Shblog again…

They have headhunters here; - its true, after the tsunami they wanted to check if the aborigines were still alive so they sent up a helicopter which the lads promptly shot with arrows Even the flightpaths of the planes we think are diverted so as not to go over their islands… We didnt see any tho, but we did see some dolphins and lots of fish.

In any other country I would have had to change my shorts is 3 guys with machetes walk up to you and point at your camera, but in india its just to ask for a pic.. I asked them to look as evil as they did when they walked up first, before the smiles..

In chennai I went completly mad and bought 2memory cards, a tripod and a polarising filter and a crappy macro lens, this is the first pic with the new gear, joe 5am chennai airport resteraunt.

The filter is good, this was taken directly into the 40degree sun from a boat (the temp, not the actual sun)

Boats in port blair, our one had cockroaches that climbed all over me (inside clothes too), until I was finally chased on deck to grab some shade lying underneath a liferaft

Our house for two weeks (well.. it looks similar)

Spent our time fishing, snorkelling, swimming and exploring

I even got up for sunrise

But to be honest spent most days with a drink sitting on a chair in the green water listening to simon and garfunkle, and letting the little fish and crabs eat my feet

For isa - una playa guapa, teh gusta?!

On the beach there are hundreds of shellfish of all shapes sizes and colours, just wanderin around and never seeming to go anywhere..

I was taught how to ride a bike, its pretty much the perfect place on havelock island, just driving from beach to village to beach, but watch out for chickens, goats and snakes on the road..

Some random rocky beach

“Hitler 5* lever” - Dont leave the reich without one

Joe asked me to put this one, its an artistic commentary on the impact of tourism in remote regions, I call it “Nike air max 98 michael jordan limited edition footprints beside some random red flower”

So we leave now, flying out of port blair tomorrow and have to find our way up north and decide between rajasthan (desert), manali (mountains), or nepal (mountains and rain).. I think joe wants to leave this netcafe so im off 2, theres a strange man showing him indian porn on a fake ipod, and anyway could really do with a thali

-Ian

I am very happy to say that the blog is back working again, It was a mistake on my part in trying to make an improvement and show our trip graphically using google maps but the whole thing fell flat on its face, it mightn’t of helped I was doing it in a 24 hour internet cafe in a dogy part of chennai at 3 in the morning but how bad, so lets fill you in on the past two weeks.

We were in chennai waiting for flights to the andamans, with the ryan air of india air deccan which was shanti. We arrived in port blair and lets just say I did not get the warmest feeling, the first place we tried to get a room it was 600rps which is steep considering the place was mignin. so percervied on going up the hill of the main town by foot. you should of seen us, 20kgs on our backs, in the raging heat, sweat dripping, coming across silly managers who bring you into their hotel and then the receptionist tells us that there is no rooms, anyway we found a place called the holiday restort which is run by a group of lads that are quiet festive but really nice. Stayed there the night and it was off to our new Island Havelock.

Now picture the steriotypical Island and you have got it, cocunut trees everywhere and great heat. So as per usual we were approched by two guys for the guest house. We picked a place called Emerald Gecko and it was sweet. Now there is a special thing about Havelock, all the villages and beaches are numbered so for example we were staying in beach No.5 but then there is beach No.7 which is famed as the most beautiful Asian Beach and I think it trully is. The whitest sand I have ever seen and beautiful green water that is completly transparent and when going along on a boat you can see down around 2 mts. So we settled down to living here for a week or so. So you might ask what you would do with your day but we went fishing and caught a 20Kg Tiger fish and a 10Kg Travelly and a few Coral Trout. We went snorkelling which was good craic. There was a few people to talk to aswell which was nice and relive memories of food like a nice peice of cheddar or remembering the favourite foods like the hangover beakfeast roll (*droolll*).

No outragiously brilliant stories to tell except for my great hole digging. One day we were sitting on the beach and my back was a little pink so I was in the shade and i got to digging a hole, Now you know the way you just keep going when your digging a hole well this one was a beauty. Phase one was about arm depth. Now this was getting the interest of an Indian family who were walking down the beach. The men came around and got to chatting about the usual, hole diggining techniques, what country you from and the family went on their way. Now phase two began where it went down to hip depth and as the diamerter of the hole was quiet small I had to use my feet to dig.

On using this industrious step, 4 young Indian lads came up to us with no English and just looked at me digging it was a nice time, I was busy digging the hole so Ian was doing the translation using hand jestures and the like. The guys went off down the beach for a walk and I continued into Phase 3 and I got it down to shoulder depth. Now I would have went deeper if it was not for some logistical issue due to the removal of sand from the hole. Now the young indian guys came back to check up on the process and it was time to go home as I was getting hungry and we only had some samosas for snacks. So what do you do with a hole in the sand, you bury someone in it so since I digged it I was being buried and it worked well.

So well did my hole work that I could not get out or could I be pulled out so again we had to dig. The Joe excavation project was a bi-national project with both Irish and Indian workers, there was some language issues but we over came them to fufil the task at hand. Finally I got out and able to dig another day. Lots of great things happened on this section of the trip and its not yet over and we are working on where to go next so its a work day sadly. We also got some professional trim jobs done on the beards and they look queit smart if I do say so myself.

Anyway that is all the news from me, Ian will be updating with some glorious pictures just incase you were not jealous enough already.

Talk to you soon

Joe

Well.. No time to write much or do pics properly (theres something wrong with them, will try and sort it later sometime), havent died yet and we catching flight to andamans in a few days… Left vatta, very sad, but big shindig, emotional goodbyes ;) and joe renouncing his vowes…. heres some pics of our bathroom anyways

footwash and handbasin

Shower

Plunge pool

Dhilshath’s mural of jimi (under construction)

On the last night we had a fairly rocking house party, then up early (some of us) the next morning for one last trek before leaving…

Dont touch the flowers.. (dont fall over the edge either, I spose thats self-explanatory tho)

Dolphins nose

So we left the mountains, had a crazy bus driver, handbrakes around hairpins, but he did stop for chai a few times. Then down to madurai, and catching the night train to chennai…

Random place inb chennai (from bus window)

Wandered around chennai looking for a good thali, and then grabbed a bus up the coast (chennai’s a bit mad after living up the mountains for nearly a month, - plus we wanted to find a white-sand beach). Mamallapuram, a town famous for stone cutting and temples.. Settled for something way away from our usual and we staying for 2days (missed checkoput) in this empty resort type place a few kms from the town, nestled right on the beach. All the places are fairly cheap (relativly, to us this is like the west-inn, we even have a swimming pool to ourselves).. Kinda had itchy feet to get out of here and down to auroville further south, but stayed up late with the cyclone last night and missed checkout..

Oh the storm, went onto our balcony at about 10 last night (was hearing thunder) and the whole place beach/forest was lit up like daytime sun with lightning, litrally more lightning than darkness, was like the twilight zone. So got the camera and went in to tell joe (he was watching tv brian), just after takin this pic:

walked back out and bang…. Nearly went through the glass window with shock, feckin lightning either struck our building (its fairly small) or a tree in front. Eventually got out to the beach when it was safe enough (lots of trees down and flooding) and got a few pics.. Was hard tho, no light, couldnt focus it, and dont like electrocution.

zzzz (taken in complete darkness)

 Will write again when I have net connection that actually connects properly. Forgot to mention some stories we heard here from the tsunami a few years back (this place is still recovering), and also how naxalite (maoist) gurralla’s had a training camp in the village down the mountain from us in vatta (its actually in one of the pics i posted before), and how they got killed/captured (some of them were runnin around still when we were leaving aparently “watch out for bison, snakes,… and left wing anti-capitalists with ak47s” ..

Will leave with this pic of joe from our last night in vatta, he has just found out hes to be married at sunrise (Kevin- he asked me to be a rush-replacement best man but I refused). Its blurry (id had a few tipples), but I think it captures his emotions perfectly…

-Ian

 (Our front garden)

Yesterday we went for a 10km trek that was one of the best bits of walking I have done. So the plan was to go to a town called Munamar which is around 40kms from Vatta so that meant we had to get a bus. So the pack of us headed off, there was me and Ian, Abu, Dilshad, Sanjee and Billy. Abu is an Indian lad from manipur who has been travelling around India for the last 6 years and has quiet the bit of knowledge about India, Interesting guy. Dilshad and Sajee came to Vatta from Bangalore looking just to chill out a bit. Then there is Billy he is a real hippie who dropped out in 1967 (Around the flower power time) he has been living in Vatta for around 20 years and knows the place well. So he was the guide for the trip.

 (near mananamanamamanamanapuram)

So we got on the bus and it took around an hour and of course there was no seats so the lack of head room is an issue but thankfully there was no one standing in the doorway so we could strech out, now there are no doors on the city buses and as we were flying through the mountain roads there was a real possibility of us falling out but we are used to it now and have learnt to hold on for dear life.

(a house)

So we arrived in our location and of course had the staturtoriy cup of chai. We went off walking through forests and lakes and just being at one with nature. We stopped for a bit of lunch which was egg dosai and it was sooo good.

 (joe and abu)

We needed to head onto another place and hitched a ride with a sand truck, the guys were really nice they let us stand in the back so yet again flying through the mountain roads with a 90 degree turn every 150mts it was so much fun. We then chilled out and lay out on the grass and walked through another forest. We saw an abonded Ucaliptus Oil Hut in the middle of the forest and a few other things that were really cool. So it was time we got back to Kodai which was around 25km away so we started to walk and we knew there was a bus due but we got a lift from two guys in a Jeep, So the six of us piled in and away we went. This guy was like Michael Schumaker on the turns slowly putting on the trottle and held good control on the corners, avoiding fallen trees (there was a big wind last night) and other obsticales. So we arrived back in Kodai and it was time to walk, it was not so bad, it took 40 minutes and a lot of it was in darkness and you would be suprised how much you can see in the dark.

(fairly self explanitory)

A great day and lots of intersting stories of all the lads experiences and our experiences. Now the trip was not without injury, Ian got vicisously attacked by a leech and there was copious amounts of blood. Now Ian like the man he is, said nothing about it and just marvelled at all the cool stuff he could do with the blood. See the thing was he just ripped it off and the thing to do is to burn them off or use salt. Anyway this was bleeding for a while and when we got to Anthony’s house, for dinner he mothered Ian and showed him how to handle to wound using plants and herbal medicine and the wound cleared up in around an hour. Anthony is one of the owners of a Tea Shop in the village and we regulary go to his house for dinner in the evenings. Some of the best food we have had in India. This feat by Anthony has now gotten him the name of Dr. Anthony.

 (yup)

We are trying to sort out our tickets to the Andaman Islands at the moment and my god this will easily be the most expensive bit of travelling that we have done so far but how bad, there are supposed to be some of the most beautiful beaches in the world.

Talk to you soon

Joe

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Am gonna hijack this post.

Will throw up some pics, the rest on dvd so cant use em till oz, oh and apologies for not replyin to emails if theres any, the pc with my photos wont log on to gmail. The flying squirell isnt a flying squirrell, well it is sort of, but it was jumping rather than flying, its a normal one, pictured slightly off the roof of our house. They chase each other around and make noisy relations every morning to wake us up. Was gonna put up a very, very, funny one but will leave it for now to save your sensibilities -ian

the squirell (he’s called bruce, a 20rupee voucher for anthonys chai stall and a gone-off fake mars bar for anyone who knows why)

Viewpoints near vatta (Most within 5mins from our house)

Nature Photos (This is what happens when you dont have a dvd player) For some reason nature 1s remind me (and joe) of corporate offices though…

Kodai town

(Cant remember where, but on our mountain anyway)

Oh and surprisingly, this site just passed the 30,000hit mark, with 500hits per day now. We’re deliberating whether to plaster viagra and rolex watch ads all over… thats if brian isnt hitting “refresh” button lots of times to make us feel good :)
-Ian