Around the World

Spain pictures

2007-12-26T07:47:00.000-08:00

Spain

2007-12-26T07:41:00.000-08:00

Spain was our last port, and just like every other port, it was really cool. In Spain, I met up with the legendary Luca, who I know from my first two years of school and he just bums around Spain now, and we went to Sevilla and Granada, both of which were real cool. I was really excited for Spain, especially because we were going to Andalucia which is where my ancestors are from on my dad’s side of the family.

The boat docked inn Cadiz, and luckily the boat was cleared by immigration in less than an hour. Good job by Spanish immigration not holding us up for half a day like they did in Japan and Thailand. Anyway, we had a big group for Spain, a group bigger than what we normally like with 7 people (8 in Sevilla), but its all good because everything worked out. Anyway, we walked to the train station in Cadiz, which was real close to the boat, and we booked our train to Sevilla. 30 minutes later, we got on our train and we were on the way to Sevilla, which is where we were going to meet up Luca.

I planned our meet up time with Luca to be at 3 at the Sevilla train station to be safe, but we got there at 1:30, so we ate at the train station because it looked like there were no restaurants nearby. The restaurant we ate at was so bad, it looked good from the outside but we went in and it was gross, one of the worst restaurants I ever went to. The restaurant was right next to our meeting spot, and halfway through lunch, Teej of all people (who has never met Luca obviously, only me and Eric know him because we went to school with him) spotted him and got him. It was sick finally seeing Luca, and to my surprise, he wasn’t all grimey like I expected. He looked just like he does in Arizona, and after lunch, we went to the area by the Cathedral to get a Hostel. Luca had already been in Sevilla for a day, so he knew where lots of things were already, so he showed us the way to the Cathedral and from there, we were able to get a Hostel pretty easily (there are so many right near the Cathedral). After that, most of the people in our group wanted to go to a horse show, but me, Luca, and Eric didn’t want to do that so we just started to walk around the city. We checked out the Plaza in the city, and it was dark out by this point but the Plaza was really nice. All of Sevilla looked pretty nice, it doesn’t have tons of landmarks (although the ones it has are pretty cool, especially the Cathedral) but its an awesome city, I really liked it there. Anyway, after the Plaza, we walked up to some river, but I forgot what it was called, and then Luca left us because he was staying the albergue. He said he stays at albergues because they are free, and he described them as places that are government sponsored that are for people looking for jobs and stuff like that. Anyway, to stay there, he had to be there by 9 so he had to leave, so me and Eric went back near the Cathedral and went to this awesome bar called the Texas Lone Star Saloon. We saw it earlier in the day, and we knew we wanted to check it out because they had a sign saying they were showing live college football that night. We both went and saw Nebraska play Colorado. There were like 10 SAS kids there or so, all Colorado kids (since Colorado is one of the most represented schools on SAS) so we watched that for a little bit, then went to dinner. We went to this awesome Tapas place right near the Hostel, definitely the best restaurant we went to in Spain, it was so good we went there again the next night (Spanish restaurants, by the way, were very hit or miss, we had some great food but some terrible food, some places looked good and ended up being very mediocre, I thought I ate better food in most of the other countries). After that, we met up with the other people we were traveling with, but they didn’t want to go out to the bar, so we went back to the Texan bar to check out the Texas/Texas A&M game. It was awesome to see that rivalry game, especially since I’ve been so football deprived this semester, and there were lots of American study abroad kids (but not SAS kids) watching the game so that was cool. At the bar, we had what seemed to be the most popular beer in Sevilla, which is Cruzcampo, and it’s a really bad beer. Guess there is a good reason why I’ve never heard anything about Spanish beer before, its not very good (and as people know, Spain is much more known for its wine than its beer). Anyway, at the bar we met this really drunk German guy named Martin. He seemed like a cool guy at first, but then as we were leaving after we saw Texas A&M beat Texas, he kept on insisting that we go to the next bar with him. We didn’t want to go, but after talking to him for 15 minutes, he finally realized that he didn’t wanna go to the bar so he left. I think he might have made some pro-Nazi remark at some point too, and that’s pretty sketchy, but maybe I just misheard him.

The second day, we woke up and we met up with Luca to se stuff that day. We started out by going to the stadium of the soccer club FC Sevilla to get tickets to their match that night. We were debating between getting the 35 euro tickets in the upper tiers behind the goal, or the 45 euro tickets on the lower levels on the side, and we decided it was worth it to spend a little extra for the better seats so we all got the 45 euro tickets (which worked out really well.) However, Luca refused to get a ticket because he refuses to see any soccer match live until he sees his hometown club, Calcio Lecco, live first (he’s the most soccer obsessed person I know, but he’s never actually been to a match.) Also, one thing that was depressing getting tickets is that tickets were still available for the Sevilla champions league match against Arsenal that Tuesday, which I would have loved to have gone to (and Sevilla beat Arsenal) but that’s the day our boat left, too bad it didn’t leave a day later. Anyway, after that, we all went inside the Cathedral to check that out. The Cathedral is really impressive from the outside, it’s the most important building in Sevilla (all 3 cities I went to seemed to have a big, major cathedral in the city center….guess that’s a characteristic of a Spanish city), but its even better on the inside. It’s absolutely huge, its gothic style, and there is just tons of art and relics on the inside and the altars are just incredible. Even after traveling for 3 months (which makes things way less impressive after a while since I just kept seeing more and more incredible sites), I was still really impressed by the Cathedral, it was great. After checking out the inside of the Cathedral, we climbed up to the top which wasn’t that bad, I thought it would be way worse but the climb up isn’t steps, its just a lot of ramps at slight inclines and that makes going up way easier. From the top, we saw a great view of the city and we reunited with Eric, Swain, Jun, Lily, and Lissette who we got split up from because we had to take 2 cabs from the stadium to the Cathedral. By the way, I’ve never talked about Jun, but he’s this awesome guy we met on the boat and he’s straight out of China, as in, he had never even been outside of his homeland until he went to San Diego to do SAS. However, he’s one of the coolest and best guys I know and he’s funny as hell. Anyway, after the Cathedral we ate lunch and then walked around. After walking around and checking out more of Sevilla for a few hours, we went back to the hostel to meet up to go to the soccer match. We got to the Estadio Sanchez Pizjuan, home of FC Sevilla, and there was a huge crowd of people drinking outside the stadium. Literally, the whole area around the stadium was just people drinking, which was really cool. We got to the stadium around 40 minutes before the match, so we definitely had a few beers outside the stadium before the match (which was good because it kept us warm, although the weather in Sevilla wasn’t bad, it was in the 50s and 60s the whole time.) We went into the stadium and when we got in, we looked at our tickets and we were all second row, how awesome is that? We went to our seats, then we saw some empty seats right in front so we were front row, right on the edge of the beginning of the penalty box, the seats were definitely real good (especially since it was 90% full and it’s a really nice, 50,000 seat stadium, no idea how we got such good seats getting tickets the day of the match.) Anyway, the atmosphere was kind of a disappointment. It was still pretty good, but I thought it would be rowdier. In Turkey at the Besiktas match, all the fans were rowdy, but at the Sevilla match, there is only one section that was rowdy and the rest wasn’t that loud, except for when there were goals, so that was lame. We wanted tickets in what we heard was the rowdiest part (which ended up being the only rowdy part) but it was sold out when we tried to get seats, and you cant sneak in there because they cage off the different sections from each other, but it was okay because our seats still had a sweet view. However, the match didn’t go well for Sevilla, and they lost 3-1 to Mallorca.

The next day, I woke up early to meet up with Luca. However, no one else woke up, and we had an 11:50 train to catch to Granada (we all wished there was an earlier one, but the only one earlier was at 6 AM and we knew none of us would get up for that), and since me and Luca had time we checked out the Alcazar which is a Moorish castle right next to the Cathedral. It was free for students which was awesome, and the Alcazar itself was cool but not amazing. It was still worth seeing though, and looking back on it, it was similar to the Alhambra except worse and much less impressive, but I’m still happy I saw it. After that, me and Luca went to the hostel and met up with everyone to go to the train station to go to Granada, we all went except Swain who went to Madrid to visit his cousin. It was a 3 hour train ride, and we saw some cool Andalucian countryside on the way. We got to Granada where we bumped into some SAS kids (which is the norm, it happens everywhere when you go on SAS) and they told us that there were a bunch of hostels near the Cathedral (typical, since Spanish cities are built around them as I said earlier) so we went to the Cathedral, walked around, and found some hostel so we checked in there. From there, we went to the Granada Cathedral and that was awesome too. It was huge (although not as big as the Sevilla Cathedral) and it was white on the inside (not gothic like the Sevilla Cathedral) and it was pretty cool and impressive, I liked it a lot. After that, we went to a restaurant, had some tapas and some sangria, then we went back to the hostel, chilled for a little bit, and then went to the bar. We went to this Irish pub and the bars weren’t happening at all since it was a Sunday night, but it was still cool to chill in there. Furthermore, the Irish pub had the Bears/Broncos game, so of course I was very happy to watch some football. It was also a Sky Sports telecast (which is a UK channel) so it was interesting to see a European telecast of an American football game (the college football games I saw in Sevilla were American telecasts, they had the ESPN logo all over them.)
The next day, we woke up early and walked over to the Alhambra, which is the main attraction in Granada, the main reason why we went to Granada, and one of the most famous sites in all of Spain (it was the Spanish nomination for the new 7 wonders contest, although it didn’t win.) Granada, by the way, is a really cool city, its small but it still has a city feel (which is something I really like about European cities in general, when they have 250,000 people like Granada they still feel like cities, a 250,000 person city in America is a boring suburb.) I thought it had a slightly different feel than Sevilla, but I really liked both. Anyway, getting to the Alhambra was a pretty intense walk since it was a really hilly way up, and then at the Alhambra you have to walk all the way to the back of it (in respect to the city center) to get tickets and enter which made it even more of a walk, but it was really cool. Luckily we were there in the offseason, because the Alhambra gets packed during the on season and they limit the amount of people in there at a time so if it was on season, we would have had to buy tickets a day in advance, but luckily since it was November we didn’t have to do that. Anyway, the Alhambra didn’t look too impressive to me from the outside, but the inside was incredible. The main palace on the inside was great from the inside, its hard to describe but everything just had a cool design and there are a bunch of reflecting cools which make it even cooler. I thought that after the outside, that the Alhambra would be a disappointment but it ended up being incredible and we ended up staying there for at least 3 hours just because it was so cool. Not only was the Alhambra awesome, but since its on a hill, the views of Granada from the Alhambra are great. Also, a lot of buildings in Granada are painted white so that makes the view from the Alhambra of the city great. Also, attached to the Alhambra is the Generalife, which is a really, really large garden, and that was also awesome. The Alhambra was just great, it was so big and the buildings were all just really cool on the inside, its an amazing complex and it was totally worth the trip to Granada to check it out. After the Alhambra, we just walked around and checked out the city. That night was our last night in Spain, so two of our other friends came in to Granada to hit up the bars with us and they were planning on checking out the Alhambra the following morning. That night, we ended up going to a bunch of bars and they were all cool although none of the ones we went to were packed, but then at 2 AM we decided to go to the big club in the city which was a bad idea. We went there, and the bouncers there decided to pick a fight with Lily and Lissette. They started to exchange words in Spanish, all for no reason, and eventually, one of them decided to start pushing Eric. Then, they started to get physical with Lily and Lissette and they even hit them and tried to slam Lissette‘s head, so obviously one of the cab drivers called the cops and 3 cop cars showed up in literally 1 minute, its amazing how they got there that fast. By the time they got there, the girls already got away from the bouncers, but they still filed a report. Lily and Lissette speak Spanish, so it was easy for them to communicate with the cops. Anyway, they said the bouncers are from Romania and they start problems at that club every night, but whats weird is that the bouncers are still there and don’t seem to ever get arrested. The cops didn’t arrest them, the girls filed a report but apparently nothing can be done to the bouncers for this incident because we were all leaving Granada the next day. The cops were really nice to us but they seem a bit lazy, and I thought it was ridiculous that the bouncers still have jobs and arent in jail since they are known for doing that, but yet they are still there. Either way, that was a pretty bad way to end the night, but everyone was okay and the girls didn’t have any cuts or anything so that was good.
The last day, we woke up and went to the bus station to get a bus since we heard it would be a faster way to get to Cadiz. We had to say bye to Luca which sucked but it was still good seeing him for a few days….he said that after we left, he would stay in Granada for a few days before continuing his travels around Spain. The bus wasn’t much faster, it was still a 5 hour bus trip (train would have been a little longer because we would have had to switch trains in Sevilla), but luckily I was tired so I just rested the whole time. We got Cadiz around 4 or so, where we quickly went back on the boat to drop off our stuff and then we left to check out Cadiz a little bit. I didn‘t really see much of Cadiz, but I saw the big Cathedral in Cadiz, which of course looked very impressive from the outside because it seems to be a characteristic of the Spanish city to have an impressive cathedral in the city center, but besides that, we just ate and chilled before getting back on the boat to go to the States.
Overall, I loved Spain and SAS in general. SAS was really great, I saw so many awesome places and had a great time doing it. I met some really cool people and I would definitely recommend SAS to anyone. Of course, it wasn’t perfect (the administration was terrible, the executive dean of the voyage was very belittling and a lot of the people that ran student life were rude, disrespectful, and unfriendly) and I think the program is a little too strict about certain things (like if you get caught going on the ship drunk in port, you are supposed to get 24 hours of dock time which I think is a ridiculous punishment, its way too strict and apparently they used to be much more lenient about this when the program was under Pitt, but this was only enforced the final day in port, no one I know ever got in trouble for going on the ship drunk on the other days in port), but I still think the program is great because it takes you to so many great countries and you get academic credit for it. It’s really hard to get any work done on the trip, but I was still able to manage to get it done while at sea and in the end, SAS was definitely worth it and if I had to do it all again, I definitely would. SAS is great, and even though it sounds like Pitt did a better job managing the program than UVA does (I talked to someone on the trip who did it before with Pitt, and he said the administration was much better when he did it with them and everyone loved them, now under UVA the whole entire boat hated the administration), I would still recommend the program under the current state. It’s awesome, and we had a really great itinerary which made the trip so good.

Croatia

2007-11-28T16:53:00.001-08:00

So not a lot of Americans really know anything about Croatia. When I told people I was going there, they said “why?” “Why doesn’t the boat go to Italy or Greece instead?” But when I looked up Dubrovnik (because before seeing the itinerary of SAS, I didn’t even know what Dubrovnik was), I could already tell this was a place worth going to.

After going to Dubrovnik, I can tell you that Croatia is most certainly worth going to. However, Europeans seem to have already caught onto this: Croatia has 10 million tourists a year (and the country itself has less than 5 million people.) And most of those visitors go to the Dalmatian Coast, where Dubrovnik is.

Apparently, during the summer, Dubrovnik is packed with tourists. However, since we were there in November (when the weather isn’t that great, it was only in the mid 50s), Dubrovnik was pretty empty, which is awesome. The city has very few people (only 50,000), so when there aren’t tourists, there isn’t much at all. Pretty awesome, because Dubrovnik is one of the nicest places I’ve been to.

Dubrovnik is known for its old city, a small part of the city that is walled in, right on the water, and is just filled with old buildings and churches…..and its just so nice.

My first three days, I just chilled in Dubrovnik. I was thinking of going to Split for two days, but didn’t because I heard it was similar to Dubrovnik, and I wasn’t really in any hurry to make a 5 hour bus ride away from Dubrovnik when Dubrovnik was so awesome (and when the place I would be going was pretty similar.)

The first day, we just walked around the city, and went in a bunch of the churches in the city which were real nice. Definitely spent a lot of time eating, and Dubrovnik has really cheap (and really good) gelato which is pretty awesome. Croatia kind of has similar food to Italy (there is lots of pizza), except Croatia has more seafood (obviously, since most of the country is coastline.)

The second day, we just chilled in the Old City of Dubrovnik again, and the highlight of the day was when we walked the walls of the city. The city has massive walls surrounding it, and you can walk around them, and it was awesome. The view of the city from the walls is great, you can see everything, and the view of the water is obviously great when you are walking around the water side of the walls. And from this side, we saw a beam of light coming in from clouds over the water, and that was really cool:

The second night, we went out which was cool. We started out at some techno bar which was Euro as hell, and it was awesome because there were only 5 SAS kids in the whole place (just the two other people I was with and 2 random other people we saw there.) After that, we went to the one big club in Dubrovnik, called Latino Club Fuego (I like how they have to throw in that it’s a latino club in the name), but the club wasn’t actually latino because they only played rap. And it sucked because this place was packed with SAS kids, which sucks because nothing against SAS kids, but when you go out in a foreign country, you don’t want to see a ton of Americans (except there is an exception to this one night in Sevilla, which I’ll write about later.)

The third day, the day started with me finding out about Arizona beating Oregon (who was number 2 in the country, although they now suck because they lost their QB) which was awesome, I started screaming the UofA fight song as I left the boat because I was so stoked. Anyway, a bunch of us went to this area of the city called Lapad (first time not just going to the Old City) because we heard there was a Mexican restaurant there. We really wanted to see what Mexican food in Croatia is like, and well, its not really that Mexican, and not really that good either, but we still had to check it out. That night, we heard about some wine tasting at the Hilton so we crashed that for sure, it was pretty sick. I saw a few other SAS people there but not too many, and I also saw a few SAS teachers there including the SAS doctor which was funny. Anyway, since the wine was free we had a lot of it, and when I left, I thanked the guy who runs the vineyard or whatever for the great wine and then left (the wine was pretty good, I don’t like wine normally but this wine tasted good. This wine tasting was really funny because most of the people there were sophisticated and well dressed, and I was there in a hoodie so I definitely looked out of place (and there was only one other SAS guy there, all the other SAS kids, which was like 7 more, were girls, so its not like there were a bunch of people dressed like me to make me look less out of place).

Anyway that night we had a really good dinner in the Old City, then we went to the Irish Pub and met up with a few of our friends so that was pretty sick. Bars are way better than clubs, I hate clubs because people get well dressed to go to them and I hate doing that (luckily in Dubrovnik the clubs don’t care what you wear, but even with that, bars are still better), also the crowds at clubs tend to be worse, its where metrosexual type guys go and that‘s just not my crowd at all, but the Irish Pub was pretty good. At the pub we just chilled and had a few beers which was tight. This random drunk Irish guy started talking to us and he was trying to hit me up for money because he claimed that he had a son in Berkeley but he can’t make it to visit him, however I thought he was full of it because he has enough money to travel to other places, also he was really drunk, so I didn’t give in.

The fourth day, me, Teej, Lily, and Lisette (they are two Cuban sisters from Miami, although they look more like cousins than sisters) went to Korcula for the day and that was pretty good. Korcula is an island around three hours from Dubrovnik. We booked a tour the day before to do this and the guy came to our boat at 8 AM to drive us around. The drive to Korcula was so nice, the Dalmatian Coast is just incredible and it was so cool to make the drive…..it was definitely the nicest coastline I’ve seen. After driving for 2 and a half hours or so, we had to wait for a ferry to take us to Korcula. Croatia has really cool, modern looking ferries, and they can fit big tractor trailers on them: we saw 2 18 wheelers just drive onto the ferry. After the 15 minute ferry, we got to Korcula and it was awesome. The island was completely empty (of course, because its offseason and its 55 degrees every day in November) and it was really nice. We saw some cool churches and buildings, and we saw the birthplace of Marco Polo so that was cool. Walking the streets of Korcula was awesome, it had a different feel than Dubrovnik because its more isolated so that was pretty tight.

After that, we took the ferry back, drove a little bit, and went to this vineyard to taste some wine. It was called the Indijian vineyard, because the guy who runs it apparently is Indian, but he didn’t look it. Anyway, we tried some of his wine in this creepy, dark room where he had a bunch of machines that make wine alongside a few bottles. We then walked, and we saw this fire coming out, so we check out this room and there is some old lady just sitting there watching a fire. It ended up being the place where they make brandy. We think the lady has been sitting there her whole life just watching brandy being made, it was pretty weird. However, she was really nice and had us try some of the brandy, which was pretty strong, and they don’t expect us to have a chaser for it, guess Croatians don’t care to chase down brandy, they must actually like the taste. After that, we went to Ston which is a city where every building is made of stone and that was cool. On the way, we saw this thing that looks kind of like the Great Wall of China, but it’s the Croatian version of a long wall. Pretty funny to see that. After Ston, the guy took us back to the ship to end the tour. One other thing in Ston, as we were getting in the car, we heard some car with a loudspeaker approaching. We looked and one car was just carrying a huge billboard with some guys face, and the second car had a loudspeaker over it. This was for a political candidate since the elections were 8 days. The guy on the billboard was from the Croatian Peasants Party, which is a smaller political party. Anyway, it was cool to see some Croatian political campaigning, and the guy gave us posters with the guys face on it which is awesome. However, I looked up the party and they wouldn’t be my choice if I was Croatian, the Peasants Party is socially conservative which isn’t something I go for. And Croatia just had their election three days ago, however, just like in most parliamentary systems, no party got a majority so a coalition needs to be formed to decide on a new Prime Minister, and that hasn’t happened, so the current Prime Minister (Sanader) might stay or he might go, he just needs to be able to find a smaller party to make a coalition with.

The fifth day, we just chilled. Got a good view of the city early on, and I saw the best thing while getting that view. There was a car with a sticker that said TUC, on top it said the Old Pueblo, and on bottom it said Tucson, AZ. I was so stoked to see a Croatian car reppin Tucson on it, how random is that? I wish I could have seen the owner of the car, but I wasn’t that lucky. Then, me and Teej went into the old city and bumped into Adam and these Croatian girls we met the night before, so we all went to some pizza place that the girls said was really good. Adam is also an Oregon fan, so he was pretty pissed that my school beat Oregon which is awesome. It was cool talking to the Croatian girls though, they were our age and we talked about their country. They think Dubrovnik is boring because its small, which it is….guess when you live somewhere for so long, you forget about how nice it is and want something else (kind of like me, because I don’t like New York when everyone else loves it) We also talked to them about the upcoming elections, they said they don’t like Sanader and the HDZ (his party) and that they thought he would lose (he ended up getting more votes than the opposition Social Democrats, but not by much, and either party could take power depending on who can make a coalition.) Also, they talked about how their fathers helped protect the city 15 years ago. Going to Dubrovnik (and Croatia), you would never guess the country had huge problems 15 years ago. The country is beautiful, and it looks very developed. However, 20 years ago, Croatia was part of communist Yugoslavia. In 1991, the Serbian military invaded Dubrovnik, and these girls’ fathers helped fight the Serbs off. Croatia has only been a stable democracy for around 15 years, but it seems like democracy is doing pretty well there and the economy has gotten real good. Now, it has tons of tourism and Croatia is widely considered to be next in line to join the EU, it is expected for them to join around 2010 although nothing has been set yet. Anyway, talking to them was really cool and after that, we went to an internet café, bumped into Eric there, then we went to dinner. Going to dinner, we saw a huge ceremony with kids lighting candles in front of a church. This was in commemoration of the attack on the city in 1991, it was really interesting and moving to see. We then got dinner after that and went back to the boat to leave for Spain.

Overall, Croatia is great. It’s really hard to believe that 20 years ago, it was communist, and that it wasn’t really open for tourism till less than 15 years ago due to war and all that, but now it is a modern country. It looks really nice (I left Dubrovnik and went up the coast, and to me, I can’t really tell Croatia apart from other modern, industrialized countries), the country is doing real well considering its relatively recent history, and it is most certainly worth going to. Dubrovnik is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever been to, and driving up the coast, I definitely saw the nicest coastline I’ve ever seen. I personally really want to go back because it was just that nice and I’ve heard other parts of the country are amazing too…..I’m really happy SAS went to Croatia instead of Italy or Greece because it opened my eyes up to something I probably wouldn’t know much about if it weren’t for Dubrovnik being on the SAS itinerary.

Now, we are in the Atlantic heading back to the US. It really sucks that all the traveling is done with (I still technically have Miami, which is a city I love, but I’ve already been there), but this trip has been an amazing experience, I would most certainly recommend SAS to anyone (even though the administration isn’t great at all, maybe I’ll get into that at some point) because SAS takes you to great countries and you get to see so much in so little time. Going around the world and checking out so many different countries and seeing so many great cultural sites and cities has been awesome. However, I still haven’t written about one country: Spain, which I just left yesterday. I was really excited for Spain (and it ended up being awesome) because my whole dad’s side of the family is Andalucían, so docking in that region of Spain was awesome (even if I speak no Spanish.) A bunch of us went up to Sevilla and Granada and I got to reunite with the legendary Luca, who I’ve known since my freshman year of college and he left the US to travel around Europe, so seeing him was awesome…..anyway, I’ll write about that in the next few days.

Inside the Old City of Dubrovnik
Me on the wall, with Dubrovnik in the background
The Dalmatian Coast
On the rock, looking out, with Dubrovnik on the side

Turkey

2007-11-20T23:57:00.001-08:00

So I haven’t gotten around to writing about this for a while, but the ship went to Turkey and I spent all five days in Istanbul and it was awesome. Istanbul was the first port where I never left the city where the boat docked, but I just never felt the need to leave because Istanbul is so big and I really wanted to check it out.

In my five days in Istanbul, I got to check out a lot of the major sites of the city (Hagia Sophia, Blue Mosque, etc.) and just get to walk around and check out the city. The city was much different from what I expected, it was much more modernized and European than I thought it would be. Being in Istanbul really felt like being in Europe. The city is on two continents (although the boat docked on the European side, and all of the tourist attractions of the city are on that side) but both sides totally feel like Europe. It looks like Europe, except for the fact it has mosques.

Istanbul is one of the nicest cities I’ve been to (and Dubrovnik, Croatia, where I just went to and will write about later, may be the nicest of them all.) Its just very nice to look at, with the Bosphorous separating the two sides and all of the mosques lining the skyline. The city is very beautiful (it looks very European), and its very clean too. The city also has great public transportation, it has these really awesome, modern looking, above ground trams that go around the city and those were pretty awesome to ride. It also has really nice ferries that go around the city and connect the European and Asian sides (the Bosphorous is really wide, and I only saw one bridge that connects the two, although there must be more in other areas.)

Even though Istanbul is an Islamic city in an Islamic country, it doesn’t really feel Islamic at all. Istanbul is very westernized, and you see very few women wearing headscarves (big contrast from Egypt, where almost every woman is wearing a headscarf.) Alcohol is served everywhere, and lots of Turks drink (big difference from Egypt, where alcohol can be found relatively easily, but not lots of Egyptians drink.) It doesn’t feel like Islam is really important to lots of Turks, especially ones in Istanbul, although the mosques still blast prayers five times a day to accommodate to those who are religious (speaking of this, I stayed on the boat for two nights, but me and some of my friends got a hotel for two nights to get away. Our hotel was right around the corner from the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia, and one morning, I heard the prayers blasting from the Blue Mosque at 6 AM…..in Islamic countries, the mosque blast things from loudspeakers than can be heard from pretty far away.)

Turkey is also pretty nationalist….the only place where I’ve seen more flags is America post 9/11 (and in America, you don’t see as many flags now as you do in Istanbul.) The Turkish flag is literally everywhere, you go down a street and you see flags all over the place. There is definitely lots of national pride in Turkey. They also really love the father of the country, Mustafa Ataturk, who westernized the country in the 1920s, and you see pictures of him everywhere as well. He’s also on all of the currency.

Istanbul is also COLD, after going to countries where it was in the 80s and 90s for two months, we went somewhere where it was in the 40s and 50s the whole time, and it also got pretty rainy and windy at different points. It really got cold the fourth night when we all went to a soccer game, which was the highlight of my trip. I’m a huge soccer fan, so I knew I wanted to get to a match at some point in Istanbul. I looked up the different clubs in Istanbul, and saw that I couldn’t see Fenerbahce because they were away the weekend I was there, and that I couldn’t see Galatasaray because their match was late on Sunday and I wouldn’t get back to the boat on time if I went to see them. However, Besiktas had a home match Saturday night, so I knew I had to get tickets for that. Even better was the fact that they were playing Sivasspor, which was second in the Turkish league at the time (and Besiktas was fourth in the league) so I knew it would be a cool match to get to. When I got to Istanbul, I went to get tickets for the match, so around 10 of us went to check out the match the fourth night. The stadium actually had a lot of empty seats, but it was because Besiktas lost 8-0 in Champions League to Liverpool that week so the manager told the fans not to show up. Still, the stadium was two thirds full, and it was real loud.

Going into the stadium, it was really funny because our group was half girls, but yet there were no girls at all going to the match (besides other random SAS kids we saw there), so they definitely got some weird looks. Also, when going in, the cop pulled me to the side because I had too much stuff in my pocket. He was saying all of this stuff in Turkish, but when I said “No Turkish” he just let me go in. I guess he thought I was Turkish because that day, we were walking around the market and they had jerseys for 30 lira (like 25 USD) so I bought one (and I was wearing it above my hoodie and you couldn’t really see my face, so I guess I sort of fit in, although wearing a hoodie isn’t something people in Europe do.) Anyway, after getting in, the fans had all sorts of crazy chants, and we talked to some awesome fans and they taught us a few of the different chants. The match overall was pretty sloppy, but it started off well with a Besiktas goal by this guy named Bobo (I think hes Brazilian) in the first half. However, the second half didn’t go as well. Besiktas got a red card around the 55th minute for a bad tackle near the penalty area, and Sivasspor scored off a free kick. Around the 80th minute, Sivasspor scored their second goal off a counter attack and won the match 2-1. I froze my ass off, and it sucks Besiktas lost, but the environment was still loud and awesome and it was just pretty sweet overall to see some Turkish soccer. Sivasspor also got to the top of the league after the win, but I doubt they are still there. Also, I love how they have so many cops at matches in Turkey (way more than they do at sporting events in America), and they sit out in a line essentially waiting for a riot to happen. It’s awesome, but there was no riot that night, there were only a few bottles thrown from another area of the stadium after the second goal.

Besides the match, going to the Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque were awesome. The Hagia Sophia was one of the 20 or so candidates for the new seven wonders of the world competition, and it’s a really cool site. It doesn’t look great from the outside, but its so cool on the inside. It’s also a really cool site because it used to be a Catholic church, but was turned into a mosque after Istanbul became Islamic. It isn’t used for prayer anymore, but its just really nice on the inside and the fact that it was both Catholic and Islamic momentos on the inside makes it cool. The walls and ceilings are painted with images of Catholicism, but there are signs in Arabic and Islamic images on the inside as well….just really cool.

The Blue Mosque was also awesome, it’s a really nice building (my favorite in Istanbul) and I definitely went inside and checked it out. The inside to me wasn’t really that much cooler than other mosques I’ve been to, but it was still pretty cool.

The area with the Hagia Sophia and Blue Mosque, called Sultanahmet, is absolutely awesome. It has all of the tourist attractions, but yet it’s a really quiet, chill area that’s really nice and has lots of good restaurants and stuff like that. It was definitely awesome to stay there for two days instead of on the boat (the boat was around 20 minutes away from there by tram….it was in a pretty good spot.) And speaking of food, Turkish food is awesome. I was stuffed the whole time because we just kept eating and eating some more.

We also hit up the Asian side one day. Istanbul has a great ferry set up, each port has ferries that go to all these different ferries around the city so one day we just went and took a ferry to check out the Asian side. The Asian side of the city we saw was just like the European side (which means it feels like Europe), except there were no tourists whatsoever. The restaurants there didn’t have menus translated into English like they do on the European side. It was pretty residential, but it had lots of shops and restaurants and it was cool to go there for a few hours, especially since it was another continent. Also, the view of the European side from the ferry was awesome, the view of the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia, and Topkapi Palace (the place where the leaders of the Ottoman Empire lived until the mid 1800s….I went there too, it wasn’t that great) from the water was great.

And one last thing. The last day, me and Teejana thought it would be cool to just take the tram and see where it would end up. However, what happened is that the areas just started to look a little worse, then after a while, it started to get more sparse and spread out, so we just took the tram back. Thought doing this would take us somewhere cool, but it just didn’t happen.

As for bad things about Istanbul, I have one complaint, and that it’s more racist than the other places I’ve been. Most of the people there are real nice, but when I traveled around with Teej (whose Indian), she sometimes had racist comments said to her out of nowhere (someone called her a “negro,” which is funny because shes not black) and the worst was when we were walking to the soccer game. We saw a group of black people walking around (which you don’t see often in Istanbul) and right after we passed them, a little Turkish girl behind us started to make monkey noises while her whole family laughed. Obviously, not everyone in Turkey is like this, but the fact that people aren’t scared to make racist comments out loud and the fact that little girls in Istanbul will mock black people shows that racism is still a problem among Turks. Really sad, but hopefully this gets fixed over time.

Overall, Istanbul is a really nice city and I would definitely go back. I hope that some people there change their ways when it comes to racism (which I was personally really surprised by, no one on the trip complained about any racism in other countries until we got to Turkey where I personally saw it multiple times), but I would still say most of the people are really nice and that its just a really beautiful city.

After Turkey, we went to Croatia which was so nice. Stayed in Dubrovnik for four of the five days, went to Korcula for a day, and all of it was great…hopefully I’ll have time to write about it before Spain.

And to end…how about Arizona beating Number 2 Oregon in football last week and knocking them out of the National Title game race? I definitely wish I was in Arizona to see that, but I would still rather much be on SAS. Now, if we beat the scum (Arizona State) in 2 weeks, we get to a bowl game…GO CATS!

But I am happy I’m missing the NFL this year, because the Dolphins are 0-10. That isn’t something I want to witness…..

Bridge in Istanbul

Me and Eric outside of the Hagia Sophia

Inside one of the great buildings of the world, the Hagia Sophia

Blue Mosque at night

Teej, me, and Anthony at the Besiktas match

Random pictures from SAS

2007-11-08T22:42:00.000-08:00

Right now, I'm in Istanbul which is an awesome city. I'll write more about it later, but this city is really cool. It has lots of really nice mosques, everything in the city in general is really nice, it's got an awesome landscape with the two sides (Asia and Europe) being separated by the Bosphorus, and its just a really cool city to just walk around and check out. I'm spending all my time in Turkey here, and its my favorite city so far. The weather is cold, its in the 50s which isn't something I tend to like, but I do really like this city, it has a great culture clash because it feels and looks like Europe even though it's Islamic and not fully in Europe (and unfortunately, things are priced like Europe, it's hard to adjust to that after being in inexpensive countries for 2 months). I haven't gone to the Asian side yet (our boat is docked on the European side, and most of the attractions are there too), but I'm definitely going to go over there today or tomorrow to see it. And a bunch of us got tickets to the Besiktas/Sivasspor soccer (football) match for Saturday night which should be awesome, it's the second place team in the Turkish league against the fourth place team and Turkish fans go absolutely crazy for soccer so it should be awesome (especially since I'm a huge soccer fan.) Besiktas just got wrecked by Liverpool in Champions League a few days ago (lots of people here have been talking about it) so it should be interesting to see how they respond on Saturday in their Turkish league game. Anyway, I've posted some random pics from throughout the trip, so here they are:

Housing on the Mekong Delta
Sketchy bridge on the Mekong Delta
That snake was real heavy
Monk walking by the Royal Palace in Bangkok
River right behind the Taj Mahal
Kids playing cricket by the Ganges in Varanasi
Tuk tuk in New Delhi
Sportscenter.....Indian style
View of Varanasi from the Ganges

Our halloween constumes, we had to get really creative since you can't go to a store and just by stuff....we ended up being the cast of Aladdin.
Bridge over the Suez Canal

On the Suez Canal

Egypt

2007-11-07T07:03:00.000-08:00

So Egypt was my favorite country so far. I had already expected all of the tourist sites to be awesome, but everything was actually way better than I expected, especially Cairo, which was great. Egypt is a really amazing country, there is so much to see, the people are really nice, the food is really good, it has a really good vibe, and I would go back in a second.

We had a group of seven going into the trip, although we traveled around in two groups and then met up at random times during the trip. First day, we got off the boat in Alexandria and the port was really nice, it looked really new. We started the day by fitting 7 people into one normal sized cab (which was definitely not spacious) and we went to the train station to get our train to Cairo. On our cab ride, we talked to the driver about America, he said he likes the people but not the government, and it’s the same deal with most other Egyptians. People in Egypt are extremely nice, and no one was ever rude to me because I’m an American (even though I said a lot of the time that I’m Canadian) or because I’m white. Some may think Egypt is dangerous for tourists or that the people there would be hostile towards tourists since it’s a Middle Eastern country, but neither are true. Egypt has tons of tourism, its extremely important to their economy, and it is very rare for tourists to be attacked. The train ride to Cairo took 3 hours, then we took a cab to Zamalek to check into our hotel.

Zamalek is a really cool area of Cairo. A lot of the embassies are there, and it’s a really nice area. It has a ton of hotels, a lot going on overall, and has a really cool vibe. It feels a little bit like Europe, even though it obviously isn’t. Our hotel, the President Hotel, was pretty nice and only $40 USD a night, so it was definitely a good deal. In Egypt, they have a policemen and a metal detector in front of every hotel, but if you look like you are from the West, they rarely stop you. I set off the metal detectors countless times and I was only stopped once.

The first night, four of us went to the sound and light show at the Great Pyramids, which were 30 minutes away from our hotel. The Great Pyramids are in Giza, which is a city right next to Cairo. We took a cab there (and cabs are cheap, it was 35 Egyptian pounds there, which is around $7 USD, and that was a bit expensive by Egyptian standards) and seeing the Pyramids for the first time was unreal. It didn’t feel like they were really there, but that may have been because they were being used in a light show. They lit the pyramids up in all of these different colors, which was really cool, although a bit corny. Also, when it ended, we saw all of the SAS trips there (and that was a ton of people), and every time I see them, I start laughing because I’m happy I’m traveling on my own instead of doing their trips in huge groups….knowing from the experience of doing both, traveling without SAS is way better (although my SAS trips weren’t bad, its just so much better not doing SAS trips.)

One note about the Pyramids: they are right next to restaurants. You look one way, you see the Pyramids, you look the other way, you see Pizza Hut. In pictures, it looks like the Pyramids are in the middle of no where, and if you look at them from one direction, it looks like they are in the middle of no where, but if you look the other direction, its all buildings.

After the light show, we got dinner near the Pyramids and then went back to Zamalek. Teejana has a friend from her home island of Mauritius that lives in Cairo because he goes to the American University in Cairo, so we hung out with him after. We then chilled at his friends apartment that night which was really cool, it was in Zamalek right near our hotel and had an absolutely awesome view of the Nile from the 20th floor. What an awesome place that would be to live at.

The second day, four of the seven of us (we were in a group of seven, but we traveled around in two groups because its hard to get around if there are seven) got a cab to take us to Saqqara, which is a step pyramid around 50 minutes away from Cairo. We were able to get a cab who would take us there, then to the Great Pyramids of Giza, then back to our hotel all for 150 pounds, which was a decent deal…..ended up being around 7 dollars USD a person for the day. We got to Saqqara, and it was awesome. Looks really cool, its in the middle of the desert (it isn’t a 2 minute walk away from restaurants like the Giza Pyramids), and you could see the other Pyramids from it.

We walked around Saqqara for a little bit, then we took pictures on a camel, then left for Giza. Here are some Saqqara pictures though:

Me, Teejana, and Jason

Me on a camel with Saqqara in the background....and the arab headcovering

After Saqqara, our driver drove us to a place to get camels to ride them into the Giza Pyramids. These camels were not like any of the other ones we saw, they were ghetto, had cuts on them, and were acting up. The camel I got on was making weird noises before I got on it, which was pretty sketchy. However, when I got up on it, it was fine. However, one of the other camels was not fine. When Teejana got up on that one, it flew right up, then it tried to walk into cars, then it tried to get in her face, so we all thought these camels were no good since the camels you can find at the Pyramids actually behave so we got off of these, got our money back, and then went to Giza. Besides, riding camels up to Giza would have taken a while, and we didn’t really want to ride them for a few hours, we only really wanted them for a few minutes, which you can hook up at Giza (besides, after riding these camels for 3 minutes, it already wasn’t that great, when we got to Giza, only Mia rode a camel, the rest of us didn’t bother.)

Anyway, we got up to the Giza Pyramids and they were packed. We first walked by the Sphinx, which is way smaller than you would expect, but it was still awesome then you would see. Then, we walked up to the Pyramids. The Giza Pyramids have the Sphinx and then 3 pyramids, although one of them is really small. We walked by the bigger two, and at the Pyramids, you constantly get hassled for services. People are always asking you to ride their camel, buy their postcards, etc., it gets annoying after a while, but I’m so used to it right now because it happens in almost all of the countries we go to on this trip, so we know that if you just ignore them, they stop after a while. Also, one disappointment of the Pyramids is that there is tons of garbage right next to them. You see cans, bottles, bags, etc. right next to the Pyramids. They could really do a better job with upkeep there and a better job with not littering them, but to me, it didn’t really take away from the Pyramids, they were awesome, although they felt a bit unreal. You hear about them from the time you are young, and its hard to believe you are actually seeing them when you do. Anyway, we ended up going in the second biggest pyramid, which you have to pay extra for (its 50 Egyptian pounds to get into the Giza Pyramids complex, another 25 to get into the Middle Pyramid, so that’s around $15 USD total for that complex….in Egypt, they really hit up the tourists at all the destinations, you pay $5-$10 at each one and in Egypt, you end up going to a lot of them so it adds up.) Anyway, the inside of the Pyramid was really hot….one of the hottest things I’ve ever experienced. It also has very low ceilings on the descent down, and it’s a steep decent (you keep having to go up and down inclines with 4.5 foot rooves) but it was still awesome to be inside a Pyramid.

Two biggest Pyramids of Giza with the Sphinx
Me, Jason, Teejana, and Mia with the biggest Pyramid behind us

Anyway, after that, we left the Pyramids, and it was already 4:30 so we got something to eat and then we went to our Nile Cruise instead of going back to the hotel. All seven of us did that, and it was kind of a rip off. The boat would just go one way and then turn the opposite way, so we were in the same area which was lame, and the food on it was mediocre. It was just 2 hours of going back and fourth, not really that cool.

So after that, we went back to the hotel and met up with Sachi again, who is Teejana’s friend. He needed us to get him alcohol, and he said that they only sell good bottles at the duty free (in Egypt, alcohol is legal, and some restaurants and all hotels serve beer, and they have some local Egyptian beers which are pretty good, but apparently its impossible to get good bottles of hard liquor unless you hit up the duty free), so we had to do a liquor run for him. Even though he is Mauritian, he can’t go to the duty free because he has a visa allowing him to live in Egypt. Anyway, we went to the Sheraton because that’s where the duty free was, and there is only a 3 bottle limit a person. They wouldn’t let me buy alcohol because you have to be 21 to buy it in Egypt (although they don’t check in the hotels or restaurants) but she is of age so she was able to get him 3 bottles, which is the limit at the duty free.

So after that, we went to some hookah place and just chilled and had some beer, so that was pretty chill, then we went to bed.

The third day (our last in Cairo) was awesome. We started out by going to the National Museum and that had tons of Egyptian artifacts, it was so cool. After spending an hour there (and we bumped into lots of SAS people there, although none were on SAS trips so they were all people traveling the right way), we went to the Citadel, which was an amazing Mosque. Its huge, and it was really cool going to a Mosque. This one, however, was pretty touristy, it’s a really nice building, really old, and the view of Cairo from it is awesome. It overviews the whole city, so you can see everything, and in the distance, you can even see the Giza Pyramids.

The Citadel

Inside the Citadel

After that, we went to Khan el Khalili which is a crazy bazaar in the Islamic section of Cairo. This bazaar had dirt roads, was really hectic, and was a really cool market to see, I liked it. After spending an hour there, Mia and Teejana still wanted to shop since they are female and me and Jason didn’t want to because we aren’t so we left to check out some more mosques. We started out by going to a mosque across the street from the bazaar, which wasn’t that touristy (even though tons of tourists go to the bazaar) and that was so cool. We got to see a really important aspect of Egyptian life as we saw them praying in their mosque. At the mosque, we were both given some newspaper about Islam (most of it is in Arabic, but it has an English part) and then they had all of these books about Islam in so many different languages, so they gave one to both of us in English. The people there were really nice to us and were totally cool about tourists going into the Mosque. We saw a few other tourists there, but not too many.

Many people have this misconception that Egyptians are hostile towards Westerners, but its not true. Yes, there have been some attacks on Westerners over the years in Egypt, but they are very rare, and it’s a very open and safe country for tourists. They are welcoming of tourists everywhere, and there isn’t animosity towards Western people (although a lot of the people don’t like the American government, but right now, most Americans, including myself, don’t really like the current government either.)

After that, me and Jason went to another huge mosque back near the Citadel, but it was closed so we could only look at from the outside. We saw some kids playing soccer there, and they really wanted us to take pictures of them, so we did, and they were really cool and talked to us for a little bit. That was really cool. Then, we got a cab to take us to the Coptic Christian area. Egypt is 7% Coptic Christian, so they are a strong minority, and going to their area of the city was really cool. We saw a church, but couldn’t go in because it was closed so we just walked around the area as the sun was going down. It was a really cool area to explore. Then, some kids started to get all over us because we were taking pictures, which was cool at first. I then got my camcorder out and started to record the area, which I would assume is fine. However, some old guy came and got pissed at me for recording stuff so I put the camera away. Then, we just decided to leave because it was dark at this point. Also, we started to hear bottles breaking somewhere which was pretty sketch. We entered off of a major street, but our exit was off some sketchy, dark street (you know when you are entering or leaving the area because they have police guarding all of the entrances due to the fact it’s a Christian area in an Islamic country.) We walked down the sketchy street for a few minutes before getting to the road, then we wanted to go to the biggest mosque in the city, which is right next to the Coptic area. We got a cab to take us there since it was on the other side (but its okay because cabs are so cheap in Egypt, every cab ride is 2 or 3 bucks, this one was only 1) and we checked out this huge mosque which was awesome.

Kids outside a mosque

After that, we went back to our hotel where we met up with the girls, then we went to dinner which was awesome (there were two awesome restaurants right next to our hotel) and then we went to the airport to catch our flight to Luxor.

After our one hour flight, we got a cab and went to our hotel, which was the Sheraton Resort. It was the cheapest one on expedia, and it was $80, which isn’t too bad because it meant it would be only 20 a person. I lied to them when I booked it online and said we would only have three in the room (it wouldn’t let me book the room for four, and three and two were the same price) . Our plan was for the girls to use the bed while we would just crash on the floor. However, we had a really bad for covering up the fact that it was four, so we got busted, I should have just never had them come into the hotel instead of having them just sit on the couches in the lounge…dumb idea, it was so obvious. However, while you would think they would get mad, instead they just upgraded us to a bigger room for the same rate! That was so awesome.

This hotel, by the way, was so nice. It was right on the Nile, had two pools, and the rooms were real nice. Anyway, we chilled by the pool for a little bit, then went to the bar there where there were no more than 8 people, then we went to bed.

The next day, we woke up at 8 and went to the train station to get our tickets to go to Cairo that night. The train was sold out, but our cab driver (who drove us for half the day, we hired him to take us to the Valley of the Kings, Queen Hatshepsuts Temple, and then back to the hotel) was so nice that he used his hook up at the train station to get us tickets on the train that night.

After we got our tickets for the train, we went to the Valley of the Kings which was awesome. Its on the other side of the Nile in the desert. It was in such a cool spot, and the tombs there were awesome. There are 20 or so tombs, and you can spend all day there, but the tickets only allow for 3 tombs (otherwise you have to buy another) so we saw 3 and they were really cool. So many cool hieroglyphs and stuff in them, and it was just awesome to be in the place where so many former Egyptian kings were buried.

After that, we went to the Queen Hatshepsut Temple which was also awesome. The building was so cool, and there were just some cool statues and stuff inside:

Queen Hatshepsut Temple

Posing like the statues at the Queen Hatshepsut Temple

After that, our cab was going to take us back to the hotel where we were gonna chill for a little bit before going to the Karnak Temple. On the way back, some bee got into the car and then stung me on the neck. Then, when I tried to get it off me, it flung onto finger and stung that too. I thought bees could only sting once, but apparently that’s not true. Anyway, I had stinging feeling in me for a few hours (and I’ve never been stung before) but I was eventually fine by the time we went to the Karnak Temple.

At the hotel, we chilled on the Nile and ate which was cool...view of the Nile:

After that, we went to the Karnak Temple. The Karnak Temple was so cool, I thought it was the best thing I saw in Egypt. It’s hard to describe, but its just massive, has tons of statues (although many had their heads cut off by imperial powers, unfortunately), and overall it was just amazing. It had huge pillars that had hieroglyphs all over them, had 2 obelisks, had really cool, massive ruins, and is one of those places that is just so much better in person than it is in pictures (you can say that for almost anything, but for some things, its more true than it is for others, and the Karnak Temple is just one of those places where the pictures will never do it justice.) We were there until sunset, which was really cool because by the time we left, very few people were there, so it felt like we were in this huge temple by ourselves.

Me with one of the pillars.....way taller than me
Statues in the Karnak Temple

Me at the Karnak Temple with the Obelisks in the background
Statue with its head cut off at the Karnak Temple

After that, we got dinner and just hung out for a little bit before we went to the train station for our 11 pm train to Cairo. The train wasn’t bad, they gave us this room with 6 pretty big seats so we were actually able to get a little bit of sleep on it. The train ride took 10.5 hours, so we got to Cairo at 9:30. We then went to book the next train to Alexandria, which was at 11, so we got to Alexandria by 1:45. We then went to the boat, dropped our stuff off, and then went to the Bibliotecha Alexandrina, which is the library and its massive. It’s in a new building that looks really cool, and is one of the most famous libraries in the world, mainly because the oldest library in the world is in Alexandria (I think.) The library had a museum in it and all of these great things, such as original pages from the New Testament, it was really cool to go to that Library. We wanted to go to the Catacombs too in Alexandria, but we just didn’t have time. However, after the library, we got dinner at this place right near the Nile which was great and so cheap (my meal was $3 USD) and then we went back to the boat. Alexandria looked like a really cool city, its right on the Mediterranean which is awesome, but I didn’t have enough time to check out the whole city, but I am happy I got to see a little bit of it.

Overall, Egypt was just so amazing, there was just so much to see there and I really saw a ton in my 5 days. Egypt was just so cool, and I would love to go back there, it’s just a really awesome place (and much safer for tourists than people think.)

India pictures

2007-10-26T22:09:00.000-07:00

People bathing in the Ganges

Cow roaming through the markets in Varanasi

Me, Chris, and some Indian guys at the Taj

Me at the Taj

The internet here is being slow and isn't working well, so I'll just put up more pictures when I'm in Egypt.

India

2007-10-25T21:38:00.000-07:00

After being in Asia for a month, we finally went to the country that was by far the most different of any place I have ever been. India is a lot of things that are pretty bad: dirty, poor, overpopulated, and chaotic, but it’s still a great place and going there was one of the best things I’ve ever experienced.

Before going on SAS, I saw a trip (not offered through SAS) on facebook that looked like way too good a deal to pass up. For $690 (including all hotels, flights, and transportation), someone was putting together a trip that would go to Agra, Varanasi, and Delhi, something SAS offers for $1550. I thought I had to do it, especially for that price. As a result, I didn’t travel with the people I normally travel with (except for one, Chris, who I traveled with in Japan for 2 days), but it was still an absolutely awesome trip.

The trip started out by everyone going to the airport in Chennai for our flight to Delhi. This flight was my only flight in India that wasn’t late. In India, almost every flight is late, and they never give you a warning that the flight is late. Instead, they just tell you when the plane is ready for boarding. Anyway, after we landed in Delhi, we had a bus ride to Agra. We left the airport at 9:30 PM for Agra, and there was still traffic all over Delhi. We ended up not even getting to Agra until 3 AM, making it a 4.5 hour trip late at night (we stopped for food for an hour)…..that drive must really suck during the day when the traffic is even worse.

Agra is known for one thing….the Taj Mahal. There isn’t really anything else there (besides the Agra Fort, which was cool), but Agra was still awesome just because of the Taj. It’s an ugly city, but the Taj was just so great, after I saw it, I was already satisfied with my whole India trip. It was even better than I thought it would be.

To get into the Taj, Indians have to pay 10 rupees but foreigners have to pay 750, which is almost $20 USD. India can get away with that though, so I don’t blame them. We went in around 2 PM, just 3 of us, and it was funny because inside the gates, lots of Indians kept wanting to take pictures with us like we were celebrities or something….that was something that had never happened to me on the trip, the only time I saw something else like that was at the Tsingtao Brewery in Qingdao when random Chinese people kept wanting pictures with the girls we were with (but not the guys). The Taj was packed, but there weren’t lots of foreign tourists there, it was almost all Indians. We entered, saw the Taj from a distance, kept walking towards it, kept stopping for pictures on the way (and took lots of pictures with Indians), then we went inside. You can’t take pictures inside, but all that’s inside are a few rooms and a tomb. The Taj Mahal was built in the 1600s by a king for his wife who died, its her burial site. Also, the south, east, and west sides of the Taj are all really nice and green, but the north side is just a river with some cows roaming around. However, it seems like lots of important sites in India are built on rivers.

Agra was the first place I ever saw cows just roam around the streets. And there were a bunch of monkeys just chillin at the Agra Fort. Things like this are the norm in India, I saw cows roam around every city I was in except Chennai (yes, I even saw a few cows roaming through Delhi.)

After our one day in Agra, we went to the train station for our overnight sleeper train to Varanasi. We had the “first class” accommodation, which doesn’t exactly meet American first class standards but is bearable. Most of the people seemed scared of the train, especially after it rolled by and they saw the other sections of the train (which are just tons of people standing on top of each other) first, but I was excited. Not everyone gets to experience an Indian train, especially an overnight one, so I thought it would be cool.

In our car, everyone was assigned to an area, and not everyone was near each other. The train was just a bunch of “beds” to sleep on, there were 3 levels of them, and everyone got sheets and stuff. The sheets came folded, so it looked like they were washed, but at the end of the ride, they just fold up the sheets you use and put them back, so clearly they aren’t washed (not surprising, since India is incredibly unsanitary.) I was able to sleep on the train though for 6 hours, so that wasn’t that bad. I was surrounded by Indian people too in my area, so that was interesting too. It ended up being a 15 hour train ride to Varanasi, so it was only 3 hours longer than it was supposed to be. And the toilet on the train was the most ghetto thing ever, it was just a hole that went to the bottom of the train tracks and there is a sign saying not to use it unless the train is moving. So great. But the train ride was cool just because it was such a different kind of experience.

Anyway, at noon we got to Varanasi. Varanasi is the oldest city in the world, the dirtiest place I’ve ever been, and it’s the most holy of the Hindu holy sites. We had a bus pick us up and take us to the hotel…during this you could tell how bad the traffic in Varanasi is, the bus could barely move. And the streets there clearly aren’t designed for buses, not shocking since the city has been around for over 2500 years.

We had the whole day to ourselves so me and Chris decided to head down to the River Ganges and check out the area down there. The River Ganges is really important to the people in Varanasi and in the Hindu religion. People bathe in the Ganges to cleanse themselves from sin. Also, there is a part of the Ganges where they burn dead bodies (which I’ll explain later.)

We went out into the hectic streets of Varanasi where every guy was trying to give us a ride on a rickshaw (which is a carriage attached to a bicycle.) However, we wanted a tuk tuk (picture at the end) which is automated (so its faster) and really fun to ride (I had already taken them in Agra and Bangkok) so we got one and went down to the Ganges.

On the way down, we really got to experience Varanasi traffic, with the tons of rickshaws, along with motorbikes, tuk tuks, cows, and the occasional car. Agra and Varanasi both have very few cars, less than any place I‘ve ever been, which is a good indicator of the poverty in those two places. Anyway, we got down near the Ganges and then walked around the markets near the Ganges. In this area, there are lots of military guys with guns, they are all over India, more than I’ve seen in any other country (which surprised me, I would expect it more in places like China or Vietnam.) There were military guys with guns right in front of our boat, walking around the hotel….they were pretty common in certain areas. Anyway, after we walked around the markets (of course, cows can be seen all over these, too, just walking right in front of shops), we walked down to the Ganges. When we approached it, there was a staircase with some goats on it, some monkeys right near it, and some cows at the top. These animals really are all over the place, even in the cities. Anyway, at the bottom of the staircase, there were some kids playing India’s most popular sport, cricket, so we watched them for a little bit until we started walking around the Ganges.

We walked around the Ganges for a little bit, then approached the spot where they burn the bodies. In the Hindu religion, if you can afford to, you are supposed to take the dead to Varanasi, burn their body there, and then take the ashes and dump them in the Ganges. By doing this, you are cleansing the person of the sins they committed in their life. Everyone who dies after the age of 13 has sinned according to Hindu religion and is supposed to be burned when they die. The only exception to this are holy men. Holy men, along with people who die under the age of 13, have not sinned and as a result, are not to be burned and when they die, you are supposed to attach a rock to them and dump their body in the river.

At the place where they burn bodies, what they do is cover the body, then they put it on a pile of logs, then they pile some more logs on top of it, then burn it. It’s a pretty intense site. The guy following us said we could go up to the top of a building to see a great view. We were skeptical at first, but then we saw a bunch of tourists at the top of a terrace so we figured we would hit it up. He took us to some hospice right next to the burning site and we went to the top of that to check out the burning. We were first at the second highest level, but the fumes were so bad we had to go up even more. We went to the way top, and we were right above the burning site. There were around 15 or so fires going on with burning bodies (btw, we heard they don’t burn those with diseases, so that was good, because you wouldn’t want to be anywhere near those fumes) and in one of them, we could see legs sticking out of the fire, it was gross.

After that intense site, we left and walked back to where the kids were playing cricket on the Ganges. Then, we walked down even further in that direction, where there was a sketchy market. Random Indian men kept trying to shake our hands, but they were just doing it because then they would try to start massaging your hands and then try to give you a massage. No thanks, my massage from a male in Thailand was more than enough, I wasn’t looking for that to happen again. Anyway, after the sketchy market, we walked back up to the streets, and they were packed. It was chaotic, and the weirdest site we saw was when we saw some huge crowd marching, chanting, and then they were carrying these weird statues that had covered faces. I was really wondering what that was supposed to be (Crowds chanting, marching and playing instruments were common in Varanasi, although I have no idea what the purpose of any of them were.) Then, we found a rickshaw, went to the hotel, had dinner, watched some cricket on TV because that’s what they do in India (and India beat Australia, which was a big deal), and then went to bed early since I was exhausted.

The next day, we all woke up at 5:30 for a sunrise tour of the Ganges. This was really awesome, one of the best parts of my trip. We got in a little boat, all 25 of us, and just went down the Ganges for an hour and a half. I pretty much saw all of the things I saw the day before….people doing laundry, people bathing in the Ganges, the burning site, but it was just cool to see it while floating on the Ganges. Also, we also heard more of those random crowds going to the Ganges banging loud drums and just marching. Also, one really interesting thing about the Ganges is that one side of it is Varanasi, the oldest city in the world, but the other side is nothing. And the Ganges gets really flooded during the monsoon, so when we were there, the other side of the Ganges was just sand, but during the monsoon, that gets covered up, but its still just forest on the other side after the sand.

In India, one thing that is entrenched in the society is something called the Caste System. The Caste System is this system that has been in place in India for generations that essentially ranks people in society based on their family. The Caste System is used to discriminate against people and in many parts of India, it is very hard or impossible for people to be successful if they are in a lower Caste. One thing Mohatma Gandhi is especially known for (well, besides the whole non-violent resistance/Indian independence thing) is that he was strongly against the Caste System. However, even though Mohatma Gandhi was against the Caste System, it is still in place in India today. The place where I noticed the Caste System most was the Ganges. You would see people doing laundry, and it would be in the area for the “lower Castes.” Also, only people from the Brahmin Caste (the highest Caste) are allowed to be priests, so if you are not born into that Caste, you can’t be a priest in the Hindu religion.

All of the people I talked to at the Ganges about the Caste System (which was only a few, so obviously they don’t speak for everyone) are strongly against it. They see it the same way I do, as institutionalized segregation. However, it still lives on in India, although opinions are mixed over how much of an impact it has on people….apparently the Caste System means more in some parts of India than it does in others, I’ve heard that in many areas, its impossible for anyone to be successful if they are in a lower Caste, but I don’t think that’s true in all areas. I got the vibe that in bigger cities, the Caste System is less important, but to me, I still think it’s a terrible system because it separates people and says that some are above others due to who their parents are.

Anyway, after seeing the amazing site that was the Ganges (all in all, its too hard to describe what going there was like), we went back to the hotel and got some breakfast. Then, I walked around, called home, then we had lunch and went to the airport for our flight to Delhi. In the end, we were only in Varanasi for 24 hours, but the city was awesome, it was really cool experiencing the Hindu holy site and seeing all of the chaos and the random groups chanting in the city. It took an hour to get to the airport, and the airport in Varanasi was by far the most ghetto airport I’ve ever been to, it was great. At the airport, we walked up this one staircase thinking it was the one to go to the restaurant, but after going up 2 flights of stairs, we saw some random Indians down a hallway but no restaurants. They looked at us for like 10 seconds, we thought that was weird, and then they told us that the staircase lead to the air traffic control center and not the restaurant. That’s great, if they weren’t there, we would have ended up at the top of the control tower, great security they have at the Varanasi airport. Also, when our plane was boarding (they have 2 gates, but its people waiting for 10 flights, they just say when they are boarding and then buses come to board the flight), they put the wrong flight number on the board. Classic. We only knew it was our flight because someone asked and they said it was our flight.

When we got to New Delhi, we checked into our hotel, which was the nicest of the trip, then we had dinner and went to the city center. We went around looking for a bar, but almost all of them close at 11. Also, one thing that’s really funny is that at the bars in New Delhi, the menus all say that they won’t serve you unless you are 25, but luckily they will. We walked around, then found one bar that looked nice, but there were only 7 people there. Guess the city center isn’t a good spot for bars, even though there are a bunch of them and our tour guide said it was the best area for it. However, one thing about drinking in India: alcohol is much harder to find there than it is in any of the other countries we went to. In the other countries, alcohol is everywhere, but that’s not the case in India. There aren’t lots of bars, and it seemed like lots of restaurants don’t serve it. It’s available, and not impossible to find, but its not in your face like it is in China or Thailand where beer is everywhere. And Kingfisher is a very good beer, by the way, but only if it’s the lighter version. The dark version is terrible.

The last day, we left the hotel at 7:30 for our flight to Chennai. Our flight left around 11:30, we landed around 2 or so, and we were back on the boat at 3. Then, me and Chris went to check out a little bit of Chennai but we ended up just going to where the mall was and then just walking around that area. Chennai’s pollution was absolutely terrible though, the worst of any city I‘ve ever been to, riding in a tuk tuk around the city, you could taste the air, and it tasted absolutely terrible. After just walking around Chennai, we got back on the boat and that was it for India.

Overall, I loved my time in India. It was definitely an experience going to a country like that since its so different, but it was great. I got to see two awesome sites, the Taj Mahal and the River Ganges in Varanasi, and I just had a great time overall. Some people didn’t like it because it was too dirty and poor (and it most certainly was both of these things, it was the dirtiest country I’ve ever been to by far, and that includes Cambodia), but I thought it was a great and really interesting place to visit and I would definitely go back.

And next up is Egypt. We dock in Alexandria…we are definitely going to check that and Cairo out (along with the Pyramids and Sphinx right near Cairo) and we may also head to Luxor to check out the Valley of the Kings. There is a ton to see in Egypt, most certainly not enough for 5 days, and I’m really excited to check it out (especially since by the time we will get there, I will have been stuck on a boat for 10 days.)

I'm trying to put pictures on right now, but the internet on the boat isn't working well so I don't think they are uploading so I will try again later today.

Vietnam/Thailand pictures

2007-10-14T09:56:00.001-07:00

Saigon

Floating Market on the Mekong Delta

Mekong Delta

Thailand pics:

Beach on the desolate island that we went to on our four island snorkeling tour

Beach on Ko Chang

Lying Buddha at Wat Pho Temple in Bangkok

Golden Mount in Bangkok

Guy sleeping on a bench in Bangkok

Me at the Grand Palace complex in Bangkok

Our group at the Grand Palace complex

The Grand Palace

Thailand

2007-10-12T19:52:00.000-07:00

So I’ve decided that Thailand is almost the perfect country for tourism. It’s a great country that’s easy to get around, is cheap, really nice, has great weather, is safe, has awesome beaches, a ton to see, and has the best food on the planet. Thailand does have its downsides: its sex industry is huge, the country is a military junta for the time being (although apparently democracy is returning soon), and its poor, but it is still a great country to visit (and it was wealthier than Vietnam and Cambodia, at least.) It was probably my favorite country so far…..I just loved everything about it (except the sex trade.)

Some observations:

1. The picture of the king is everywhere. And don’t say anything bad about him, because you will go to jail.

2. I heard that in Thailand, the national anthem is played twice a day and everyone freezes during it and that was something I really wanted to see. However, I didn’t hear it in Pattaya or Ko Chang. I heard it my last day in Bangkok at 8 AM, but I was still in bed so I didn’t get to see everyone freeze.

3. The sex trade there is terrible. There are prostitutes all over the place, and tons of transgenders too. The sex trade is the worst thing about Thailand as a tourist, by far.

4. The country isn’t rich, but they have a really good transportation network. It’s easy to get around. And the really cheap cabs are great (just like the rest of Asia, I‘m talking 1-2 dollars for a 10 minute cab ride, and in our case, always 3-4 people in the cab, so think about how much that costs a person), although in Bangkok they sometimes try not to turn on the meter which is obnoxious, but you just don’t get in if they won’t turn it on.

5. Most expensive Pad Thai was 60 baht. And I ate it at least once a day, if not twice.

6. Chang is a crappy beer. Singha is better.

7. Thai language is tonal, so its very difficult. Took me a while to learn how to pronounce thank you in Thai.

8. Great beaches, but the water in Ko Chang wasn’t as clear as I thought. Now, my trip:

The first day, it took forever to get off the boat because Thai immigration took 5.5 hours to clear the ship. By 2, however, we were off. The ship docked at Laem Chabang, a port city 2 hours away from Bangkok. The night before, me and two other guys came up with the plan to go to an island called Ko Chang which is near Cambodia. We were debating for a while which beach town to go to, but we decided on Ko Chang because it’s a bus ride away (as opposed to a plane), looked really nice, and isn’t as touristy (or trashy) as some of the beach towns near Bangkok.

Since we got off the boat so late and knew we wouldn’t be able to get to Ko Chang that day, we decided to go to the closest city to the dock, Pattaya. We didn’t really want to go there, but we figured it would be the easiest way to get to Ko Chang, and we were only going to go for half a day anyway. Pattaya was absolutely terrible, don’t ever go there. The city is a beach town, which is obviously good, but its way too developed and the whole city is filled with old men and prostitutes. However, when we got there, we were able to get some good food (and the food in Thailand is great, I didn’t have a bad meal till my last day…the food tastes a lot like American thai food but was a little better most of the time) and get a minibus to take us to Ko Chang the next day (there was no public bus from Pattaya to Ko Chang) that would cost only 450 baht a person (which is around 15 bucks) so that wasn’t a bad deal. We got a hotel for 800 baht for the 3 of us and we all went to bed early because we were tired (even though we didn’t really do anything all day) and because we had to be up at 7:30 the next day for our bus.

We got up early for our 3.5 hour bus ride to Laem Ngop, where we would catch the ferry to Ko Chang. Just like in other Asian countries (minus Japan), the driver was absolutely crazy….he would drive in the shoulder, cut off cars going in the other direction…pretty much, he would do anything to get us to Laem Ngop as fast as possible, but that’s the norm in most Asian countries. Also, on the way, I noticed that there are pictures of the King everywhere on the road. I’ve heard that the King is very loved and respected, but the people don’t really have a choice since you go to jail if you say anything bad about him.

Anyway, in Laem Ngop, we caught a ferry for Ko Chang, which took around 30 minutes. Once we were there, we got in the back of a pickup with 10 other thai people (the pickups have umbrellas and two benches on each side, its pretty cool) and went to White Sand Beach. In Ko Chang, the cabs are pickups, and they just drop you off where you want to go…there is only one road and it just goes around the whole island, so the pickups just pick people up on the way and drop people off. It was only 50 baht (like $1.75) for the 10 minute cab ride….not bad at all.

At White Sand Beach, we ate some awesome Thai food and then got a hotel a little further down the island. We then went to the beach for the rest of the day. It was overcast but still awesome, the water was great, the beach was all sand, and there were barely any people on the beach. It was great. We then walked down the beach and checked out this awesome lagoon. After that, we saw some little hut with internet on the beach so we checked it out, it was around 2 minutes from our hotel walking. When we got there, we saw we could book a 4 island snorkeling tour for 500 baht (like 17 bucks), so we all thought we had to do it so we signed up. We then got dinner that night at the hotel right next to our bungalow which was real good (just like the other food.)

After that, we crossed the street and saw this little area with shops, so we checked it out. We saw a place where we could get massages for 350 baht for 90 minutes so me and Swain decided to do it while Eric decided he would rather chill instead. Anyway, the massages for both me and Swain started out with girls doing them, which was good because no one wants a massage from a guy. However, we go to the room after the foot massage and two guys walked in. Not only did it suck that a guy was massaging me, but the guy was terrible too. I was hurting the whole time, it sucked. Worst part of the trip.

Anyway, after that we go outside and see that Eric made friends with a bunch of random Thai guys. One of them spoke a little bit of English, the rest of them none, but of course he was still hanging out with him and they hooked him up with some food. It was classic. Then, it got awkward because one of the guys was having problems with some girl and he became obviously upset, but we hung out with these Thai guys for a while before going to bed.

The next day, we woke up early and a cab picked us up at 8 AM for the snorkeling tour. We went to the bottom tip of the island, then got on this old, sketchy looking boat for the tour. There were around 30-40 people on it, most of them being tourists. They hadn’t run the boat in about two weeks because the seas were too rough (since its rainy season), but that day was really nice so they finally ran it…good timing for us. Anyway, the ride to the islands sucked. It was really rocky, and I got really sea sick (funny, because I never get sea sick on the cruise ship.) I threw up off the side a bunch of times on the way to the islands, but once we got to the first island and we started snorkeling, I felt fine. We went to four different islands, all really close to each other, but they were around an hour south of Ko Chang so they were all really desolate, none of them had any people on them or anything.

The snorkeling was awesome, for each island, the boat would just drop its anchor and we would just drop off the boat and start snorkeling….no docks or anything. The water was slightly murky, but I still saw some really cool coral and lots of fish, it was awesome. Also, one thing that was awesome was that for the fourth island, we could swim or take their little motorboat they had attached to this really small, sandy beach. Of course, we went to it and it was great, just chillin on a beach on an island that no one lives on.

I took a sea sickness pill right before the trip back, so luckily I didn’t vomit on that, although I did still feel sick during most of the ride. When we got back, we went to White Sand Beach, got a hotel in the town (the town is really small, just has a few shops, small hotels, restaurants, bars and internet cafes….there is only one really big resort on the island), and went to dinner with some Australians we met on the snorkeling tour. They then said it would be funny to go to a Lady bar, and since we were in Thailand and didn’t really care, we were down and went. Pretty much, a lady bar is a normal bar, except it is just filled with transgender girls. It’s really weird, but it was kinda funny to go to just to see it. We just had a few drinks there while thinking about how funny it was that we were at a bar with a bunch of transgender girls, and then we left and went to bed.

Next day, we woke up, hit up the internet café, and then got a cab so we could go to Laem Ngop, then take a cab to Trat where we could catch a bus to Bangkok. We were gonna stay the day and then leave at night, but the weather sucked so we figured it would be better to just head to Bangkok and have a full night there. The bus ride from Trat to Bangkok was 6 hours, but the bus only cost 250 baht, or 8 dollars. Again, so cheap. The bus wasn’t bad, it was a bit uncomfortable but not horrible and it looked way nicer than I thought it would. They had a movie showing though, but it was in Thai. Anyway, we got to Bangkok, and then we met up with some guy named Roger from Cameroon who knows Swain’s sister. We then got a hotel room on Khao San Road, which is the big street for backpackers, and the hotel was only 175 baht a person. We then got some food, and then went to some club on Sukhimvit road because it was our friend’s birthday so a bunch of us got together in Bangkok to celebrate that.

On the next and final day, we met up with another one of our friends and the four of us went to check out the temples in Bangkok, which were awesome, I actually thought they were the best temples I’ve seen on this trip. We went to Wat Pho, which has a huge lying Buddha, and then we went to the Golden Mount which you have to climb up and at the top, there is a large golden cap (I probably didn’t use the right word to describe it.) We then got lunch and went to the Grand Palace, which is the home of the king. It was very expensive by Thai standards to get in (250 baht), but it was awesome. It was way better than what I expected, I actually think it was one of the best things I’ve seen on this entire trip. Before you go to the Grand Palace (which you can’t actually go in because the King lives in there), you walk by all of these amazing buildings, it was just such a cool site to see and was a really good way of ending the trip. After that, we got a van with 7 SAS people and made the two hour drive down to Laem Chabang to get back on the boat. But before that, we went into a Mister Donut and started chanting “Mister Donut….Mister Donut” and the girl working there was laughing so hard that she had to go into the back. It was classic.

Now, I'm back on the boat and this 6 day stretch from Thailand to India has been rough in terms of work. I've had two tests, and have one more test tomorrow. Our boat was also stopped near Singapore for almost a day, but it never docked and we were never able to get off the boat to go into Singapore. The boat was going at near full speed (which has never happened, we usually go 14 or 16 knots, we were going 24 most of yesterday) after Singapore because we went through the Straights of Mallaca, which has the most pirate activity of any area in the world (but they have never been able to get onto a cruise ship.) I think we are through it now though, I haven't checked the TV yet today to see our speed.

And I'll put up pictures tomorrow, I haven't even uploaded them yet but I'll definitely get some on here before I get to India (and I'll put some up from Vietnam as well.)

Cambodia/Vietnam

2007-10-03T17:36:00.000-07:00

My last port was Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, but I actually got two countries out of it because I first went to Cambodia. Overall, I would say it was the best port so far because I got to see two great countries out of it, and Cambodia was especially awesome.

After signing up for SAS, I saw that SAS offered a Cambodia trip in Vietnam. I didn’t really know much about Cambodia before SAS, but the more I learned about it, the more I wanted to go. I learned it was a very poor country that had a devastating past due to the Khmer Rouge in the 70s, but at the same time I learned it was a very eye opening place to go to that also has one of the world’s greatest historical sites. Knowing this, I decided to sign up for a Cambodia trip (SAS won’t let you go to Cambodia on your own) and see the country since I heard it was a great experience and because I really wanted to go to Angkor Wat after learning about it, it just looked way too awesome.

After I arrived in Vietnam, I had my SAS trip to Cambodia (my last SAS trip), so I didn’t even get to see Vietnam before I went to Cambodia. We went to the airport for our flight to Phnom Penh. The airport in HCMC was really nice, its brand new (as in, the new international terminal opened a month ago), but the plane we got on was sketchy. It was Vietnam Airlines, most of their planes look really new but ours looked old, and it was called a Fokker 70. That sketched me out, because it was called a Fokker 70. However, the flight was pretty smooth and only 30 minutes so that was good.

In Phnom Penh, we landed and got our visas. In Cambodia, you get the visa when you arrive instead of before (which is pretty sketchy) but after giving them $20 and a passport pic, I had my visa two minutes later and was good to go. We then went to the hotel, which was really nice and right across from the US embassy, which was massive. On the way to the hotel, we could see the streets of Phnom Penh, which looked very dirty and poor, but I expected that.

That day, all we did was take a sunset ferry ride up the Mekong River, which was pretty cool. We then ate and then I went to bed because I was real tired.

The next day, we started out by going to the Genocide Museum which was very eye opening. If you don’t know anything about Cambodian history, it is very sad and depressing. In the 70s, the Khmer Rouge were a group of Agrarian Communists that overtook the country and devastated the whole nation. They forced everyone out of the cities and made everyone work on the farms. They killed many people for being from cities, they killed people because they wore glasses, they killed people for being educated….pretty much, they would kill people for any reason they could come up with. During their reign, they killed 3 million people, bringing the population down to 7 million. Sadly, the US (along with China) actually supported the Khmer Rouge because the Khmer Rouge hated Vietnam…..pretty disgusting if you ask me, our country should be ashamed by that. Absolutely terrible. The Genocide Museum was a prison used by the Khmer Rouge to torture people, and in the museum, you saw rooms that the Khmer Rouge used to torture people as well as weapons they used and stories of those tortured and killed by the Khmer Rouge.

After the Genocide Museum, which was by far the most depressing thing I’ve seen all trip, we went to another depressing site, the Killing Fields. At the Killing Fields, the Khmer Rouge would take the prisoners, take them there, and kill them. It wasn’t as depressing as the Genocide Museum, but it was still really depressing to walk around the fields where Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge killed many innocent civilians.

After seeing the sites where the Khmer Rouge did their damage, we went to the Russian Market. In Cambodia, the currency is the Riel, but the US Dollar is accepted by all. I think it’s actually sad for them that their economy is in such a bad state that they would prefer US money to their own and that the prices of everything is listed in US Dollars. Anyway, at the Market, I got some good stuff, including this awesome painting of Angkor Wat for only $15 dollars. I also noticed here how nice Cambodian people are. In China, the vendors are very aggressive and not that nice, but in Cambodia, even the vendors are really, really nice. Cambodian people, overall, are incredibly nice, I didn’t encounter a rude person the whole time I was there.

One thing about Cambodia is that everyone rides around on a moped. There are very few cars (but many of those few are Lexuses…talk about a huge gap between the rich and poor) but tons of mopeds, much different from anything I have ever seen.

After that, we ate, then went to the Royal Palace, which was really nice and cool. After that, we caught our flight to Siem Reap, which was sketchy as hell. It was on Siem Reap Airways, which seemed sketchy, but then I found out it was owned by Bangkok Air which made it seem less sketchy. However, we got to the plane and it was a propeller plane. We then took off and we flew through a thunderstorm. One of the bolts hit no less than 10 feet from the plane, it was sketchy as hell. Luckily, the flight was only 30 minutes, and it landed safely, so it was all good in the end.

In Siem Reap, we went to dinner then went to the hotel, which was also REALLY nice. Siem Reap is very touristy and is filled with hotels, not surprising because its so close to Angkor Wat. Siem Reap only has 100,000 people, but has a lot of flights going into it because Angkor Wat is turning into a bigger tourist destination.

Before I left for SAS, I looked up Siem Reap and heard there was a bar there called Angkor What? so I knew I had to go there, so after we checked in me and 3 other people decided to check out this great bar. We got in a tuk tuk, which is a moped with a cart behind it that holds four, and went to Angkor What? Siem Reap only has 100,000 people and is very tourist oriented, so the bars are pretty much all foreigners. We went to the area with bars and went to Angkor What? which was awesome. At this bar, people sign the wall so the walls are just covered with the signatures of people from all over the world that have made the journey to Siem Reap to check out Angkor Wat. This bar was really cool. It was filled with tourists which is usually annoying, but it was cool there for some reason. Also, even though it had tourists there, none of them were Americans (except us.) After the amazing Angkor What? we went to a bar across the street (and of course, in Cambodia, the drinks are CHEAP) and then we took a tuk tuk back to the hotel for the night.

The third (and final) day in Cambodia might have been my best day on the trip because Angkor Archaeological Park was so awesome. We started the day out by checking out Ta Prohm, which is a temple in ruins next to Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat is just one of many things in Angkor Archaeological Park, and Ta Prohm was just another awesome thing in the park. After Ta Prohm (its where Tomb Raider was filmed), we went to the thing I’ve been looking forward to most on this whole entire trip, Angkor Wat. Angkor Wat totally lived up to my expectations, it was absolutely incredible. It’s the largest religious building in the world and its absolutely awesome. We went all around the interior of Angkor Wat and it was really cool. We even saw a Monkey in there, way too funny. After exploring the interior of Angkor Wat, we looked at it from the front where the view of it is absolutely awesome. I also saw a horse right in front of the reflection pool at Angkor Wat which was cool too.

After Angkor Wat, we went to the hotel to eat and then we went to Angkor Thom. Angkor Thom is another awesome temple in the Archaeological Park and its known for the faces on top of all of the structures. I loved Angkor Thom, it was even cooler than Angkor Wat which I loved as well. After that, we then caught our flight back to Ho Chi Minh City, which was on a brand new Boeing on Vietnam Airlines, much different than the old planes we flew for the first two flights.

Overall, my Cambodia trip was AWESOME. Even though I prefer traveling on non-SAS trips, I still had an awesome time in Cambodia and would recommend it to anyone. It’s a dirty country, but it’s very eye-opening, interesting, and the temples of Angkor are incredible. The people there are very nice, and I’m happy I went there not only because I learned a lot and saw some awesome things but also because I was able to help their economy which really needs the help.

Vietnam:

After getting to Vietnam, I went to the boat and then a few of us went out to eat. We went to Pho 2000, which my friend who was in Vietnam for 3 days already told me about because Bill Clinton ate there. We ate there, and the place is decorated in pictures of Bill Clinton eating at that restaurant. It was really funny. After that, we went to some club called Volcano where we chilled for a few hours. Sidenote: next to the boat, tons of mopeds try to offer you a ride. I definitely avoided these people and got a real cab instead. I’ll ride a tuk tuk, but I’m not getting on the back of some random moped in a city with crazy traffic. Anyway, after Volcano, we went to another club called Lush. We heard it was good, but we got there and it was around 80% gay so we left and then went back to the boat. I have no problem with gay people, but I have no interest in going to a gay club, and no one else really did either.

The next day, we just walked around Saigon (it’s officially called Ho Chi Minh City, but everyone calls it Saigon.) First of all, Saigon was awesome, I liked it (and Vietnam) much more than I thought I would. Saigon doesn’t have any great tourist attractions (except some pagodas and the Reunification Palace, which I drove by and thought was hideous) but its still a really cool city. US Dollars are accepted everywhere, but they have their own country, which has the greatest name of any currency on the planet, the Dong. You can come up with so many immature jokes with the name of Vietnam’s currency, it’s great.

Also, in Saigon, when you cross the street, you just walk into traffic. The traffic never stops flowing, so you have no choice. The cars and mopeds (more mopeds than cars, just like in Cambodia, but Vietnam has more cars than Cambodia) just stop for you (or in reality, they just swerve around you), so its okay, but it’s a little scary at first. Also, Vietnam is poor, but Cambodia is way worse off. Saigon is not clean, but much cleaner than Phnom Penh.

I also had no idea that they use Roman letters in Vietnam until I got there, but yet they do, which is obviously different from the other Asian countries. Still, Vietnam puts lots of weird accents on top of the letters.

Overall, I really liked Saigon my one full day there. The food was the best food I ate on this trip, the people are nice, and I just like the vibe of the city. It’s a really cool place and I would go back (and back to Vietnam, especially since I really want to go to Hanoi, Halong Bay, and the Cu Chi tunnels near Saigon which I didn’t have time to visit

My second and last day in Vietnam, me and 4 other people got a tour of the Mekong Delta which is 2 hours away from Saigon. For $39 a person, we got a guided tour all day, transportation to and from the Mekong from our boat, and got to take a little boat around the Mekong and see different islands and stuff on it. It was awesome, the Mekong Delta was definitely worth checking out. We got to see how the people down there live, which was really cool, and it was really nice down there too. We also got a tour of some place that makes different foods and a brick factory, which might sound weird but it was actually pretty tight. After the Mekong Delta, we then went back into Saigon, got dinner, then went back to the boat. Next up for us is Thailand, which I can’t wait for. We are waiting till we get there to buy our plane tickets to a beach (most likely Phuket), but if we can’t get anything we will just go to Ko Samet for a few days with Bangkok on the first and last days.

Here are some Cambodia pictures, I'll put up Vietnam pictures later:

Houses on the water in Phnom Penh

Royal Palace in Phnom Penh

Angkor Wat

Me and Eric with the tallest peak of Angkor Wat

Faces of Angkor Thom

Me and Eric with some kids at Angkor Thom

Angkor Thom

Hong Kong

2007-09-26T19:24:00.000-07:00

So after Beijing, we had one day in Hong Kong and I personally loved it. I didn’t even go to the one place I said I would go to in HK (Lantau Island, where the big Buddha is) but I still had an awesome time and really thought Hong Kong was a great city. Hong Kong has a great set-up naturally with the many islands it has, and the city is just really cool overall.

We got to HK at midnight on the one day we were there, but then we had to wait in the airport for 40 minutes for our buses to arrive to take us to the boat. In the end, we didn’t even get to the boat until 1:30 AM, so me and Eric just went to get some food and then went to bed. When we went to get food though, we went to McDonalds (all I wanted were fries, and its 24 hour and right next to where the boat was docked) and I ordered some fries. When he asked me to pay for it, I just gave the guy some of my leftover Yuan instead of HK dollars just to see what would happen. The guy actually took it! I was hoping this would work the rest of the time there since I had leftover Yuan, but sadly it was the only time it worked.

As for the city itself, the view of the city from the boat was absolutely amazing. The boat was docked on Kowloon Island, which is right across from Hong Kong island (the city of Hong Kong is actually a bunch of islands, but Hong Kong island is the main island with most of the city’s skyscrapers.) The boat had a great location, because the view was so good and because it was only a 5 minute ferry ride to Hong Kong island, and the ferry terminal was a 2 minute walk from where the boat was.

In our one full day in HK, we went out as a group of 8 to Monkook which is the shopping area. I just wanted to explore the city and didn’t have a one place in mind I really needed to see (except I wanted to go to the top of Victoria Peak, I figured if I only have one day that I shouldn’t go to Lantau Island because its far and then I wouldn’t get a chance to check out the main part of Hong Kong if I went there.) We spent a few hours just roaming around Monkook and checking out the city, then we went to eat and then went to the central part of downtown Hong Kong. This part is just a business district, but its still pretty cool. After walking around there, four of us decided to go to the top of Victoria Peak, so we did that. I had heard the best view of Hong Kong is from there, so I really wanted to see it. Anyway, the four of us took the tram to the top (which you get right in downtown HK) so we went to the top and the view was absolutely incredible. We were unlucky because the weather was crappy all day and rained for parts of it, but the view was still really good. I have pictures of it, but they don’t do the view justice (same goes for the pictures of the city from the boat, it looked way better in person.) After that, it was already 6:30, and on ship time was 9, so we just got dinner and then went back to the boat. We got on the boat at 8, which was perfect because we made it right on time for the light show, which happens every night. During this, the buildings in HK start to beam lasers all over the place for 10 minutes or so, it was pretty cool.

As for some details of HK, the city clearly still has lots of obvious UK influence, even though its now a special administrative region of the People’s Republic of China (that’s the exact term.) HK controls everything about their area except for defense and foreign affairs, or at least that’s what I think the rule is. It’s very, very different from the rest of China. There is much less smog than in Beijing and Qingdao, it’s very clean (although I didn’t think Beijing or Qingdao were dirty), and it’s obviously much wealthier.

In HK, most of the buses are double decker, clearly an example of UK influence. Lots of people, though not everyone, speaks English, and lots of the places have names with blatant UK influence (like Victoria Peak, for example.) The city is also cheaper than I expected. It’s definitely more expensive than Beijing, but public transportation is real cheap (the ferry from Kowloon to HK island is 2.20 HK Dollars, which is around 30 cents, food was cheaper than it is in the states or Japan, etc.) and everything is really clean, modern, and nice. Overall, HK was awesome and I would go back in a second. I really wish we had more time there, because everything in the city seemed awesome and I did want to go to Lantau Island, although I was still really happy with what I did on my day there (because if I only have a day, I want to see the actual city, so that’s what I did.)

Next up, I have Vietnam/Cambodia starting today right after I get off the boat in a few hours. I am leaving for Cambodia right when I get off the boat in an hour and a half, spending 3 days/2 nights there and going to Phnom Penh and Angkor Wat. The three things I have been looking forward to most on this trip since it started have been Cambodia, Thailand, and India, so I’m really excited for Cambodia, especially for Angkor Wat which looks incredible. I haven’t 100% figured out what I’m going to do in Vietnam for the last 2 days, but I’m thinking that I’ll probably spend one day going to the Mekong Delta and the other day at the Cu Chi tunnels and checking out Ho Chi Minh City.

And here are some pics of HK (again, the skyline looks MUCH better in person):

Beijing

2007-09-25T05:57:00.000-07:00

I had an awesome time in Beijing, I thought the city was really cool and had some great cultural sites. Here are some observations from it:

1. I did an SAS trip in Beijing, and I feel that because we had tour guides and pre-scheduled buses that just took us directly to every site, that we didn’t get a good feel for the city. We went out at night, but we only took cabs (because they would end up being less than a dollar a person. I feel like in Japan, I got a good feel for each city because we all had to figure out how to get around, it wasn’t the same case in Beijing. The trip was awesome, there is no doubt about that, but when you go on an SAS trip, you don’t get to know the city as well.

2. Beijing has cleaner streets than I expected (I thought they would be disgusting but they weren‘t), but the smog was disgusting. However, I fully expected that, it’s bad.

3. Cheapest city I’ve ever been to. Cheap cabs, cheap food, cheap alcohol…..great place to travel to because the only thing you will spend money on is the flight.

4. The Great Wall is awesome, so is Tiananmen Square, but the Forbidden City is overrated. And the smog affects your view of it, but it affects your view of everything in Beijing (except the Great Wall, because its an hour and a half outside the city and has cleaner air)

5. There is tons of construction in Beijing, but that’s not surprising since China’s economy continues to improve and the Olympics are coming next year. There is also a lot of green near the streets though, lots of trees and hedges and stuff, and I wonder if they just added it to make the streets look nicer for the Olympics.) Anyway, a summary of my trip:

So our Beijing trip started the second day in China. It was an SAS sponsored trip to Beijing where we were supposed to see the tourist sites and also meet college kids at the University of International Business and Economics. The trip had around 40 people, but me and Eric didn’t really know too many of them going into it. Anyway, we had an 11:30 flight from Qingdao to Beijing. On the way to the airport, I saw some interesting propaganda signs. Some had English translations written under them, one said “Working together, hand in hand, building a harmonious socialist society” which I personally thought was hilarious. I can tell which billboards are propaganda, but unfortunately, the only ones with English written under them were in Qingdao which was disappointing because they were funny (in my mind, at least, especially since China will never be the “harmonious socialist society” they claim they are building.)

Anyway, the airport in Qingdao was surprisingly really nice, looked like an airport in Europe, it was new and very clean. Anyway, after our one hour flight to Beijing (and of course, little shakes on the flight were scarier than normal since we were flying in China and it’s a bit scarier just because its China), we got to Beijing. We then went to the hotel. When I saw the city, I was surprised by how clean the streets were, thought they would be filthy. I wasn’t surprised by the smog though, which was dirty and disgusting. It was worse the last few days though, you could see it everywhere. Anyway, the first day in Beijing, we only went to the silk street market, which is just a place where they sell lots of fake stuff. However, the people that sell stuff there are very aggressive and they get really pissy, this woman hit me and Eric with a shoe after we negotiated and then didn’t buy anything. I didn’t buy much there, I heard Vietnam has the same stuff for even less. Anyway, after that, we had some good Chinese food for dinner then went back to the hotel. Me and a few other guys then went out that night. We first went to some restaurant to get some cheap drinks (4 yuan for a big bottle of beer, 10 yuan (or $1.20) for a half bottle of the nastiest hard alcohol I have ever had, no wonder it was only 10 yuan, none of us wanted to drink it after 2 shots because it was so disgusting), then we went to a club called Mix which was packed and that was pretty cool.

Second day, we went to the Great Wall. It was AWESOME! It was a 1.5 hour drive, then a 30 minute climb to the top, and the view from the top was awesome….we then walked around the top and stayed up there for around an hour. Some pics:

We then took a slide down, which cost 40 yuan (like 7 bucks.) I couldn’t believe that they actually have a slide down to the bottom of the mountain that the Great Wall is on, but yet they do. On the slide, you get this cart to go down on and then you control the brake and speed of it. The slide kind of freaked me out, but I still did it, although I probably should have gone faster than I did. Anyway, it was around an 8 minute ride down. From there, we then left, ate, and then drove by some of the stadiums for the 2008 Olympics. By the way, you see stuff for the Olympics EVERYWHERE in Beijing, and every tourist attraction has stores selling Olympics stuff. They are definitely ready for next summer. Anyway, one of the stadiums we drove by is nicknamed the Bird’s Nest and its one of the ugliest things I’ve ever seen. We then got dinner and then met the UIBE kids who we were supposedly doing an exchange with (clearly, we only saw them once, so it wasn‘t much of an exchange). The one meet up with them was at an all you can drink bar which cost 24 yuan to get in, which is $3 USD. It was funny because very few of them drank, but most of the SAS kids do and definitely took advantage of the fact it was an all you can drink.

Third day, we woke up and went to Tiananmen Square. We went to Mao’s Memorial, which was intense. The line to get in is really long, takes about 20 minutes just to enter. The beginning is a place where there is a statue of Mao and people put flowers in front. I, of course, did not put any flowers in front. After that, you walk into another room where you see his coffin with a wax statue of Mao on top. The whole way, you are just following a line and you don’t just get to stand and look. It takes around 7 minutes to get through the whole thing because the line moves slowly. I must say, it was pretty interesting to see. It was definitely interesting to see how so many of the people at the memorial love Mao when I personally don’t and live in a country that was opposed to him. Whether the people love him because their government spreads so much positive propaganda about him or if they really love him for his policies is a debatable topic, but either way he is admired by many in China and it was really interesting to see people pay their respects to a man who I personally see as a man who did bad things to his people and wasn’t really a good leader for his country.

After that, we walked up to the famous picture of Mao in Tiananmen Square, which was awesome to see because it’s a site I have seen many times growing up. Of course, this picture also shows off a famous characteristic of Beijing, terrible smog:

Overall, I really liked Tiananmen Square, thought everything was interesting and really cool to see, even the memorial of a leader I personally don’t like. After that, we walked into the Forbidden City (which is right behind Tiananmen Square), which I would say was probably the biggest disappointment of my trip so far. The Forbidden City is a very impressive site, there are lots of really cool buildings there. One problem however, THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME! Literally, it was an hour and a half of just looking at the same buildings. Also, part of it was under renovation, which I already expected, but I was disappointed by how boring it was. I didn’t know everything would look the same, but I’m still happy I saw it because it’s well known and because the buildings are cool, it’s just disappointing how repetitive it got.

After that, we ate and went to the Temple of Heaven which I thought was a cool site. We then went to an Acrobatic Show that night, which was awesome. Most of the performers were kids, they looked around 8 or 9, and they could do some crazy stunts, it was really amazing, and I definitely got some cool video of it too. We then ate dinner after that, and I went to bed right after because I was really tired. Two pics, one of me and Eric and some workers at a store near the Temple of Heaven and a pic of the Temple of Heaven:

The fourth and final day, we went to the Lama Temple in the morning which was a pretty sweet site. The Buddha in the temple was huge and really impressive, but we weren’t allowed to take a picture of it. After that, we looked at the UIBE campus for like 20 minutes. We hit up the Summer Palace after that, which was right on the water and that was really, really cool, the view from it was great. There was some renovation there too, but it was still awesome. After that, we went to the airport and got our 3 and a half flight to Hong Kong. We were all definitely loud the entire flight, and they had some entertaining Jackass style videos which were great. They also had FREE beer, so we definitely got that. We then got to Hong Kong after midnight and didn’t even get to the boat till 1:30, so I just went to bed after that. Pic at the Summer Palace site:

I’ll write about Hong Kong tomorrow, which was my favorite city so far

Day 1 of China: Qingdao

2007-09-23T18:43:00.000-07:00

This entry is about my first day in China, which I spent in Qingdao. I wrote it on the morning of my second day before heading to Beijing, but wasn’t able to post it, so I’m going to now. I’m now in Hong Kong and I’ll write about Beijing and Hong Kong tomorrow. Beijing was awesome and today I’m going to check out HK which looks like it will be amazing as well.

Day 1: Qingdao
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So I’ve been in China for a day and this place is awesome. I had a great first day in China, and definitely saw some really interesting things, even though I’m in Qingdao which is a nothing city with only one attraction.

Yesterday, the boat was cleared much faster than in Japan. The Japanese took over 5 hours to clear the boat, the Chinese didn’t even take 2, so we were able to get off before 10. In Japan, when you get off, you have to go through a metal detector and you get searched, the same doesn’t happen in China. In China, you just get off the boat and boom, you are free to walk around.

Since Qingdao is a nothing city, it obviously doesn’t have many cruise ships coming through. Or any, for that matter, besides us. Our boat is docked right next to shipping liners, and when we got off, tons of trucks are just flying right next to where we are walking going from the ships to the city. There is no sidewalk, so we were just walking right in front of these big trucks trying to dodge them and not get hit. On top of this, it was raining. I thought this was hilarious, a great introduction to China, just trying to avoid getting run over by a tractor trailer.

The boat was docked 10 minutes away walking from any street, so after we were dodging trucks for 10 minutes, we finally found safety….a sidewalk.

Our group of 6 started the day by going to the Bank of China in the city to get money. At the bank, some guy at the bank was yelling at some bank teller for 15 minutes at the top of his lungs for god knows what reason (it was in Chinese obviously, so I have no idea what was going on.) It was….interesting, but pretty funny.

After we got money (which took a while since we were exchanging USD for Yuan instead of just taking it out of the ATM…their ATM was broken), we got food (SO CHEAP), shopped a little, then went to the one attraction in town, the Tsingtao Brewery.

The Brewery was really cool. It was 50 Yuan to get in (or 7 bucks, the most expensive thing of the day), and we got to walk around, see the Museum, and got a lot of free beer. It was really cool. Obviously, tons of SAS people went since it was a) the only attraction in town and b) they are college students and love beer.

Also, at the Brewery, the Chinese people there kept wanting to take pictures with the girls in our group. It was so funny. One of the girls even got dragged by one of the people out of no where just to take a picture with her. So great.

After that, we walked around some more, shopped some more (I didn’t really do much shopping, but some of the people in our group wanted to and there is nothing else to do in Qingdao so I was fine with it), and ate. We then just went to the boat to crash for the night (obviously, dodging trucks on the way back) because we all have trips leaving today for Beijing.

By the way, the stuff in this country is SO cheap. None of our cab rides were more than 8 Yuan. Since the exchange rate is 7.6 Yuan to the Dollar, that means our cab rides were all around 1 dollar (and this is for the whole cab, which would have 3-4 people in it.) We took 4 cab rides yesterday, so if I was riding around by myself, I would have spent a little more than 4 dollars ALL DAY on cabs. Since I wasn’t, it was like a dollar for cab rides to everywhere we needed to go. So awesome.

Also, the smog in Qingdao is terrible. Off the boat, you could taste the air, and it tasted real bad. Beijing apparently has even worse air quality, so I’m sure this trip will be great for my lungs.

Also, food is cheap. Lunch was around $3.50 USD, and dinner was $4 (that’s with desert, too, and the place looked nice and had good food.) Beer at dinner was 6 Yuan (or around 85 cents) for a 600 ml bottle of Tsingtao, which is around 20 ounces or so. I don’t think I spent more than 20 bucks all day yesterday because its so cheap here, and the awesome thing is that the countries coming up next (Vietnam, Thailand, and India) are even cheaper.

My trip to Beijing leaves in an hour and a half, and I’m so pumped. 4 days there, then a day in Hong Kong before getting on the boat (wish I had more time there)….this is so awesome. SAS definitely beats out school, even though I love U of A.

Beijing

2007-09-21T03:01:00.000-07:00

I've been in Beijing for two days and I love it. This city is actually much cleaner than I expected (they are really cleaning it up for the Olympics) and its pretty nice too. I've been really surprised by how nice it is, this is definitely a great city. Today I climbed to the top of the Great Wall which was an awesome experience. I'm at an internet cafe and don't have time to write much, just wanted to say whats going on and to say that this city is pretty awesome....and really cheap (cabs are around 2 dollars to go 5 miles or so, food is so cheap, beer is even cheaper, yesterday I got a 600 mL bottle of Tsingtao (around 22 oz) for less than a dollar at a restaurant)! I'll definitely write more when I'm back on the ship in 3 days, but I just wanted to give a quick update. Tomorrow we are hitting up Tianamen Square and the Forbidden City which should be awesome, then in two days we are off to Hong Kong! Hope everything is good with everyone back home!

Japan

2007-09-17T23:14:00.000-07:00

So I’m on the boat right now after leaving Japan and it was awesome. The country is SO nice and the people are awesome. They are so helpful, even though there is such a large communication barrier. You can’t read any signs (although they have a lot in English too) and it just feels like a completely different world because of the huge language difference. However, it’s a great place and I would recommend it to anyone, I really liked it there.

Some observations about Japan:
1. It’s the most orderly place I’ve ever been to. People walk on the left side of the sidewalk, people stand on the left side of the escalator and pass on the right, no one crosses the crosswalk until they get the sign to, its just very orderly in that respect.

2. It’s very difficult to find a garbage can, it’s even more difficult to find an ATM. You might have to walk 7-10 minutes in some areas of a populated, city area to find an ATM, you definitely don’t have that problem in the US.

3. Sushi isn’t as common in Japan as you think. It’s common, but not every restaurant has it, you actually do have to look for it.

4. Best trains I’ve ever been on, by far. They are expensive (12500 yen, which is around 110 US, from Tokyo to Kyoto, but they go almost 200 mph and are really smooth, efficient, and run on schedule)

Also, I must say that my favorite part of Japan was Kyoto. It’s the ancient capital of Japan, and it has lots of shrines and cool historical sites to see. However, at the same time, it’s a nice sized city (around 1 million people) and has a modern section and tons of restaurants. It’s a really cool place. I really liked Tokyo as well, but I liked the more laid back feel of Kyoto more (also, Kyoto has more historical sites, Tokyo is a more modern city and is more about experiencing the city rather than sight seeing, although Tokyo does have some historical sites as well.) Now, here is what I did in Japan (this will probably get really long and boring):

My trip in Japan started out by porting in Yokohama on the 12th. After 8 days in the Pacific Ocean, I was definitely pretty excited to see land. We docked at 8 AM, but Japanese Immigration had to clear everyone on the boat before we could leave. They came on the boat, and just started looking at passports. We didn’t have to go face to face with them like we did with US immigration in Hawaii (since the boat left from Mexico, we had to deal with US immigration in Hawaii) but it took them way longer than it took in Hawaii (of course, its because we aren’t Japanese, so they check everything more thoroughly, and I had heard before that they operate pretty slow). Anyway, it took 5 hours to clear the boat, which sucked because after 8 days at sea, we were dying to finally see a country.

After they cleared the boat, our group of 15 or so (it was a huge group to travel with, although not everyone in the group planned on doing the same stuff the whole time) went to the train station and caught a train from Yokohama to Tokyo which only took about 30 minutes. However, our group got split up in Yokohama because some people bought rail passes (the people who bought them definitely lost money, good decision by me not to get one) but we had already set up a meeting spot for later that night in case there was a split up. Anyway, the 7 or so of us still in our group got to Tokyo and just walked around and checked stuff out. We walked to the Imperial Palace which was close to the Train Station, but unfortunately it was closed. However, we were able to see it from far which was cool. However, the coolest thing is that when we were there, we bumped into the other half of our group.

Anyway, that first night, we walked around, ate, checked some cool stuff out, went to Shibuya which apparently has the busiest intersection in the world (and it was really crowded, its nuts) We then went to Roppongi (which is where the young people are at, apparently), found a capsule hotel, and went out that night. Capsule hotels, by the way, are these hotels where you get a little capsule to sleep in, its pretty cool. They are also pretty cheap, a capsule costs 4500 yen a night, which is around $40 US. They are big for Japanese businessmen who miss their trains home (since they stop running at midnight in Japan) so they just get a capsule for the night. Anyway, that night, we hit up the bars and clubs but since it was a Wednesday, there weren’t a ton of people out (lots of SAS people were though, obviously.) Still, we had a pretty fun night out in Tokyo.

Thursday we woke up and then went to Ryogoku where the sumo wrestling happens. They are having a grand tournament right now for sumo which is obviously a must see. We got to the area, walked around, then went and bought tickets for sumo. We had crappy seats but we moved up because we got there early and didn’t plan on staying the whole time, we just wanted to see some sumo, didn’t really care who it was. Sumo was pretty cool to see, but it does get boring after a while. After we caught that, we then went to the Tokyo Tower which is the tallest structure in Japan. After that, we met up with Suki who goes to school with me and Eric at U of A. Then, we tried to get a hotel in Shinjuku, where we were at the time. However, we couldn’t find one, so after lugging our bags around all day (which was just a backpack for each one of us), we ended up at the same capsule. Since we were kind of loud the night before, I’m sure they weren’t too happy to see us, they actually started laughing when we came back, but whatever, we stayed there a second night.

That night, we went out again which was also a fun time. Then the next morning at 6 AM, 4 of us decided to go to the fish market which was really cool. It smells terrible obviously, but its so big and you see all the vendors and people moving fish around and its just a really cool thing to see, especially in the morning which is the time to go to it. After that, I then went to my capsule, met up with the rest of my friends (at this point, our group was down to 8, the others had SAS trips the second day so they left after the first day or they decided to go to Hiroshima) and went to Kyoto. By the way, I slept the whole way to Kyoto to make up for the little amount of sleep I got the first two nights in Tokyo.

On the train, our 3 friends that didn’t have rail passes got kicked off because their rail passes weren’t allowed on the train we got, so our group was broken down to 5 which sucked, but we would eventually find them later. By the way, Japan has an AMAZING rail system. The trip from Tokyo to Kyoto is only 2.5 hours and they aren’t even close to each other. The trains come very frequently (as in every 30 minutes for the Shikansen, which is the long distance train that covers all of Honshu, the island that most of Japan lives on) and are really fast. In Kyoto, we checked out the Joju shrine the first day which was cool. We then walked around and just checked out part of the city. On the side of the street, I saw a beer vending machine which I thought was cool, and of course I had to test it out. By the way, vending machines in Japan are so cool looking. We then found a Ryokan to stay at, which is a traditional Japanese inn. The ryokan was really cool. At the ryokan, when you check in, they serve you tea in your room. Then, you get these mats that you put on the floor to sleep on, which was actually pretty comfortable. It was definitely cool to stay in one of those.

The fourth day started out by bumping into some SAS people at the Ryokan that we knew. We all had to get a hotel for that night, so we started calling around and then found a Westin we could stay at. Of course, we lied to them and told them we had less people in a room than we really did, so it ended up only being $50 for that night which was cool. We then went over there, dropped our bags off (which was awesome because we carried them around the first 3 days all day which got annoying), and checked out some stuff. We first went to the Golden Pavilion, where we bumped into the 3 people we lost on the train. In Japan, most cell phones don’t work due to their advanced system, so its hard to get in touch with people when you lose them. Anyway, we set up a meeting spot to go to the baseball game later that day, so we then went into the Golden Pavilion which was awesome. I highly recommend it to anybody, it was my favorite site in all of Japan. We then went to the Imperial Palace in Kyoto although we didn’t go inside. After that, we met up with the rest of our group (we split up after we bumped into each other at the Golden Pavilion to go site seeing) and went to Osaka for the baseball game. The train ride there was only 10 minutes, even though it’s a completely different big city. We then took the subway to the stadium and the baseball game was awesome. Japanese people go crazy for baseball, they are way louder at baseball games than Americans. However, we were at a game for a last place team so there were lots of empty seats but it was still pretty loud (and there were tons of away fans there, they were all really loud cool.) It was definitely a cool experience, lots of fun. Then, half of us went back to Kyoto to stay at the hotel while the other half went down to Kobe.

The fifth and final day (the 16th), we checked out another shrine and the Doji Castle, both of which were awesome. We then caught a train to Kobe, which was 30 minutes away, and caught the ship and left. Kobe looked like a cool city, but I obviously didn’t have time to check it out. I’m still really happy with what I saw in Japan. I saw lots of cool things, and going there really makes me want to go back because there is way too much in Japan to see in only 5 days.

Next up for me is China. I get to Qingdao on the 19th (only 1 day away.) I’m going to spend the 19th there, then I’m going to Beijing until the 23rd on an SAS sponsored trip, then we fly to Hong Kong where I’ll be until the 24th when I have to get back on the ship. I think China is going to be awesome, I can’t wait.

And some pictures:

Near the Imperial Palace in Tokyo

Me at the Intersection near Shibuya Station (the busiest in the world)

Me with two sumo wrestlers outside of the Ryogoku Arena

Sumo wrestling action (we were there early so it wasn't packed yet)

Our group (when it was broken down to 5) at the Ryokan in Kyoto

The Golden Pavilion in Kyoto

By the way, I have a ton more pictures from Japan (and the trip so far in general) that I need to put up, which I will when I get a chance, but its tough because the internet on the boat is so slow and expensive.

Hawaii

2007-09-04T03:18:00.001-07:00

So yesterday we went to Hawaii which was awesome. The worst thing is that we only got to stay for a day, but Honolulu is an awesome city. We started the day by walking from the Port of Honolulu to Waikiki Beach. However, it wasn’t a walkable distance, which we realized for a while. We started walking by the shore, which was all rocks. However, we then saw a staircase which lead into the water, so we just went in which was awesome. The water there was so good, way better than the water in the ocean out on Long Island obviously.

So after we swam there we caught a bus to Waikiki. We were then hungry so we looked for a spot to eat at. We then saw this big Japanese festival so we decided to hit that up. However, that was a bad idea. It was really packed and the places at it only took exact change which didn’t work for us. Furthermore, we lost two people there in the crowd so our group dropped down to 4 people. Guess we just weren’t very organized, guess that’s a lesson I learned for the next countries because you don’t want to lose anyone in Ho Chi Minh City or anything, but luckily the two of them were still together. Okay, so after we spent 10 minutes looking for the two of them, we went to find a restaurant. We walked for around 45 minutes finding a place, but after we couldn’t find any authentic Hawaiian food, we went to a place called Zippy’s. It was absolutely terrible, don’t ever go there. I got some food that looked good in the pic but when I got it, it not only looked sketchy but tasted it too. Okay, so after that we went to an awesome shaved ice place which made up for the crappiness of Zippy’s.

After that we hit up the beach in Waikiki. The water was so nice, it was really warm and clean. However, I had no idea that all of Waikiki Beach was on a coral reef. None of the beaches were sandy at all. The beaches are very small, and then 3 feet after you walk in, its all coral reef. I heard the beaches are way nicer on the North Shore, but the water is still great at Waikiki so it was all good.

We first hit up one spot in Waikiki, but we wanted a sandier beach, and some local told us to go towards the Pink Hotel where it was apparently sandier. We got lazy, so instead, we just hit up the Westin which was half way there. We just snuck into the Westin (which looked really nice) and just went to where the beach was in the back. It was the same in terms of size and coral as the first beach (which was a coral reef) but it was still nice. Then we wanted to get towels, so we walked up to the towel desk at the Westin and tried to get them. The lady asked us if we were staying at the hotel, so I lied and said “yes!” She then asked me what the room was, so I said I didn’t know. She then asked what name the reservation was under, so I said “Johnson.” She then asked for a first name. Luckily, Swain was looking at the same sheet she was (which had the names of all the people staying there) and then when she saw a Johnson, she asked for a first name. Since Swain was looking at the list, he saw that there was a Daniel Johnson staying there so he said Daniel. The lady at the desk then said nice guess and gave us the towels (don’t worry, we actually did return them though, so we didn’t steal from the hotel or anything.) We then just chilled at the beach for a few hours, then we met up with Chris who is another guy on SAS and the five of us went back to near the ship to get dinner. We then went to dinner and happy hour and then went back to the ship. I got through security at 8:20, which I thought would be fine because we were supposed to be back on the ship at 9 (the ship was scheduled to leave at 11, but obviously we have to be back earlier than that. Anyway, the ship has a rule saying we have to be on the ship at 9, otherwise we get “dock time.” I cleared security at the port at 8:20, but then there was an insanely long line to get on the ship. I ended up not even getting back on the ship until 9:27. According to the rules, I am supposed to get 6 hours of dock time for being 27 minutes late, which means that in Japan, I am supposed to have to stay on the ship the first six hours we are there as a punishment. However, the line was really long and if they actually give out this punishment, it means a lot of people are going to get dock time. I’ve heard rumors that they will either cut down on the dock time or not give us any at all because the lines were so ridiculous so I really hope we don’t get dock time. It would really suck to miss out on 6 hours of Japan because of the lines.

Overall, I had an awesome time in Hawaii and I just wish we had more than a day there. It was a really awesome place and the people there were really nice. I would go back there in a second, its great. I wouldn’t recommend Waikiki if you just want to sit on a beach (apparently the North Shore, which is around an hour away I think, is better for beaches), but Honolulu is still really nice.

Now we have been at sea for a day and we have seven more after this until we get to Japan which I can’t for!!! Of course, I really hope I don’t get dock time, but I don’t have any control over that so we will see what happens. My plan for Japan is to travel with Eric (who I go to school with at the wonderful University of Arizona) and hit up Tokyo, Kyoto, maybe Osaka, and Kobe (where we leave from). We also plan on chillin with one of our friends from school who is studying abroad in Tokyo for a year.

As for other news, we are “retarding” our clocks for the fourth time tonight. In a few days, we will lose a whole day when we cross the international date line. I still keep making jokes about the fact that they say we need to “retard” our clocks instead of using any other word (don‘t they realize that we are in college and will think its funny that they tell us to retard our clocks? When I hear the word retard, I don‘t think of turning back a clock), which I know is immature but I still think its funny.

Also, classroom #3 is the spot to watch global studies (which is the class that everyone on the ship takes, its everyday at 9:20 and they don’t have enough room in the union so some people have to watch it in other rooms on TVs) and pre-port meetings. I never go to the union for that stuff, I only hit up classroom #3, which I also sometimes call “the tres.” It’s the spot to watch anything, its way better there. Plus, the people who run the telecast like to mess around sometimes, and you don’t get to witness what they do unless you watch in the tres. For example, on the first day of global studies, they put a heart around someone’s head. And they tend to like to do things like use a superman logo to make a transition from one cut to another of someone giving a speech, which is completely unnecessary but really funny.

Also, thanks to the people who commented on my last post, they definitely gave some good advice. Its pretty cool that past alum actually read this thing.

And in sad news, my sports teams are playing like absolute crap. The Mariners have lost nine in a row, but at least we are still in the wild card hunt. We really need to step up our performance though. Also, Arizona football lost to BYU this weekend which is embarrassing. We are supposed to be a team on the rise and we lost to BYU which isn’t in a BCS conference and lost a bunch of their top players. This is Mike Stoops’ fourth year as Arizona coach and he really needs to step it up if he wants to keep his job. We can’t put up 7 points on a mediocre BYU defense. Its an embarrassment to the university to lose to non-BCS teams, especially ones that have lots of new starters. My Arizona Wildcats really need to step it up.

Halfway to Honolulu

2007-08-30T15:53:00.000-07:00

Okay, so now I’ve been at sea for a few days, and we get to Honolulu on Sunday which should be awesome. Right now, we have traveled 1200 miles, and still have 1000 more to go. As for the boat….

This thing rocks all day long. It definitely isn’t as smooth as I thought it would be. However, I haven’t gotten sea sick which is awesome, I thought I would get really sick on this ship. However, the seas have been smooth the whole time, so I wonder what its going to be like when we get some rough seas. It probably won’t be that good. Also, you can hear the engines roaring in our room, but luckily its not too loud so you can sleep through it.

Classes are good so far. Nothing seems like it will be overly difficult. It looks like there will be a decent amount of reading but it doesn’t have to be done anytime soon.

Also, its definitely cool just seeing the ocean. Its always awesome looking out and seeing just ocean…I don’t think I’ll get bored with that the whole time I’m here, especially since I go to school in the desert where there is no water whatsoever.

For whatever reason, the A/C is always pumping on the ship so its always freezing. I have no idea why they do that. Also, the internet on here is terrible and it takes 4 minutes to check up on the latest Mariners scores (who, by the way, still have the lead on the Yankees for the wild card as of last night), but I knew that coming into it.

One last thing….the funniest thing that has happened on here is when they tell us to turn back our clocks. They make announcements saying “the clocks need to be retarded one hour tonight.” Since we are all immature and in college, we all think its really funny. We have already “retarded” our clocks one hour (the direction we are going is awesome because we gain an hour once every few days) and are “retarding” them another hour tonight.

3 more days

2007-08-24T17:34:00.000-07:00

I'm in Tucson and Semester at Sea starts in 3 days!!! I'm going to San Diego on Sunday, and then Semester at Sea starts Monday. I can't wait!!!!!

How Semester at Sea Works

2007-08-08T20:54:00.000-07:00

When I tell people I’m going on a cruise around the world for a semester, most people don’t believe me, or don’t understand how that’s possible. Well, I’m going to explain how it works. The program is called Semester at Sea, and it is run by the University of Virgnia.

Every semester, 700 undergraduates from around the US go on Semester at Sea. The ship used is the MV Explorer, which apparently is the fastest cruise liner in the world. The ship used to be owned by Royal Caribbean until Semester at Sea bought it a few years ago. Therefore, the ship has some of the same amenities as an actual cruise ship, which is awesome.

Academically, everyone on the ship takes 12 units, or 4 classes. At UofA, I take 5 classes (which is 15 or 16 units, depending on the classes I’m taking) each semester, so the course load on SAS is a little lower than what I'm used to. At sea, we have class almost everyday, and we are off every day we are at land. On the ship, everyone has to take a class called Global Studies. Unfortunately, this class is at 9:20 everyday we are at sea, which is obnoxious. I’m in college and don’t like waking up that early, haha. Okay, I’ll stop complaining, I shouldn’t complain about anything since SAS should be so awesome, even with class at 9:20 every day. However, I can guarantee SAS does that so they get everyone up early. Also, Global Studies is only 3 units but we have it everyday for 1:15, but we have all of other classes every other day for 1:15 and they count for the same as Global Studies. I don’t get why we have Global Studies for double the amount of time as the other classes when they all count for the same amount of units, but I’m sure there is a good reason for it. Global Studies, from what I’ve heard, just covers the countries we are going to, so it should be interesting.

Besides Global Studies, I’m taking 3 classes. Two of the classes, US Foreign Policy and Political Economy of Development, count for my Political Science major, while my other class, Cultural Geography, counts for my Geography minor. Since I really liked almost every Political Science class I've taken (and the one I didn‘t like had a terrible teacher and was probably the most disorganized class I‘ve ever taken), I’m sure I’ll like the ones I’m taking, they sound really interesting to me and I like practically anything that's Poli Sci. Also, one thing that SAS does that’s really cool is that every class has a field component. That means for each class, 20% of the grade is based on research you do in each country, which I think is cool since it lets us connect what we are learning in class to where we are going. So yeah, that's pretty much how SAS works.....less than 3 weeks until I actually go

Where I'm Going: Part II

2007-08-05T14:36:00.000-07:00

Okay, so after India, the next stop is Egypt. The ship docks in Alexandria on Halloween, and leaves November 4th. I’m really excited to go to Egypt. Many people have said that I should be scared to go to Egypt since it is an Islamic nation. Personally, I think it should be really interesting to go to a predominately Islamic nation and I’ve always wanted to see Egypt. Also, I’ve heard many times that Egypt is safe for tourists and that the Egyptian government is very concerned with making Egypt safe for tourists since tourism is such a huge part of their economy, so I‘m pretty secure about going there. I know there have been some bombings directed against tourists in Egypt the past few years, but Egypt is still considered to be safe and I really don’t think SAS would send us somewhere where we would be in danger.

As for what I’m going to do in Egypt, I definitely want to check out Cairo. Also, one thing I definitely want to do is ride a camel through the pyramids, I think that would be awesome. And Alexandria should be pretty cool too. Then again, I think everywhere I’m going will be awesome, but I’m really looking forward to Egypt nonetheless.

After Egypt, we go to Istanbul, Turkey. Turkey is our only port of call where I don’t think I will actually leave the city we are docking in. Istanbul is a huge city and is the number one thing I want to see in Turkey, and since we are only there for 5 days, I think I’ll probably want to devote all of my time to Istanbul. Turkey, like Egypt, is also predominately Islamic, but Turkey has a secular constitution and is not as religious as most other (if not all other) Islamic nations. However, the recent elections in Turkey saw the Islamist party win, but apparently most of the country is still against changing the secular constitution.

After Turkey is Croatia. We are docking in Dubrovnik. When I saw the SAS itinerary, I didn’t know what Dubrovnik was, but I looked it up and it looks amazing. It’s a small city, only has 50,000 people or so, but it’s a huge tourist spot (apparently Dubrovnik is horrible in the summer because there are so many tourists that you can barely move through the streets, but it shouldn‘t be so cluttered when we are there) and the whole city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I also want to go to either Zagreb or Split in Croatia. I’ve been to Europe, but never Eastern Europe, and I’ve heard great things about Croatia in particular, so it should be really good.

Here is a picture of Dubrovnik by the way, so you know what I'm talking about:

The last country we are going to is Spain. We dock in Cadiz, and I have no idea where I will go in Spain. I really want to go to Barcelona, it is probably second on the list of cities I really want to go to (first being Rio de Janeiro), but it is a 12 hour train ride from Cadiz and Barcelona is a city I should be able to go to easily another time. Instead, I might just go to Madrid or Seville (or both) since they are closer to Cadiz and I really want to go to both of those as well. I definitely have to check out a la liga match when I’m in Spain, I love soccer (and FC Barcelona) so hopefully FC Barcelona is somewhere in southern or central Spain the weekend I am there so I can see them. But if they aren’t, I will definitely have to check out some other match. I personally wouldn’t mind going to the Santiago Bernabeu and seeing Real Madrid….so I can root against them and their overpriced roster. Then after Spain, we go to Miami. We get to Miami on December 7th, and that is when SAS ends. I was hoping that the Dolphins would have a home game the weekend we are there (because if you know me, you know I'm a huge Dolphins fan), but sadly they are on the road that weekend. It's still pathetic that I've never made it to a Dolphins home game, I really need to work on that.
Okay, so that describes all of the countries I’m going to (and I'm obviously stoked to see each one), now I just have to see them.

Where I'm Going

2007-08-02T19:39:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe, but Semester at Sea starts in less than 4 weeks. I've been thinking about going for so long (I actually first heard about it in High School) and I decided in late March to actually go, and now it's so soon, I can't wait.

Since this is my first post, I should probably write about the countries I am going to. We start in Ensenada, Mexico on August 27th (Ensenada is an hour to an hour and a half away from San Diego, we are taking a bus down there.) Our first stop is Hawaii on September 2nd, which should be awesome since I've always wanted to go there. We are only there for a day, but it should still be cool to chill out on the beach for a little bit.

The real traveling starts September 12th, when we arrive in Yokohama, Japan. We leave the 16th, so I'm going to hang out in Tokyo for a few days with two UofA people (one of whom is going on Semester at Sea with me) and then we might check out some other part of Japan if we have time, we haven't planned it out.

We leave from Kobe, Japan on the 16th, and we get to Qingdao, China the 19th. (Sidenote: In Japan and China, the boat arrives and leaves from different cities, but we do not have to go on the boat between the two cities, we can go to the city we leave from on our own, which I will do because it lets us do more traveling) We are in China for 5 days, and leave from Hong Kong (which isn't really China, but is at the same time) on the 24th. In China, I signed up for a SAS trip in Beijing, so I am pretty excited about that (and I'm stoked to see Hong Kong too). The SAS trip leaves from Qingdao, goes to Beijing for a few days, and then goes to Hong Kong, where I will get to spend a day before I have to get back on the ship on the 24th. On SAS, you can plan your own trips or do the SAS trips. In most countries, I won't be doing SAS trips, but I am doing them in two: China, because the trip is a good value (most SAS trips are a rip off and can be done way cheaper if they are planned yourself) and in Cambodia because you aren't allowed to do that trip unless you do it through SAS.

After Hong Kong, we go to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, arriving the 27th of September. In Vietnam, as I just mentioned, I plan on doing their Cambodia trip where we will go to Phnom Penh and Angkor Wat. I didn't even know much about Cambodia until I decided to do Semester at Sea, but the more I read about Cambodia (and more specifically, Angkor Wat), the more I want to go there. Besides spending 3 days in Cambodia, I'll still get to spend 2 in Vietnam, so I'm excited to see some things in Ho Chi Minh City too.

We leave Vietnam on October 2nd, and we get to Thailand on October 4th. The ship docks in Laem Chabang, which is 2 hours from Bangkok. We were originally supposed to go to Burma instead of Thailand. However, SAS removed Burma because of their oppressive government. Even though Burma has an absolutely terrible government, definitely one of the worst in the world, I thought it would have been really interesting to see and people who have gone with SAS in the past said it was an amazing country to go to. Even though I really admire Aung San Suu Kyi (the leader of the democracy movement in Burma, she is currently under house arrest for expressing her beliefs and she doesn't want tourists going to Burma), there are other people who support democracy in Burma that think it is good for tourists to go there as long as the tourists give as little money to government supported business as possible. If I went to Burma, I would make every attempt to only give money to the Burmese people who have barely anything and need the money and to not give anything to any government supported businesses. However, at least SAS came up with an awesome replacement with Thailand, I've wanted to go there forever. We'll be there from October 4th-8th, and I haven't planned anything there yet, I'll just figure it out on the ship. I know I want to see Bangkok for a day or two though, and I definitely want to hit up one of the beach towns like Phuket since Thailand is supposed to have awesome beaches.

After Thailand, we go to INDIA!!! We arrive in Chennai, India on October 15th, and leave there the 19th. Now, I am very excited for every country on the itinerary, but I've probably thought about India the most. I'm not doing an SAS trip in India, but I know I'm going to fly up from Chennai to Delhi and then take a 2 hour train ride to Agra to visit the Taj Mahal!!! Besides that, I'm also going to try to go to Varanasi, which is supposed to be amazing. India should be awesome, I can't wait to see it.

I'm also going to visit Egypt, Turkey, Croatia, and Spain on this trip, which I'll write about later. Overall, I'm just really excited for every country and to visit so many places that are so much different than the place I'm from. I love traveling and I've already been to a few different countries in Europe (as well as Mexico and Canada), but I've never been to any of the countries we are going to and I can't wait to go to each one.