Author archive
31 January 2011
Check-out from my Port Blair hotel, Andaman Residency, is rather early at 0800. This is typical for this town as incoming flights are in the morning. Flying back to Chennai 1245 on Kingfisher, they have an inflight magazine like no other. It is purely about the glitz and glamour of Indian filmstars. Flicking through the […]
30 January 2011
Today I explored Port Blair’s sights … it was set up as a penal colony by the British to incarcerate political prisoners, ie. freedom fighters for the independence movement. Ross Island: Angkor of the Andamans I took a boat across the harbour to Ross Island which was the headquarters for the British in the area. […]
29 January 2011
Leaving my island paradise Check-out was at 0930 today but my ferry from Havelock Island back to Port Blair isn’t till 1630. Despite previous information, there was no earlier ferry. I easily killed the day with a long breakfast, a long lunch and an Ayurvedic massage in between. I’m not a big fan of Ayurvedic […]
28 January 2011
Naughty Ticketing Tricks After a leisurely breakfast I teamed up with Merja from Finland who was my dive buddy yesterday. We thought we’d go to Radha Nagar beach near Village No 7, which is supposedly the best beach around. I opted for a detour into town to buy my ferry ticket back to Port Blair one […]
27 January 2011
Above: It is possible to scuba dive with an elephant. In the Andaman they have one of the last swimming elephants. You can snorkel or dive with the elephant … if you pay … it is about INR10,000 (NZD300) for one snorkel or dive. That’s like 3x the going rate for two normal dives. I couldn’t […]
27 January 2011
Above: It is possible to scuba dive with an elephant. In the Andaman they have one of the last swimming elephants. You can snorkel or dive with the elephant … if you pay … it is about INR10,000 (NZD300) for one snorkel or dive. That’s like 3x the going rate for two normal dives. I couldn’t […]
26 January 2011
Above: Flying into the Andaman Islands. Uncharted Territory I’m flying off into uncharted territory today … uncharted by me, anyway. Port Blair, the capital of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands is 2 hours from Chennai. It’s also accessible from Kolkata … but really, it is closer to Banda Aceh (Indonesia) and Phuket (Thailand)! For some […]
25 January 2011
Above: Dinner near my hotel and railway station. I said goodbye to Ammi, Salome and Jackson Pollock in the morning. I was bound for Chennai at 1235 flying Oman Air. With the time difference flying eastwards, it was surprisingly and pleasantly cool when I landed at Chennai at 1730. It was neither hot nor humid. […]
24 January 2011
Upon landing in Muscat at 2325 I made my own way to Ammi and Salome’s place. They had kindly done some of my laundry during my few days away. Unfortunately I must have left a piece of tissue in one of the pockets and it left bits through the load, but Salome tidied it all […]
24 January 2011
Job’s Tomb I picked up a rental car from Avis at the airport last night … it was the first time I had driven a left-hand drive and on the right side of the road. John, April and I set off to Job’s tomb about half hour’s drive from Salalah. Job is a prophet to […]