Author: Corina Kaiser

It was another early morning for us all today. We woke up at 5:30 AM and piled onto a bus for a 3 hour long drive to the city of Agra. I slept for 2.5 hours within this drive, and woke up rested. The landscape I woke up to looked very different from New Delhi, but it still had extremely busy traffic like in Delhi.

When we got off of our bus, we were at an elephant sanctuary called Wildlife SOS. We learned about what this sanctuary does for its elephants, which was very inspiring. This organization adopts elephants which have been abused, such as for labor or entertainment, and nurses them back to health. We even got to feed and pet the elephants on our visit, which was an amazing experience.

After a few hours of feeding, washing, and learning about all of the elephants, we sat down for a small lunch inside of the sanctuary. During this lunch, I bought souvenirs as gifts for people back home, such as earrings and an elephant batik. I was glad to buy these, because all of the money made from them go towards supporting the Wildlife SOS foundation as they help more animals in the future.

Once we finished, we left to drive to our hotel in Agra called the Howard Plaza. Traffic was pretty bad, just like it was in New Delhi, so we were stopped for a lot of the drive. While we were stopped, people would often come up to the windows of our small bus and try to sell us things or ask for money. In one specific instance, two young boys came to our window. One boy was asking for money, while the other was trying to sell a bottle of strawberry flavored water. After minutes of constant begging, one of the girls on our trip gave the boy 100 rupees in exchange for the water so he would leave us alone. After this, however, the other boy would not leave our bus and continued to walk or even run after us when we would begin to drive again. After an even longer time of him begging, Elizabeth gave the boy her packed lunch that she was given for the day so he would finally leave us alone.

After sitting in traffic for a while, we made it to our hotel. We checked in quickly, and then made our way to an array of beautiful gardens behind the Taj Mahal. While walking around, I made friends with some other people who were visiting the gardens and also got to see many random puppies that happened to be running around. Despite the extremely hot temperature, it was extremely beautiful to see.

Next we were off to the Trident Hotel to have dinner. There was an amazing buffet with delicious food, and we all ate until we were stuffed. The most interesting parts of the night happened after dinner, however. While exploring the hotel, I found a man in a small room who was throwing clay and spinning pottery. After watching him do it for a while, he even let me try! After I did that, we were all directed to the courtyard outside where we were given two shows. First, there was a very eccentric puppet show by a father and son. It was so funny and strange, and almost surreal because of how weird it was. After the puppet show, we got to see a magic show in the courtyard. I was so excited for this, because I love magic tricks so much. Once the magician was finished, he even showed us how he did all of his tricks which was so cool.

After these two shows, we all got back in our bus and went back to the hotel. It was a fantastic day, but we had to go to bed early because we needed to wake up bright and early the next morning…….. To go visit the Taj Mahal!!!

This morning started early- 5 AM to be exact. I needed to pack all of my things before it was time for us all to leave SECMOL and get on our flight back to New Delhi. While packing, however, I realized I didn’t have something very important: my phone! I didn’t use my phone other than for its camera within the past week, and even then seldom took it out of my room, so I had no idea how I could have lost it. I searched all over the campus for it, but came up with nothing. Although defeated, I finished packing because I knew I had to continue on. I got over it by accepting that it’s a funny story to say I lost my phone in the Himalayas.

After we all finished packing, we put all of our belongings onto our bus which was going to take us back to the airport. I then said goodbye to all of the new Ladakhi friends I had made during this time, and it was a very emotional goodbye. I’m so happy to have gotten to know such amazing people in such a short amount of time. They’re definitely a group I will never forget because of the huge impact they’ve made on my life.

We all piled on the bus and waved goodbye to our friends. On the way to the airport we sang our favorite songs in unison like it was an elementary school field trip, and it felt great. Once we were back at the airport I was reminded of the heavy militarization of the area by the abundance of men with guns that I saw, but they didn’t scare me like they did when we initially landed.

I got onto the plane and slept for the whole flight. When we landed, I could already feel that hot, sticky New Delhi air again. After further inspection of the weather, I saw that it was 106 degrees outside. This was in great contrast to the perfect 70 degree weather that we had in Ladakh. We pushed through the humidity to get back to our familiar hotel, the Mantra, and ate Domino’s pizza for lunch since we had been eating lentils for the past week. (Honestly, I’d have to say I definitely prefer lentils to New Delhi Domino’s…)

After a long, long nap and a meeting with our cultural geography group, we then hit the town again for dinner. This time, we decided to go to a South Indian restaurant. Previously, we had only eaten North Indian food, so we wanted to mix it up a bit. This food was much different than anything else we had eaten before. It was very bread and rice based, rather than meat or vegetable based like North Indian food. Although the food didn’t necessarily taste bad, everyone agreed that we liked North Indian food a million times more.

Once we got back to the hotel, we all went to our rooms to relax for the rest of the night. I borrowed one of my roommates’ computers to message my family on Facebook to tell them about how I lost my phone and then got a shower. I showered for what felt like forever, and I’m pretty sure I ingested some shower water during that time. I also realized that I forgot to take my malaria pill for the day, so overall my health was doing GREAT!

I went to bed very late that night, tired out from my day of travel. Even though I was in the comfort of the large hotel beds, however, I could not help but think of the amazing time I had in the Himalayas and how much I missed my friends back in Ladakh.

I started off the day at SECMOL on a rough note, with a breakfast of burnt chipote and some strange, unidentifiable greens. After I managed to eat it all, though, my day quickly improved as I went to hang out with some SECMOL students who taught me how to hand wash my clothes. One of my new friends Sonam showed me the right methods to get out stains from my shirts. It was actually pretty fun to learn to hand wash, a skill that I’m sure will definitely come in handy in the future.

Because I took so long to wash all of my clothes, I arrived late to a presentation we were receiving from a guest speaker that day, a French archeologist who specialized in Ladakhi ruins. After the archaeologist’s introductory presentation ended, our group then got on a bus so he could show us his places of study.

Before going to the ruins, however, we stopped by a place called Ladakh Arts and Media Organization, or LAMO for short. At LAMO, we walked around different galleries and workspaces of local Ladakhi artists who were working on different media forms ranging from paintings to sculpture. It was amazing to see some of the local art forms, as these artists were all extremely talented.

After this tour, we left to go explore the Ladakhi ruins with our French specialist. We first hiked up a small hill through a grassy pasture to an old military lookout, atop which we could see for miles around the open area of Ladakh. We then drove to a more barren land with large walls, where the archeologist explained that these walls used to be the structures for living spaces from hundreds of years ago.

Once we finished this archeological tour, we returned to SECMOL to have dinner. Since our time at SECMOL was coming to an end, we took part in a sort of closing ceremony with the SECMOL students. We were all prese nted with a small handmade scarf and a card, in which all of the students signed their names and wrote nice sentiments to us about the impact we had made on them during our time there. We also all gave a small “token” to the school which was a small item with sentimental value to us that we wanted the school to have. I gave up my small rugby ball keychain, and explained that it was because I played rugby back home which was extremely important to me.

Later that night, the Nat Geo students and the SECMOL students both performed dances for each other to celebrate the time we had spent together. Our group danced to “Party in the USA,” while the SECMOL students danced a more traditional Ladakhi dance. After our choreographed dance, all students then stayed in the large meeting room and had a farewell dance party. We listened to English, Ladakhi, Hindi, and Spanish music. Even though at least half of us could not understand the music at any given point, we all had an amazing time hanging out with each other for one of the last times. It was very emotional, as we had all become extremely close during this short time we had spent together. Even though we were sad to soon be saying goodbye, it was a fantastic last night together.

 

This morning at SECMOL started off with an emotional goodbye. Our Nat Geo expert Sandesh, who I have decided is the most interesting man I have ever met in my life up until this point, left our group. Although we all knew he was only set to stay with us for this short amount of time, it was still extremely sad to say goodbye to such an amazing man who taught our group so much about photography, India, and ourselves. Luckily, we kept the knowledge we learned from him for the rest of our trip to help with our travels.

After saying goodbye to Sandesh, we ate breakfast then met in our “on assignment groups.” My cultural geography group was very small compared to the photography group, as there were only four of us. This was nice, however, because our leader Robbie could talk to us one on one and answer all of our questions much easier. On this day, we were given an assignment for our project. Since our plan for the day was to travel to a large city in Ladakh, Leh, we were told to talk to the people we’d see around the city. More specifically, we were assigned to ask at least two people to draw us each a map of where they were from. I was so excited for this, because talking to strangers happens to be one of my favorite pastimes.

After our meetings, we all got onto a bus with a few SECMOL students and made our way to Leh. The first thing everyone did was search for 1) wifi and 2) an “American” cafe. As it turned out, on this particular day the wifi was down across the whole city. We did manage to find a cafe, however, but the food was not top quality. I ate a chicken burger, fries, and a shake, which is similar to what the rest of our group bought as well. Even though it wasn’t great food, it was nice to get a little bit of variety from eating lentils almost every day.

After lunch, we all started exploring the city and going to markets to shop. I broke out my amazing bargaining skills once again, and never paid more than 50% of the original price I was offered. To keep myself under control, I put 2000 rupees in my pocket (about $30) at the beginning of the day and decided I wouldn’t spend any more than that. By doing this, I set a limit for myself and also set my sights to ramp up my bargaining. I left that day with jewelry, statues, clothes, and more- all within my budget.

While shopping, I was also completing my map assignment. This turned out to be probably my favorite assignment I’ve ever received for anything before. I would walk up to strangers and first ask if they spoke English. If they did, I’d ask them to draw a map of where they were from. The results were fantastic. I realized that this assignment shows what is important to these peoples’ culture, because the items they draw in their home village highlight what is most important in their lives. For example, a young Buddhist boy highlighted where the monasteries were located in his home village, which is important to him because of his religion. Similarly, a shop owner highlighted where all of the ATMs in Leh were located, which are clearly important to him because of his job. I loved the way that I could learn so much about people and their culture through just a quick, simple drawing.

By the end of this long day, we were all completely tired out. We sat down for dinner at a nice restaurant in the city where we ate momos, then all hopped on the bus to go back to SECMOL. Once back, I watched an Arabic movie with some of the Ladakhi students, then washed my hair in the spicket of cold Himalayan mountain water before going to bed. As I lay in bed, I reflected on how amazing the day was: I got to talk to so many new people, learn so much more about different cultures, and even walk away with some amazing treasures from the city. I decided that the freedom that I felt in this day was something I so greatly wanted to feel again, which inspired me to think of more trips I could take like this in the future all night long as I fell asleep.

On the next morning of the trip, I woke up in my homestay in the village of Hemis to eat a breakfast of chipote, eggs, and greens. Once we were all finished eating, we packed our things and left the home.

It turned out that the village that we stayed in on this past night, Hemis, was the home place of one of the Ladakhi students, Namgail, who led us through the mountains on our trek. Since he was from this village, we all were given the privilege of a tour around Hemis led by Namgail. We also were invited to his home, where we got to meet his father and grandfather, and also have tea time.

Once we finished with tea time and said goodbye to Namgail’s family, we were off again- back to SECMOL. Before we went back, however, we stopped first at the Alchi Monastery. This monastery was a bit more touristy and structured in its tours than the other ones we had been to, but it turns out that this was because it was extremely old- it was built about 1,000 years ago.

After receiving a tour of this beautiful, hand painted monastery, we all sat down to have lunch in the convenient restaurant that was available on site. The food was just okay here, but I enjoyed this lunch so much because of the conversations we had on it. The adult leaders- Liz, Robbie, and Sandesh- have all been to so many places around the world and had a plethora of wild experiences, some good and some bad. On this day, these leaders told us their craziest travel and leader stories, from getting bedbugs to a participant stepping on a stingray’s stinger. The main story that stood out to me, however, was one of Sandesh’s. He recalled to us all about the time when he got cerebral malaria. This is a fatal type of malaria which came very close to killing him. Luckily, as he told us, he was able to be driven out of the middle of nowhere to find medical attention in time.

When this lunch was done, we all piled back onto the bus and finally returned to SECMOL. We rested for a little bit, but were allowed to do whatever we wanted. I took this free time opportunity to help with the students’ chores- namely, milking the cows. I had never milked a cow before, so I asked some students if I could help them milk it, and also for tips on how to do so. After they taught me I was off, milking like the wind, I even decided to go out on a whim and drink some of the milk straight from the udder. I’ll admit, it didn’t taste great, but it always makes for a great story.

After we ate dinner that night, I sat outside with some Ladakhi students watching the stars again. It was a beautifully clear night, when hundreds and hundreds of stars were visible. On this night, I gave one Ladakhi student an elephant silly band I had on my wrist in exchange for a bracelet he was wearing. It was a great trade, and solidified our friendship. These friendships that I was creating turned out to be some of my most meaningful ever, and I would not trade them for the world.

Today was the second day of our trek, so we again started with a nice breakfast. Our host mother provided us with peanut butter, jam, and honey for chipote bread, plus she even cooked us omelettes. We were up bright and early to meet everyone outside to leave at 8:30, but we ended up having to wait an hour.

At the school SECMOL, they have their own timing called “SECMOL time”. This time is one hour ahead of “India time”, which is the time zone for the rest of India. Ever since we arrived in Ladakh, we had been planning all of our activities around SECMOL time, so we assumed that our meeting this morning would be 8:30 SECMOL time. It turned out, however, that it was 8:30 India time. This gave us some more time to take pictures of our homestay and hang out with our host mother, and I even bought a small snow leopard that she handmade as a gift for my family.

Once the rest of the group arrived, we set out on our “four hour trek”, which turned out to be more of a six hour trek. It was extremely beautiful, we got to see even more than the day before. The trek started off easy and downhill, but soon turned to going all uphill- because we would be climbing over one of the mountain’s peaks. This was made especially difficult because of the extreme heat from the hot summer sun coupled with the very high altitude that made it challenging to even breathe while standing still, let alone while hiking up a steep mountainside. While getting close to the summit, we would only be able to take a few steps before having to rest and catch our breath before moving on again.

When we finally summited the mountain, it was instantly freezing because of the wind coming over the peak. Despite the temperature, however, it was the most amazing feeling ever. The last hour or so of the trek were so difficult, I thought we would never reach the top. Once we got up there, however, our leaders Robbie and Liz surprised us all with Snickers bars to celebrate. Since we had been eating mostly lentils and chipote bread for the past week, that Snickers bar tasted like a five star gourmet dessert.

After we all took time resting and taking pictures of the Buddhist prayer flags on top of the peak, we began to trek again. It was all downhill, which made it easier, but we still had a long way to go until we’d arrive at our village for the night. Along the way, we stopped to eat fresh rhubarb from the ground and listen as Sandesh inspected the different scat found along the trail to tell us what kind of animal it came from.

Once we got to the village of Hemis, where we would be staying that night, we stopped to eat our lunch on a field filled with cows and tiny streams. After eating, we found out our roommates for the night and went to our new homestays. My group was staying in an amazing new homestay with electricity. We then had tea time and talked to each other about our day, then went up to the large Buddha statue on top of the village’s monastery. We stayed there for hours talking and bonding as a group, and it was an amazing end to very long and difficult, yet rewarding day.

This morning I woke up ready for a big day. I packed my bags and was ready by 9:30 AM. Today, we would be leaving for our two day trek through the Himalayan mountains.

We all got on the bus and counted off to take attendance, then began our drive- it was going to be a few hours. I sat with two SECMOL students during the ride and discussed Indian and Ladakhi culture with them. It was amazing to be able to ask people who actually live in India about things, rather than relying on what I learned in school to be the ultimate truth. For example, I asked the two Ladakhis their view on Pakistan. It has often been taught to us that Indians hate Pakistanis and vice versa, but I wanted to get an opinion from actual Indian people (especially since Ladakh is so close to Pakistan). These students reported to me that older generations, such as their parents or grandparents, do not look favorably upon Pakistan. Younger generations, however, typically don’t have an issue with Pakistanis. This led into a conversation about American politics, such as the similar trend of younger generations typically having more accepting viewpoints than older.

After making a quick pitstop at a local market, where I learned my new skill of extreme price haggling, we arrived at a huge, beautiful monastery. We were given a tour of this monastery and got to learn even more about the Buddhist religion.

After we finished learning and exploring, we walked to a large field to eat a lunch of peanut butter and jam on chipote bread and hardboiled eggs.

We then drove to the beginning location for our trek, and we were on our way. A SECMOL student, Namgail, led us through the mountains, as our Nat Geo expert Sandesh taught us about the different types of animals that live in the area.

After about two hours of uphill trekking, we arrived at our homestays in the village of Ulley. There were three different houses, so we split up into groups of about six.

As soon as we got into our home and set down our backpacks, we had tea time and girl talk. As a mixture of Nat Geo students and Ladakhis, we discussed boys back at SECMOL and made pretend of who was “marrying” who. We also sat together and watched the Indian version of Days of Our Lives on the tv in the kitchen/dining area. Then, we helped our homestay mother make the dinner we would be eating that night. We folded dough circles into small dumpling-like pieces that our host then cooked for us. It was extremely delicious, and tasted even better knowing that we helped to make it.

After dinner, some people went outside to take pictures of the stars and Milky Way which were visible in the light-pollution-free Himalayan sky. Instead, I just went back to the beautifully colorful room our homestay mother set up for us, and fell right asleep. I was tired from the long day I had just experienced, and I needed my rest for the second day of our trek which we were going on in mere hours…

The next morning, I woke up early before my alarm went off. Nobody was up yet and breakfast didn’t begin for another hour, so I went on a walk by myself around the perimeter of the campus in the morning light, really taking in the scenery. After my walk, I ate a breakfast of lentils and bread called “chipote” with peanut butter on it. We then were off to begin our day.

On this day, we had a hike planned to a small village named Phey. “This hike takes about 30 minutes- for the locals,” they told us. Well, it turns out, we were much slower than the locals. After about two hours we finally made it to the village. Even though it was much longer than expected, however, the hike was lots of fun. Both the Nat Geo group and a group of around 10 students from SECMOL went on the hike together. I walked with my friends from SECMOL Namla and Chotak, and we talked about everything from the differences between our schools to the fact that Ladakhis love Justin Bieber.

Once we arrived in the town, we explored the streets and touched the wide array of prayer wheels which were scattered throughout. Everyone then split up into two groups to go to different houses to enjoy tea time with a local. In this house, we had two kinds of tea: milk tea and butter tea. Milk tea was delicious, however butter tea tasted like I was drinking purely a cup of melted butter. I’m glad I tried it for the experience, but I would not at all recommend it.

After we relaxed in the Phey villager’s home for some time, we were off to make our way back to SECMOL. Instead of taking the same route home, however, we instead climbed up a small mountain to visit a monastery school. In this school, there was one main teacher, who was a monk, and twelve young students. After we arrived we all drank mango juice while the monk taught us the basics of Buddhism. He then gave us time to talk to him and as any questions that we might have. We even got to meet some of the students from the school, who did not speak English but were all extremely nice.

When we finished at the monastery school, it was time to make our way back to SECMOL for real. I took an alternative route back with Chotak, and we stopped at Indus Beach, the shore to the Indus River, where he taught me how to skip rocks. This 30 minutes hanging out with him by the beach learning to skip rocks (which he was amazing at and I was absolutely terrible at) may have been one of my favorite parts of the whole trip.

Once we finally got home from our hike, I was extremely tired. I managed to help Chotak water the greenhouses that were on campus and to take a shower in the camp’s solar showers, but then after eating some dinner I immediately fell asleep. It was such an amazing, yet tiring, day full of hiking, learning about new cultures, and friendship.

I managed to wake myself up after the 5th snooze at 2 AM. My roommate and I slowly and sleepily got all of our items together and met the rest of the group downstairs, and from there we were off. We caught a flight around 5 AM which took us to the Leh Ladakh airport in the very north of India.

As we began to descend, I could not believe my eyes. It was some of the most beautiful mountain scenery I had ever seen. There were vast patches of green where villages were settled, which were broken up by large peaks and huge barren areas of brown land. I had never before been in a setting anything like this one. When we landed, however, we were not greeted with a warm welcome. As we exited the plane to walk to the bus which would drive us to the small airport, we were harshly instructed by soldiers with large guns to absolutely not take any photography of the area. We would soon learn that Ladakh within is a heavily militarized zone due to it being in the state of Jammu-Kashmir, a region which borders both China and Pakistan. In order to enter the airport we all had to walk through a path lined with more scary looking men with huge guns. I’ll admit, it was a bit off-putting at first. That is, until I made eye contact with a soldier and smiled at him and he smiled back at me- that’s when I knew everything was going to be okay and began feeling comfortable in my new situation.

Once our group left the airport, we all crammed ourselves into tiny vans with no seat belts and began driving to the school we would be staying at for the next week, SECMOL, which stands for Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh. We were greeted by the students and faculty of this small school, and taught about how the school was run. It is an “alternative school,” for both college students and students who were not able to pass their classes at their high schools in other villages. It is completely sustainable, solar powered, and student-run.

After a campus tour, our group leaders Robbie and Liz recommended that we all rest in order to allow our bodies to acclimate to the high elevation, as we were now in the heart of the Himalayas. Instead of taking this advice, I decided to tour the campus on my own. I visited a computer class, where students were learning how to use Microsoft Word, which was the most technology that was seen around campus- there was no internet or cell phone service there. At this computer class I made friends and gave them pictures I took of them with my polaroid camera, which was a big hit.

I met one friend named Chotak who was kind enough to show me around the school even more, so we walked the perimeter of the campus while I barraged him with questions about his SECMOL experience and his home village. One of the most amazing things I got to experience with him on this day was when we climbed down the side of the mountain that the campus rested on in order to visit the large river right next to the school.

I later learned that this was the Indus River. It was extremely beautiful but also cold, so we hiked back up to the school and ate our first dinner with everybody else.

After dinner, I sat outside with a group of new Ladakhi students I had just met, and we got to know each other while talking about our very different lives and looking up at the stars. Since there was no light pollution from anywhere in the mountains, we could even see Mars and Jupiter clearly. It was a perfect end to our first day at SECMOL, and I had already felt like I’d been there for weeks.

   

   At midday on June 26th, 2016 I nervously made my way through the Baltimore-Washington International Airport with my new, overpacked Osprey backpack in search of the people who I would be staying with for the next three weeks. I was definitely late, as is normal for me and my family, but luckily I managed to find the group- they hadn’t left without me. While we waited for one last participant to arrive, I said goodbye to my parents and began to get to know the 13 other high schoolers. They were mostly students from the West Coast who decided to go on this trip to improve their photography skills. After talking for a few minutes we left our waiting spot and began our journey. Once we finally made our way through TSA and waited for what seemed like forever, we got onto our plane- ready for our 14 hour flight.

   This was the beginning to the most amazing and impactful experience I’ve ever had, my National Geographic Student Expedition to India. This was a three week program for high school students who could choose to focus on an “on assignment project” of either photography or anthropology and local cultures. We had a full itinerary set up for this program, from hiking in the Himalayas to ziplining through the palace of Neemrana. It was exactly what I needed to fuel my desire for travel for the summer, and I was beyond excited to be able to take part in this experience. I had been waiting for this trip for months, and it was finally here!

   Fast forward 14 grueling hours of trying to sleep, eating complimentary snacks, and watching movies in languages I couldn’t understand, and we finally landed. As soon as we stepped off the plane, however, we could feel the heat. Even though it was night time, it was so much warmer than what we were all accustomed to back home, which was even more noticeable due to the intense humidity. After taking what felt like forever to get through customs, we finally left the airport and were on our way back to our hotel, the Mantra. Since it was nearly midnight by this point, we all ate a small snack of fresh mangos, bananas, and digestive cookies (pictured below) before going to bed for the night.

   The next morning we woke up bright and early at 8 AM to start our day. It was time for breakfast, but somehow one girl was already sick enough to skip breakfast, and another threw up right at breakfast. Though it was worrisome, everyone turned out okay and we were able to get on with name games and orientation before going out into the city. We learned some basic words in Hindi, the main language of the region, and cultural norms such as not to point at people or wear clothes that expose too much skin. We then walked around the city, pouring sweat as soon as we stepped outside into the hot midday New Delhi sun, got lunch, and bought clothes from a local shop in order to help us assimilate into the culture a bit better. At night we returned to the hotel for dinner, where we met our “Nat Geo Expert” Sandesh Kadur who would be staying with us for the next week in order to provide us with local knowledge and help us improve our photography skills.

   After this overwhelming day of being plummeted into a culture extremely new and different from our own, we were all exhausted. We got to bed by 10 PM but didn’t get to sleep for long, because we had to wake up at 2 AM in order to catch a small flight which would be taking us deep into the Himalayas, where we’d be staying for the next week and a half.