So I left off on Thursday evening around 1700. We'd just arrived at the port and were about to board the ship. We tried to get Nolan to compose himself enough to walk up the gangway to deck 5 and get through security without speaking and slurring his words.
We all held our breaths. He made it through. Him and Brandon went to their room and we all went our separate ways to shower before dinner on deck 5.
The 4 girls went up together bypassing the boys. We figured Nolan would be passed out by this point. A few minutes into dinner they both walked in. Well, Brandon walked in and Nolan staggered. Brandon shook his head and retold the fails of the journey up from deck 3 to deck 5. They encountered teachers. They'd talked to Nolan and heard what a mess he was. They weren't pleased. We hoped it would just blow over and the teachers would just shake their heads saying kids will be kids. Well, not even kids.
Dinner continued and Toby joined us and we goofed around. One of the LLCs pulled Nolan aside. Bad news. I couldn't even watch. He was already in trouble. When he sat back down he wouldn't even speak. This was worse news.
We all went out to the smoking deck while the guys had a cigarette. Nolan wouldn't say anything. We decided to go back in, but he stayed outside. We went back to our room. All on verge of tears. What was gonna happen? Could he possibly get thrown off for this? We all feared it was a possibility. But on the other hand, some girl had punched another SAS girl in the face and was still allowed to stay on the ship. That had to show their standards. We sat around anxiously awaiting Nolan to return back after talking to 2 of the LLCs. Mason returned and we alerted him. Ahh.
We sat around in silence with images of the worst in our heads. Our phone rang. Nolan wanted Brandon to go and smoke with him. He was confined to the ship for the rest of the night. That was it. At least for now. Thank God. We all sighed the biggest sigh of relief ever.
I had to make a few phone calls. But after that we were gonna head out for a late dinner. The 6 of us. Everyone had to be up at ungodly hours to leave for trips to the Taj and Delhi.
We left the ship around 2100. We snagged a big van cab to take us all together into the city to go to Mocha, a hookah bar. We weren't about to be split up again. We agreed on 50 rupees a person.
Somehow our cab driver took us to the Taj Hotel, which is gorgeous, but the complete wrong place. Nic, Tania, and Brandon had been there all afternoon for lunch. The cab driver tried to tell us he wanted 150 per preson. Absolutely not. We gave him his 300 and walked away. He got pissed off and followed us yelling at us and handed it back. We started to go through security to get into the hotel. Most of them require a metal detector scan of everyone when they go in. One of the people who worked there stopped us and told us to pay him. We had tried. Mason told him he could take his 300 or nothing. Nothing more. He eventually took it and we went inside.
We were way under dressed for such a nice hotel. I was in jeans and a tshirt. But no one seemed to care. There was a private party in one of the ballrooms. Probably a wedding. We tried walking in, but they told us to leave.
We ended up just going to the restaurant to get some food and drinks. There were a bunch of SASers there, too.
We ordered a round of shots to celebrate Mason's "birthday." We ordered all sorts of food: naan, ice cream and brownies, fries, beer, milkshakes, waffles. All sorts of good stuff. We stayed there for awhile. The service was really slow and we ended up closing down the place around 2400. We all needed to get back and get a few hours of sleep before our ridiculously early trips to Delhi. Nic was feeling really sick so we needed to make it back to the ship as soon as possible.
We had to wait awhile for our taxi to arrive. Someone had called one for us. It took us back a different way to the ship. The direct port entrance was closed by the time we got back, it closed at 2300. We had been told in pre-port that it would be a long way back and that was it.
The cab took us a ways past the ship and said everything was closed and we should probably just get out there. So we did. One of the Indian SAS guides was there with a name tag and clipboard and pointed us in the "right" direction. We walked down the deserted street with no lights. It was covered in heaps of trash and homeless people were sleeping on the ground everywhere in front of these closed down shack-stores.
We walked for awhile, probably 2 miles. We came to a subway station with an overpass to the ports. We climbed up and could see our ship and some other SASers. We called to them and met up with them. I'd been feeling pretty unsafe walking down these streets. At one point Tania tried to hold my hand and I realized I wanted both free in case I needed to punch someone and run. I was wishing I had a knife on me. I was grateful to have Mas and Brandon there, but still. Nic was getting worse.
We crossed over the overpass and found a gate that led to the ports by our ship. It was locked. We asked the guard to open it for us and he refused. He told us we had to go around. We tried telling him our friend was sick and he still wouldn't budge. We were considering hopping a fence and climbing over the walls, but they were covered in so much barbed wire. A few of the others decided they wanted to take that route. They were pretty drunk. We saw some other SAS kids on the other side and we called to them. They told us we had to keep walking a few miles in the same direction and then beg to be let into the port. I kid you not, they had to beg to be let in and then had to prove they were from the ship. From that point they still had to walk another 2 miles. It was already 0100.
We kept walking. One of the boys didn't want to climb over barbed wire and joined us. We were all grateful to have another big guy with us. Becca started carrying Nic. We tried talking as if nothing was wrong, but it was hard.
We walked atleast another mile before we stopped. We had no way to get in. We knew that a cab couldn't help us, they couldn't get in. No one on the streets knew how to get there and most of them were too creepy to ask.
Out of nowhere a cop stopped us to ask if Nic was ok since she was being carried by Becca. We tried explaining our situation and he seemed confused. Again, out of nowhere a SAS girl appeared with an Indian woman. She must have been on a homestay with her. The Indian woman listened to us and explained to the police officers the situation. He hustled us over to his truck and told us to get in. He was going to take us back. All 8 of us piled in. He rushed us back past all the winding gates and restrictions. We only had to stop to show our passports. It was a good 3 miles of driving. I don't know how we would have gotten in otherwise.
He seemed confused as to why SAS hadn't given us instructions how to get into the port. He said they'd been coming to Chennai twice a year for 14 or so years. Literally all they ever told us was that it was a long way back. By the time we got back it was almost 0200.
We got through all the security checks and back onto the ship. Finally. Nic went to the Purser's Desk and asked them to call the doctor. The woman wouldn't do anything for her. She moved in slow motion and didn't want to call anyone and wake them up. Um, hello? We have an emergency, and, yes, this was an emergency, and they won't make any moves to help.
She told her to go down to deck 2 and wait for a nurse. Becca, Mason, and I went down to wait with her. We waited a good 15 minutes before anyone showed up. Without giving you too many details, this was a huge mess of a situation. Completely unrelated to drinking. Yet the only question they kept asking was "have you been drinking tonight?" They were completely incompetent assholes in the face of a medical issue. They were unapologetic and it took over an hour to sort out a problem that should have taken at max, 5 minutes. We were all raging by this point.
By the time Nic was doing better and no longer needed us it was almost 0300. I had to be upstairs in the Union for 0330 to leave for Delhi.
I took a shower and finished packing. Then woke up Nolan to make sure he was up and packed before his trip leaving around the same time. We were all awake and sitting around in my room talking.
As if there wasn't enough drama going on, it continued. I was out in the hallway calling home when one of my neighbors came through the hall screaming and pounding on her door followed by a guy screaming. They woke up everyone who wasn't already awake. It was another huge dramafest complete with screaming and tears.
I said goodbye to everyone and went up to wait for my trip to leave. I was already beginning to feel the exhaustion.
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