India Day 5 (March 9, 2009)

My last day in India was spent traveling around Chennai with the same crew. We stopped by a few more shopping areas, got hassled to buy pretty much anything you can think of, and simply explored more of the city. I ended up buying an India cricket jersey, to help symbolize the memories I have of India’s main sport. Honestly, cricket is everywhere here. Many of the open areas in the cities parks are filled with pick-up games and at least one cricket game is being played on the television at pretty much any time of the day. As we headed back to the port it was near the end of the work day. Spencer and I were carrying cricket bats which we had purchased earlier that day at a local sports shop. We saw that some of workers at the port were playing cricket. They saw that we had our bats and signaled over to us to come and play with them – what a great opportunity! So we crossed the tracks and got in the match. Two groups of people, from completely different backgrounds, playing the nation’s game. We all took turns batting (protecting the wickets) pitching (or bowling as it is called in cricket), it was an amazing experience. We had to be back on the ship at six, we didn’t notice what time it was, it was the last of our worries (it was about 5:30 though, I think). One of the guys motioned to us and told us we should better take off, we didn’t understand. Then he motioned over to the right and the three of us could see a train heading in our direction off in the distance. So, we exchanged handshakes and final goodbyes with all of the workers, and ran across the tracks to the port side. It had to have been an interesting sight for the train conductor and any bystander who could see us, but we made it back safely and on time.