Andamans

Long time no update! Getting to Goa saw the end of cycling for a little while as I first went to visit the Andaman Islands for a spot of diving and now I'm hooking up with Helen for three weeks of non bike related holiday in Kerala and southern India. Now, the Andamans were a great break, a wonderful place with turquoise water and white sand beaches, as you can see below. And you can still get a bamboo hut for a couple of quid a night. Nice.



Getting to the Andaman Islands involved first getting to Thiruvananthapuram, which I and many other people, are still calling by it's old name of Trivandrum. You can't but help wonder why. First I had to get to Madgaon railway station, and put the bike on a train to Trivandrum. Not as easy as it might sound. I got there with plenty of time to spare which proved to be just as well... I asked about the bike and was told to report to the luggage department which I duly did. They then explained that as the train did not originate in their station they couldn't guarantee that it would be on the same train as me but I wasn't to worry as if it wasn't then they'd put it on the next direct train. The day after next. By which time I'd be on my to the Andamans. Damn. So, what would happen in that case? Well, the luggage office in Trivandrum would hold it for 10 rupees a day. Hopefully. Oh=kay... After that it was just a case of filling forms out in triplicate, writing all over the bike and waiting for the train. As the time drew near I couldn't but help stop my bike on the wrong platform unguarded and unlocked. Still, it made it, as did I.

I left the bike in a hotel there, then caught another overnight train to Chennai the next evening, as my flight to the islands departed at 4:45 AM. Simple, no?

Plan was to have a beer about 6pm, eat a carb rich meal, have one more beer then get to sleep for around 9pm ready for the early morning flight. Of course it didn't quite work out like that and after meeting some French one beer turned into, er, many. The bar shut at 11, and I think I may have pissed off the hotel staff by getting some take outs and trying to carry on the party ("They can't go up, they're not staying here." "They're my frensss!!!"). Just as well in retrospect. I eventually hit the sack past midnight and thus got one and half hours sleep. An extra half hour of that was because my alarm call never came (wonder why?). Still, in the taxi with my half hour buffer only half gone and away, stinking of booze! Ten minutes later it dawned on me that I hadn't got my phone. Ah. Back! Back to hotel with all speed! Grabbed the phone and offered the driver an extra 200 rupees if he could make the airport in 30 minutes. Which he duly did.

And then... two weeks of relaxing and diving. Quality hammock time was had.

Last days on the Indian mainland for now

My final bit of cycling for a few weeks consisted of tootling down the Konkan coast and into Goa. The scenery continued to be sublimely beautiful, as the picture of the temple on the river below might show, and I've been sad to think I won't make it all the way down the peninsula although I don't want to miss the chance to get to the Andamans. Life is full of tough choices and this was genuinely tough.


Before I got to Goa I stopped off for a couple of days at a local resort, Malvan. This was to stop me turning up in Goa in high season, and to give my legs a rest after eight straight days of cycling. Nice place anyway, still a jobbing fishing port of the non-super trawler variety so great to watch the catch being unloaded and sold on the beach in the evenings.


After Malvan it was a short hop down to Goa. Well, the map said it would be a short hop, but the map was wrong. Again. So it proved to be a full day on the bike to get to Arumbal in the very north. Nice enough place but odd to see some many non-Indians about! At least the ones on motorbikes (about 50% of them) have managed to pick up local customs. Use your horn all the time, weave about erratically and drive like a ****. The main road down to the beach is apparently jocularly referred to as "Glastonbury Street" and it does feel and look very much like the Glasto markets! My advice here would be not to get drunk then decide you need some new threads after seven months on the road. Seriously.

And with nothing more than an overnight halt there it was on the overnight train to Kerala, which seems to be a lovely place, clean and full of friendly people. Apparently it's got a 91% literacy rate and average life expectancy of 73, some ten years higher than the rest of India. Oh, and a communist government. Yes, these facts are connected. Alas, just one day there for now (back again in a couple of weeks), not even pausing for an ice cream. I don't know why, they just didn't sell it to me... maybe the downside of communism.


I took one more sleeper train last night up to Chennai, as I catch a flight here at 4:45 AM to the Andamans for a spot of diving. Now Chennai was the first ever place I visited in India, on a work trip a couple of years ago and I formed the opinion at the time that it was a bit of dump. Was this just because it was my first visit here? Would I see things differently after having been in India two months? No. It really is a dump.