Posted on November 14, 2010
We landed in Port Blair on South Andaman Thursday afternoon and jumped in a taxi 15 mins before the last ferry was due to leave for Havelock. We were under no illusion that we’d get that ferry when we landed. But the information desk woman at the airport plus the taxi driver assured us we could make it. At 13:58 we were running across the jetty towards the 14:00 ferry laden down with backpacks waving at a large ferry in the dock. They were just about to leave. As we got to the door (knackered) the guys asked for our ticket. Hmmm didn’t have one of those. So no ferry til next morning at 6am. I was pretty peed off as we’d run for it and there was no way we could have got that ferry. Especially now knowing that it takes at least 45mins to get tickets due to the once again faff of a system of getting forms off one guy who only hands them out when he feels like it, deciphering what needs to be filled in, then queuing forever whilst the staff take hours to do the one and only job they need to do. Book a ferry ticket.
We spent one night in Port Blair in a nice guest house called Aashiaanaa, had dinner with a couple of Aussies Karim & Annie and got our 9am ferry to Havelock with no problems. We went for “chair” class as had no idea what anything was. As we boarded we were ushered past everyone else going into the main cabin, into a side cabin where there were 7 comfy chairs like on a plane with aircon and one porthole. There were 3 other people apart from us so we felt pretty posh. Very bizarre.
In Havelock we have a 8ft x 10ft hut consisting of a double bed with mosquito net, a sideboard, a ceiling fan, a lean-to ensuite at the back (painted pink) and a porch at the front. The hut is less than 100m from a small sandy beach and the blue blue sea. Lush.
First few days, bought a hammock, found 2 trees on the beach, laid and read in said hammock with calm relaxing waves in the background.
Hired a moped, neither of us had been on one before. Matt being main driver, me back-seat driver made our way along 12km of bumpy roads surrounded by rice paddies and jungle across to the North West side of the island to Radha-Nagar beach to watch the sun set. The return journey was more interesting with it being pitch black and raining. Made it back alive.
Started a PADI Open Water diving course on Tuesday with Dive India and did our first ever dive on Wednesday. Neither of us ever yearned for diving but as we were on an island with good diving we thought we’d give it a go. How do the American’s say it? Awesome.
On our 2nd dive we saw a turtle. A real-life sea turtle (a hawskbill) which was about half the size of me. Wow. Plus Nemo and his babies popped out of some sea anemones. The Longfin Bannerfish were also a favourite of mine. Also saw shoals of baby barracuda (we’d eaten a barbequed adult barracuda for our dinner the night before).
Today we had our 3rd and 4th dives which included a 4-year old shipwreck. Eerie but very cool. So many fish inside just bobbing side to side like some kind of ritualistic dancing. The best dive was the last one along the side of what was called “The Wall” which is a huge reef that drops down almost vertically about 55metres. We went down to 18m. There were so many shoals of different fish of all sizes. A lionfish covered with tentacles, large parrotfish with huge foreheads, an electric clam sparking away in it’s cubby-hole, a huge thick moray eel entangled in the reef where you could see glimpses of its long grey body and its head just poking out with it’s beavis and butthead jaw moving slowly up and down.
We couldn’t believe that so much life is going on just below the surface of the ocean. It’s fantastic. And whilst above water the winds were blowing and the current was strong, below the visibility was still good and it felt like another world. Very dream-like.
Fingers-crossed we pass the exam tomorrow so we’ll be qualified and so Matt can take a camera down and start snapping. He spotted their G10 in its underwater casing earlier and now can’t wait to get his hands on it and get into some underwater photography.
I just want to get back to the Full Moon cafe next to Dive India so we can have more roast chicken and excellent mashed potato. That’s the closest taste to home we’ve had since being in India. Plus homemade lemonade with fresh mint. Yum. The place is a really lovely chilled out place which I think it has something to do with the New Zealand girl who manages it. So many restaurants and hotels etc in India are run by men only and they just don’t get how a few nice touches here and there make a place so much more. Like all food being served on a banana leaf on a plate. It’s a lovely idea.
Posted on November 15, 2010
It’s the Diwali festival of lights today. Such a shame it’s hardly stopped raining. We have been in the hut most of the day. I ventured to the beach to do a quick weather check earlier today only to see the storm coming once again across the sea towards me and by the time I’d run the 100m back to the hut I was drenched! We’ve heard the edge of a cyclone is hitting the island and it’s expected to stay for another few days. Just our luck! I’m glad we had a few days of sun. We met a couple at dinner who arrived on Tuesday and have had rain everyday. Ferries were cancelled for some of Wednesday and all of Thursday due to rough seas. They’d heard from a guy who arrived on the last ferry that only about 5% of the passengers managed to survive without being sick. Ugh.
Ooh Ooh we passed our PADI Open Water Diving certification. Whoop! We have our names down for diving again Sunday if the weather gets better and Matt’s shotgunned the underwater camera 
Haven’t mentioned food much lately have I? Well as Havelock is pretty small there isn’t an abundance of restaurants and it’s been dark and rainy so we have been rotating in a triangular formation between Eldorado for basic noodles, paratha and puri, Anju-coco-resto across the road with good fish & prawns and Full Moon cafe, which admittedly I have mentioned but not enough. We had very good west indian fish curry and the scrummiest warm apple & cinnamon muffin today. I could have kissed the woman. I have been praying for good cake since leaving Darjeeling’s Cake Lady and it was delivered!
We tried to venture outside of our safety net this evening even though we risked getting wet and run over (no streetlights here and crazy moped & jeep drivers who only use their headlights sporadically) but failed miserably. First we headed to “World’s best pizza – cheap price” as we are desperate for pizza. On receipt of the menu it looked surprisingly similar to all the other places round here. Curry, chapati, pakora, etc etc. In one corner under “Veg dishes” one line said Pizza 100 rupees. Interesting we thought for a pizza place with such high claims of being the best in the world. On enquiring what pizza they had the guy innocently answered “one flavour of tomato sauce”. Of course, had to be tomato sauce. Because they have that with everything here. I thought Wendy ate a lot of ketchup but in India it’s served with anything you order. That and green chilli sauce which I love. Anyway we decided to leave as it had severely scared us. The only other couple in the restaurant said they’d found the name a little misleading too but had been too lazy to leave once they’d got there! This place is honestly losing out. If they were serving pizza, they’d make a killing. It doesn’t have to be the world’s best. Just any pizza with topping will be better than none when you’re claiming to be a pizza restaurant.
We wandered 15mins in the other direction to Sunrise Resort which we’d heard had OK food and was the busiest bar in the restaurant. Right. Any night except tonight yeah. Unless you call one old hippy sat alone staring out towards the trees a buzzing bar. I’m sure he’d been sat there in the exact same place when we’d checked out the accommodation last Friday lunchtime. Hope he’s still breathing.
So back to trusty Anju-coco we trotted for delicious fish special with garlic bread. Plus a special Diwali festival dish of rice pudding with cardamom. They’re not big on their puddings in India. Cake Lady needs to branch out!
Posted on November 18, 2010
8am I woke up looked out the window saw blue sky and was like a small child on Christmas morning jumping around over-excitedly. Sunbathing here we come!
I rushed over to order to brekkie whilst Matt dragged himself sleepily out of bed and into the shower. Just as he came out of the hut the black clouds swallowed up the blue and the rains descended.
And it’s rained and rained and rained and rained. All day.
Nowt else to say. Nowt much to do on an island when it rains. Apart from eat, read, eat. Perhaps a bit of thought about what to do with the rest of our lives. (Didn’t get far with that). More eating (we found dairy milk and it was goooood – not all shrivelled up like the mars bar – like proper Cadbury chocolate you have in a selection box. So I did get to be a bit of a kid at Christmas today after all).
And in a brief moment between downpours I managed to capture a photo of one of the beautiful butterflies they have in India.
Happy 1st Anniversary to John & Kelly Wass! Can’t believe it’s been a whole year since your wedding. Time has flown. Miss you guys lots!
Our last day of diving today. It rained all night long heaviest we’d heard and was still raining at 6am when the alarm went off. But by the time we boarded Hammerhead the blue sky was winning and Matt has his first sunburn of the Andaman Islands.
We didn’t quite realise whilst sat on the boat in our “shortie” wetsuits quite how strong the sun was. So both of us have really attractive sunburn marks just above the knees.
We were taken on a 90min boat ride to South Bottom dive point which was a small island surrounded by reef so had a longer day with much chilling on the boat whilst passing acres of mangroves. And Matt was able to take the camera – hooray! He got some really good photos which I’ll make sure he puts here. Saw a lot of the same fish as before plus a crocodile fish lying in the sand and some red striped clown fish.
Only 2 proper days left on Havelock. Sad times. Please sun keep shining….
Posted on November 18, 2010
Sun is shining yay!
Spent most of Monday on our lovely little bit of secluded beach. Matt in the hammock hiding from the sun and me in as much sun as poss. Had bar-b-q fish again for dinner at Pellicon. This time we had the biggest chunk of tuna fillet I’ve ever seen and a delicious Silverfish marinated in tandoori sauce. Delish.
Tuesday we decided to get up for sunrise. Alarm set for 5am, we dragged ourselves out at 5.15. Mr Sun was already half up but it was still pretty. The tide was out which reveals lots of old coral rocks and leaves lots of sealife behind like bigger rock-camouflaged crabs and teeny blue fishes swimming through the coral tunnels.
Hired a moped and headed to the jetty to buy ferry tickets for Wednesday. Matt offered to “queue” whilst I sat and alternated between watching him get elbowed out the way by 80-year old women and watching two kids (baby goats) skipping around trying not to get run over by rickshaws whilst eating anything they could get their teeth into.
Went on a bit of a joyride towards the south of the island and found the elephant training camp which was deserted apart from one guy in a hut whose only words were “Don’t come back”. We didn’t realise at the time that the elephants are trained for logging and later two went stomping down the road as we were sat at a cafe covered in logging chains with men shouting at them continuously. It was terrible really and we’re glad we hadn’t seen any at the training camp.
In the evening we went back to Radha Nagar beach (beach no. 7) and kind of watched the sun set behind clouds. An effigy from the recent festival was sat on the beach without a head. So Matt felt obliged….
The beaches here are covered in hermit crabs of all sizes plus small white crabs that are almost invisible and can move extremely quickly. I have a video of one moving in and out of it’s home in the sand. Unfortunately videos are a pain to upload on here so will have to put in on YouTube. Instead here’s a photo of the patterns they make on the sand:
And here’s a hermit crab:
Our last night in the hut on Havelock and had a lovely surprise when I popped to the bathroom at 2am. I usually take a few seconds to survey the bathroom to check for cockroaches so you can imagine my pleasure at spotting a snake slithering around the floor by the loo. I thought I was going to have a heart attack! Fortunately our bathroom is quite long and the door is at the opposite end to the loo so didn’t get too close to it, shot out, slammed the door shut and shouted for my knight in white shining armour to save me. Matt clambered sleepily out of bed and apparently his first thought was where’s my camera? But as I was in such a state he bravely went to investigate minus the camera whilst I flitted around babbling about the possibilities it could be hiding behind the loo and be ready to jump out at any moment. But the rascal had fled the scene so was probably more scared of me than I was of it. Who knows what we’d have done if it had still been there though. Anyone know how to catch a snake? Matt probably would have been setting the ISO on his 7D in an instant.
I’m glad that it occurred on our last night and not our first otherwise I’m not sure I could have stayed in that hut for 11 more nights. Matt had often used the bathroom in the middle of the night and not switched on the light so as not to disturb me. Wonder what creatures could have been lurking in there then…
More sunbathing Wednesday and as we looked at the clear turquoise sea with other islands on the horizon we realized we could have easily spent a few more days doing absolutely nothing on the beach and maybe another day of diving. But good to leave on a high and we know we want to see much more of the world too.
So back to Port Blair we went on our ferry sat in “seat” class this time. Which was cheaper and comfy enough. We just had more people to stare at us or not very subtly try to take our photos. As we were the only westerners in the room. But we’re getting used to the stares. Even those when you look up and they keep staring.
Managed to get back into Aashiaanaa Guest House and found the LP recommended restaurant Lighthouse Residency for dinner. We felt like we were in a Fawlty Towers episode. All the waiters wore black waistcoats and bowties like Manuel. And we had about 4 guys trying to take our food & drinks order at different times. We’d order from one, another would come and ask us what we wanted to drink and we’d try and explain that we’d already ordered but he didn’t understand and tried taking our order again. Then they didn’t have what I wanted so I had to choose again and then a 3rd guy came and tried to take our order again and trying to explain when the others had once again disappeared was hysterical. That makes no sense whatsoever and doesn’t sound funny at all does it. Guess you had to be there.
Reproduced from Matt & Karen’s Blog – http://bit.ly/rrZnTZ
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