Chennai, India

Our first day in India, I woke up at around 7 to look out my window at the water as usual. Then, I noticed somewhere to the side of our window a few men on a tiny boat waving at my roommate and I looking out the window. Then it hit me… WE ARE IN INDIA!! The country that I was most excited for on this trip was finally here! I jumped around my room for some time, continued to wave at the men in the boat until they started making motions for food, and I went upstairs to eat (ironic and rude, right?) As we pulled into the port throughout the next hour or so, I took a bunch of pictures, mostly of the massive amounts of boats out waving to us, excited to see us SASers pulling up to their city. We learned later that people in Chennai look forward to the two times a year that we visit and that people like the auto-rickshaw drivers actually base their yearly income predictions off of it and so they were disappointed when they learned that the boat would only be there for 2 days instead of the typical five to six days. Anyway, there were a ton of little boats and it was so incredible to see and then when you looked the other way you saw the incredibly industrial port of Chennai up front, and the little bit of India peeking through behind it. We had diplomatic briefing some time later and it was the most interesting one we have had yet. One of the men gave us advice on bars, types of alcohol to stay away from, PDA laws in the country… and then about the current terror threats and the places that we should make sure to NOT go to. Fun stuff.

When we were finally cleared to leave the ship, I set off to explore the city with a few of my friends. Luckily, we had no issues with customs, but a ton of people had complications due to India’s spontaneously changing customs laws that they were unaware of. One of these was that you needed your passport to get on and off the ship in Chennai, and they had told people that were traveling with the ship to leave theirs on the ship. It was slightly disastrous, and announcements were being made every few minutes about the change of papers and documents we need with us. The walk to actually enter the city of Chennai is about 10-15 minutes from where the ship is located, and even after that you have to go through another set of customs officials so we had more lines. Walking around the port, the workers would drive by in their trucks waving at us and even though we had oil and dirt splashing all over our legs and were dripping in the sun, we were so excited and amazed already by Indian people.

As soon as we left the port’s gates, we were bombarded by auto-rickshaw drivers. Literally ambushed. My friend was talking to one of them when we were waiting for a friend to get money from the ATM, and even though we were going on a walking tour he followed us all the way out down the main road trying to give us a ride. We couldn’t believe it! Since we couldn’t figure out where we were going, we decided to ask him for help. He told us that we were walking in the wrong direction and that to get to where we wanted you couldn’t walk because of train tracks. So we got into two rickshaws and started along. I thought that Vietnam traffic was bad… I had no idea that India was one of the most terrifying countries to drive in. The auto-rickshaws are these doorless mini toy-esque cars and they were winding through traffic with tons of motorcycles, cars and buses. It was terrifying. We were driving down one busy road and our driver turns around to talk to us- TURNS AROUND COMPLETELY. My friend kept screaming at him to look at the road which was hilarious. We finally arrived at our destination, paid them and got out but they STILL FOLLOWED US. These people just didn’t give up. I don’t know when they finally left us, but we eventually didn’t see them anymore and kept walking through the recommended path.

We walked through Burma’s Bazaar, the fruit market, Rattan Bazaar, Evening Bazaar, then took a rickshaw to a main shopping/tourist street where we ate an incredible Indian lunch and did some shopping. Everyone everywhere that we walked was extremely friendly, excited to see Americans, would ask for us to take pictures of them, don’t haggle you to buy their stuff, and most importantly, we didn’t come across too many beggars. This was very surprising to all of us. The kids in India are all adorable to say the least. We saw some playing on rickshaws which was hilarious, some sitting with their parents outside stores, etc. When we were walking through the Rattan Bazaar, these two little boys came running at us with these amazing hugs and couldn’t stop giggling. They were precious. Of course, after playing around with them for a little, one of them stuck his hand out for money and the other tugged adorably on my friends pockets and it was so hard to say no to them, but luckily their mom came over and walked away with them. Lunch was DELICIOUS. I don’t know how I have never had Indian food before but it was incredible. Everything that I ate the entire week I loved, but especially this first meal. My favorite was paneer stuffed naan, which is basically cheesy bread (steph) and it was delicious. I also got some sort of corn masala dosai (crepe filled with veggies) and that was also excellent. I also learned that sometimes I have to suck up not liking spicy foods and deal with it. When we left lunch we were walking down this incredibly busy street and this auto-rickshaw driver comes up to us and starts talking and it took us a few seconds to register that this was the original driver that we had. He told us that he had been waiting for us for three hours—I don’t even know who told him that we were ending up there but it was absolutely crazy. People are extremely committed there. My friend and I ended up getting a ride back to the ship with him while our other friends shopped a little more and he showed us this bag of postcards that he had received from SASers over the last ten years! It was unbelievable and incredible and I love when we find SAS connections like that. There was one person that had written this whole long letter and mentioned that she sent money for his family that she had met and all this other great stuff. We wrote one to him too.

We had gone back to the ship to clean ourselves off before going back out for dinner and some shopping that night. When I took off my shoes and socks, I had a huge line of dirt on my ankle. The difference between covered skin and uncovered skin was crazy. I used a makeup-remover wipe to clean myself off a little before showering and one line of my leg made it BLACK. But the shower was definitely the most incredible one of my life!

A little bit later, we left to go meet up with one of the inter-port students that was helping my friends plan their trip with a travel agent at one of the malls. I walked around doing some shopping that I needed (more thin pants) while they met with the travel agent. Then, we went to eat another amazing meal of Indian food before heading back to the ship where I packed up my stuff and watched a movie.

That was my time in Chennai! It was definitely too short and I look forward to visiting again someday!