Tina on her way to Singapore!

We are now at sea again on our way to Singapore.  Tina is flying out of Washington today, and will meet me in Singapore on Sunday morning!  Watch the blog for future updates on our travels together!

Thoughts about India

Auto rickshaw with Hindu temple in background

Before we arrived in India, we were told in pre-port presentations that India is a country of contrasts, and that there are aspects of the culture we will love and others we will find frustrating. My experience in India fit that description. The colors, the beauty of the people and the ancient temples, and the food were amazing. However, India is a chaotic country in some ways. Bureaucratic procedures are inconsistent and unpredictable, and infrastructure such as water, sewage treatment and electrical power are either absent or in bad repair. At DakshinaChitra the power would go off at random times and the water system was sometimes broken. The gap between rich and poor is huge. Still, India manages to function as the world's largest democracy, and there is remarkable tolerance for different religions and philosophies. My experience here only scratched the surface in understanding India. Hopefully I can return some day.

DakshinaChitra and Yoga

Dr. Hamsa Priya during a break

A yoga session

Textile Art

Sari weaver

Lunch on a banana leaf

We arrived at DakshinaChitra in the early afternoon.  DakshinaChitra (which means "view of the south") is a heritage village and craft cooperative.  They have brought traditional houses and other buildings from several regions of southern India, and demonstrate and sell local arts and crafts such as textiles, stone and wood carvings, and jewelry.  We saw a weaver working on a silk sari and were told that it takes him 10 days working at least 8 hours a day to make one six meter sari. Our group was housed in the guest houses at the site and did our yoga lessons in the assembly hall.  The meals were all vegetarian and represented south Indian cuisine (and were delicious!).  The yoga lessons were taught by Dr. HamsaPriya, who took up the Art of Living yoga after she retired as a professor of political science.  She has taught the Art of Living yoga to Semester at Sea groups for several years, and also has served as an interport lecturer on India for other voyages.  The Art of Living form of yoga stresses control of breathing and meditation.  The sessions were intense, with stretching exercises, chanting, and long periods of meditation. 

Temples at Mamallapuram

Cave temple

Carving of Vishnu holding the goddess of the Earth

"Krishna's butterball"

Bas relief at Mamallapuram

Wild monkeys in Mamallapuram

The five ratha temples carved from solid rock

Cows roaming along the road from Mamallapuram

On the second day in India I left for a three day yoga experience at DakshinaChitra, a heritage village of south Indian life and an artist cooperative.  On the morning of the first day we visited Mamallapuram, where there are Hindu temples carved out of solid rock in the eighth century.  We had a great tour guide who explained in detail the meanings of the carvings.  However, during the tour we were besieged by people hawking all kinds of crafts and wares.

India! Day 1

Our welcoming party

Whispering in Ganesh's ear....

We arrived at Chennai, India early in the morning of October 22 to a welcoming party of musicians on the dock.  Security in India is very tight, so before the ship could be cleared by immigration, we had to appear individually and present our passport and visa information.  Passports were checked frequently by port security officers as we left or returned to the ship. 

Ganesh, the remover of obstacles

I went on a City Orientation tour on the first day that visited several churches and temples, as well as a fort built by the British that now houses government buildings for the Tamil Nadu province.  The Hindu temple was the most interesting stop for the day.  The Hindu elephant-headed god Ganesh is considered the "remover of obstacles" and it is good luck to whisper a wish in his ear.  At the temple I whispered that Tina have a safe trip to Singapore!

Class time and Sea Olympics

Between Mauritius and India we had several days of classes, culminating in the Sea Olympics just before we arrived in India.  The cabin areas of the ship are divided into "seas", with each sea having it' own color and events--somewhat like different dorms on a land campus.   In the Sea Olympics, the seas compete against each other in events like crab soccer, jeopardy, sustainable art, tug of war, and many other events.  The faculty, families, and Life Long Learners were organized into their own sea for the Olympics, called the "Nomer Sea" (no mercy!).  I competed with a team in the sustainable sculpture event, and we created a version of the spiral of trash in the Pacific called the Pacific Gyre.  The Carribean Sea students won the Olympics, and won the right to get off the ship first in San Diego, and also have a party in the Faculty/Staff Lounge.  Nomer Sea came in third of ten seas, the highest any faculty/staff team had ever placed.  It was a day of silliness and fun...a nice break from classes and seriousness. 

Sugar factory

Cane crushing machine

The sugar production process (click to enlarge)

Kinds of sugar

Bagasse used for energy production

View of mountains from the factory

Unfortunately lunch took a long time so we were limited in the time we could spend at the sugar factory.  The factory we visited had been converted into a museum of sugar production called the "Sugar Adventure".  Displays showed how the cane is crushed and the juice converted into sugar and molasses for rum.  A number of different kinds of sugar are produced--from refined white sugar to dark molasses flavored sugar.  There was a sugar tasting at the end of the tour. The leftover cane (called "bagasse") is used to produce electricity to run the factory and to power surrounding homes (renewable energy!).

Tea Plantation

Solar building under construction

Tea plantation house

Vanilla tea and scones

A Hindu temple near Curepipe

Tea leaves arriving at the factory

A tea field

Lunch near the tea factory

The first day in Mauritius, I toured a tea plantation and sugar factory.  On the way to the tea plantation we passed a new building that is being constructed to run on solar power.  We also went through several small towns and saw some Hindu temples.  The majority of Mauritians are Hindu, with the remainder Christian and Muslim.  We first toured the plantation house and then a tea factory, where we observed the process of the tea leaves being dried, shredded, cleaned and packaged.  After touring the factory we had lunch at a chalet overlooking the tea fields and the ocean, before driving to the sugar factory.

Touring the Bridge

Bridge tour

Cap'n Rick at the helm

Controls at the helm

View from the bridge

On the day before we got to Mauritius, I toured the bridge on the ship, and learned a lot about navigation and safety on board.  The crew showed us several navigation charts, including one indicating areas of pirate activity that we are avoiding (!).....While we were touring the bridge, we saw a pod of dolphins following the ship.

Ship life between ports

Classroom for one section of Environmental Psych

Student studying in the library

A personal space exercise in the Union

Classroom for Sustainable Communities

Conversations in the Piano Lounge

I realized that I have not posted much to the blog about life on board ship when we are between ports.  When we are at sea, we have classes every day, including weekends.  In a typical day I will do class prep in the morning and attend the required Global Studies class, and have one or two classes each afternoon.  Often there are seminars and meetings in the evenings about shipboard life and information about upcoming cultures and ports.  We also started a Sustainability Club that meets every other evening at dinner time when we are at sea.  So far the Sustainability Club has sponsored a water conservation program, an evening "Sustainability Summit" to provide information on the ship's environmental performance, and is raising money to plant trees in Kenya to offset some of the carbon from the voyage.  One of our interport lecturers was Cathy Adams, a VP for IBM who is very involved with global sustainability issues.  She has arranged to have 1000 trees planted in honor of the Fall 2010 voyage, and the Sustainability Club is trying to double that number of trees.  Above are some photos of life on board ship, and I will add more later.

Wetlands Restoration

On our last day in South Africa I took a tour with Rocky Rohwedder, who teaches the other section of Sustainable Communities, and a small group of students to two wetlands restoration projects.  The projects not only restore wetlands, but also provide much needed jobs (the unemployment rate in South Africa is currently about 25%).  The sponsoring group is called Working for Wetlands (http://wetlands.sanbi.org/wfwet/).  It was a great tour and the students asked good questions linking the project to the three aspects of sustainability:  environment, economy and equity.  We sail for Mauritius tonight and will be rounding the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean.  

Two Oceans Aquarium

Two Oceans Aquarium

With the Archbishop on his 79th birthday

Nobel Square on the Cape Town waterfront

Clouds shrouding Table Mountain

Well...... I had planned to take the cable car to the top of Table Mountain today, but the mountain was covered in clouds all day.  So instead I visited the Two Oceans Aquarium... Some interesting displays, and there were a number of Semester at Sea folks there, since it was a good thing to do on a cloudy day.  Also roamed around on the dock.  There is a plaza with statues of the four South African Nobel Prize winners: Albert Luthull, F.W. de Klerk, Nelson Mandela, and Desmond Tutu.  Today is the Archbishop's 79th birthday.  There was a gala birthday party for him on board ship, attended by many South African dignitaries, and he officially retired from public life today (see http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE6960O520101007).