Day 2 - Napping to the Taj

We had our second day in India planned perfectly; our 5am flight to Delhi would see us arriving in Delhi in the early afternoon (~11am), we would quickly drop off our bags at the hotel room we had reserved and then hop the 2 hour express train to Agra so that we could see the Taj Mahal glowing red at  sunset before training back to Dehli in the evening for a peaceful night of sleep. As you can imagine, it did not exactly work out that way.

Our day started at the ungodly hour of 2am after getting to bed at midnight the night before. Miles and miles of pothole ridden, cow populated roads separated us and our 5am flight to Delhi. The first obstacle was getting a taxi that late in the evening/early in the morning. There were a few camped outside the entrance to the port but asking for exorbitant tourist prices. Since the twilight taxi market isn't exactly a competitive, I had to put my haggling skills to the test, with my only bargaining chip being the bluff that I would walk around the ghost town that is Chennai at 3am and find another taxi. By some miracle  I eventually got the fare down to a reasonable level 800 rupees which comes out to $16 total.

Once at the airport things ran smoothly, I bought "The White Tiger" as my novel for India and started to make my way through it on the flight to Delhi while my traveling companions napped their first of many naps that day. The real adventure began once we landed. The taxi driver from the airport took my napping companions and I to a hotel with the right name, but at the wrong location. When we got to the correct hotel, they had resold our room at a higher rate to vacationers who were in town for Diwali, The festival of lights. To top it off train tickets to and from Agra were sold out. In short we were stuck in Delhi without a hotel and no way to make it to the Taj Mahal which we had flown all the way from Chennai to see.

This is where flexibility comes in; long story short, we chartered a 5 hour taxi ride there and back in addition to  two hotel rooms in Agra for about $200, or $50 each which only turned out to be a bit more then we would have paid to begin with. The result was that we got to see a lot more of India then we had planned for initially. At least I did, as my traveling companions were napping again.  We passed through fields, tiny road side villages and  past the birth place of Hare Krishna all on the way to Agra which we reached after sunset. We ate dinner on the rooftop of our hotel. Home made, slow cooked chicken our driver arranged to have delivered to us from his friend. We ended the evening with conversation, sitting on the roof of our hotel while the commotion of trishaws, rickshaws, car horns and moped engines floated five stories up from the road below.

India - Day 1

My first morning in India found me only a few miles away from the our berth in Chennai at a local school for the Dalit. Dalit being, from my limited knowledge, the umbrella classification of the historically persecuted and oppressed groups in the Indian hierarchical  caste system who were confined to "impure" trades such as leather work and burials. With the new, modern India a lot of this persecution is on the decline due to active efforts of the government in addition to a general change in the attitudes of the new generation. Still, the Dalit are statistically the poorest ethnic group in a country that is no stranger to extreme poverty and that is what brought us  to spend our time working at this school.

Pulling up to the school we were greeted by the students lining the road accompanied by a drum-line celebrating our arrival. we stepped off of the bus into a crowd of students that soon parted and lavished us with garlands of lavender and roses. The excitement of the students to see us was unexpected and inspiring,  not to mention contagious. By the time a short introduction ceremony was completed we were all ready to get to work and interact with the kids.

For my part I was asked to help paint blackboards along with a team of three other SAS participants. Together we made a team of four extremely inexperienced painters. To top it all off we have a very motivational herder following us around to speed up the process. The school children giggled at us as we splattered pint all over our shirts, pants, shoes, hair, legs, arms & eyeballs but they were always genuinely excited to see us as we entered their classroom and we were always given an emphatic "Thank You!" as we left.


When our work was finished they gathered all of us in the courtyard for lunch, Masala Dhosas were on the menu. They are an indian flat brad stuffed with potatoes and topped with various types of sauces with varying levels of spice.

After the lunch was over we finally had some time to interact with the kids. We were treated like celebrities, the kids crowded around us with pen and paper outstretched asking for autographs. The only thing that would make them happier than an autograph was for us to just take a picture with them. 

My time painting at this school was one of my favorite experiences on the trip so far. It served to foreshadow the kindness that I would see throughout my travels in India in addition to giving me the opportunity to really interact with the community in a  meaningful way. By the time we had to leave at the end of the day (after the school had let out) students still lined the road to see us off as we made out way back to the ship.

Side saddle moped riders 

I spent that night with a new friend, Prem. He boarded our floating campus as an inter-port student/lecturer in Mauritius and was tasked with using the five or so days while at sea before India to give us a crash course in Indian food, music, history, customs, geography, infrastructure, travel destinations and language. When he wasn't being mobbed with questions by other students and life long learners he blended into the community, joining us for card games, Sea Olympics, late night/early morning ramen

Delicious

That night Prem took us out for dinner in his local turf of Chennai. A local kebab restaurant  that served mostly Arab fare with a few South Indian dishes thrown in for good measure. Unlimited  fruit, shrimp, chicken ,steak and even cheese grilled over coals started off the meal the right way. A buffet line of Veg and Non-Veg Indian dishes featuring curries, rice, chicken, eggplant and many others kept it going and the little dessert oasis positioned in the center of the restaurant really ended the night the right way.

 We passed out promptly that night after the meal out of necessity, mostly due to that pesky 2am wake up call the next morning......

Prem, the man, seeing us off after a fantastic dinner