Neptune Day, Mauritius, and oh wait....no Sea Olympics Pictures

You're Mauritian out

From India to South Africa, we had a 2 week stretch with a 1 day stop halfway in Mauritius. Because we were on the ship for so long, SAS decided to load in a bunch of events on the ship so we could all be entertained. Trust me, it can get quite boring on here if you don't try to make it exciting. I downloaded How I Met Your Mother before I went on this voyage, and my roommate Aishwarya and I are now halfway through season 7 (UPDATE: We have now finished all 9 seasons. So productive, I know).

NEPTUNE DAY

So we first had Neptune Day between India and Mauritius. This was a huge celebration because we crossed the equator into the Southern Hemisphere where I've never been before! Early in the morning the staff woke us all up as they marched down the halls banging drums and pots and pans or whatever they were banging. Then an announcement came on telling us all to put on our swimsuits and make our way on up to the pool deck within the next 30 minutes.

Everyone gathered around up at the pool deck and the Captain was dressed as Poseidon and announced the whole ritual we would have to do to turn from Pollywogs (people who haven't crossed the equator) into Shellbacks (people who have). After waiting a while for everyone to go through the ritual, it was finally my turn along with a few other friends. We stood in the shallow water as a guy poured "fish guts" onto us. It was really just this slimy green stuff that turned the pool green. We then all jumped in the pool, got out, kissed a nice juicy dead fish (Mitchi completely freaked out), kissed Poseidon's ring, then got "knighted" into being a Shellback. It was definitely a fun process and I recorded the whole thing on my GoPro!  

After you officially become a shellback, you are encouraged to go over to the shaving station and shave your hair. It's some weird tradition…don't ask. A ton of people shaved their entire head, and even some brave girls did also! Even more girls decided to shave a lot of one side of their head, so everyone was walking around looking like intense hip-hop dancers or something (my old hip hop teacher shaved one side of her head). I really enjoyed watching everyone get their head shaves and right before they stopped, Aishwarya and I impulsively decided to shave our heads since so many other girls had done it and it would be a freeing experience. So we sat down and let them shave it all off!

JUST KIDDING! But, we did decide to make a little braid on one side of our head and shave it off. If I leave my hair down, you can't tell at all. But you can definitely see it when my hair is up. It was a fun impulse decision, even though that place on our head is going through the awkward stages of hair growing. I've been dying my hair for so long, it's nice to see new hair grow with a completely fresh start, and I never plan on dying that specific section ever again.

As people were getting their hair shaved off, there was a mini dance party going on too. Now I know some people may think that that is SAS every day, but I promise you, this is a legit college. Sometimes I forget I am on a boat and get caught up in school work, and then I have to just look out my window and try to soak it in that I live on a freaking ship.

MAURITIUS

This was our first stop in Africa! Mauritius is a beautiful African island to the East of Madagascar, but we were only there for one day. To get off in Mauritius, we were required to travel through SAS either with a field lab for class or a field program. This is a newer policy because some previous SAS students would go off and get drunk and rowdy. So I signed up for a field program the second they came out so I could get a nice and relaxing one: "Paradise Island".

We got on a bus and drove for over an hour across many fields to the other side of the island. It was absolutely beautiful and a perfect sunny day. There were also really cool mountains on the island that just looked unreal. When we got to our destination, we got into speed boats that were crazy fun. The water was a beautiful blue and crystal clear and it really was paradise. We made our way into this river-like place that had trees on both sides and I felt like I was in the Amazon Rainforest. I looked over and there was a tree full of sleeping bats that were out in the broad daylight. We kept cruisin' and then saw monkeys running around in one tree. MONKEYS! We kept going and I had no idea when we were going to reach "Paradise Island", and we all of a sudden came to a dead-end that was a mini waterfall. It was really pretty but I really had to pee by this time, so I wanted to make it to paradise already. We left then cruised for about 10 more minutes to a small island with many trees and lots of tourists.

I ran straight to the bathroom then put my stuff down and sat down for lunch. It was some basic lunch I usually get, with fish and rice (I ain't complaining though). There was an open bar so I got some tropical drink after lunch and relaxed in paradise. It was very hot so I hung out in the water a lot and found many starfish and tried not to step on the many sea urchins. The day consisted of taking random GoPro videos with Oswaldo and wandering around the beach with Scout. I bought my good ole' keychain and was all set for Mauritius. We only had about 2 hours on the island sadly then headed back to the ship.

Mauritius was a much-needed break from being on the ship for a week. Especially after traveling so much, people start getting anxious to get off the ship after being on the ship for anything over 3 days. Which is why we needed to be entertained with…..

SEA OLYMPICS

We all got broken up into different "seas" with different colors when we first started the voyage that were based on where our cabin was located. I am in the Adriatic Sea and our color is purple, and there are about 6 other seas and colors that include Arabian, Baltic, Caribbean, Bering, "Sealebrities" (adults and kids), and the Red sea (there might even be a yellow sea…I don't know). There were random events around the ship all day and we were all competing against each other to win so we could get a dance party and I think pizza and ice cream or something. I didn't compete in anything because I guess I was on another planet and didn't know when the sign-up sheets were out. But it was definitely entertaining to watch some of the events like the pull-up competition, wet t-shirt relay, synchronized swimming (absolutely hilarious), jeopardy (it got heated), and lip sync! It was a very entertaining day and a great study break.

This was one of the three major long stretches of the voyage, and stopping in Mauritius really helped us all not go too crazy. The first was from Hawaii to Japan and the third is what I will be finishing up today (Namibia all the way up to Morocco in 13 days. We dock in Morocco tomorrow! Yes, I know I am way behind on this blog, oh well).

PICTURES

1-A waiver we signed on Neptune day. Kidding, it was actually a Shellback certification thing that I now have a fancy certificate for

2-The beautiful slimy green water of Neptune Day

3-My amazingly cool Social Media and Global Change teacher shaving a girl's head

4-Aishwarya and I covering our horror of what we had just done to our beautiful hair with a smile

5-We have these for each port we dock in. It makes me happy

6-Being welcomed to Mauritius

7-The speedboat to Paradise Island

8-Going through the "Amazon Rainforest" approaching the waterfall

9-Paradise Island!

10-Me holding a starfish I found

11-Where I ate lunch under a tiki hut thingy               

12-Driving back to the ship a storm started rollin' in

India Pictures

Slumdog Indian-air

The majority of blogs that I read before going on Semester at Sea talked about India being one of the most shocking ports where you will feel quite out of your comfort zone. I think it was the combination of being prepared for the worst, traveling only with Semester at Sea programs, and having already gone to many countries that made me feel fine in India. I loved it there, but I was traveling non-stop which made it very tiring.

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS

-The majority of places I ate at served strawberry ice cream for dessert. I had no idea that was a thing in India

-Many parents put dark eyeliner-like makeup on their babies to make them look "beautiful"

-India is rich in silk, opium and spices, and black pepper was worth more value than gold back in the day

-There are so many cows walking and laying around the streets because they are sacred. There are also monkeys. MONKEYS!

-About 80% of people in India have arranged marriages

-The building of the Taj Mahal started in 1632 and took 22 years to complete

-No free wifi anywhere L

 

DAY 1

I had my International Marketing field lab the first day we got to India, and it was focused on the marketing and globalization of spices. I have the same teacher for this class and Consumer Behavior where I went to a Kobe beef farm in Japan and ate an amazing Kobe beef dinner, so I knew this field lab would be great also. The huge difference between both of these field labs is that one was in freezing cold Japan in the snow, and this one was in sweltering hot India. We took about a 30 minute bus ride through Kochi and arrived in an area with some shops called "Jew town" or "Jew street". Although this place was called that and Jews used to live there, the majority of them (besides like literally 10) have moved to the real Jew land, Israel. I couldn't stop looking out the window on the drive there, because it was nothing like I had pictured India. This city was quite industrialized and looked like any other city, except all the women were wearing Saree's and the men in these white cloth's tied pretty short for "pants" which I don't know the name of. So we walked around Jew Town following our guide who showed us where spices were traditionally stored before they were traded. We then got free time to check out some of the shops and markets, and my Jewish friend Joselyn and I went and found the synagogue and took some very Jew-y pictures. It was great! We shopped around for a bit, I almost bought a menorah but the ship probably would've confiscated it from me before I could get it on, a taxi driver kept following us around and basically fell in love with Joselyn (I swear he was about to propose), then we got back on the bus and drove to Synthite Headquarters.   

The Synthite building was just beautiful and reminded me of the Google building seen in the movie "The Internship". It was pretty cool. A man gave us a presentation and it was really interesting seeing how they sell around the world to other businesses. After hanging out and drinking the best milk tea I have ever had, we left and drove a few minutes away to a building where they store raw spices in. We had to put on shoe covers, masks and hair nets to go inside, then I stepped inside and realized why. We walked into the "red chili pepper" room and you could smell it strongly through the mask. They warned us about it and I stayed in there thinking I could handle it, then I got a tickle in my throat. Some people started coughing and sneezing and I soon joined in. It was annoying, but hilarious at the same time. After going in a couple more rooms of random spices that weren't as strong, we walked outside to a crazy rain and wind storm. It was absolutely POORING, then stopped a few minutes later. It happens. We got on the bus to go NEXT DOOR because it was raining so hard, then toured the place where the spices get processed. We walked into another huge room with red chili peppers and couldn't handle it anymore. I started sneezing like crazy. Now that I think of it, I have had a cold/allergies or whatever that was since then. That was almost a month ago! Those red chili peppers killed!

We left the factory and drove back towards the ship and went to dinner at an amazing hotel right by the ship. We were all starving and one of the chefs talked about the spices used in every single dish and I was just salivating. Dinner was amazing and it was the first of many amazing Indian meals (I swear I gained like 10 lbs). I passed right out when I got back, and slept for about 4 hours.

DAY 2

My field program through SAS called "The Glory of the Ganges" left around 4am. I was oddly pretty awake because I slept for such little time so I was running off of pure adrenaline. Our flight was at 7am and the airport was a big hassle with hundreds of us SAS'ers. We made it onto our 3 hour flight to Dehli where everyone dozed off the majority of it. When we landed, we got straight onto a tour bus and went to this old place called Qutub Minar which is an Indo-Islamic Afghan conical tower. It was cool to see and reminded me a lot of Ephesus, Turkey, but I don't remember much info about it. This trip was non-stop traveling and we learned so much that I feel like the majority of things went in one ear and out the other. But I always have Wikipedia to get/remember info (that's our primary source of information on this ship since that's a free site). ANYWAYS. We had lunch at a restaurant called Lazeez Affaire. A few feet away from the restaurant, there was a snake charmer! I've never seen one before and started freaking out because it finally hit that I was actually in India. There were 2 snakes getting charmed and it was just so cool. So lunch was another amazing meal, then we got back on the bus for a driving tour of "Lyutens" Dehli where we saw the India Gate and Viceroy's House (now known as the Rashtrapati Bhavan-The President Palace).

On this driving tour, I SAW MONKEYS. There were tons just hanging out on the sidewalk and I was so excited. So after our driving tour, we visited Gurdwara Bangla Sahib which is "the most prominent Sikh house of worship in Dehli". We all gathered in a room to take off our shoes and put these orange bandana head coverings on, then we looked around the place. We went inside and a guy was chanting/praying with a lot of people praying on their knees in there. It reminded me a lot of what was going on at the Schwedegon Pagoda in Burma. After this, we finally went and checked in to our Hotel Royal Plaza. It was beautiful and fancy, but the only downfall was that we would have to pay if we wanted wifi (about $7 for 24 hours). I never found free wifi in India, which I found really odd since I even found it in Burma! We got assigned our roommates and I went up to the room with her to discover a huge King bed and a pull-out bed. She immediately claimed the pull-out bed and I couldn't argue with that (thanks Sam!), and as I plopped down, I discovered a huge painting of the Mona Lisa THE SIZE OF THE BED hanging from the ceiling looking down at me. That lady freaks me out and I was scared of waking up in the middle of the night and freaking out (luckily, that did not happen).

I went down to the lobby to see if some friends were down there, but no one was really there and I did not know their room numbers. I tagged along with an awesome group walking to a market that was supposedly a few minutes away, but we ended up never finding it. I then went with them to a shop where I bought a scarf and a saree that I could wear to the Taj! I went back to the hotel, had another amazing dinner, and then went on good ole' Facebook until I passed out.

DAY 3

We woke up early to catch a flight to Varanasi at 9am. After we landed an hour later, we went on a tour bus straight to Sarnath, a major Buddhist center. Now Varanasi was how I had always pictured India. Dirt roads, cows walking around everywhere and laying in the middle of the road, tons of people, lots of traffic, and it was just….India, and I loved it. After the Buddhist center, some people checked out a museum while others checked out the street vendors. One guy followed me around for at least 20 minutes trying to get me to buy another one of something I had already bought. We then had another amazing meal and checked into our Hotel Clarks Varanasi and listened to a lecture about the Ganges River from a professor. After that, we finally got to check it out at dark where we went out on a boat and watched the "Aarti" ceremony. There were men dancing and drumming on a stage by the river with tons of people surrounding them doing this Hindu religious ritual of worship. There were also HUNDREDS of boats out on the river watching it also, and we were one of them. Some people were even jumping around from boat to boat trying to sell stuff because we were all so close together. It was an amazing site.

DAY 4

We woke up insanely early to be on the river for sunrise. There were tons of people bathing in the river to wash their sins away. This river is so sacred and there was a crematorium where a huge ceremony goes on when someone dies and they throw the ashes in the river. I have never seen or heard of anything like this ever before! My guide told me that many people were even eager to die because they get honored so well and also believe they will reincarnate. It was an amazing and holy site that I will always remember for sure. After being on the river for a while, we went back to shore and went up to an Akhara-a traditional Indian Gymnasium for wrestling. It was a quick visit, but it was cool hearing about it and seeing some of them training because the wrestlers live there and train together, and follow strict rules on what they can eat and do in their spare time. Sex, drinking and smoking are all off limits!

After this unreal morning, we had breakfast then went to the airport for yet another flight, this time to Agra. We went to lunch then visited the Agra Fort, a big place that is basically a city within a city, and you could see the Taj Mahal in the distance! This is where Emperor Shah Jahan watched the building of his dream of the Taj Mahal as he was imprisoned by his son. After this, we visited Mother Theresa's Charity Home where orphaned children or anyone who cannot take care of themselves can go to live. I saw many kids and adults, and one girl befriended many of us. She spoke no English (and I later found out that what I thought was Hindi she was speaking was actually no language at all because she had a mental disability) yet she got a group of about 10 of us to come outside with her and play ball while she would stand in the center and tell us what to do. She was so sweet and I really enjoyed my short time there!

We then went straight to a theatre to see the play "Mohabbat-e-Taj" which was a play depicting the love story around the building of the Taj Mahal. Emperor Shah Jahan loved his wife Mumtaz Mahal, and when she died, he wanted to express his undying love for her and started building the Taj. If you didn't already know, the Taj Mahal is Mumtaz Mahal's tomb, and Shah Jahan got buried there as well when he died. The play was very Bollywood and had lots of dancing, singing, fancy outfits, and I personally really enjoyed it although a lot of other people said it was weird and over-the-top. After the play, we went back to the hotel for dinner and went to bed excited to see the Taj the next morning!

DAY 5

We went to the Taj Mahal just after sunrise and it was breathtaking. I've seen so many pictures of it before and it was so surreal that I was actually there. I took a ton of pictures and walked around, amazed that it wasn't all a dream. After the Taj, we went on a 5 hour bus ride back to Dehli. We visited Raj Ghat, drove past the Red Fort, and visited Jama Masjid, the "mosque of Friday". It was only a brief stop here and Mitchi and I got swarmed by groups wanting to take pictures with us. I swear it happens in the randomest places in the randomest countries. After going back to the hotel, I hung out at the bar for a drink then went upstairs to the rooftop bar which was also a hookah bar. It was SUCH a nice hotel!

DAY 6

We got up early again to catch a flight back to Kochi. We got back right when lunch ended, so everyone headed up to the pool bar to get burgers, fries and all that fun fat stuff. I completely crashed after that, and caught a bad cold starting then for a couple of weeks. It was an exhausting trip and I think we did way too much, but I don't know if I will ever be back in India so it was good to see a lot. 4 plane rides and one 5 hour car ride is a lot to do in 5 days!

 

PICTURES

1-The streets of Jew Town with some tuk tuk's, the "Indian taxis"

2-Joselyn and I by a synagogue in Jew Town with a menorah and Star of David in the back

3-Qutub Minar

4-Snake charmer!

5-Ivette, Me, Mitchi and Joselyn at Gurdwara Bangla Sahib which is "the most prominent Sikh house of worship in Dehli"

6-What the Sikh temple looked like

7-The Aarti ceremony on the Ganges

8-The Ganges in the early morning with people "washing their sins away"

9-Mitchi, me and Joselyn at the Agra fort

10-Just a TAD different than America haha

11-Right before entering the Taj, I saw camels for the first time

12-My first picture at the stunning Taj Mahal

13-Mitchi and I excited as could be at the Taj

14-MONKEYS! Right outside the Taj!

15-Guys who ran up and asked me for a picture at Jama Masjid, the "mosque of Friday"

16-Sisters who ran up to me (along with one's husband) after the guys did. They were all so sweet!

Myanmar Pictures

Mingalaba-ing in Myanmar

I'm at a loss of words to describe my experience in Myanmar. I stared out the window on long bus rides for hours and hours, amazed by the simple life these people live and yet are still so content. The amount of smiles and waves exchanged even surpasses that of Japan, which is a lot to say. Another amazing country.

 

RANDOM OBSERVATIONS:

-Myanmar is also known as "Burma"

-"Mingalaba" means "hello" if you are wondering about the title of the blog. "Hello-ing" does not make sense, but the word sounds like "mingle" so I like it. "Mingalaba" was said so many times throughout my stay

-The majority of people wear white face paint on their face called "Tanaka" (that may be the wrong way to spell it). This is made by crushing up a rock and mixing water in it. It protects from the sun, helps cool you off, and may even be seen as a beauty thing

-For one of my classes I had to observe advertisements and marketing. There were advertisements everywhere, which I definitely was not expecting

-SO many beer, tea, energy drink, COKE (and sometimes pepsi) and coffee ads and many restaurants that sell them. There were many Nescafe's, which I'd never heard of before but apparently is in America also

-There's a lot of traffic and very bumpy roads

-Many many stray dogs

-Although it is a very underdeveloped country and people do not speak much English, the majority of signs I saw were in English and Burmese

-Everything is so cheap! The majority of my large meals were only about $3 max!

-This country has gone through many changes and will continue to go through many more in the upcoming years. I saw roads and buildings being built, so this untouched society won't be as untouched anymore soon

 

DAY 1

I went off with Mitchi, Meghan, and Madison and went on the one hour bus ride provided that takes us into the city of Yangon. Madison had everything planned out so we decided to follow her itinerary for the day. The ride was very bumpy and we passed many houses that were basically just small unstable huts. I couldn't stop looking out the window. We got to an atm and got some money out, then found "Nescafe" which is everywhere in Myanmar. It was a restaurant that had good coffee, tea and other drinks, so we ordered lemon tea for all of us. It was amazing tea! There were many young teenage boys working there and they all wore coca-cola shirts which I found quite interesting. There were coke advertisements literally everywhere.

We left and then walked around and tried to find a market that Madison had heard of. We finally found it and ran into other SAS'ers there too. Mitchi and I were looking at something and then realized we had lost Meghan and Madison. We tried finding them but gave up after a bit, so it was just us 2. We found a random stand with fresh oranges and said we would each like one, but they started mashing it. It was actually an orange JUICE stand and they then mashed an avocado and mixed it in with the orange juice. Mitchi just had plain orange juice but I tried it with avocado and it was so oddly delicious.

So we didn't know where we were really after we lost the two girls. We knew we wanted to get to the Schwedegon Pagoda but didn't know how far or what direction. We could have taken a taxi but we just wanted to walk around and enjoy the place. So we started walking back the way we came from and randomly ran into Scout, who tagged along with us and also had a map so it was perfect. We ran into other SAS'ers and they said there's a nice lake at "Karaweik & Kandawgyi public Natural Park" you can bike around that they are going to later, so we got a taxi and went there.

There were no bikes. It was a pretty and small lake and we could see the Schwedegon Pagoda from it so we sat down at a café and got some wifi, then started heading towards the pagoda. A young 22 year old man walked with us there because he was going to some place to go pray right by there. He was wearing a "longi" which is basically a long skirt you tie around your waist, and many women and men wore them. There are also monks and nuns everywhere and I found them so fascinating.

We got to the Pagoda and walked up a ton of stairs and paid $8 to go inside. The majority of places does not accept $USD in Myanmar, but we found a few places that did. You have to be barefoot when walking around the pagoda area, and it was just surreal. There was a monk singing the entire hour I was there and there were speakers throughout the whole area and it just sounded so sacred and I felt like I was dreaming. People were meditating and praying in random open rooms, and the main Pagoda was in the center and everything was beautiful and gold. We were there for sunset and it was just gorgeous. It's hard to find words to describe this place! The whole atmosphere was like nothing I had ever seen before and I was fascinated by how these people lived their lives. So after all of that, Mitchi and I went back to the place where the bus dropped us off that morning. We were hungry so we found a random café, then caught the bus back.

DAY 2

The buses left by 7:20am to leave for a field program through the ship I signed up for called "Ngwe Saung Beach tour". There were two different buses going to the resort, and just my luck, we picked the "struggle bus". We didn't have as many people on our bus so we got to spread out more so that was great, but we ended stopping multiple times. We had a scheduled stop at a parasol workshop, lunch, we all had to constantly pee so we stopped 3 more times, our tire got messed up and we had to stop 3 times, then we couldn't find our hotel for a solid 20 minutes after arriving at the beach. We finally got to the hotel around sunset and it was BEAUTIFUL. I was shocked though how there was so much poverty on the way there and even right outside the area of the hotel, but we were ignorantly staying at a resort that felt like we were in someplace like Tahiti.

We got our room and roommate assignments. I got cabin 129 and my roommate was a sweet older lifelong learner from France named Elise. Our room was so nice besides the fact that we never got hot water but it felt kind of nice after being in the hot sun so much. Dinner that night was a buffet at the resort and so good! I went to sleep shortly after because I was exhausted from traveling for almost 11 hours.

DAY 3

We had a great buffet breakfast, then went in the pool and tanned. We went to lunch at a random restaurant close by at 12, then drove for 30 minutes to an elephant camp!  I fed them so much sugar cane and they were so cute. We then got on them and of course it was Mitchi and I on one. We got the biggest elephant and felt like we were going to fall right out of the baskets you sit in on them since they are kind of sideways. We walked through the jungle and into the water for about 25 minutes and it was just awesome. I can check that off of my bucket list now!

After elephant riding, we headed back to the hotel. On the way there, we hit the mirror right off of an oncoming truck. The struggle bus was real. So real that we created a hashtag for it: #strugglebussp15. We made it back to the hotel after our driver and the truck driver got everything settled, then gathered people together to go out for dinner since it was not included that night. We found a restaurant about a 10 minute walk down the road that we'd heard was good, so our group sat down. It took literally 2 hours to get our food because they were not used to so many people and we ordered a lot, but the food was amazing and I had nowhere else to be so I couldn't complain.

DAY 4

After eating breakfast, we squished 12 people into the back of each truck and arrived at a school in "Thazin Village". It was a 30 minute drive and the road was so bumpy and there was a roof on the truck but the back was open. That sure was an experience. Everyone was smiling when we showed up and young teenage girls immediately ran over and each grabbed one of us and held our hand and took us to a classroom. There were notepads in there and people started drawing and writing letters in theirs. All the children there had on "tanaka", the white face paint, and I asked to get some. The girl I was with whose name was "Htet Taired Mom" brought me outside and mashed the stone and she put it on my cheeks and nose.

We went back to the classroom and we drew, wrote, and I showed her pictures on my phone (like of a cat) and she would write the Burmese word for "cat". It was fun and we both really enjoyed teaching each other. Throughout the visit, we did limbo with a ton of other people, played frisbee, soccer, watched them dance, sang and tried seeing if they knew any American songs (they didn't), then they served us lunch! We also donated many items to them such as soccer balls, toothbrushes, and I believe even a generator. These kids were all so sweet and they were all so genuinely happy that we came to visit them which in turn made me so happy. I was really sad when I had to leave and 3 girls even kissed my cheek goodbye! They spoke barely any English yet we had so much fun because smiling, playing, and drawing is the same no matter where you are in the world. It's universal.  

The rest of the day was hanging out on the beach and walking with Mitchi and Meghan down to another resort where other SAS'ers on the field program were staying. The beach did not have much on it besides a few people riding motorbikes, horses, and some tents trying to sell food and beverages. That night we walked 10 minutes away with the whole group to a farewell dinner right by the beach. It was great food and we had a mini dance party after which included doing the "Wobble". We then all walked back on the beach to our hotel, and there were tables set up outside with about 50 people hanging out.

We had met a few middle-aged Russians in the pool the day before that were there for some business meeting. They lit a huge bonfire and some of us SAS'ers went over to it and stood there and enjoyed the fire. The Russians had some leftover drinks from their business meeting, so the hotel staff poured us all some drinks and we had a fun night sitting on the beach and just enjoying life. A few friends who were not on this specific field program randomly showed up around midnight and I was amazed they somehow found us. SAS'ers really do take over each country we go to!

DAY 5

I woke up around 6:30 completely energized to sit on the beach for the sunrise. IT WAS BEAUTIFUL. We left the hotel around 10:30am and stopped for a great lunch and then a bamboo shop place. On the drive back to the ship, we hit yet another truck's mirror. We stopped and our bus driver and the truck driver got into a heated argument. They left the door open and many mosquito's came flying in and I got bit 4 times (I was wearing repellent but rolled up my long pants since it got hot on the bus..). And lastly, a few people puked on the way there because of how bumpy the road was and/or because they drank the night before. I really was not kidding when I say it was a struggle bus. We were all so relieved when we made it back to the ship!

 

I had no idea what to expect from Myanmar. It's hard to pick a favorite port but Myanmar may have to be the winner so far. It's the friendly people, the simple life, and the pure happiness I saw in everyone's face that really made me reflect on what is necessary in life versus what is just an unnecessary desire. Myanmar is an amazing country that I first heard of just over a year ago. I hope that more people can become aware of this place and visit someday so they can experience everything I am talking about!

 

PICTURES

1-A monk that I found hanging around the Schwedegon Pagoda

2-Scout, Mitchi and I at the beautiful Schwedegon Pagoda

3-Me meditating at the pagoda

4-The view right when we arrived at our hotel at Ngwe Saung Beach

5-A friend I made

6-Mitchi and I leading the pack

7-Another photo of an elephant. I really like elephants

8-Directly outside of the elephant camp. I am not sure if these specifically were houses, but I saw many houses that were way smaller than these during my time there

9-The sweetest girl at the school who got me a coconut to drink

10-Me, Myra, Allie, and Madison with our new friends at the school in Thazin Village

11-A shot from the time-lapse I was doing on my GoPro during the beautiful sunrise on the last day at Ngwe Saung Beach. That's me petting a horse and talking to the sweet boy who wanted me to pay him to ride the horse (I had no money left)

12-What many of the buses/trucks looked like in Burma. People were absolutely CRAMMED in and hanging out the back

 

Singapore Pictures