Taj Coromandel Chennai (Madras)

... boys signed up before I could. Then they realized that each team of 3 had to have 1 girl. They were freaking out and I told them that I was actually good…they didn’t believe me and literally were like “its ok you can just stay in the back the whole time.” Mind you these boys came up to my hip they were so short! I showed them… they felt real dumb. Then we had a team of 4 for the popcorn-eating contest. We had to eat a plate full of popcorn ...

... 3 introductory meditations. These entail sitting across from an expert, or prefect, as Jaya and Frida were called, and meditating for 30 minutes. I passed- they were trying to be minimalist in their spirituality, but the fact that there were initiation rules gave me the willies. I took one nice idea from the experience- meditating every morning for 20 minutes or so could be cool. Wonder if I have the discipline&#8230;<br><br>We&#8217;re off ...

... the museum they have set up. We then went across town to find postcards and do a little bit more shopping before heading back to the ship to get one of our friends to go out to dinner. Someone had suggested a great place to eat and we went there. Well, it was obvious what area of Chennai you were really in. We were no longer in the Chennai we had been experiencing all of these days. Our very last day, I was completely exhausted. It was a slow day but a day that we had to do a lot of ...

... down the road from the temple that advertised multi-specialty cuisine. When we entered one of my friends headed to the jewelry shop while I went to the bathroom. There was no toilet paper. I asked my male friend how I was supposed to clean things up if there was no toilet paper. He sheepishly replied, "You use your hand and then wash your hand with the water in the bathroom." In all my years I never thought of that. It's the ultimate in going Green. Why waste toilet paper ...

... which is where the Ganges river is located. I heard so much about it from other students that were able to see it. If I could ever return to India it would be to see the Ganges and some other nicer places in Northern India, not near Chennai. The last day of my time in India was also spent in Chennai. We had taken a train and a flight to get back from Agra to Chennai. The train station was the most shocking of all of India that I saw ...

... days. She did this to protest the verbal abuse of her husband's parents and her husband because she gave birth to a girl instead of a boy. I was so intrigued by the story because it just reminded me of Rosa Parks, where people who have been oppressed say "enough is enough," and I definitely see that attitude here. India is definitely experiencing a transitional phase in their history. Enjoy the Pics! Life Spent in Service is the only fruitful life" -Gandhi

... to stay awake to make sure we were not driven to some dark alley never to be seen again. This story really only continues to get more painful and I have already managed to suppress most of the hell the 3 days of travel entailed. But we basically ended up in Pondicherry only to be driven around for two hours unable to find accommodation anywhere. We had no choice but to remain in the taxi and be driven the four hours back to Chennai. We were further ****** around ...

... landscape, places of worship resembling the architecture of Ankor Wat and much more. The free part was actually the most intersting, because the 5 Rathas (5 temples next to each other in the shape of a chariot) were expensive and rather disappointing. It started raining for a couple of minutes, drenching everybody and leaving the air moist and damp. We finished our sightseeing with a visit to the Shore Temple. A part of this complex ...

... I didn't much care for the experience. The gift they gave us was a small elephant, which is hard to describe, so I shall just show it to all of you when I get home, and I was excited about that, because we all know I like elephants (although I still have yet to discover exactly why I have this fascination). After the reception, which ended at around 10pm I think, the night was apparently still young. What we had all thought was dinner, apparently was not, because when we left we ...