So. India. I think I really need more time to process how I really felt about India, for several reasons. One was the time: this was the most whirlwind traveling I have ever, ever done. We were everywhere, all the time, going somewhere new. Two: India is freakin’ intense. Three: I have barely processed the fact that I went (technically we are still docked, but I’m not leaving and it’ll be on-ship time in a couple hours) to India, let alone had time to process what I felt about being there. I don’t know if I actually WILL process any time soon. I still can’t believe I was just in India for 5 days, that the last five days of crowds and cacophony was India.
Perhaps I will do a second post once I’ve processed. That is not likely though, as we get to Malaysia in a paltry two days and then it is off again, for FDPs and Kuala Lumpur for a couple days with Katey, Eleanor, Sam Squared (there are two, they are friends), Carrie & Marcella. I’m pretty sure Carla, Mark, Josh and Trevor are coming too, so we may just have a giant SAS clustermess of friendship happening. We shall see.
But INDIA. As I had read in many a Semester @ Sea blog before I embarked, the first thing I noticed about India was the smell. However, unlike the many previous blogs, mine came not from the country, but from some sort of putrid gasoline noxious death odor that a) WOKE ME UP because it was so disgusting and b) forced me to continue my attempts at sleep with the sheet over my nose so that I could breathe without dying. Once out of the engine room and off the ship, however, India smelled just fine. I guess the best way to describe it IS that it smells, but it smells like lots of different things in different areas. Whatever is smells like is multiplied by the humidity, and the smells I inhaled included pervasive sulfur/eggs, MASSES of unwashed people everywhere (more on that later), masala and spices, and a bevy of other more befuddling odors that were neither here nor there.
I think the most salient fact about India that I found was that there are so. many. people. I know, I know, anyone who’s wikipedia’d India knows that it is full of people and has the 2nd highest population in the world smushed into the size of 3 Texases. But there are really lots of people everywhere all the time. They are driving and cycling and motoring and rickshawing and walking and limping and lying in the street 24/7. This appears to have diminished their concept of personal space, as they seem to have no problem with elbowing you or whooshing past you without a flicker of an idea that they’ve even touched you. The men like to stare you down and the women appear to be indifferent, which we found refreshing (the women, not the men).
Indian women are beautiful. They take such pride in their appearance; they always have gorgeous, ornately beaded or patterned sarees or salwar kameez (a sort of flowy patterned pantsuit, I bought a few tops so you will all see them upon my return), a lot of them have bindi on their foreheads, some have mendhi on their hands and arms, and most of them are genuinely stunning.
I’ve realized that Indians (and South Africans) choose their expenses very differently than Americans. As Americans, I think the most “check out my socioeconomic status” symbol we have is our house. Buying a house is a huge deal in the US, and I think it is not a blanket statement to say that nearly everyone dreams of eventually owning their own house. This whole subprime loan/mortgage fiasco is absolute proof of the fact that getting a house often trumps true financial responsibility. In South Africa, there are people with steady jobs and Volvos staying in the townships, not because they can’t afford to move but because that is their community. In India, there is an absolutely terrible infrastructure, dirt and pollution everywhere, yet even the woman begging on the street is wearing a beautiful red saree with gold flowers and beading. Even the men that sleep on flattened cardboard boxes in the Agra streets wear clean khakis and tailored, collared shirts. I think pride and strength primarily belong to the inner self, but I also think everyone needs something to show the outside world that they are proud and strong.
This is completely unrelated to India, self-centered and self-congratulatory, but I was getting worried about getting dumber as I got older. I just didn’t care about “the issues” or current events like I thought I should. SAS has absolutely changed that. I am following the election for the first time ever, I read the NY times online every day we’re at sea (and not just the articles about Angelina Jolie). I know reasons why we are in this financial crisis, and I have opinions on how to fix it. I don’t know if I care more because it makes me feel closer to my home country or because having my eyes opened to just how privileged I am makes me feel more responsibility toward taking advantage of all that I have, but I honestly feel that I have gotten smarter and more aware as a result of being here.
I guess I will try and be chronological from this point on. So, here goes: First day. We get off the ship with an hour or two to kill before we meet to go to the airport, so Sam Squared (two Sams, they’re friends, we’ll call one Sam and one TinySam), Sam’s roomie Kress and I hop in a rickshaw (the car kind, not the bike kind) and go on a mini exploration of Chennai. We pretty much just wanted to see the sights, so we didn’t mind when the driver took us to a few shops (where he gets commission when we buy things) that were almost stupidly expensive (20 US dollars for a pashmina scarf? I can get one for $10 on Canal St, please). We would later mind these Millionaire Markets (“bazaar” my ass). We would mind very much.
That’s another thing I noticed about Indians. They think we are all filthy rich. Our first rickshaw driver, our “tour guide” (that’s a whole other story that you will read), and anyone who tried to sell us anything assumed that $165 for a comforter was totally okay. I AM IN COLLEGE! I AM BROKE ALL THE TIME. I HAVE NO MONEY. EVER. I worked my sweet booty off all summer, but I didn’t manage a hedge fund or star in a big-budget movie, so NO, I cannot afford your handcrafted silk rugs ($200 for 12”x12”), incredibly beautiful and oh-so-soft as they are.
Anyway, as this was early in the game, we were okay with just looking around. We tooled around in the rickshaw that had been promised to us for 100 rupees for an hour or so, then Sam and I headed back to the ship to catch our plane, dropping TinySam and Kress off at a normal-price market on the way. The rickshaw driver dropped us off at the port and said, “2000 rupees”. 1000 rupees each? That’s $20. Each. NO WAY, Jose. Or more appropriately, No dish, Rajesh. We (and he) recognized the ridiculosity of this monetary claim, and talked him down to a still stupid but highly manageable 400 rupees each (about $8). We walked back to the ship, joined our 47-person tour group, and got into shuttle busses (filled with mosquitoes and hot as anything) to go to the Chennai airport for our flight to Delhi.
Before I begin the tale of our Agra-Varanasi-Delhi tour, let me say that we were completely ripped off. There were points over the tour’s three days where I was absolutely livid at the crappiness of the service and information (or lack thereof) that we were receiving. We paid an exorbitant amount of money for things that, when itemized by us, amounted to about half the price we actually paid. Our tickets into the Taj and Agra Fort were not included, we had NO guides (just drivers who did not speak English or explain where they were taking you, including one who got lost) in Varanasi, and absolutely no guidance whatsoever in Delhi (which was the best day of all, further irritating us, as it advanced our belief that we could’ve done it ourselves without stupid Caretaker Tours.) Let me tell you, Caretaker did not take care with us, and I think most people in the group would warn against anyone using them in SAS’s future. We paid a $190 supplemental fee on top of our already expensive main fee, supposedly for train tickets, which we then found out cost 700 rupees, roughly $15. I am writing them an email asking for an itemized list of where our money went on behalf of the group, along with writing and encouraging others to write…let’s go with “strongly worded” emails about our intense dissatisfaction. In actuality, the only thing anyone was upset about was that we paid too much. If Caretaker gave me $400 back, I would be 100% happy with our tour. I think you should get what you pay for, and with what we paid, we should’ve been staying IN the freakin’ Taj.
Now to stop complaining and start explaining: our flight went off without a hitch, Indian airports are just like US airports, and we arrived in Delhi ready for our two-hour drive to Agra. Oh, how mistaken we were. The tour guides told us that our two-hour drive to Agra was actually a four-hour drive to Agra. Well, the four-hour drive to Agra turned into a six-hour drive to Agra, and by the time we collapsed into our beds at the Hotel Atithi for four hours of sleep before breakfast and the Taj, we were too tired to care, about the drive or about how our toilet wouldn’t flush and there was some kind of strange purple stain on Carrie’s bottom sheet. Mom, you would’ve had an absolute CONNIPTION. It was clean, but by Indian terms, anything that isn’t covered in dirt is clean. I’ve been spoiled by all the Marriots and Sheratons of my golden youth.
Next morning we had an uneventful breakfast. I had toast and cereal, finished the bowl, found black flecks in my milk, and remarked on this only to have Carrie interject “Oh yeah, my econ professor said not to eat dairy here because their pasteurization is weird.” Great timing. I’m still here though, so I guess it wasn’t too weird. We got into our bus and Taj’d it up. The Taj was just as austere and beautiful as it looks in pictures, a huge white temple made completely of marble and inlaid semi-precious stones. We got a little background story about the “white palace”, which is actually a mausoleum, from our guide Ali, then walked around for a bit just staring at it from all different angles. I thought I would be more bowled over by its awesomeness than I was, but it was still amazing to see. It was later upstaged by the Temple Ashkardam, but as we’re going chronologically, you will have to wait for that. It is very white and marbular (shut up, it’s a word today). I really have nothing to say beyond “We saw the Taj,” because that was pretty much it. It is nice that a guy would build a giant white marble temple to fulfill his wife’s dying wish, but as she bore 14 of the guy’s children, he kind of had to respect her wishes. I guess in Hindi V’s are pronounced like W’s, because the guide kept talking about “Wisitors” to the temple, which Carrie & I found hilarious because the first place our brains went was wizards and Harry Potter. We also made a platform 9 ¾ joke at the train station that night, because yes, we are that cool. We’ve started a count of the incredibly nerdy Harry Potter references we make throughout the course of our travels, and we usually score at least two on a good day.
After the Taj we went to the Agra Fort, which is where the Indian army used to drill, and where Taj Mahal dude’s son locked his father up so that he couldn’t mess with the son’s reign. The fort was all red sandstone and marble courtyards and very pretty and ornately carved archways and such. There was a great view of the Taj from one side of the fort. My personal favorite part was when we went to leave and found a small park-type thing FILLED WITH MONKEYS. It was AMAZING. I was seriously less than two feet away from wild Indian monkeys. There were tiny baby monkeys playing and wrestling and adult monkeys hanging out and loping about. There had to be at least fifty, including a few that snuck up the walls of the fort RIGHT behind us. I have at least 30 pictures of monkeys. They really are like tiny, less evolved humans. Score one for Darwin.
The city of Agra seems fairly small but almost suburban, with a dichotomy of paved roads, roadside “bottle shops” and cows meandering through the streets, or a leprosy treatment/study center with a parade of goats running down the sidewalk in front. It seemed far less hectic than Delhi or Varanasi. At one point on our way to Agra Fort, a school-age kid in his shirt-and-tie uniform hitched a ride on our bus- by holding on to the bus with one hand and steering his BICYCLE with the other. It was pretty funny; I got a great picture. In our Agra travels, we also saw a snake charmer (really) and two guys riding an elephant! I was not as happy with that, as they were hitting the poor dear with a stick and making it ride around a city instead of a jungle, but it was still very cool to see.
We drove back to the Hotel Atithi, ate a tasty buffet dinner, checked out, and got back in the bus to go to a bazaar before heading for the train station for our midnight (okay 9pm) train to Varanasi. We, the unknowing collegiates, expected our fine tour guides to guide us to a market where we could buy local handicrafts, only to be led YET AGAIN to a place where they jack up the prices 200% from what they should be. Oh, the naiveté! Fortunately/Unfortunately a fair number of SAS students are rather wealthy, and there were a few that went absolutely berserk buying things. The shopkeepers did give us free soda, though. That was a nice touch.
On to the train! We had no clue what to expect from an Indian overnight train, and our pampered American brains expected mattress pads and pristine quarters. We had to wait to find out, because the 8:30 train was delayed to 9, and then 9:30, and finally arrived around 10. Before arrival, the station decided to change the train’s platform from one to two so it wouldn’t collide with another train arriving (on time) around the same time. Now normally, a train changing platforms means you have to get your stuff, wander over to an elevator or stairway, and cross a bridge to take you to the other side. Oh no. This is India, where you grab your bag and WALK ACROSS THE TRACKS. There was a bridge, but we went with the when-in-Rome approach and ran our adrenaline-pumped little bodies across the tracks and climbed up on the other side. This had its pros (much quicker and more direct) and its cons (the bridge had about 20 monkeys climbing all over it, which we missed). When the dirty, sooty, bug-ridden baby blue Marudhar Express pulled up with sweltering denizens inside cramped berths, we were officially worried. One of the hardest things to get used to in India was that EVERYTHING was dirty. We must’ve run through a normal person’s year’s supply of Purell.
We cautiously, nervously boarded the train, our expectations forcibly lowering with every step. Our large group of 47 was split into 3 groups, and my friends and I were a group of 10, which was further split throughout one train car. Luckily our sleeper car was air conditioned. We found our numbered berths and set our backpacks and bags down on the blue vinyl bunks bordered by cold metal walls. The train had arrived late enough that most of the passengers were already asleep, which added to our trepidation, as we had the snoring of two portly Indian gentlemen in the bunks beside us. I was on a top (3rd level, right next to the ceiling) bunk right across from Carrie, and most of our “conversation” involved looks of “what the hell are we doing?!?” I journaled by flashlight for a bit, and was just closing my book when a noise ripped through the air. Carrie and I shot each other another famous look, this time accompanied by uncontrollable laughter. The man in the bunk next to Carrie had let out a truly formidable fart! It was absolutely hilarious, as he was asleep and just let it rip!
We went to sleep, then woke up an hour later really needing to pee. This might be too much disclosure for you, but bathrooms on trains are already pretty ridiculous, and let’s remember, this is India, so suck it up and read! Carrie and I somehow telepathically communicated our mutual need, and woke up at the exact same time with the exact same mission. Armed with sanitizer and toilet paper, we headed for the loo. On the way there, we spotted taupe-uniformed dudes with GIANT RIFLES STRAPPED TO THEIR BACKS in the next car over. Thanking the sweet god of American tourism that we were in first class, we reached the bathrooms. Our choices consisted of a squat toilet (that’s essentially a hole in the ground, but they pretty it up with footholds and far-from-stainless steel) and a western toilet which was…let’s go with less than acceptable. We went the native route. I can now check “pee onto Indian train tracks through a metal hole in the train” off my list of things to do before I die. We sanitized ourselves to high heaven and went back to sleep.
I can sleep anywhere, and Dad, let’s face it, you snore like nobody’s business, so I had no problem sleeping through the loudest snoring that Carrie had ever heard. Indian snorers got nothing on you, Dad. I woke up expecting to be there, only to find it was 7:30am. We were not there yet.
How did you know we were not there yet, you ask? We just weren’t. Yup, on these trains there is no announcing stops, no waking people up if you know they’re getting off at a certain place, no signs at the stations, just silent stopping and silent continuing. We had to ask the ticket collectors every time we wanted to know how close we were to Varanasi. He said we’d be there around 10:30. We were pretty much all awake, so we sat down on Sam’s bunk to talk, but just ended up sleeping sitting up instead of lying down.
Varanasi was sort of a weird and unfulfilling day. We didn’t get in until 11, and when we did we were received by several small cars instead of a big bus because Varanasi’s streets are too narrow and crowded to accommodate big buses. We eventually arrived at a hotel to ‘freshen up’ and have lunch, and then got back into the small cars to go…where? We didn’t know because our driver did not speak English and when asked, “So where are we going?” would answer with a blank stare. Not even a Hindi mumble.
Our first mystery destination was the Siwa Temple, a Hindi temple on Varanasi University campus, supposedly the best university in India. The temple was pretty, all stone and inlaid quotes in Hindi and English, my favorite of which involved reincarnation. The quote, taken from the Bhagavad Gita, said, “As a man, casting off worn out garments, taketh new ones, so the dweller in the body, casting off worn out bodies, entereth into others that are new.” Reincarnation just makes sense to me in the wide idea of things. It makes sense that certain people have older souls than others, and that compatible souls can find each other. It makes sense in karmic justice terms, that when bad things happen to good people and they persevere, that they will be rewarded in their soul’s future. It makes sense that something as mystical and unknown as a soul should transcend the relatively weak and profane human form. I have less trouble believing in reincarnation than believing in a magical, puffy-cloud-filled land where you hang out in bliss forever or a fire-and-brimstone multi-level cave of dismal eternity. Maybe it’s because as a human, I don’t really like the concept of eternity, because everything’s got to get a little banal eventually, but reincarnation seems like a better way to live beyond your life on earth.
Enough proselytizing. The temple was pretty, but since we didn’t know anything about it, nor did we learn anything about it from our non-English-speaking, non-speaking-at-all “tour guides” (I use the term loosely, as they were really silent chauffeurs), it didn’t really leave us with anything but a general sense of serenity and a red powder fingerprint in the middle of our foreheads. We got back in the cars for our next mystery destination.
Destination number two was the immortal Ganges River. Without so much as a “this is the Ganges” or “Riva Ganga,” we were thrust out of the car and told to be back in 45 minutes. Luckily a social member of our group struck up a conversation with an Indian entrepreneur who offered us a ride in his houseboat. We brought on a 16-year-old English-speaking boy who acted as tour guide (best tour guide of the trip, honestly) and told us the stories and purposes behind the ghats lining the Ganges. Ghats are forms of prayer, and each ghat, named for gods and styles of worship, involves a certain manner of devotion, including yoga or sacrifice. A few of the ghats were burning ghats, where people would gather in public funerals to see the burning and sending off of bodies. Taking pictures at the burning ghats is forbidden and very disrespectful. We learned that everyone is burned but children, pregnant women and criminals, the first two having something to do with flowers, and the third because criminals don’t deserve to be burned on the Ganges ghats as it ensures passage into enlightenment. Our tour was very informative and it was interesting to see people swimming, bathing and washing things in the brown, murky water in which they float their deceased.
Our last mystery stop was Varanasi’s back alleys, to see how silk was made. It would’ve been more interesting if we weren’t rushed through to see the final product at yet another Millionaire Market. We broke kids without Daddy’s credit cards sat outside the market not wanting to be ripped off again. We were in the Muslim district of Varanasi, and this meant that not only were we attracting attention because we were white, but we were attracting attention because we were women NOT wearing burkhas.
First there was a crowd of children begging, but after the shopkeeper literally swatted the children away like flies, there came a new crowd of men and teenage boys just GAWKING at us. We couldn’t go anywhere, as the cars had gone to get our box dinners and there were still people shopping in Rip-Off Palace, so we just had to sit there trying to get our below-the-knee skirts and scarf-covered torsos even more covered up, which didn’t do anything to dispel the crowd, as we were probably the most female skin any of them had seen in their lives, even modestly dressed as we were. As night fell and we got into the cars to go to the train station, we were very happy to be leaving the area, as it was completely devoid of native women and full of shamelessly staring native men.
Our second overnight train was much the same as the first, except much more fun because it arrived on time and arrived much earlier, so most people were still awake and we could play games and talk without annoying people. Less fun was the fact that Carrie and I got screwed out of beds, because the tour company- are you surprised? Another Caretaker caveat- booked two tickets that just said “confirmed”, without specifying a berth. We eventually worked it out, but only after significant anger, ticket-checking and searching up and down 3 train cars. I also slept much better on this train, waking up with just enough time to get everything ready before we got into Delhi. The only problem with this train was that it had a slight insect problem. There were bugs crawling up the walls on occasion, which I did not particularly enjoy, what with my insect phobia and all. But beyond the initial bed-finding issues and the death of many bugs that my shoe is now responsible for, it was otherwise painless.
Now on to my favorite day of all: Delhi. After having to call the tour company on my cell phone (sorry Dad) to find out if they were indeed coming to pick us up (they were), we got on our bus and went to the Hotel Metro Heights, which was nicer and cleaner and generally more fun and hotelly looking than the Hotel Atithi. We ate breakfast, took showers and reveled in both the fact that we had the day to make our own plans and the fact that there were ridiculous Bollywood music videos on our TV. We consulted the very helpful and knowledgeable concierge about where he thought were the coolest places to visit, and decided on the Temple Akshardam, the Guinness World Record-holder for largest Hindu temple complex. At the last minute, we saw two Swiss guys (hereby known as “SwissDudes”) we met at breakfast hanging in the lobby, and invited them along.
IT WAS INCREDIBLE. This temple upstaged the Taj. By a lot. I thought the Taj would affect me emotionally, but it didn’t. Temple Akshardam literally brought tears to my eyes, which I of course did not admit to until Carrie and Katey said they did too. The entire complex is hand-carved marble and sandstone, with unspeakably intricate columns and ceiling design and just ornate carvings on every available surface. The main temple stood in the center, with dark red sandstone arches with the traditional Hindu architecture surrounding it and beautiful green gardens and labyrinthine hedges surrounding those. We turned our shoes in to the shoe guard and walked up the steps, past the carved elephants with visibly different facial expressions and trunk wrinkles, past the black doors with gold-plated designs, and into the temple itself, a carved marble monolith. You could’ve spent two hours in just this relatively small central temple. Every pillar was different, every ceiling section unique. You could’ve spent at least forty-five minutes just lying on the cool floor staring at the ceiling. We thought a bunch of American kids lying on the floor of a temple crowded with Indians was probably socially unacceptable, so we settled for craning our necks for a few minutes.
After exploring the main temple and the surrounding gardens, we bought tickets for an It’s-a-Small-World style boat ride about the history of Indian innovation, which was worth every penny. It was pretty hilarious. According to the narrator, Indians not only invented democracy (true), but discovered gravity “3,000 years before Newton,” correctly estimated the circumference of the Earth “___ years before (whoever that guy was),” and yes, invented the airplane. It was great to see waxen ancient Vedic Indians catatonically pushing a giant steel pill with a propeller attached. Despite its shall we say “liberal” claims, it was a decent use of 15 minutes. Satisfied and serene, we bought some souvenir books (photos in the temple complex were prohibited and we needed something to remember it by) and met our hired-for-the-day-for-only-50-bucks cars. We all went to lunch at Splash and ate some incredible garlic naan and black lentil dal, finished off with a dessert called Gulab (NOT pronounced “jew lab” as Katey and I laughingly referred to it), which is basically a fried dough ball covered in maple syrup.
The drivers then took us to the Red Fort, which looked so much like the Agra Fort that we immediately scrapped it and its unnecessary 250-rupee fee. We tried to get into another temple, but it was Hindus only and it was prayer time. We tried to go into a market, but it was crowded full of intimidating Indians and was clearly not geared for tourists of any kind, let alone white Americans. We hopped back in the cars and asked them to take us to the market, which- can you guess? Can you?- meant yes, the drivers took us to…drumroll please….yet ANOTHER Millionaire Market! We walked inside, saw the mahogany-lined walls, and immediately walked back out. Real India does not do mahogany paneling. We told the drivers no thank you, we did not want to buy anything, and could you please take us back to Metro Heights. They obliged, we thanked them for a day well driven, and headed back up to our rooms.
After a short chill time, we headed back out to discover the markets and shops that were just a few blocks behind our hotel. FINALLY, this was what we had been searching for! A mecca (no pun intended, Indian Muslims!) of pashmina, 150-rupee salwar kameez, saree shops and silk scarves. I bought A LOT of scarves, which many of you will receive as Christmas gifts. I also bought two really printed kameez (shirt-tunic-thingies), one short orange one with red dots and a cool patterned neck and one ¾ sleeved, eggplant-colored one with gold leaves on the neckline. After an unsuccessful hunt for mendhi (henna art), we headed back to the hotel for dinner.
After dinner, we had every intention of hitting up the hookah bar at the nearby Hotel Good Times (I know, ridiculous, right?), but despite the fact that we were the first people to inquire about it, we were far from the first to arrive and it had been overtaken by SASers. We were slow on the uptake because we were enjoying a very stereotypical study abroad experience and had a jam session with SwissDudes. One of them, Vic, could play guitar AND harmonica at the same time and performed a strangely accurate version of “Ring of Fire”. Katey and I harmonized with everything, and even Carrie joined in for a rousing rendition of…I can’t remember what, but it was rousing. Roused, we headed out to our happening hookah bar, were denied, and decided to try out the bar at the Hotel Arpit (yup, we called it the Hotel Armpit, because let’s face it, it’s almost there and this IS India) instead. That was a fun time, Katey and I had a tasty pinot grigio and told our life stories, and then the whole motley crew went back to the hotel for bedtime, as it was midnight and we had to wake up at 4 for our 6:30 flight back to Chennai.
I guess Carrie, Katey and I were more tired than we thought, because my watch alarm did not wake us up, and it was not until 10 after 4 that Eleanor called and said, “Um, I’m getting on the bus. Where are you?” that we BOLTED out of bed, hurriedly shoved everything into our suitcases (except for my bag lock, that’s a souvenir from me to India), and ran down the stairs and onto the bus. There were people still drunk from the night (well, few hours) before, so our sober if not chipper selves were far from the last people on the bus. Everyone made it on the bus and the plane, and we flew back to Chennai while watching What Happens in Vegas, which was less crappy than I thought it would be, but probably only because I haven’t seen an actual movie in two months.
Back at the airport, we were left to our own devices to transport ourselves back to the ship. We hired two cabs, but mistakenly gave them the Port Agent address instead of the ship’s Madras Harbor, Gate 7 address. We confusedly arrived at the Port Agent, solved the mystery of why we were not at the ship, and pointed out the real destination, Madras Harbor. This apparently is not a thing, as the cab dude had no clue where it was. We got out and started walking, thinking it was fairly close as we saw Gate 5 right next to the Port Agent. We figured out that it was apparently not nearby, and got into auto rickshaws to suck it up and have them drive us there. They did not know what we were talking about. A little panicked, very tired, and laden with baggage, we tried not to hyperventilate through several wrong turns and a direction-asking, and eventually arrived safely at Gate 7 and boarded the ship.
WHOO! How is that for a comprehensive explanation of five days of my life? I don’t think that was even comprehensive. I could’ve written more, but I’m sure you’ve banged your head against your keyboard after the last three ports, asking “Why? Why are her posts so long? Why do I feel like taking a nap after reading this?” so I will spare you any more. You can look forward to a post on the joys of Penang and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in about a week. Maybe by that time you’ll be done reading this one.
19 October 2008
04 October 2008
Lesson Nine: How to Climb Mountains and Feed Children
So, I was really bad about journaling in South Africa, and by really bad I mean I didn’t journal at all, so this will neither be as long nor as detailed as Namibia, because I was really great at journaling there. Sorry it's all in one chunk, but i've dechunkified it twice and the internet screws up, so I'm not wasting my time. deal with it.
I really enjoyed my time in Africa. While Cape Town felt very European and safe because you could do whatever you wanted and never have to leave the port area, it was easy to become complacent and miss out on a real African experience. We pretty much stuck to the touristy stuff, but it was a good time nonetheless. I think when you are young and female and white, your ability to really go out among the people is limited because of safety issues.
That said, the fact that apartheid only ended 14 years ago speaks to enormous progress on South Africa’s part. I think the rest of the world helped it, as the US’ big civil rights struggle came decades before (and even before that, Civil War-wise), and Europe is far ahead of the US (and therefore everywhere else) in terms of race relations. Our guide on the wine tour (more on that later) gave us a really honest and detailed explanation of his opinions of race in South Africa, which was refreshing because often people that have been on the causal end of civil struggle (he was white) have the tendency to gloss over their part in it with the “cog in the machine” defense. He clearly still had some bias about native Africans, but he seemed genuinely concerned and a little embarrassed about that bias, and it was nice that he shared that with us, as no one wants to admit they’re a racist.
It was really nice to just stay in one place for a week. We were still clearly tourists, but we had a little more time to learn the port and plan things out and generally get our bearings. It is amazing to be able to go to all these countries in just one semester, but only going for four or five days at a time really cuts down on your ability to interact with locals and learn the culture, simply because- like you would do your first week or two in any new locale- we need that time to do the tourist stuff. Even the tourist stuff is really cool, like touring the wine country and hiking table mountain, but it does take time. If we were in one place for the whole semester, we’d have time to get comfortable in our neighborhood, meet some local friends, etc. but being as migrant as we are we’ve really only got time for the essentials.
Now I will try and go through my adventures as chronologically as possible. Sorry in advance if the rest of this makes you feel like I’m talking to you like you’re dumb, I just finished the kids’ blog about Namibia so I’m still in “hey there little pirates!” mode.
Okay, first day: We got off the ship after relatively little hassle. Carrie and Marcella both had FDPs (the field practica, teacher-led educational business), so I went to lunch and the aquarium with my friend Jenny. The aquarium was pretty cool. We got there just in time to see them feed the penguins, which were SO CUTE. Right after that, they announced they were feeding the turtle and the rays in the “predator tank”, so of course we went to see that. It was pretty awesome.
They trained this 20-year-old turtle to bonk a black and white disc thing with its head, and when it did, they fed it. Smart turtle. There were a few rays in the tank, but one ENORMOUS ray weighed over 450lbs. Seriously huge. When it went to get its food (from people scuba diving IN THE PREDATOR TANK WITH SHARKS, coolest job ever), it completely overtook the diver until you could no longer see her behind the huge ray. I guess a lot of the time the sharks decide they are hungry for the rays lunch, and although the sharks only eat once a week, and sometimes as little as every three weeks, they try to nibble on lunch that is not theirs. It is the second diver’s job to POKE THE SHARKS WITH A STICK to get them to go away. I don’t know about her, but I would be sure I had great insurance.
The aquarium was pretty small, but the predator tank was huge and round and had floor-to-ceiling warp-proof plastic, so it was really cool to see absolutely everything. There was also an amazing “kelp forest” with huge stands of brown kelp just swaying in the underwater-fan-induced breeze, with huge fish and a big school of tiny fish just floating about. I took some great pictures that I’m sure I will force you to sit down and look at for hours on end when I get home.
That night, we hit up Mitchell’s Pub, which yes I know, is a Scottish pub in South Africa, not very indigenous of me, but it was close to the port and made a magical libation called “Old Wobbly”, which is a particularly apt description of their 22-proof beer. We went out to dinner at a nice restaurant in the enormous right-next-to-the-ship mall- I had a tasty but relatively unremarkable seafood platter. Only awesome thing is, the US has only the calamari rings and squid babies, but they have entire calamari STEAKS in SA. I had what looked like mozzarella sticks of calamari that was tender and delicious and not at all chewy as US calamari is sometimes found to be.
The next day was spent in general exploration of the Cape Towny harbor area, just walking around and popping into the odd store. We went back to the ship for lunch and decided to hit up a rugby game that (we thought) was happening at Newlands stadium very nearby. Nine of us (I knew Marcella obviously, and Steph and Emily, my friends from voyage book) took two cabs-yes, we were cramped- to Newlands, arriving there nice and early at 1:30 for the 3pm kickoff. NO ONE WAS THERE. Obviously something was amiss. What was amiss was that the game was not at Newlands anymore, but had been changed to some other stadium near Stellenbosch, a town about half an hour away. Well, the cab drivers said sure, we’ll take you there and then hang out while you watch the game, then take you back. It took us an hour and a half to get there. Our cab guy was driving SUPER slowly and had almost no gas left, plus he didn’t really know how to get there and was following the other cab dude. We finally got there, watched the rugby game- which was SO BADASS, rugby is hardcore- and then headed back to the taxis. The ride back took only 45 minutes, including a stop for gas and a scenic drive through the winelands. It was an amusing misadventure. Rugby is awesome and crazy and violently entertaining.
Sunday during the day was spent climbing Table Mountain, which was awesome. We took a cab to the bottom and started a two-hour hike past gorgeous waterfalls, seriously steep rock stairs, and a few “scenic vista” stops for Carrie to use her inhaler, as the air started thinning and having our friend fall off Table Mountain due to asthma would really put a damper on our Sunday. It was actually pretty tough going, as it was mostly straight up, with slight terracing and a few giant rocks to step on. The view from the top was PHENOMENAL. We saw Cape Town on one side and cliffs and the gorgeous blue ocean on the other. We took the cable car down, which rotated as it went down the mountain for optimum 360-degree gorgeousness.
Sunday night they had 50% off cocktails and sushi at this gorgeous and amazing restaurant, Sevruga. Their rainbow rolls were the best I have ever had, and they had these things called salmon roses, with a little salmon rolled with a bit of rice on top, plus some aioli and roe…so tasty. I missed sushi, and while I wanted to hold back and wait until Japan so I could taste the real deal, this was too good to pass up. Nikki, you will be proud of me- I even tried salmon and tuna sashimi, and loved it! Not loved the tuna, but it was okay, and I really loved the salmon. I also had a fantastic blood orange mojito that I am going to try my best to recreate for you upon my return. Later we went to this restaurant called Quay 4 and partook of a 3.5 liter beer (don’t worry, it was a large group)…it was awesome.
On Monday me, Carrie, Marcella and our friend Sam did Operation Hunger, which was absolutely incredible. It was not so incredible that my camera died ten minutes in, but it worked out fine. Operation Hunger’s mission is to weigh and assess the nutrition of kidlets in the townships, along with distributing food to community kitchens in the area. We spent the morning weighing about 30-some kids at a “crèche” (French actually, for nursery/day care) in the township called Los Angeles. Yes, that’s right. “LA” is just outside the big Cape Town township of Khayelitsha. We spent most of our time playing with the kids. Someone very smart brought balloons, which were a HUGE hit. The kids also really liked seeing their pictures in everyone’s digital cameras. It was so funny to see their faces light up when they recognized themselves, especially because when you took a picture of them they would either not smile or do the no-teeth not-really-smiling smile, and then bust out laughing when you showed them. We did the same thing at another, smaller crèche in Green Park, then stopped for lunch. We had box lunches, but we decided to donate them to the Green Park community food center and buy our lunches at the rest stop instead. I wish I could say this was 100% due to our altruism, but it was at least in part due to the fact that the sandwiches looked less than appetizing. Not bad like rotten, but our pampered American taste buds craved Wimpy burgers.
No matter the means, our donations had a very good end, as the kitchen workers were out and so the kids would’ve been stuck with no food. Thanks to our lunches, we were able to feed all of the kids at least a little something- a piece of sandwich, some biscuits, hunks of apple. The program director told us that most of the time, whatever the kids can scrounge up at the food center is their food for the day, and that if we hadn’t brought our lunches, the kids may not have eaten. It felt really good to be able to feed the kids, play with them, and hear them sing, it was fun to interact with them and I think they had fun hanging with us, too. Another bonus- the Green Park community has made huge strides in the last two years, as at that time, Operation Hunger found over 90% of the crèche’s children to be malnourished and this year, there were none.
Tuesday I went to Robben Island. After a very bumpy ferry ride that I almost threw up on, I got to walk through Robben Island prison and see the cell in which Nelson Mandela stayed for 13 years. In Apartheid days, the prison separated the political prisoners into followers in dorm-style cells and leaders in single cells. Mandela was in a small single cell of his own, as he was deemed someone the other political prisoners may rally around and get organized.
The most moving part of the trip for me was actually not Mandela’s cell, but the private prison complex of Robert Sobukwe. Very few people, even Black South Africans know Sobukwe’s name, despite the fact that he was Apartheid government’s Public Enemy #1. He was a proponent of non-violent protest, and when all Black and Coloured South Africans had to carry passbooks stating where they could and could not go, he arranged for a symbolic burning of all the passbooks in a single day. Unfortunately, what was meant to be a peaceful rally became the Sharpeville massacre. Police eventually opened fire on the protestors, continuing to shoot even as they ran away. Sobukwe was arrested and kept in one prison or another until his death from cancer at age 46. During his time on Robben Island, he was kept in isolation and silence, guarded by two wardens every second of every day. He died four years before the end of Apartheid, and was never able to see that he had anything but a tragic impact on Black civil rights in South Africa. I honestly got a little teary as the tour guide was telling the story, because I’ve certainly never heard of Robert Sobukwe, but now that I have, I am not likely to forget him. After that very upsetting tale, we saw a flock of really cute penguins congregating on the side of the road! Then we left.
Wednesday meant an AMAZING wine tour in Paarl (means Pearl, named so because of the smoothish rocks in the vicinity), Stellenbosch and Franschhoek. This was honestly the highlight of South Africa for me. The views of the gorgeous mountains with vineyards in front, the adorable village of Franschhoek and eating lunch in the best restaurant in Africa (seriously. Thanks, Wikipedia!) made it a super day. It was also a super day because of all the wine. We started off at KWV, which actually buys and distributes wine from a bunch of different Paarl-area vineyards, but also makes amazing brandies and a little wine of its own. Here, we learned how to pair food and wine by tasting foods that fit into broad categories like bitter (arugula), acidic (lemon), savoury (Marmite, which tastes like a thick soy sauce, on a cracker), salty (blue cheese, which I still do not enjoy) and sweet (shortbread, yum!), and then tasting the different wines to see how their flavor changed according to the foods. It was very informative, I learned a lot, and it was a good way to start off because it got us all thinking about how to taste well. Our tour guide was cool (above mentioned Afrikaner)- it was just me, Carrie, Marcella and an older Irish man named Phillip, who was not very talkative but improved in that respect as the tastings continued.
We went to LaMotte next, which makes the most delicious Sauvignon Blanc- I honestly tasted zingy green apples, a flavor I picked out thanks to our handy “this is what this should taste like” sheets. I definitely want to try and find it somewhere in the US.
We stopped for lunch in Franschhoek at Le Quartier Francais, which according to Food & Wine is the 50th best restaurant IN THE WORLD. I am inclined to agree, as everything we ate tasted wonderful. We all started with a bread and cheese platter to go with our La Chataigne Rosé, then I got an INCREDIBLE goat cheese soufflé with apple-arugula (which they call Rocket, so weird) salad. For my entrée I got lamb with orange gnocchi shaped like little scallops, which was delightful. Carrie got the best Caesar salad of her life and fried soft-shell crab, and Marcella went for a huge yellowtail steak. All of this haute cuisine for a grand total of? 75 US dollars. Total. AMAZING.
Our final tasting was at Blauuwklippen, which also has a carriage museum and was apparently not expecting our arrival. This tasting was very informal, we just picked any five we wanted and drank them. They were okay, but I think the setting and more formal air of the other two wineries was more fun and made everything taste better. Oh, ambience.
After that, we headed home on a lovely and scenic drive through the mountains, just in time to hear DESMOND TUTU! He spoke about how “bread is a much better defense than bombs,” and how Bush sucks but has a great stance on Myanmar, and was generally impish and adorably grandpa-esque. He was just very accessible, had an infectious laugh, and would sometimes hop or skip around and get really excited about the things he was talking about. It was really a gift to be able to see him.
The last day was spent trying to watch Grey’s on YouTube in an internet café (I know. I’m obsessed. It’s bad. Whatever.), grocery shopping, and spending my last Rand on a few nice souvenirs and gifts. When we boarded the ship for good, we got a great surprise from a township choir! They sang traditional African songs, the South African national anthem, and were really good and fun to listen to. It really made me miss being part of a choir and a singing group (hearts, In Achord!).
All in all it was a delightful time. I think I remembered everything, better than I thought I would. We’re on our way to India now for 12 long days of class and work. Hopefully we’ll actually get there, what with all the terrorist bombings and human stampeding happening. We get a one day break amidst all the class for the Sea Olympics, wherein I have once again been roped into being our Sea’s (hall’s) representative to the Olympic Spelling Bee. I can’t escape it. I can’t believe it is October already, and by the time we get Chennai it will be the Ides of October. Our time in Asia is fast and furious, with no more than three days in between each port. Woo!
Wow. I wrote this post in several installments, and it is very, very long. Well done you for reading it all!
I really enjoyed my time in Africa. While Cape Town felt very European and safe because you could do whatever you wanted and never have to leave the port area, it was easy to become complacent and miss out on a real African experience. We pretty much stuck to the touristy stuff, but it was a good time nonetheless. I think when you are young and female and white, your ability to really go out among the people is limited because of safety issues.
That said, the fact that apartheid only ended 14 years ago speaks to enormous progress on South Africa’s part. I think the rest of the world helped it, as the US’ big civil rights struggle came decades before (and even before that, Civil War-wise), and Europe is far ahead of the US (and therefore everywhere else) in terms of race relations. Our guide on the wine tour (more on that later) gave us a really honest and detailed explanation of his opinions of race in South Africa, which was refreshing because often people that have been on the causal end of civil struggle (he was white) have the tendency to gloss over their part in it with the “cog in the machine” defense. He clearly still had some bias about native Africans, but he seemed genuinely concerned and a little embarrassed about that bias, and it was nice that he shared that with us, as no one wants to admit they’re a racist.
It was really nice to just stay in one place for a week. We were still clearly tourists, but we had a little more time to learn the port and plan things out and generally get our bearings. It is amazing to be able to go to all these countries in just one semester, but only going for four or five days at a time really cuts down on your ability to interact with locals and learn the culture, simply because- like you would do your first week or two in any new locale- we need that time to do the tourist stuff. Even the tourist stuff is really cool, like touring the wine country and hiking table mountain, but it does take time. If we were in one place for the whole semester, we’d have time to get comfortable in our neighborhood, meet some local friends, etc. but being as migrant as we are we’ve really only got time for the essentials.
Now I will try and go through my adventures as chronologically as possible. Sorry in advance if the rest of this makes you feel like I’m talking to you like you’re dumb, I just finished the kids’ blog about Namibia so I’m still in “hey there little pirates!” mode.
Okay, first day: We got off the ship after relatively little hassle. Carrie and Marcella both had FDPs (the field practica, teacher-led educational business), so I went to lunch and the aquarium with my friend Jenny. The aquarium was pretty cool. We got there just in time to see them feed the penguins, which were SO CUTE. Right after that, they announced they were feeding the turtle and the rays in the “predator tank”, so of course we went to see that. It was pretty awesome.
They trained this 20-year-old turtle to bonk a black and white disc thing with its head, and when it did, they fed it. Smart turtle. There were a few rays in the tank, but one ENORMOUS ray weighed over 450lbs. Seriously huge. When it went to get its food (from people scuba diving IN THE PREDATOR TANK WITH SHARKS, coolest job ever), it completely overtook the diver until you could no longer see her behind the huge ray. I guess a lot of the time the sharks decide they are hungry for the rays lunch, and although the sharks only eat once a week, and sometimes as little as every three weeks, they try to nibble on lunch that is not theirs. It is the second diver’s job to POKE THE SHARKS WITH A STICK to get them to go away. I don’t know about her, but I would be sure I had great insurance.
The aquarium was pretty small, but the predator tank was huge and round and had floor-to-ceiling warp-proof plastic, so it was really cool to see absolutely everything. There was also an amazing “kelp forest” with huge stands of brown kelp just swaying in the underwater-fan-induced breeze, with huge fish and a big school of tiny fish just floating about. I took some great pictures that I’m sure I will force you to sit down and look at for hours on end when I get home.
That night, we hit up Mitchell’s Pub, which yes I know, is a Scottish pub in South Africa, not very indigenous of me, but it was close to the port and made a magical libation called “Old Wobbly”, which is a particularly apt description of their 22-proof beer. We went out to dinner at a nice restaurant in the enormous right-next-to-the-ship mall- I had a tasty but relatively unremarkable seafood platter. Only awesome thing is, the US has only the calamari rings and squid babies, but they have entire calamari STEAKS in SA. I had what looked like mozzarella sticks of calamari that was tender and delicious and not at all chewy as US calamari is sometimes found to be.
The next day was spent in general exploration of the Cape Towny harbor area, just walking around and popping into the odd store. We went back to the ship for lunch and decided to hit up a rugby game that (we thought) was happening at Newlands stadium very nearby. Nine of us (I knew Marcella obviously, and Steph and Emily, my friends from voyage book) took two cabs-yes, we were cramped- to Newlands, arriving there nice and early at 1:30 for the 3pm kickoff. NO ONE WAS THERE. Obviously something was amiss. What was amiss was that the game was not at Newlands anymore, but had been changed to some other stadium near Stellenbosch, a town about half an hour away. Well, the cab drivers said sure, we’ll take you there and then hang out while you watch the game, then take you back. It took us an hour and a half to get there. Our cab guy was driving SUPER slowly and had almost no gas left, plus he didn’t really know how to get there and was following the other cab dude. We finally got there, watched the rugby game- which was SO BADASS, rugby is hardcore- and then headed back to the taxis. The ride back took only 45 minutes, including a stop for gas and a scenic drive through the winelands. It was an amusing misadventure. Rugby is awesome and crazy and violently entertaining.
Sunday during the day was spent climbing Table Mountain, which was awesome. We took a cab to the bottom and started a two-hour hike past gorgeous waterfalls, seriously steep rock stairs, and a few “scenic vista” stops for Carrie to use her inhaler, as the air started thinning and having our friend fall off Table Mountain due to asthma would really put a damper on our Sunday. It was actually pretty tough going, as it was mostly straight up, with slight terracing and a few giant rocks to step on. The view from the top was PHENOMENAL. We saw Cape Town on one side and cliffs and the gorgeous blue ocean on the other. We took the cable car down, which rotated as it went down the mountain for optimum 360-degree gorgeousness.
Sunday night they had 50% off cocktails and sushi at this gorgeous and amazing restaurant, Sevruga. Their rainbow rolls were the best I have ever had, and they had these things called salmon roses, with a little salmon rolled with a bit of rice on top, plus some aioli and roe…so tasty. I missed sushi, and while I wanted to hold back and wait until Japan so I could taste the real deal, this was too good to pass up. Nikki, you will be proud of me- I even tried salmon and tuna sashimi, and loved it! Not loved the tuna, but it was okay, and I really loved the salmon. I also had a fantastic blood orange mojito that I am going to try my best to recreate for you upon my return. Later we went to this restaurant called Quay 4 and partook of a 3.5 liter beer (don’t worry, it was a large group)…it was awesome.
On Monday me, Carrie, Marcella and our friend Sam did Operation Hunger, which was absolutely incredible. It was not so incredible that my camera died ten minutes in, but it worked out fine. Operation Hunger’s mission is to weigh and assess the nutrition of kidlets in the townships, along with distributing food to community kitchens in the area. We spent the morning weighing about 30-some kids at a “crèche” (French actually, for nursery/day care) in the township called Los Angeles. Yes, that’s right. “LA” is just outside the big Cape Town township of Khayelitsha. We spent most of our time playing with the kids. Someone very smart brought balloons, which were a HUGE hit. The kids also really liked seeing their pictures in everyone’s digital cameras. It was so funny to see their faces light up when they recognized themselves, especially because when you took a picture of them they would either not smile or do the no-teeth not-really-smiling smile, and then bust out laughing when you showed them. We did the same thing at another, smaller crèche in Green Park, then stopped for lunch. We had box lunches, but we decided to donate them to the Green Park community food center and buy our lunches at the rest stop instead. I wish I could say this was 100% due to our altruism, but it was at least in part due to the fact that the sandwiches looked less than appetizing. Not bad like rotten, but our pampered American taste buds craved Wimpy burgers.
No matter the means, our donations had a very good end, as the kitchen workers were out and so the kids would’ve been stuck with no food. Thanks to our lunches, we were able to feed all of the kids at least a little something- a piece of sandwich, some biscuits, hunks of apple. The program director told us that most of the time, whatever the kids can scrounge up at the food center is their food for the day, and that if we hadn’t brought our lunches, the kids may not have eaten. It felt really good to be able to feed the kids, play with them, and hear them sing, it was fun to interact with them and I think they had fun hanging with us, too. Another bonus- the Green Park community has made huge strides in the last two years, as at that time, Operation Hunger found over 90% of the crèche’s children to be malnourished and this year, there were none.
Tuesday I went to Robben Island. After a very bumpy ferry ride that I almost threw up on, I got to walk through Robben Island prison and see the cell in which Nelson Mandela stayed for 13 years. In Apartheid days, the prison separated the political prisoners into followers in dorm-style cells and leaders in single cells. Mandela was in a small single cell of his own, as he was deemed someone the other political prisoners may rally around and get organized.
The most moving part of the trip for me was actually not Mandela’s cell, but the private prison complex of Robert Sobukwe. Very few people, even Black South Africans know Sobukwe’s name, despite the fact that he was Apartheid government’s Public Enemy #1. He was a proponent of non-violent protest, and when all Black and Coloured South Africans had to carry passbooks stating where they could and could not go, he arranged for a symbolic burning of all the passbooks in a single day. Unfortunately, what was meant to be a peaceful rally became the Sharpeville massacre. Police eventually opened fire on the protestors, continuing to shoot even as they ran away. Sobukwe was arrested and kept in one prison or another until his death from cancer at age 46. During his time on Robben Island, he was kept in isolation and silence, guarded by two wardens every second of every day. He died four years before the end of Apartheid, and was never able to see that he had anything but a tragic impact on Black civil rights in South Africa. I honestly got a little teary as the tour guide was telling the story, because I’ve certainly never heard of Robert Sobukwe, but now that I have, I am not likely to forget him. After that very upsetting tale, we saw a flock of really cute penguins congregating on the side of the road! Then we left.
Wednesday meant an AMAZING wine tour in Paarl (means Pearl, named so because of the smoothish rocks in the vicinity), Stellenbosch and Franschhoek. This was honestly the highlight of South Africa for me. The views of the gorgeous mountains with vineyards in front, the adorable village of Franschhoek and eating lunch in the best restaurant in Africa (seriously. Thanks, Wikipedia!) made it a super day. It was also a super day because of all the wine. We started off at KWV, which actually buys and distributes wine from a bunch of different Paarl-area vineyards, but also makes amazing brandies and a little wine of its own. Here, we learned how to pair food and wine by tasting foods that fit into broad categories like bitter (arugula), acidic (lemon), savoury (Marmite, which tastes like a thick soy sauce, on a cracker), salty (blue cheese, which I still do not enjoy) and sweet (shortbread, yum!), and then tasting the different wines to see how their flavor changed according to the foods. It was very informative, I learned a lot, and it was a good way to start off because it got us all thinking about how to taste well. Our tour guide was cool (above mentioned Afrikaner)- it was just me, Carrie, Marcella and an older Irish man named Phillip, who was not very talkative but improved in that respect as the tastings continued.
We went to LaMotte next, which makes the most delicious Sauvignon Blanc- I honestly tasted zingy green apples, a flavor I picked out thanks to our handy “this is what this should taste like” sheets. I definitely want to try and find it somewhere in the US.
We stopped for lunch in Franschhoek at Le Quartier Francais, which according to Food & Wine is the 50th best restaurant IN THE WORLD. I am inclined to agree, as everything we ate tasted wonderful. We all started with a bread and cheese platter to go with our La Chataigne Rosé, then I got an INCREDIBLE goat cheese soufflé with apple-arugula (which they call Rocket, so weird) salad. For my entrée I got lamb with orange gnocchi shaped like little scallops, which was delightful. Carrie got the best Caesar salad of her life and fried soft-shell crab, and Marcella went for a huge yellowtail steak. All of this haute cuisine for a grand total of? 75 US dollars. Total. AMAZING.
Our final tasting was at Blauuwklippen, which also has a carriage museum and was apparently not expecting our arrival. This tasting was very informal, we just picked any five we wanted and drank them. They were okay, but I think the setting and more formal air of the other two wineries was more fun and made everything taste better. Oh, ambience.
After that, we headed home on a lovely and scenic drive through the mountains, just in time to hear DESMOND TUTU! He spoke about how “bread is a much better defense than bombs,” and how Bush sucks but has a great stance on Myanmar, and was generally impish and adorably grandpa-esque. He was just very accessible, had an infectious laugh, and would sometimes hop or skip around and get really excited about the things he was talking about. It was really a gift to be able to see him.
The last day was spent trying to watch Grey’s on YouTube in an internet café (I know. I’m obsessed. It’s bad. Whatever.), grocery shopping, and spending my last Rand on a few nice souvenirs and gifts. When we boarded the ship for good, we got a great surprise from a township choir! They sang traditional African songs, the South African national anthem, and were really good and fun to listen to. It really made me miss being part of a choir and a singing group (hearts, In Achord!).
All in all it was a delightful time. I think I remembered everything, better than I thought I would. We’re on our way to India now for 12 long days of class and work. Hopefully we’ll actually get there, what with all the terrorist bombings and human stampeding happening. We get a one day break amidst all the class for the Sea Olympics, wherein I have once again been roped into being our Sea’s (hall’s) representative to the Olympic Spelling Bee. I can’t escape it. I can’t believe it is October already, and by the time we get Chennai it will be the Ides of October. Our time in Asia is fast and furious, with no more than three days in between each port. Woo!
Wow. I wrote this post in several installments, and it is very, very long. Well done you for reading it all!
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