Of all the ports I'm revisiting, I'm definitely least excited for India. I was completely overwhelmed by the great diversity - extreme wealth and extreme poverty. I remember feeling the most overwhelmed in Chennai. I guess it's a good thing I'm not super excited for this port and didn't plan a lot of travel because I'm limited on how far I can travel. We're having huge problems with our Internet gateway system which monitor's people's usage, so I have to spend the entire second day in port working with our new systems manager to set up a brand new system.

First time off the ship, I headed out with my friends Yas, Jason, and Rico. Once off the ship, it didn't take me too long to start recognizing the port area. We started walking out of the gate and were immediately followed by several auto-rickshaw drivers wanting to give us a ride, we tried to walk past them, but eventually ended up taking a ride with a guy named Baboo who had followed us around for over an hour. He offered to take us into town to eat and shop on his auto-rickshaw which we had to walk back to. We negotiated the price way down and he promised to find us good places, so we went with him.

I didn't remember all of these details about India, but it was very obvious right away that we were at his mercy. He didn't take us where WE wanted to go, he took us where HE wanted us to go. Legally the auto-rickshaws are only supposed to have 2 passengers plus the one driver, but we had 4 passengers plus the driver. Jason, Yas, and I sat in back while Rico shared the single seat up front with the driver and held on for dear life. I'm grateful that Jason and Yas always let me sit in the middle because I get quite jumpy in crazy traffic. I was clinging to Jason for protection, but we remembered that in Indian culture it's not acceptable for any heterosexual contact, so I couldn't grab onto him for protection, but little Yas could protect me :) We had to continue reminding ourselves all day that we couldn't pose for pictures the same way we usually do with arms around each other or have group hugs, it's so different than the way we normally act.

The theme for our afternoon was we were looking for cheap and local, but our driver took us somewhere expensive and touristy, ranging from the restaurant where we ate lunch to the places we went to shop. A few times we flat out refused to get out of the auto-rickshaw because it was very obvious he was only taking us to places where he'd get a commission, not places we'd find what we wanted.

Our first day in port was rather short as it took an extremely long time for the ship to clear customs, and once we did make it out into Chennai, we could only take so much of Baboo taking us to shops that earned him a commission. As Baboo took us back to the ship, we swerved in and out of traffic, the auto-rickshaw able to turn on a dime - almost hit another vehicle head on, but finally we made it to Marina Beach. The December 2004 Tsunami hit this beach very hard and many people were killed. This is by far the biggest beach I've ever seen. Long and wide, we didn't even have time to walk all the way up to the ocean, it sure smelled funky though. People don't wear swimsuits in India, beach wear is the same as any other dress - saris for women and pants and a button down shirt for men usually. We took a few pictures on the beach, but it felt very awkward because one of us always looked unloved since we were careful not to put our arms around each other when taking pictures. Rico and Jason could put their arms around each other and Yas and I could, but when I was posing for a picture with Rico and Jason I had to stand off to the side. We were probably taking unnecessarily extreme measures because we did see a couple holding hands, but we didn't want to offend anyone or draw attention to ourselves. Baboo let Rico drive in the parking lot which was a little crazy, but fun.

Day 1 in India not as overwhelming as I expected, but we didn't really get out there and experience much either.

Usually when we're in port I either head out the first day and travel away from the port city not returning until the end of our stay, or I head out into the port city by day and come back to sleep on the ship at night, but in India I had the opportunity (not really by choice) to see what the ship looked like by day in port. It was quite a lonely deserted place. The most exciting thing about my day was when I got my mail. Kat sent the first 2 episodes of Gilmore Girls, my favorite show!

Since I wasn't able to get off for dinner, the systems manager who is actually from Chennai and just joined the ship yesterday, had food from a nearby good southern Indian restaurant delivered to the ship. We had a hard time trying to figure out where to eat because there are strict rules restricting crew and passenger fraternization, so crew can't be in passenger areas and passengers can't be in crew areas. The consultant helping to set up the Internet system was staying in one of the cabins in the pit, and since the Pit is the one crew/staff combined area, we decided to go in his cabin (which is half as big as mine) and eat dinner.

I wish I had pictures of me and these three Indian men crammed in this room the size of a closet. They told me to bring a bottle of water because I might have a hard time with the spice, so I got my bottle of water and headed into the room and sat on the bed while they served up the food for me. It was this thin bread sort of like a tortilla thing and then he squeezed sauces out of plastic bags to eat with the tortilla. It was really good and I handled the spice with no problem. I didn't even drink any of my water - of course my hand was so messy I didn't want to touch anything.

Day three Jason and I decided to go to Mamallapuram (also called Mahabalipuram) for the day. I didn't know much about Mamallapuram, just that there were temples and people talked about it being a good place to go. We negotiated a pretty good deal (about $10) for an auto-rickshaw to drive us 80km to Mamallapuram and stay with us all day. As we were about to take off, a boy jumped up in the front seat with the driver. His name was Tony and we figured he was coming along as our translator although he didn't speak much English. The driver spoke as much as Tony, so maybe he just wanted to have a long ride.

The ride in the auto-rickshaw was over an hour and took us south through the city and out through more rural areas along the ocean. This long ride provided an excellent opportunity to observe this country which is quite shocking to the senses. As we were driving out of the city by lots of little storefronts with fruit, potato chips, clothing, household items, and other such things hanging in fronts of these open stores, I realized that most of the countries we have visited have much more in common with each other than with the US. Although India has been the most extreme country we've visited, all have been somewhat dirtier and more colorful than the US. Actually I think Kat's neighborhood, Jackson Heights, in Queens, NY which has a huge Indian population looks a lot like what I'm seeing today in Chennai. There's just a lot more of it in Chennai.

It amazes me that among the millions of people in Chennai and on the road between Chennai and Mamallapuram, we see SAS students everywhere. Even though 450+ students went up north to the Taj or other areas, and probably less than 200 are still on the ship, those 200 don't blend in well. I've seen fewer students in other ports, then again, I've actively tried to avoid them in some of the other ports (or at least portions of the port stay).

It is common to see oxen and goats freely roaming the busy open streets. Occasionally you'll see an ox attached to a cart or a goat tied to a tree, but for the most part they roam free. As soon as we got out of the city it immediately felt cleaner and there are more trees and open fields. I keep thinking about the tsunami which devastated this area less than a year ago. Everyone I ask says that they were here and has stories about how far the water was out before the tsunami and how far it came up after. We drove past several fields of rows and rows of grass huts. I'm not sure if all were the same, but at least one was a camp for displaced tsunami victims, and one was sponsored by the Chennai Rotary Club.

We had to pay a few tolls on our way to Mamallapuram, and with the language barrier we weren't sure if our driver was trying to scam money out of us or if this money was legitimately going to pay tolls and entrance fees, but it turned out to be legit because we got receipts for all of these tolls. When we got to Mamallapuram, we were stopped by no fewer than 10 people offering to be our personal guide around the temples and ruins. We had to be very persistent and somewhat rude in always saying no, no, no. We didn't make it very far before we ended up with an 18-year-old kid who was our tour guide whether we liked it or not. I was actually glad to have someone explaining all about the Hindu gods and their significance. Of course I've learned all about Ganesh, Vishnu, and others, but there are so many gods, I get them all confused. I remember one is the protector and one has 3 faces, one has a bunch of arms, one is blue. Hmm, good thing I don't have to teach this stuff or take any tests.

Our "guide" told us that maha means great, bali mean sacrifice, and puram means village, so Mahabalipurum is "Great Sacrifice Village." Most of what we were visiting were not temples, but ruins of various buildings around the city. These buildings were built in the 7th century AD by the Hindu people. They are mostly all unfinished because the Muslims came in and fought the Hindus. They didn't like all of these gods and things carved into the buildings.

At the end of our tour of the ruins, our "guide" led us out a little gate and across the street and we found ourselves sitting Indian style on the floor of his store. Ah ha, that's where he was guiding us. There were two other guys about the same age in there. There were lots of marble and granite stone carvings of gods, animals, kama sutra, and other typical Indian carvings. The carvings were actually very good and they told us that they were all apprentices. To become a stone carver you have to go through 5 years of schooling. Our guy had completed one year already. He showed us many drawings. I guess they start by drawing out what they are going to carve, but these pencil drawings are good enough to frame, very intricate. Their teacher had carved most of the figurines in the shop, but some of them had been done by the students.

They really buttered us by bringing us sodas and giving us little lizards carved out of stone that they put on a necklace as gifts. It worked, Jason and I both bought quite a bit from them.

On our way back to Chennai was asked our driver to take us somewhere for lunch. He started to turn into a nice hotel resort, but by now we'd learned what this meant and explained that we were looking for something clean but cheap, not one of these expensive hotel meals. He turned around and took us to the perfect place. Jason and I both ordered the traditional Southern Indian lunch special which was a round plate with a bunch of different sauces around the outside and the Indian tortilla like bread stuff. They also brought a bowl of rice. You dump the rice in the middle and then spoon the sauces over the rice and make kind of a sauce rice ball and eat it with your right hand. You can also pick up the sauces with the bread. I love eating with my right hand, although I feel like a slob. It's a combination of not being used to eating with my right hand and not being used to eating with my hand period. I'm sure we were about as couth as a couple of 4-year-olds digging into lunch. Lunch came to just over $1 each and that included drinks and this whole platter of food.

Jason and I took two of the faculty kids who were stuck on the ship without their parents out for dinner. Dinner for four, drinks, and dessert was about $4.50. It wasn't a ton of food, but it was plenty and very good. I'm getting used to this Southern Indian style of eating. My favorite drink so far is lime soda. They squeeze a lime in the bottom of a glass, add some sugar and soda water and it's a yummy limeade. We had some confusion ordering because we couldn't tell if they had what we were ordering. The Indian's have a different way of saying yes. They do a side to side head bob instead of nodding up and down. When you ask for something they give you a confused stare and shake their head side to side. To them that means yes of course. To me it means, huh? It looks like they're saying no, I don't understand you. So when they came back to tell us that they didn't have one of the dishes we ordered I couldn't tell any difference from their no than their yes. It's not typical to get napkins, restaurants just have a central washing station that you walk up to after you're done eating to wash off your dirty eating hand.

Day four I left on a Dalit Village overnight that I co-lead with Yas. It was about an hour and a half to two hour drive down south past Mamallapurum to our first stop - the Delta training center in Kadaluru Village which is sponsored by the DLET - Dalit Liberation Education Trust. This center was an all women's nursing school where 17-20 year old girls come from the Dalit villages and go through a 3 year nursing program. We were greeted by the group with flower lays that they put around our wrist and in some people's hair. We also got a yellow dot on our chest. They had decorated several areas around the village with colored rock designs and greetings. The girls, and a few men from the community performed traditional Indian songs and dances.

There are 1 billion people in India and 30 million of them are living in poverty which is defined as not enough money to buy one square meal a day (about $.50). I learned more about the Hindu gods (this information helps to explain what we saw in Mamallapurum yesterday). The Supreme Being, Brahm, has three personal manifestations: Brahma, the creator, Vishnu, the Preserver, and Siva (Shiva) the Destroyer and Reproducer. The caste system is basically built like a person with the Brahmins, the highest caste, priests and teachers created from Brahma's head. The next caste is created from the shoulders of Brahma, this is the Kshatriyas or kings and soldiers. The Vaisyas or traders are created from Brahma's stomach. The Sudras or artisans, land owners and plowers are from the legs of Brahma's. Dalits, or the untouchables are outside of or not even recognized by the caste system. They are often grouped into the caste system by adding a 5th lowest group called Panchamas. They weren't liked by the higher castes because they ate beef (a no no for Hindus) and have been kept at a low status because for many years they were prohibited to learn.

After a good lunch in the village, we had a chance to interact with the students. Several of the girls played dress-up. The Indian girls were dressing our girls up in saris with the forehead dot and all.

Our next stop was the village of Kottaikkadu which is a Dalit Village of 1600 people and 350 "houses" or grass huts. When we arrived at the village we were greeted by many villagers who all wanted to touch us and shake our hands. Unlike in the cities, these people weren't begging or asking for anything, they just wanted to touch us. We were each given a flower lay. A few of the villagers were playing drums and one was playing a long clarinet like horn and they led a processional around the entire village. As we marched around the village, people were lining the pathway waiting to see us, and many joined in and walked/danced with us. At one point they stopped and a few guys did a little dance in the middle of a circle, and then they asked us to come in and dance. No one would go in, so finally I went in the circle and made a fool of myself trying to dance to the horn and drumming. One or two other girls joined me, and then the procession kept moving. Several young men came up to me and took my hand to get me to dance with them for a little bit. We greeted kids with handshakes, and the old women I returned their greeting by putting my hands together as if praying and saying Namaste.

After we made a complete loop around the village, the ushered us up to several chairs that they'd brought out just for us in front of a large cement podium that served as a stage. They asked Yas and I to come and sit up in the front with the DLET director. Yas and I got a lot of special treatment on this trip because we were the leaders. Even though the caste system has been illegal for 60 years, hierarchy plays a huge role in Indian culture. Everyone is very aware of their status in society. When we were at the nursing school several village children came up to greet us after lunch and we were taking pictures of them and playing with them. We were really enjoying the little kids, but the nursing director and other people who worked with DLET shooed the village kids away. These same people shooed away some of the villagers in the Kottaikkadu village when they thought they were getting too close to us. They'd treat dogs the same way and kick dogs that got too close to us. It made me very sad to see people treating each other this way especially when we were being treated so well.

We watched a dance performance until just after sunset. They had the traditional horse and peacock dances where the dancers where very intricate costumes. The horses dance on stilts. The peacock has a beak that the dancer can move. Towards the end of the performance the peacock dance asked Yas and I for our flower lays which he incorporated into his act. He laid on the stage and picked them up with the peacock beak and then came back down to put them on our neck. He had lots of tricks up his sleeve, he seemed to be the village magician, but not all of his tricks were that impressive. It took him several tries and a few costume fixes to pick up the lays, it was actually pretty comical. Some of the other village people did some juggling and kicking routines and a few cut carrots off of people's arms with a machete while blindfolded.

Since there's not really much electricity in the village, we wouldn't be able to see anything in the houses tonight, so they drove us across the street to a farmhouse (not my definition of a farmhouse, but that's what they called it) that one of the villagers owned. It was actually pretty nice, not much inside, but it had a covered outside deck area, another deck above it that was open to the night sky, and a few rooms inside including 2 bathrooms. It was perfect for our needs. We didn't have running water, but they carried in a little water for us to wash up with and use to flush the toilets.

They gave us a few minutes to carry our things in from the vans and get out our boxed dinners from the ship and then we all met on the upper outside deck for 15 minutes of meditation to reflect upon the day. They gave us each little mud candles and there was a larger candle in the center of the circle. We were instructed to look at the flame and just reflect upon the day. It was nice, I wish they had given us more time for quiet prayer and reflection, but after a few minutes we were instructed to silently take our candle to the center and put them in a circle around the larger flame. This was an illustration how all of these lights brought together as one can be quite powerful. It was beautiful. Molly then led us all in a quiet peaceful song that the leader wanted us to sing, but she was one of the only ones who knew it well.

After our meditation time we finished eating our dinner, and then laid our sleeping bags out on the porch to sleep while several Indian men stayed up all night keeping guard.

The next morning was the part of the trip we were most looking forward - interacting with the villagers. They walked us down through the rice fields to the backwaters at the edge of the village. We had to walk on the raised dirt at the edge of the individual rice fields. Some of the villagers led us around, but many were working in the fields. The men were wearing just a small tattered loincloth and either picking rice or leading oxen to plow the fields. We then got to go inside a few homes. They are pretty sparse, one area has a few pots and that's the kitchen. At night they bring out a very small little pillow and a grass mat to sleep on, it really makes you realize how good we have it. It's quite the eye opening experience to see how other people live on a daily basis. Their life doesn't end if they don't get to go to Pizza Hut or if they miss the season premiere of Gilmore Girls. We complain if e-mail is down for a day -- they don't even have e-mail or a computer. They have electricity if they're very lucky. They work harder than most of us, but get paid next to nothing for it. We westerners should never ever complain about anything. It's amazing how small our perspective is sometimes.

The nephew of the villager who owned the farmhouse was walking around with me. He is actually just finishing up college (he's 21) - he's a computer engineer. He showed us his house which was the nicest in the village. It was actually a house with stucco walls rather than a grass hut. He lived there with his mother, sister, and brother. It will be hard for him to find a job in India to get him out of this village because he's Dalit and no one will want to hire him, but at least he has the education and can do better than most.

We arrived back on the ship, dropped our bags, and ran back out into Chennai for one last amazing Indian meal. I can't get enough of this amazing food.

Whew, India down, one day until Myanmar.