Day 11: Places We Go & The People Who Want to Meet Us

Tess Raley I don't think I could ever become accustomed to the amount of attention we receive here. People don't just stare, they usually stop what they're doing and focus all of their energy on us.

Today we went to a lot of cultural spots that attract tourists. At the Crocodile Farm, there was a group of students who said that meeting us was the best part of their field trip. Their teacher wanted a picture with us.

At Dakshin Chitra, after we drank coconut water out of coconuts and saw very elaborate dancing in which the performers were on stilts and in large animal costumes, the dancers asked a couple of us who we were and how we were enjoying our visit to India.

And at the beautiful temples (one was by the shore, another in the sand, and the last was on top of a mountain), people kept taking pictures of us! At the last temple, it was very crowded and there was a limited amount of space to walk. With half of my group far in front of me, and half far behind, I ended up in the middle of a men's school group on a field trip. I must have posed with over 15 people for pictures in that 5-minute interval!

This interest in and friendliness between strangers is not present in the U.S. and I will miss it when we go home. Yet, being treated like royalty because my skin color is a rarity here, is just wrong. And it emphasizes the lack of interest the Western world truly has in this (and probably most) developing countries.