Blog Entry #8: If you ever come to India, be prepared to have every one of your seneses assaulted. India is perhaps the most complicated place on earth. People who visit either love it or hate it. I tend to fall into the later category. Don’t get me wrong, the people are amazing and the culture really can’t be beat. But there are so many complexities wrapped into this country that it sends my senses into overload. This is my third visit to Chennai. Nothing much has changed. It is still the complicated place that it always has been. On the first night here, I spent a lovely evening attending a local University Welcome Reception for some of our students. They demonstrated south Indian dances, applied henna tatoos to the women, and presented us with an array of food. I am not a big fan of Indian food at all, and in fact I was going to skip what they offered. But something inside of me encouraged me to try it. I did, and it was really good. All vegetarian and not spicey at all. I’m ready however to move on to our next port in Viet Nam….signing off for now. Photos: Top: Chenai Tidel Park; Bottom right: Ho Chi Minh City Peoples Committee Bldg
Cape Town has grown up quite a bit since I last visited 16 years ago. It is very westernized. We docked right at a waterfront mall with all of the latest shops and restaurants. The students were very excited about that. The first evening, we went out and saw a small theatre production. On the very next day, we headed to the airport to fly to Johannesburg (Jo-Berg) for a safari about 2 hours north of Jo-Berg and Pretoria. After arriving at our swank hotel and settling in, we went on our first of 4 game drives. Although I was not at all interested in going on a game drive to see animals (many people who know me understand that seeing animals is not at the top of my list of things to do), I must admit that seeing many of these animals roaming free in their natural habitat was breathtaking. We were in an open-air jeep and encountered zebra, lions, hippos, crocs, rhinos, giraffes, elephants, baboons and many different types of hoofed creatures. We even had a very aged and rather gargantuan sized elephant approach our jeep and brush up against our vehicle. I couldn’t believe that I was looking eye to eye with the largest land creature in the world. During meals back at the lodge, there was a watering hole, and elephants and other animals came right up to it to drink as we ate our meals. Just splendid! The last couple of days in Cape Town I spent shopping and visiting with a couple of my very old dear friends in South Africa. Frank toured Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was held prisoner for over 30 years and he went to the top of Table Mountain. If I could move any place outside of the USA, it would be to Cape Town. I love this place…signing off for now.
Almost immediately upon stepping off the ship, the sights, sounds, and smells of Ghana bombarded all your senses. I think the Ghananian people were equally as curious about we Americans as we were about them. Traffic in the city is just a mad scramble of each person for herself, but it all somehow seems to work. I visited the grave sight of Ghana’s first President and founding father, as well as the grave site and private library of W.E.B. Du bois. As a Black man, that was a really touching and humbling experience. We took an overnight trip to the neighboring west African countries of Togo and Benin. Well actually, we just passed through Togo as it only took 1 hour to traverse that tiny country. While in Benin, we visited Granvie. Granvie is a village built entirely on stilts just outside of the Benin capital of Coutou. Locals call Granvie the Venice of Africa. It was extremely amazing to see how the people of this village lived their daily lives completely over water…signing off for now.
Frank and I took a cable car to the top of the Rock of Gibraltar and encountered Barbary Apes face to face. Of course I kept my distance We attended a Flamenco Dance performance our first night in Spain, saw a bloodless bullfight, and watched an Andalucian Horse Show. All really good stuff…signing off for now.
