Incredible India

The Ship arrived in Cochin which is located on the southern tip of India. Once we debarked the ship hundreds of tuktuk drivers came running up to us to get us to take a ride with them. It was a bit overwhelming but we finally found a good diver.  Allie and I had our tuktuk driver take us all around the old city. He showed us the old Chinese fishing nets, Churches, where the women do the laundry, and some small shops. We ended up going to his house and drinking this marsala milk tea and meeting his family. The traffic was crazy, in most of the streets there is no median line, so vehicles just drive wherever and pass each other as they please. It’s a good thing we trusted our driver.  It was an awesome experience for the first day and getting to know Cochin.

The next three days I went on a SAS trip called the eco-trek. We trekked through tea plantations 8,000 feet above sea level and wandered through some local villages located in the mountains. There were tons of goats, oxen, and stray dogs. I made friends with some goats they seemed to love us. I had no idea that was the landscape of India, I pictured Slumdog Millionaire but that is only one of the many parts of Inda. I was in Beautiful Mountains with rolling hills of green tea leaves and bright and colorful villages. In total we trekked about eight miles, it was a great work out and way to see India. We came back to our camp, ate traditional Indian food around a huge campfire, told stores, and slept in tents.  It was one of my favorite SAS trips to date.

My last two days I went with my friends Claire, Chip, and Nate to Allepe and stayed on a houseboat for the night. We were taken around "the venice of the east" along lots of channels all emptying into a lake. We took so many forms of transportation getting to and from Allepe, a bus, train, tuktuk, and by foot. All that was missing was airplane. Allepe was a tropical city on the west coast of India. We spent the day on the boat taking in the views and culture around us. At one point we heard the Muslim call to prayer which lasted a little over ten minutes. It was broadcast from megaphones connected the palm trees along the river. It was like nothing I had ever heard before. We next watched the sun set over a giant field of rice. The sunsets here are hard to describe, they are not what we are used to. The sun appears as a large orb in the sky with orange and red hues as it sets. We woke up on the houseboat and decided to head to the beach then back to the ship. I got to put my feet in the Indian ocean, three oceans down and one to go!

Now we are headed to Mauritius and Neptune day is coming up, it will be an exciting next couple of days.