India. August 30, 2008

India. Enough said. All the sand and sun at the beach, the air conditioned malls, the wonderful 5 star hotel, my pedicure, the massages, the food, every wonderful part of (relatively modern) Malaysia is gone. The city streets are usually dirt, there are no traffic lanes, everything is filthy, and I’d be lying if I said I’d ever been in a hotter place in all my life.

We got off our plane to be greeted by a large van with a wire-type door. We arrived at night and it didn’t take long to realize that hardly any women were out at night… but holy cow the men were. I thought to myself… where the heck is everyone going? The city street were so crowded and I only found little comfort in the fact that I was slightly higher up in our 1970’s run down van/bus type thing. We abruptly stopped at our new home, ICSA. It’s some sort of Christian hostel with no air conditioning and a front desk worker who speaks very broken English. My room isn’t big and the most noticeable thing is the four twin beds with huge mosquito nets over them. It didn’t take long to find out that we couldn’t flush toilet paper down the toilet and for me to realize that India truly is a tri-world country.

Everything is really cheap as everyone says. Everyone wears beautiful, bright colors. And just as everyone from home said, I stick out like a sore thumb around here. The city of Chennai is such a bustle of activity. Rickshaws are terrifying and I’m lucky to get out alive everytime I ride. The roads are shared by people walking, men on clanky bicycles, many many mopeds, rickshaws, very modern beautiful cars, and buses. There doesn’t seem to be any sort of order (no designated lanes, sometimes not even a center line) besides an occasional stop light where people stop strikingly fast. It was like playing frogger my first time (really every time) crossing the road.

And hot. It’s definitely hot here. The amount that I sweat during the day is only comparable to how much I sweat at night. We have no air conditioning and the holes in our mosquitonets are only big enough to not let any air flow through. This morning I compared it to waking up stuck deep inside a sleeping bag in a tent hot by the morning sun (my thermometer said it was a cool 93 degrees in my room). However, I did sleep better last night than I did the first night and the city traffic that never stops (where is everyone going?) sort of lulls me to sleep. Plus, it sort of feels like a small princess bed with a canopy, um, sort of.

I am sitting in a extremely hot internet store, hole in the wall. By the way the keyboard looks, I should have already used hand sanitizer 400 times. I am wearing a salwar and it is absolutely beautiful. I was excited to wear Indian dress but am only more excited now that I’ve gone shopping. Irene, our teacher who takes very good care of us (our translator, our angel!), took us shopping today at a very upscale shopping district. The problem was that we didn’t know it was considered extremely upscale (a place where many women buy their wedding outfits)! I didn’t buy any saris but decided the salwars are probably more my style. I spent almost Rs2000 on four. This equivalates to about US$50… but they are gorgeous. I’ve had one of them on for about five hours and already realized that my (very upscale) salwar looks very expensive walking down the street and Rebecca and I feel very vogue with our sun glasses and red hair in glam salwars… my attempt to blend in is a sorry one!

Despite all the shocking things I’ve already seen and done, such as convincing our rickshaw driver to race the boy’s driver which turned out to be one of the scariest experiences of my life, I’ve already fallen in love with parts on India. The colors are beautiful, the children are beautiful, there is a very relaxed atmosphere (except when going into a department store with a million workers anxious to help), and the spices used in the food are extraordinary. The people from St. Olaf are a very charismatic group and some of them are already turning into best friends. It’s going to be an experience of a lifetime (just as soon as my body adjusts to the heat) and ready or not, it’s defiantly underway…

Kuala Lumper, Malaysia August 30, 2008

Oh my goodness it’s hard to believe that I’ve already been gone as long as I have. Malaysia was interesting. Kuala Lumper is a bustling city full of a melting pot of cultures. There were Indians and Asians and styles of dress ranging everywhere from very conservative to tank tops. It wasn’t hard to spot our group… tall white people. And we got more attention from everyone than we bargained for.

The first afternoon was spent figuring out the subway system and orienting ourselves to the city. It felt so good to walk after my nearly 24 hours on the plane. Luckily, I had very little jet lag!

The second day was again much walking. We found the central market and China Town. I didn’t do too much wheeling and dealing but had I of wanted any sort of knock off designer bag I could have gotten it there. It was every handbag lovers dream.

Our first eating experience was a disaster. We walked in as a group of 10 to an open, roof enclosed restaurant. The workers spoke about as little English as I did Malaysian. There was a buffet that we awkwardly served ourselves from. I’m not sure how it happened but this soon became the favorite restaurant of a few of us. We would go there sometimes three times a day to order nan (flat bread cooked in a fire oven) and milo (cold hot chocolate). We learned the names of the workers and were treated like local celebrities.

The third day a few of us (Rebecca, Ian, Tony, Shoshana, and I) decided to go to the beach. The closest beach was in Port Dickson, about 90 minutes from KL. We got up really early to catch a bus out there–only to find that none of the locals really knew a way to get out there. Finally a man overheard us asking someone on the street and told us to catch a bus to Serumbrum and then connect there. This first time out of the city was when I decided that I actually liked Malaysia. Serumbrum was a cool city because a lot of the buildings had roofs modeled like buffalo horns. We were surprised to find that Port Dickson had a beach nearly 10 miles long…

We sat down witha fresh coconut to drink coconut milk and then spend some time in the sun. Malaysian women do not wear bathing suits… all of them were wearing full pants and long sleeved shirts and none of them were in the water. So you can imagine the scene we caused with three girls in two piece bathing suits. We went to a deserted part of the beach but it wasn’t long before we started drawing a crowd. Bothmen and women came to see us, some brought their entire families with little kids and sat for a while, some took pictures. Us, just being typical college students, read our novels and soaked in the sun… we didn’t think we were incredibly exciting. We found a very nice hotel to eat dinner at (soaking wet) and watched the sunset on the beach. It was beautiful. We didn’t think too much about finding a taxi but it’s extremely hard to find a taxi out on the beach after dark! We caught one just in time to miss the last bus back to Serumbrum so we decided to taxi (for a hefty fee) just in time to miss the last available bus back to KL. We ran, sprinted really, to the train station from the bus stop to catch the last train back. Two strikes out of three– we’re lucky. The sand and sun felt so good; I already miss it!

After convincing ourselves that we should see other sites instead of being beach bums everyday, we decided to go to Batu Caves.

We were greeted by a huge 200+ foot statue of a Hindu God and something like 274 steps to get inside. Monkeys played and swang on the trees around us on the walk up. The caves were so cool and the drizzling rain made them seem so mystic. The drizzle shortly turned into a downpour while we were inside so we decided to stay in for a bit until the rain slowed– which absolutely never happened.

You can’t imagine how hard it is to (again) find a taxi in flash floods! We spent a lot of time in wet clothes in our time in Malaysia… but the rest of the cave day was spent in the comfort of air conditioned malls and our hotel room getting ready to go out to the infamous golden triangle clubbing district of KL.

Wednesday Rebecca and I, the two redheaded girls who are slowly becoming inseparable, decided to have a girls’ pamper day. We got hour long full body massages, a half an hour foot massage and a pedicure. That night we went to a really cool reggaebar in China Town with a lot of international people from England, France, and Ireland.

Thursday we toured the KL tower, the 4th tallest city tower in the world. We could see for miles… the royal courts (apparently they have 9 royal families), domes, buildings, miles and miles of human development. We also zip-lined at the tower which was very cool… and the dare devil herself (me) even let go to completely hang upside down. Extreme sports in the city of KL.

We boarded the plane later that night which brought me to the craziness that I live in now, India, where I am writing this post. And oh boy, do I already have stories…

More to Come Soon! August 26, 2008

Hello all! I am safely in Malaysia! I don’t have long to post this morning and there is more to come very soon! The overall flight time for me to get over here was just a little under 24 hours. Thankfully, the jet lag wasn’t bad! The group is absolutely wonderful! Miss you all at home. Check back soon!

And the Preparations Continue… August 11, 2008

My religion paper and organic chemistry will have to wait tonight. I’m antsy for India and cannot concentrate. I have 10 days until my plane touches down in Malaysia and I’m left with one hiking backpack’s worth of stuff. I’ve bought just about everything I’m going to take, already said goodbye to friends that I won’t see until February, and continue to plow through school. With papers, tests, lab reports, and finals still to do, my anxiety builds. It will all get done, somehow!

 

The recent bombings have worried me a little. Our advisors have assured us that everything is [probably] fine. The most recent series was in Mumbai, farther south than the violence usually pertinent to northern India. I will be spending most of my time a lot farther south than even Mumbai and just hope that I am never faced with any of the violence.

 

I sent a whole slew of pictures to be printed off at Walgreens today. There is probably one of you in it if you’re reading this. It will be a way to tell the people I meet in the city and villages about my life, and all the important people in it!

 

This will probably be my last post before Malaysia. I have my finals here at St. Olaf on August 20^th and then I will pack up my car and drive the eleven hours home that night. Thursday the 21^st I will run some quick morning errands in Gillette and then be in the car by noon headed to Denver to be at the airport shortly after 5pm. I’ll remind myself to breathe when I get there. I’ll try to get sleep in the car on the way to Denver because there won’t be much before or after that. My connecting flight leaves from LAX at 1:40am and I’ll arrive in Malaysia at noon the next day. Believe me; my life is always this hectic.

 

On a side note, those of you who know Amanda know that she is in Tanzania for the semester. If you don’t know her, she’s from St. Olaf and one of my best friends! I’ve added a link to her blog to the right. It will be easy for you to keep updated on both of us by using our links back and forth. She’s already there and already having super cool adventures. And she is learning Swahili. Click on her link!

 

I should get going. One last thing- for those of you who love letter writing, here is my snail mail address (I know it’s long) for the first few weeks. If you write me, I promise to write back!

 

Attn: Chelsea Koloski

Dr. Moses P. Manohar

Inter-Church Service Association

Post Box No. 771

107 (old #93) Pantheon Road,

Egmore, Chennai 600 008

INDIA

 

 

Peace out.