The End of One Voyage...

Dearest friends and family,

I returned home to the United States a week ago after my voyage around the world! It feels great to be back, but I obviously miss the friends that I made and the countries that I visited in the past four months.

As I was traveling to all these countries, my home was the M.V. Explorer. I never thought that I would be a fan of living on a cruise ship – I would have rather flied from country to country. Nevertheless, in every port it was nice to come home to the ship and have some time to mentally prepare myself for the next country on the itinerary.

I couldn’t have had a better time. There were obviously high points and low points, seeing the beauties and the horrors of the world. It is hard to put my experiences into words, so that is why I have so many pictures. I hope to compile them together to create a slideshow in the near future.

To conclude the voyage, I made a few lists below that summarize some of the experiences and lessons. In addition, here are links to some more pictures that I posted:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2053135&l=4360f&id=704151

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2053137&l=ceb55&id=704151

Next stop on my itinerary is returning to Boston on May 22^nd and graduating from MIT on June 6^th. I am excited because Muhammad Yunus is our graduation speaker. He founded the Grameen Bank, which offers microloans to women in impoverished countries. These loans, which may be as small as $50, allow people to launch small businesses that lift their families out of poverty. The payback ratio on these loans is very high. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Price in 2006 for his “efforts to create economic and social development from below.” As a result, I look forward to his speech at my graduation, as a culmination to my 3 ½ years at MIT as well as my semester of traveling and seeing some of the worst conditions in the world.

Thank you all for the comments of encouragement and support throughout the past 22 years of life, or 4 years of MIT, or the past 4 months of SAS. I am so blessed to have an incredible group of friends and family. And thanks to email, and facebook, and cell phones, I know that it is easier than ever to stay in touch with you all.

Love,

Becca

If my ship sails from sight, it doesn’t mean my journey ends; it simply means the river bends.

~John Enoch Powell.

"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time"
~T.S. Eliot

SAS by the Numbers:

• 734 students
• Tourism accounts for 60% of the Bahamas GDP
• Visited 13 countries
• 90% of the world’s diamonds are cut in India
• 14 ports
• 324 languages in India and no single language is spoken or understood by more than 40% of the population
• $30,000 per day is spent on fuel for the ship
• 18 flights (with more take-offs than landings, well at least in a plane)
• Amazon Basin holds 20% of the world’s fresh water
• Enrolled in 4 classes
• 109 days
• 927 girls to every 1000 boys are born in India, resulting in 500,000 missing girls every year
• Longest stretch on the ship was 10 days
• Visited 4 continents
• 51 cities in China with more than 1 million people, only 9 cities in United States
• 14,000 Vietnamese dong for every dollar
• 2 million out of 6 million people were killed by the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia
• 367 days in 2008 (leap year and 2 April 15ths)
• Cambodia garment workers work 6 days a week, 12 hours a day, for a total of $60 to $120 per month
• 73% of the birds in Mauritius are endemic to the island
• Jumped out of a plane at 14,000 feet
• 28 knots: the maximum cruising speed of our M.V. Explorer, one of the fastest cruise ships in the world
• $10,000 to build a Habitat for Humanity house for a family in South Africa
• 26,605 nautical miles (30,616 statute miles) on voyage around the world
• 66 days until I enter the real world

Some SAS Highlights:

• Kayaked through bioluminescent bays in Puerto Rico
• Celebrated Carnaval in Brazil
• Fished for piranhas on the Amazon
• Spotted elephants and giraffes and zebras on a safari
• Built a house for family in South African township
• Cliff jumped from a waterfall in Mauritius
• Witnessed begging children in India
• Saw the magnificent Taj Majal
• Played with disabled children in Chennai
• Commemorated Easter in Malaysia with church and brunch
• Was shocked at the mass genocide that occurred in Cambodia just 30 years ago
• Admired the beauty of Angkor Wat
• Listened to an impromptu jam session by orphans in Cambodia
• Rode a motorbike through the crazy streets of Ho Chi Minh City
• Was stunned by endless number of skyscrapers on our arrival to Hong Kong
• Climbed the stairs of the Great Wall of China
• Explored the streets of Kyoto on an electric bike
• Ate conveyor belt sushi and Manneken waffles and rubber chews in Japan
• Jumped out of a plane in Hawaii
• Danced the night away at the Ambassador’s Ball
• Fell asleep on the seventh deck looking at the stars and woke up to the sunrise over the Pacific Ocean
• Shared laughs and tears with friends in Costa Rica
• Enjoyed peaceful breakfasts outside on the sixth deck before everyone woke up
• Passed through the Panama Canal
• Played speed scrabble and Rummikub with friends
• Debuted at the No-Talent Show
• Graduated wearing a rice hat and life jacket
• Was too spoiled by the crew of the M.V. Explorer
• Circumnavigated the world in the world’s fastest cruise ship in 109 days