Tom's India Excursion

The boat to Port Blair the capital of The Andaman Islands would take an estimated 66 hours from Chennai. I kept a diary of the epic journey which took 4 days!

Friday 11th - Day 1
Myself and Danni (one of the Aussie's I meet in Mallapuram) arrive at the dock and are told we need a medical. This involved a guy with a stamp who said 'any problem?’ to which I said no and we received a stamp stating 'Health check, Examined & Passed'. After a similar 'examination; of our bags we boarded the MV Ark bar and were welcomed on board by the Captain no less who showed us to first class cabins. Problem was we were tight and paid for economy class; this didn’t seem to please him.

Bunk class is painted a prison green with prison style bunks and not much A/C. Danni joked that we were on an old prison ship that brought the first settles to Oz and I would have believed her.

Saturday 12th - Day 2
The novelty of being on a ship has worn off! The smell of vomit and s**t, which the toilets are swimming with is has got to much. What’s more Danni (being a girl) has refused to eat in the Canteen because of hygiene reasons so we lived off 'salt flavored' biscuits and water.

We keep ourselves entertained by playing travel monopoly, teaching the other passengers the card game’s**t-head' although this ended up with them just calling me a 's**t-head'. I exchanged ipods and exchanged back when I discovered that 'backstreet boys' is the most played. Sometimes we'd watch a Bollywood film in the ships cinema (a room with a TV).

Today we discover that we're the only foreigners on board and the only ones stupid enough to take the government boat and not the tourist ship that left the day before. B*****KS!

Sunday 13th - Day 3
I join the Indians in the toilet being sick and spend the best part of a day chucking up 'salt' flavored biscuits.

Monday 14th - Day 4
We are both REALLY ILL and at the sight of land shout wildly and make sure were the first off!!!

Port Blair itself is like most Indian towns. During the British control of India Port Blair was home to Hundreds of Indian Revolutionist who saw out their days in the 'Ceilliar Jail'. The Jail was a Tower in the centre and branches off with rows of jail cells. Today it’s filled with proud Indians admiring the courage of the Revolutionaries.

We took a boat over to Havelock Island the set for Johnny Depp’s latest film. On route we ran into Anthony, another Aussie who was a keen surfer. We stared at the Sunrise Camp which is formed of 10 or so huts and a bar, just a couple of meters from the sea.

We hired scooters and went over to Beach no 7 (everything here is named by number instead of name). Beach 7 had a few good waves and backed on to it was the rainforest. At the end of each day we'd come and try to catch some surf and chill out. Not far from there Elephant beach which took a 45 minute walk though the jungle to get to. We also hired a boat for the day and went snorkeling

Being the off season there was a lack of social life until me and Anthony headed further up the Island to 'Coconut Grove' after a tip out from a mysteries Russian girl. There we chilled out with a large group who had come straight from Goa and had the music from the 'Si-bar' where I had spent many drunken nights at the start of my travels.

I leave Port Blair to head north to Kolkata to meet up with a few mates before heading to Thailand for a couple of weeks.

ANDAMANS PHOTO;
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2165&l=dec33&id=505340921

Ive posted my first 4 weeks on the road for all to see. Following weeks i'll attach to my blog.

Enjoy!

WEEK 1
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=1649&l=5f0c6&id=505340921

WEEK 2
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=1825&l=448ce&id=505340921

WEEK 3
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=1946&l=091c4&id=505340921

WEEK 4
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2132&l=f6360&id=505340921

I spent a few nights in Chennai, India's forth largest city. I normally dislike Indian cities, to many touts and tut-tut driver endlessly beeping at you, but I found a way around this. My Mp3 player. I rocked around Chennai with my own personal soundtrack and found it really refreshing.

The town itself is much like any other Indian city, busy, polluted and noisy. The day I choose to walk around the temperature was the highest in India, 43 degrees! Everywhere you look there’s subliminal messages painted to the back of vehicles like, 'Beware of Aids', 'One family, one child' and my favorite, 'Speed thrills but speed kills'.

One of the 'highlights' as my guidebook described it was the bus terminal, the largest in Asia. It looks more like an airport than a bus station filled with thousands of people trying to find the right platform. I found mine pretty easily thanks to a barber shop cortet of men shouting out the name of my next destination, 'Pondi, Pondi, Pondi, Poooondiiii', for Pondicherry.

I instantly liked Pondi. It was a little piece of Mediterranean Europe in South India. All the roads signs where in French, English and the local dialogue, Tamil. The buildings were well maintained and a promenade lined the beach. There is a happy vibe along the seafront, with children and families playing on a huge statue of Gandhi and in the evening the police shut of the roads as everyone takes to the streets to either party on the beach or relax and drink chai in the park at Government Square

Pondicherry was also the place to experience Ashram life. An Ashram is essentially a small community headed by a Guru who is joined by disciples hoping to receive 'darshan' (a glimpse of God). I spent a few hours reading the moth-eaten books in the Ashram Library and skip the simple Ashram style food in exchange for Pizza Hut.

I headed north to spend 4 nights in Mamallapuram which is an awesome little place full of chilled out travelers, restaurants and friendly locals all incased by the surrounding temples. The first day I meet two Aussie girls and after dinner we heard rumors of a beach party. A little gathering of us sat on the beach with a few guitars, singing songs and drinking heavily. That’s was pretty much how a spent my nights in Mamallapuram.

The attraction in such a small town is its amazing rock carvings and temples. Myself and the Aussie spent a good few hours in the mid day sun checking them out before heading back to the pool and onto a bar.

On my last night in Mallallapuram the group introduced me to a 'Bang lassie', which is a sweet lassie with an 'added kick' (I'm not saying what, my mum is reading this). The evening turned strange after a few power cuts and a band started to play. A few locals even came out to dance and we all merrily (and drunkenly) clapped along, until a body was brought out onto the street and burned. The music continued and so did the locals dancing but is was strange to us westerns. We spent the rest of the night starring at the bottom of our Bang lassie’s.

I’ve had a change of heart and my next destination is the Andaman Islands, for some beaches, tropical rain forest and some surf.

Day 5 in Sri Lanka and as it was a festival day, to celebrate the birth and the enlightenment of the Buddha. We made our way north to make the pilgrimage to Adams peak in the centre of the island.

Adams Peak

Sun rise, Adams Peak

Myself and Paul blazed it up in 2 hours and I felt a little sold short until we climbed back down. The views in the day time were awesome, giant Buddha's, temples and waterfalls scattered the landscape.

Adams peak

Giant Buddha, Adams Peak

After 9hours traveling, climbing a mountain and sleeping only 2hours in the last 36 the idea of rest would be appealing but due to our time restrictions we decided to try white water rafting in Kitugala. To be honest either of us had the energy for it but I was enticed by the thought of rafting the 'River Kwai', as it was here that the film 1957 classic, 'Bridge on the River Kwai' was filmed.

Rafting, Kitugala

The rafting itself was ace. We were dressed like crash test dummies and thrown in a boat down class 3 rapids. I had to be rescued as I almost fell out! Our guide was a bit of a legend and back flipped off the raft, I won’t talk about our own attempts.

Me on the condemned bridge over the river, Kitugala

I left Paul in Kitugala to head back to India. My journey back to Colombo airport was something out of an episode of Mission Impossible. After 9 hours on the road the airport shuttle bus court fire and we had to be dropped off 1km from the airport. I made a mad dash with all the other passengers though a huge storm which started around the same time as the fire.

All in all I loved Sri Lanka. It has such a chilled out vibe and although people are just getting back to normal after the 2004 Tsunami all the locals friendly and backdrop is awesome.

We arrived in Sri Lanka with no delay and no trouble after seeing the live images of an attack on the airport. In fact there was no sign; Colombo International has to be the best airport I’ve been too!

Weligama beach, Weligama

Weligama beach break, Weligama

We headed to the southern tip of Sri Lanka, a place called Weligama. It’s a sleepy little town and small town Sri Lanka is really 'small town'. What it lacked in nightlife it make up for with surf. 4ft, clean, long breaks and awesome tropical scenery.

Weligama beach, Weligama

Surf School, Weligama

It was sweet. 40c, amazing accommodation, cheap food, cheap beers and a chilled vibe. Due to the heat I'd decided to shave my head. It looks quite good and I get less touts due to the fact I look like an American GI! Myself and Paul spent 3 days doing pretty much nothing expect surfing and chilling out.

Me surfing, Weligama

The beach itself in Weligama bay is something out of national geographic. 3 mile long beach, white sand, not a sole in sight and the occasional cow! My pictures don’t do it justice.

Cow on the beach, Weligama

On the last day there was a lighting storm, we surfed below and the storm raged above. We head next to Buddhist site, Adams Peak.