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India was fun; It started out with taking an hour and half ride to Cochin Airport. Kamu (Grandma) had arranged for someone to pick me up, his name was Jacob! On the way to the airport, a truck hit a car, and us yeah sounds pretty casual…cause it is! We were on a one-way road and all of a sudden a truck decided he’s not waiting any longer, he powers through on the road and plows the side of our car. We get out and assess the damage and then a girl on her scooter doesn’t brake fast enough and then plows into the back of the car. Overall I think it was a perfect start to India!

            I made it to the airport and I was the first to get there out of all the semester at sea students. I checked in and printed my boarding pass, I turned around and then all of a sudden all of semester at sea was there! I sat around and talked to some of the locals that were going to be on my flight to brush up on my Hindi and Gujarati. Good conversations were had with a guy from Ahmedabad (city closest to my house). We boarded our flight and man, I really noticed people were starting to stare, I know I’m Indian, but I thought I would have blended in a lot better.

         It was about 4-5 hours before I finally landed, first thing on my mind was tons of street food and what a better way to start that that pani puri and a sugar cane lassie? Roshan and Chirag (cousins) picked me up and took me out for dinner, shortly after we finally made it home. Right as I walked into my house, kamu was reading a book, I quickly threw my shoes off and ran over to her and touched her feet (necessity, pretty much a blessing). We talked for about an hour or so and then talked to my uncle for the rest of the time before everyone had decided to go to sleep.

            My time in India was mostly spent walking around town, meeting old friends and making plenty of new ones. The minute I got home, everyone knew. Small town problems, everyone knows your name, they know your family and for someone that tries to keep a low profile, too many people knew me! We went and shopped a lot, got shoe’s & pocket squares for my suit, plenty of shirts and a lot more stuff that was pretty useless. Ate food at my uncle’s restaurant, it was called mirch masala, really great food, got a tour of the kitchen and met the staff.

 

            Spending time with kamu and the family was great, I flew kites, went on to the farm and drove our tractor, saw peacocks and went to work with my cousin. I don’t know what he does for work other than point and yell. Its pretty much not even a job, I could do that from my house on the phone! We had one of his employees climb a tree for us to get coconuts and man they were delicious!

           

            The last day at home we made our way to the airport where I was also supposed to meet some of my family on my moms side, they were ecstatic to see me, they brought tea and a breakfast hahaha, we ate it in front of the airport and said our good bye’s before I made my way inside and started back for cochin. After I printed my boarding pass and made it past security, I saw a fight break out between a passenger and a ticketing agent, Airport security just watched as these two duked it out, I was not surprised in any way  that had happened, only in India!

            I made it back to Cochin that night and went back to the ship to meet up with some friends before going out that night. After everyone had made it back we all went out for dinner at a restaurant called the rice boat, which was fabulous. The next day Kayla, Carly, Sam and I all went on a back Water River cruise in allepey. The scenery was astounding! 

The tour lasted roughly around two hours, shortly after we went to get some henna done for the girls at a local’s house whose daughter was more than happy to draw on my friends with henna, It looked great! It was about that time to head back to the ship but Kayla needed to buy some sandals, I talked to the driver and told him to take us to a nice but cheap place to buy shoes. Her sandals cost 10 dollars, but they looked like they were worth a lot more, very stylish! We made it back to the ship and parted ways with our driver Shibu, what a great guy, we had met his family before making it back to the ship which was a great experience overall. India was a blast!

Next is Mauritius!!

-Raj Patel