Having a Shisha at Shisha bar in Kolkata
The Victoria Memorial
Having a nice romantic ride
Havelock Island
The tropical feeling
Namaste!
Intriguing, Interesting, and Invigorating India! For all my life I could only image what this crazy country would be like; mostly basing my expectations on a Londoner's viewpoint (my buddy Raj).
India is an ancient and traditional country still practicing traditional values along with maintaining an sometimes ancient activities. Just to tell you a story, in Kolkata we were at a young man's internet cafe and his mother came into bless it with their Kali statue ensuring he would be protected; from viruses, maybe as we were cleaning viruses off our USB sticks containing our pictures. You have to be careful what you can pick up in these places...
Let me tell you my favourite part about India; THE FOOD! Oh man, this place is a curry-hound's dream! I could eat these Indian curries for Breakfast/Lunch/Dinner; well I kind of tried this and now I've realised, its not exactly low calorie food. I had lost about 7 kilos (15lbs) on the trip so far, and then we came to India... Marina is a dream wife as she somehow just maintains her weight. I on the other hand just realised that I can't eat curry every meal if I want to keep my SUPER athletic figure... :D haha, I won't comment on who is skinny and who is not in this country, but I'll leave you with this on the subject, Marina picked up a Cosmopoliton magazine and Cosmo was recommending diets that had women eating full dinner meals at 930pm and some other bizarre stuff.
So where have we been jumping around;
Kolkata > Andaman Islands (Havelock Island)
Tuesday: Crossing the Indian Boarder - You heard about our great experience leaving Bangladesh. In Kolkata they had exactly what we needed after two weeks in Bangladesh; a nice cold BEER!!! Wow, It had been over two weeks without a beer and we were loving the first one. People in the bar must have thought we had been trapped on a deserted island for 3 years! That was really our highlight of the day, or month, that one cold tasty Kingfisher beer!
Wednesday: Mother Teresa's Mission - Wow, going to Mother Teresa's mission was overwhelming. Probably one of the top 3 humanitarians of the 20th century we had goosebumps going in. The nuns were as you expect in the blue and white saris. I can see why she settled in Kolkata. We really liked Kolkata as it was a gorgeous aging colonial city. Littered with lovely buildings, great bars and restaurants, incredible sites, and on the downside, the people there are very poor. It was heart-wrenching to see whole families on the sidewalk sleeping on a blanket, or under a roofed shop. We saw a lot of homeless in Bangladesh, but in Kolkata, there must be several million homeless people - it was pretty tough to see. This is why Mother Teresa settled here, its a place they can make a world of a difference.
Thursday: Victoria Memorial - Lonely planet has a great quote, and I hate stealing from the guidebook, but this was excellent; "Had it been built for a beautiful Indian princess rather than a dead colonial queen, it would surely rate as one of India's greatest buildings". We haven't seen much of India yet, but the white marble gigantic Victoria Memorial building is impressive and certainly warrants a trip to Kolkata just for this. This day was thanksgiving and those of you who have been at my place for my annual feast, I hate to say we didn't repeat this in India. Despite calling many of the 5 star hotels, I couldn't find anyone cooking a turkey - so we settled on delicious Indian food.
Friday: Fighting Con-artists - This day we flew from Kolkata to Port Blair in the Andaman Islands. You may have to google map the Andamans; they are roughly 1000 km east of Sri Lanka and west of Thailand in the middle of no where. Before I tell you about this tropical paradise, let me tell you what happened at the harbor as we were trying to get the last ferry of the day which left in 45 minutes. The ticket counter was closed and showed this so a man told us just to give our money to the guard and he would get us tickets; for a small fee. I was not too bothered as they were not asking too much extra (about $5 for our 3 tickets - we had another person with us). For traveling on the Andemans you need a permit which is almost as important as your passport (its an official paper with our personal details on it); so he took these papers, our money and after about 5 minutes we noticed them acting fishy. Marina picked up on this first and she went past the gate that the security guard had blocked off and Marina asked some people who said she could buy tickets there. I saw one of the guys walking away from the scene suspiciously. I jogged after him and he started running; so I knew they were thieves, so I chased him down, he was surprisingly slow and just as I was about to tackle him he stopped an began to cooperate. Its not the money, but if we lose the permits, we were not getting to the tropical paradise that day. Marina grabbed the phony guard by the shoulders - he was about 10kgs smaller than Marina and very scared. They quickly gave our money and permits back and fled the scene. Hilarious!
Saturday: Diving - Firstly let me tell you more about the Andamans - Spectacular; not much to do, but the place is very nice! I wouldn't rank it with the Seychelles, but its an excellent destination to forget about the world. Being India, they have great food. On this Saturday we went diving. Now it used to have the reputation as one of the world's premier dive sites, its good, and has a great aquatic life, but the coral has been destroyed from the Sunami. On top of this the underwater visibility wasn't the best, but diving in 28degree water (78F) without a wetsuit is what I like!
Sunday: Scootering around Havelock - Our casual day, we rented a scooter and drove around the island seeing the gorgeous #7 beach. We spent most of the day here until our night dive. It was Marina's first so she was scared. Let me explain what a night dive is if you haven't hear do this; you go scuba diving at night. Yes pretty easy to figure out, but when its pitch black, in the ocean, it can be a bit scary; even if you have done it a few times. What was great about this dive and the others is you see so many critters, crabs, lobsters, loads of sleeping fish - yes they just float there sleeping and you wake them up with a torch (flashlight) - its pretty funny. Along with the illuminescent plankton which lights up the water, making a night dive is a very tranquil experience.
So what are we up to next; Neil Island, Port Blair, and then over to Chennai (Madras)
Thanks for reading,
Night,
Dan and Marina
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