I met in the SOS Children’s Village one of the last days I was in Cochin. She completely touched my heart and I’m never going to forget her, along with others, such as Lisa from the small village in Yangshuo, China or the two little girls I played with in the slums of Chennai. These people, that have touched our hearts, our teacher referred to as “toothbrush” people, the ones who we should take a second to remember every day while doing a simple task, such as brushing our teeth!! We wrote our addresses on our folded up reflections and our teacher said that 1 year from now he’s going to send them to that address… which is going to be really wonderful to receive next spring and be able to reminisce... In class we discussed how sometimes a language barrier brings us even closer to those who we can’t completely communicate fully with, because sometimes you don’t need words to express how you really feel in a specific moment. Sometimes the company of others is the most powerful thing and what forms the special memories and bonds that we hold dear to our hearts. These are the kinds of moments that we’ll never forget. And this is what I’ve learned from this entire experience and why I’ve taken the risk to reach out to others, meet the locals and become a part of someone else’s culture, even if it’s just for a short while... just knowing that I can be the one to put a smile on a child’s face or a stranger passerby, then that’s all I can really ask for and that’s all that really matters at the end of the day, to me.
Back on the ship now, unfortunately, but back to the AC which is quite nice actually lol! Went on a riverboat tour down the Alleppey backwaters which was definitely within the Top 5 coolest things I’ve done on my trip so far… as of right now I’d say that #1 was Yangshuo, #2 was this trip and my slums experience (definitely a tie for 2nd), #3 was Nha Trang, #4 was Koyasan and #5 was my first day in Hilo, Hawaii. I’ve fallen in love with riverboats, I’ve gone on one in every country now… they are the way to go!! So these Alleppey backwaters are these systems of canals that connect with the Arabian Sea and there are villages on all sides, some are Christian, some are Hindu and some are Muslim. Each section was of a different religion and a part of a different village and all had schools, hospitals and worship places in each one. Everyone gets around by either walking or by ferry… it was so cool! The landscape was so gorgeous, tropical and colorful and the people were so interesting to observe. The weather was a little cooler too, which was nice. We stopped at this gorgeous resort for a buffet lunch and then had a 2 hour tour of the backwaters… it was just such an awesome experience! The backwaters are also known for its houseboats which are pretty much these like floating hotel rooms. All have electricity, plumbing, AC and are so nice inside! If I ever have the opportunity to come back to India, Alleppey is definitely gonna be my first destination so that I can stay on a houseboat.
Now we’re heading to Mauritius for our “spring break” haha it’s gonna be a beach paradise, it’s gonna be so great. We’ve got 5 days on the ship until then and once again I have a lot of school work to get done… got our second Global Studies test in a couple days and have a few papers to write, which will definitely keep me busy. Haven’t had this much work to do the entire trip when I think about it haha. We’re also over half way done with our trip… I’ll officially have been on the MV Explorer for 2 months, tomorrow, which means that there’s a month and a half until we’ll be back in the US!! I’m trying to soak up every experience that I have left on this trip, but am looking forward to come home when the time comes.
Oh! So this picture I posted is of this dude we saw while on the bus… on an elephant, on his cell phone hahaha, it was the most bizarre, priceless thing ever!!! I thought it was hilarious… well anyways, stay tuned! :P
Not us. Haha… unfortunately the Caribbean Sea, my floor, didn’t even place. So that means we’re gonna be one of the last floors off the ship when we get into Florida, but oh well. So as you can probably assume, the Sea Olympics were today, and although I was pretty pumped about it, the rest of my team wasn’t as enthused, but overall though, it was a really FUN day!!! Let’s see if I can give a play by play of the day… first off I woke up the earliest I’ve EVER woken up on the ship before, (besides when I had to meet my group for Nha Trang at 3:45am), because we were supposed to set our clocks back last night and I never did! I got to see my first sunrise on the ship! It was beautiful, but I know I probably won’t be seeing too many others while I’m here haha I value my sleep! I didn’t even sleep out on the deck, the night we had all planned to, because it was pouring! Go figure. Anyways, so today was jam-packed with events, everything from extreme musical chairs, family feud, synchronized swimming, lip sync contest, relay race, tug-of-war, Simon says… and so much more! I participated in crab soccer, which is soccer but played walking around like a crab… I later regretted signing up for that event, because now my hands are all blistered up, it sucks. It’s one of the most painful things ever… I’m definitely gonna be feeling pretty uncomfortable for a while unfortunately! The synchronized swimming and lip sync competitions were absolutely hilarious!!! There was just so much excitement all day long and it was fun to see everyone all dressed up in their team colors and rooting each other on. My team was the Pirates of the Caribbean (got renamed from purple people eaters) and we were all decked out in purple! We had this amazing dinner later on which reminded me a lot of home and summer afternoons, BBQ style. We had everything from hamburgers, ribs, corn on the cob, potato salad, baked beans… it was awesome.
I’ll keep this entry short and sweet, there’s not too much to talk about at the moment!! Just same old stuff for the most part when I’m back at sea. But we’ll be arriving in India in 4 days! Exciting stuff!
Stay tuned :)
Alright, so we’re gonna be arriving in Chennai, India on March 11th, which means 6 days to go! I’ve been trying to get back into a routine being back on the ship like working out again, which I’ve been doing and focusing on school work… being back on the ship also means quality tanning time everyday too haha, I love it! AND we’re FINALLY getting laundry the day after tomorrow, Hallelujah!! This picture is all the damn laundry I’ve been stacking up for the last month… ridiculous, it just devours our floor haha! The laundry service on this ship has been out of control, I know I’ve probably been bitching about it in like every post, but it’s outrageous lol. I had to buy more underwear and socks from the store we have on the ship, because I ran out, no joke. Been having to be very conservative of the clothes I wear and even washing some from time to time in our bathroom sink.
So here’s what I’m planning on doing in India, that I know of so far…
1st day: Before I leave the ship I’ll be listening in on a discussion about traditional healing and contemporary practice of mental health, conducted by 2 professors from India and a group of students, which we’ll be able to interact with. This is an FDP for my Identity Development Psychology class and should be interesting. In the afternoon I’ll be going on a service visit to the Missionaries of Charity Orphanage which counts for an FDP for my Environmental Ethics class. Mother Teresa founded this, which is really cool and it should be an interesting, eye-opening experience. We get to interact with these kids that live there which majority suffer from birth defects or mental retardation and were abandoned on the streets of Chennai or left on the orphanage’s doorstep.
2nd-4th day: Not sure my exact plans yet, but me and a couple friends are going to catch a train somewhere, instead of boarding the ship to be stuck on it for a few days as they travel to the next port Cochin. This way we can have a few more days to experience what India has to offer! I’m sure whatever we plan on doing will be good!!
5th day: I’m going to the SOS Children’s Village in the afternoon which has provided homes to around 182 needy children in Aluva, India. There are SOS Children’s Villages in more than 106 other countries as well and provide homes for over 50,000 needy children! We get to interact with the kids after they put on a performance for us… it should be a rewarding experience.
6th day: I’ll be going to the famous Alleppey backwaters of India which are comprised of narrow mazes of canals which are surrounded by coconut plantations and villages. It’s considered to be the “Venice of the East.”
I think that India is going to be a completely different experience than the countries that we’ve already gone to. It’s going to be more eye-opening more than anything I think, especially because of its extreme levels of poverty. In the countries that we’ve been to so far we’ve experienced begging from people off the streets, but minimal. In India it’s going to be 100x worse we’ve been told and it’s going to be very overwhelming for most… it’s definitely going to be an experience all in itself just walking down the street. I hope I’ll be able to handle it… it’s gonna be devastating to see how these people live and having children coming up to me, begging. I just hope I’ll be strong enough to walk away and not let it emotionally get to me. Also customs in India are very different than the other Asian countries we’ve visited and we’ll (women on the ship) will have to wear pants that reach below the knees and shirts that cover our shoulders… plus it’s going to be hotter than hot, so I’m not really looking forward to that, but it’s their culture and I have to respect it.
There are a lot of events coming up on the ship which I’m pretty sure I’ve already brushed-up upon, but the Sea Olympics are this Sunday, I’m pretty excited for them! It should just be an overall really fun day!! Tomorrow our sea is having a slumber party outside on the 7th deck which should be fun too, I’ve been wanting to sleep outside on the ship, but haven’t done it yet, so here will be my chance!! Looking forward to seeing a good sunrise hopefully…
QUESTION: If any of you know the answer to this question PLEASE leave a comment or e-mail me (hndinapoli@semesteratsea.net) because I’m really curious… so what are the hit songs that are out now? Movies? Or anything else that’s new that I should know about? Haha I feel SO out of the loop on this trip and I feel like when I come home I’m gonna be overwhelmed with all the stuff I missed! So a little head’s up would be nice :)
AHA<3 2 more months baby!! Miss you.
Ok, so it's been a few days. I hope you're all ready for this... I have like 5 days to talk about haha, but I’ll keep it short and sweet this time… I ended up doing a lot more journaling this time around, but no worries, I didn’t forget you guys!! Just have been super busy!
Day 1: Ho Chi Minh
I went to the Cu Chi tunnels, which is like an hour and a half drive out of the city of Ho Chi Minh. First off I can't even begin to describe the chaos on the streets here... there are so many motorbikes/scooters, whatever you wanna call them, it's RIDICULOUS!!! They say that a Vietnamese isn't a true Vietnamese if he or she doesn't own one. I'm gonna try to put up a video of me riding on one of the back of these things... anyways, so I went to the tunnels and it was a really neat experience. If you didn't know, these tunnels were made and used by the Viet Cong during the Viet Nam war. They lived there and used them as secret passages to sneak up on the enemy... I got to actually crawl through some of these things and they are not very spacious haha just big enough for a Vietnamese to squeeze through comfortably I guess, but I managed to crawl through them! Lol so I got really dirty that day and it didn't help that it was ridiculously humid, so everyone was absolutely disgusting by the end of the tour haha. Got back later in the afternoon then went to the big market then hit the sack early!
So I had to meet my group at 3:45am to head to Nha Trang, true story... rough. It was only like a 45min flight to get there and once we got there we had a full day planned out for us. Btw, Nha Trang was a beach paradise... it was better than I had ever envisioned it to be! Our hotel was conveniently located right across the street from the beach... nice huh? Haha, it was just awesome no doubt about it. We got to visit this Buddhist monastery, the large white Buddha, the Cham Towers, Chong Rock and got to have a traditional Vietnamese meal for lunch. All the places where we stopped had amazing views of the city and the bay! After that we had free time so we all headed right to the beach of course where we went swimming and got massages right in the sand! It doesn’t get much better than that… had another Vietnamese meal for dinner that night, which I unfortunately got sick from… I took it easy for the rest of the night and just chilled on the beach before I went to bed.
Day 3: Nha Trang
This whole day consisted of going out on a boat where we anchored off this island where we got to jump off the top of the boat into the water, swim, snorkel and just relax. I got a lot of color that day… it was awesome! On our way back to the mainland we stopped at this little touristy village place where we got to eat lunch under a bamboo cabana. I didn’t eat much though because my stomach still hurt a little from the night before, but thankfully I ended up finding pizza later that night, which I desperately needed, just anything American pretty much lol. Went swimming in the pool at our hotel later and ended up crashing early. I needed the sleep for sure… the heat was really starting to take its toll on me.
Day 4: Nha Trang
OMG I can’t believe I forgot to mention our tour guide, Liem. This crazy Vietnamese dude… he was a lot of fun and a really good tour guide!! He was crazy though hahaha. So the last day in Nha Trang a small group of us went to Orchid Island where we got to ride on an ostrich and get picked up by an elephant!!! No lie… it was an experience for sure and this island was so unbelievably beautiful… I didn’t want to leave lol!! We got back to Ho Chi Minh around 5pm and I went back to the market to browse around and went out later. It was a great night!!! A lot of fun… a ton of SASers where at this one bar/club, which we pretty much just took over, it was great!
Day 5: Ho Chi Minh
Today was a great day!!! Martin and I ventured around Ho Chi Minh and got really good massages… mine was only $10 for a full-body for 60min! Also got a pedicure which was only $5 haha! So cheap, everything here though is dirt cheap. We went to this really nice restaurant for lunch which was packed with Westerners and good food. Explored the market one last time and now I’m here, back on the ship because we leave really early in the morning for India! And unfortunately this time though I won’t be able to put up pictures because the wifi I tried using next to the ship was pretty shitty… and since there were so many of us trying to get online, it was SO slow! We have about an 8 day stretch to India too… but I’ll try to put up pictures then I hope!
A few updates from the ship: my cabin is a disaster, number 1 lol!!! It needs to be cleaned ASAP! My stuff and Molly’s is just all over the place and we’re both in disparate need of laundry too which still isn’t going to happen for another 4 days… FML. Also got a lot of work to catch up on and gonna start hitting up the gym again and working out!
On Mar. 4th we’re having another one of those dances on the ship, this time’s theme is “middle school dance” LOL it’s gonna be a riot! On Mar. 5th our floor is having a slumber party outside on deck 7 and on Mar. 7th we have the sea Olympics!!! So pumped! The purple people eaters are gonna dominate! Woop woop!!
