Richard's Travel Blog

Most people come to the Andamans to go to Havelock Island. That’s tourist central, such as it is. There are about, I’d say, 200 tourists there, mostly stretched out along a main, one lane blacktop road on the east side of the island. That’s where Lonely Planet said the diving was, and that’s where I went on the ferry from Port Blair as soon as I arrived there back on the 18th of January.

From reading LP, I thought diving would be more of a big deal than it was. Most of the people there are there just to hang out at the beaches and cottages, eat and drink, maybe snorkel a bit. There are three dive outfits there. Each can accomodate four divers. That means there are about 12 divers a day. While I was there, the writer for South India Rough Guide was staying where I was. He asked me to write a bit about diving from Port Blair, the capital and only place in the Andamans that would pass as a city. I wrote a bit about Havelock too. I’ll post that later, when I get confirmation that the info I got is correct. I’m having trouble getting the dive shop in Port Blair to come up with a useable email address. Suffice it to say here that the diving at Havelock is generally uninspiring. But then again, I’m of the school that all diving is good diving.

As I was there for the diving, that’s what I did almost every day. There was the first day, when there was no space on any of the boats. Then there was the last day, when I didn’t dive because it’s not recommended to fly within 24 hours after diving. Other than that, my day consisted of showing up at the dive center at about 7:30 AM, making two dives before 1 o’clock, then sometimes hanging out with my dive buddies, and sometimes returning to my hut and rinsing off the salt water. In the evening, I usually hung out with the folks at the place I was staying, had dinner and a couple of drinks. Not exciting, but laid back for sure. As I said, most people there were there to mellow out. So that’s the scene. Here’s the hut I stayed in.

There’s my towel I still have from Sharm al Sheikh. Boy, I still haven’t dived anywhere like that since then. Here is one of my dive buddies on the boat. As you can see, these are not luxury rides.

Here are a couple of shots of the scenery. Havelock, as well as the rest of the islands has mile after mile of just this, beaches alternating with forest, often mangrove. The beaches are romantically numbered. This one is beach No. 7, popular by Havelock standards, meaning about 10 people a day go there. It’s about 10 km from the main strand. There are frequent busses. Those are work elephants I ran across on the path to Beach No. 7. The mangrove trees are by our cottages/huts, maybe 100 meters up the way.

Actually, Beach No. 7 is a series of small beaches like this, so not all 10 people crowd onto this one.

It’s typically “island” in the Andamans. I’d write what went on, but there’s not much to write about. You catch up on your reading there, be romantic if you’re with someone, party if you’re with a group, or take up beachcombing. There is no internet, barely phones, no entertainment, no nothing. If that life is too exciting for you, you can go to North Andaman or one of the other remote destinations, and write that book. Here’s a kid.

There are other islands south of the Andamans, the Nicobar Islands, but regular tourists aren’t allowed to go there. The Indian government has minimal presence there, it was terribly devastated by the tsunami (which is mostly cleaned up in populated parts of the Andamans), and several of the islands are inhabited my tribal people who do not welcome outsiders. Some, in particular, greeted Indian relief helicopters after the tsunami with a hail of arrows.

After about 6 days on Havelock, I returned to Port Blair to dive from there. The diving is much better. Neither place is good for big animals, though I did see the biggest, most beautiful, charcoal with purple trim sting ray I have ever seen. It’s about the coral and the little fish that hang around coral. you know, “Nemo” clowns, tetras, angels, parrots, napoleons, butterflies, etc.. The usual only biggish ones are little tuna, barracuda, jackfish and bumpheads. There are sharks, but I didn’t see any. Lots of turtles. The visibility is ever so much better out of Port Blair and a village about a 45 minute bus ride away, Wandoor. Wandoor would be a good place for a non-diver to go. It fronts the Mahatma Gandhi Marine National Park. There are very pretty views of dots of islands surrounded by blue-green reef. the diving there is said to be not so good because outside the reef is mud instead of sand, which usually means the visibility is murky. Sometimes the visibility is no more than 5 meters anyway, though at the good loccations south of Port Blair/ Wandoor, it’s usually 15-20 meters, which is fine. The water sure is rough sometimes, though. Rough water isn’t a problem once you are in, but getting out to the sites and getting in and out of those fishing boats in 5 foot chop are not for those prone to seasickness or concerned about getting bashed against the hull getting back in.

There is nothing to do in Port Blair, and Wandoor is sleepier than Havelock. Time there got sucked up because sometimes you don’t get back till 6. All you want to do after two dives and 2-3 hours of rough going on the surface is rest and get something to eat.

So, that’s about all I have to say about those places. I flew to Chennai from Port Blair, and immediately took a bus to Pondicherry, south of Chennai. I’ve been here three days, and will write about it before moving on.

1.   Be well, all of you. Enjoy the Super Bowl. It’s on TV here, but at 2:30 in the morning. I’ll read about it.

I’m heading off to the Andaman Islands tomorrow, leaving here at 4 AM for a 7:15 AM flight from Chennai. I don’t know what the internet access out there will be like. I think it’s agood idea and a good time to post pictures from Mamallapuram.

Mamallapuram is on the coast, about 50 km south of Chennai. It’s a comfortable tourist destination for foreigners and Indians alike. You can swim on beaches near here, though the beach in town has severe rip tides. You can also look at one of the many cave temples and rock sculptures, many of which date back to the 7th century. They aren’t as dramatic as Ellora of even Elephanta, but they are in pleasant settings. The most important place is called The Five Rathas. They were carved out of granite boulders where they stand.

There are several more places of interest, but you’ve seen so many of those type things, I’ll spare subjecting to more pictures like that. Even I grow oversaturated with some of the antiquities here. At least some of these sculptures are just art, not religious.

Her are shots of the beach to the left and the right this morning at dawn morning at dawn. There were several people like this tourist, besides the fishermen, enjoying sun up. The second one shows the shore temple artistically positioned above a fishing boat.

As in Goa and Gokarna, it’s nice to sit and have a meal, only this time it’s to watch the dawn instead of the sunset, this time to have eggs, toast and tea or oatmeal instead of tandoori fish, fried potatoes and beer.

The main every day thing in Mamallapuram is the rock sculptures and shopping for carved objects, but during January is a month long classical dance program. There are two performances a night, for free. Some are very good, some are students. Here is one of the dancers, a forty-something year old who may not have been as athletic anymore as the others, but she was very graceful and alluring. Her daughter (and “disciple” she called her) both performed for one hour.

 

Here are the musicians. The backdrop is part of the rock carving in the area where much of that is. Behind the musicians is a temple carved out of the rock. Behind the dancer is the depiction of a battle.

While I was here, there was a festical called Ponga. It celebrates the harvesting of the rice. I went to a village where they had prayer and made four kinds of rice. Then we ate the rice from banana leaf bowls which is a common way to serve food here, with all due respect for the efforts of the many who make life possible. I liked the sweet one made with cinnamon, raisens and cashews. First, the women making the rice:

Second, here are a couple of cattle having their horns painted for the procession. This evening was for thanking the cows for the labor, milk and everything else they provide. As you know, cows are revered here in any case. They also drape them with jewelry. This village was poor, so they had almost all costume jewelry on. Internet speeds are particularly slow here, and it took forever to upload the pictures you are seeing. I wish it was possible to show more.

The festival is going on as I write. Outside on the main street are cars going up and down, blowing their horns, people are hanging out the windows and off trucks and tractors. There are firecrackers and other noisemakers, and the occasional band of musicians. It’s the strip in American Grafitti, Indian style.

I’ll write from the Andamans, if possible. If I can’t, I’ll be in touch after the 30th, when I get back.

Be well.

The plan originally was to go south through Kerala and sweep up Tamil Nadu, then go from Chennai by air to the Andaman Islands to dive. It turns out that almost all the flights to the Andamans and back were booked from now till late February. Going in late February doesn’t work for me because I’m returning to the US on March 4. The only date available to go was Jan 18, and the only return date was Jan 30. That was a little sudden and a for little longer than I had planned to stay there, but I took the tickets and away I go.

I took the overnight train to Chennai. I t was nice, quiet in my car after 10, and I slept the whole way straight through till 6. That is a rarity. During the ride, I looked at Lonely Planet about Chennai. It had little good to say about it, so upon emerging fromthe train station, I headed 50 km south by bus to Mamallapuram. This is one of the few touristy places in Tamil Nadu, though there are a few spots to see here, especially if you are very into Hinduism. There are lots of westerners here. There are nightly classical dance performances. thee are some nice rock temples and statuary. I’m a little jaded after places like Ajanta and Ellora, but it’s very pleasant. If I wasn’t already rested up, this would be as good a place as any to hang out. There is also a rice harvest festival, Ponga, going on. For that reason, there are many Indian tourists/festival goers here. I’m going to go be part of that this afternoon.

I’m leaving the 18th from Chennai, but should be able to post a few pictures before going.

Happy Martin Luther King Day.

Since before independence from the British, Indians have been proud to build “indigenous” products, and prove they can take their place among the world’s leading industrial powers. To be sure, you can get reasonable facsimiles of products one sees in the West, often mostly designed from the basic blueprint. Sometimes the Indians put their nameplate on a foreign product, such as the Suzuki Maruti. The little Maruti is a functional puddlejumper, alright. It is most Indian’s dream to own one.

There has been a movement for decades by the military/space establishment to design and build “indigenous” vehicles and weapons. For example, they are trying to make a new main battle tank to replace it’s aging, obsolete Russian tanks. It’s been many years and the thing is still “in testing”, thereby becoming more obsolete as the years go by. The latest is, they bought off the shelf a German nitrogen gas suspension for it. Cool! The only trouble is that the crack engineers at the defence reseach department failed to protect it with armor, so the tank can be disabled by small arms fire. And it’s way overbudget. Americans are used to costly projects that won’t work, but this is even worse than we must endure.

They have also been building an indigenous fighter aircraft to replace their aging MIG 21’s. I think they should call it the Osprey-29.

Now, India wants to have an indigenous mission to the moon. This, I need to see. I can just see teams of flip-flop clad, $2 a day, boys and men climbing around on the new spaceship. One’s job is to put the ladder up against it. Another brings the rivets of state of the art indigenous design. Another cleans them each according to his specific instructions which CANNOT be altered in any way with out authorization through the appropriate chain of command. Finally, the rivet will be placed, and another boy can go get the tea.

Some others will cut the fins out. Some others will paint. The engines and technology will be borrowed and modified by the research department which has almost finished testing the newest, best vacuum tubes in the world. Either that or they will buy products off the shelf from that German suspension company or someplace.

Everybody wins in the military/space industry, so that’s how that goes.

You get the point.

Need I say, in a country without education, clean water, electricity, three sets of clothes, housing with a door, or health care for hundreds of millions of people, this is painful to observe. We think we have other fish to fry? India’s going to the moon. The Indian Defense Research Institute is going to do it…. Right after tea.

The most common car in India is an Indian made Suzuki Swift called the Maruti. It cost about $5000 US, and you get what you pay for. One model, the Zen, comes with a few features, like choice of color, a radio, and optional air conditioning with the larger engine (I hope). The Sally Rand model comes with pedals, I think. Yabba dabba do.

In probably the most ill-conceived marketing campaign since General Moters tried to market the Chevy Nova (No va means “It does not go” in Spanish),  the TV blitz’s catchy music is a person whistling Pete Seeger’s “Little Boxes On The Hillside”. For those of you who are too young or are non-American, as you approach San Francisco from the south, on the hill in South San Francisco, were built in the 60’s lower income apartments. These were plain, low quality, pastel colored shoeboxes. Probably, they are expensive now. Malvina Reynold’s wrote these lyrics. Now whistle along….

Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same,

There’s a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one
And they’re all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

As we travelers caught in the cultural divide often say, “Well, this is India.” If I ever write that book, I may call it, “Well, This Is India”.

My apologies to those of you unfamiliar with sometimes arcane American iconography. You can take the boy out of America, but you can’t take America out of the boy.

There comes a time when resting becomes vegetating. that time has come for me. There’s little I want to do here. I’ve read a lot, walked around, met a few very nice people, and had some great food. I hope that continues, but it’s time to do it in a different place. I’m off to Varkala, farther down the coast on Kerala, in 2-3 days.

Meanwhile, I’ve uploaded many photos to this website. Again, they are pictures of things I’m doing and everyday sights around town.

I suppose the “sight” I see most often is the view down the main tourst street in this part of Cochi. I turn this corner a few times a day. This is at 10:30 in the morning, before anything is really happening around here.

Just to the right of where I was standing is Vasco de Gama Park. There is exactly one bench with a back there, and if it’s in the shade and vacant, I sometimes read there.

You’ve seen the inconspicuous entry to the Kashi Arts Cafe. where I probably eat most breakfasts. Here is the inside. Ah, real French press coffee. I’m going to miss that. This is the Carmel, California of India.

A few times in the evening, I’ve had a beer at this place. The food’s okay too.

Most of the time for dinner I buy a fish, some oysters or squid at a stand like this. These stands are behind the Chinese fishing nets. And behind them are open retaurants which cook it up for a little under a buck. Last night I had 1/2 kilo of oysters sauteed with garlic, salt and pepper for a whopping $2 altogether.

After that I went where I usually go, to listen to music at the Kerala Kathakali Center. That comes on at 8:45, after the Kathakali performance.

There is a different performance every night. Sometimes it’s sitar, sometimes flute (like tonight’s program), sometimes vocal, sometimes violin (which India has adopted as it’s own and created music you’d never think would come out of a violin), and I don’t know what else. So far, the featured instrument or singer was accompanied by tabla (drums) and other drums. I haven’t been here long enough to see what all they present over the course of the year. Last night was the best.

The veena is an ancient lute with seven strings, four for melody and three for rhythm. It is at least 3000 years old, though this particular one was only 100 years old. If you’ve seen pictures of a goddess playing lute, it’s this she is playing.

That horse’s head is brilliant.

The number of people who can play it is dwindling. There is one master left in Kerala. One of his best students performed last night.

The tabla player has been there every night that I have.

Well. here is the last one I’ve uploaded into my blog storage. It sure is blurry. It was dark in there. He is obviously playing the flute. There’s flute music tonight. Maybe it will be the same guy, though the sitar players have been different.

So, there you have it for now. It wasn’t art, but it is what I’m looking at.

Be well, all of you.

I went for a walk today. Most of there pictures are typical street scenes and sights, such as they are. Most of this is on Bazaar Street, Spice Street and in the old Jewish section. First, though, is a picture of Appu, the guy who has the internet business where I usually do this and email. He was minding another tourist’s kid while she was on the net.

Here’s the synagogue. There aren’t many Jews left here, but this place is a registered historical monument, so it will remain and kept from crumbling.

Here’s a Catholic church, one of many here, and some of the parish school kids.

Here’s a typical row of businesses.

A lot of every Indian town is crumbling, but still used. Here is a guy who just got water from the well behind him.

Here’ a guy unloading a truck.

 

This is not a homeless guy. “Respectable” people nap wherever they want during the heat of the afternoon.This is not a homeless guy. “Respectable” people nap wherever they want during the heat of the afternoon.

Always there are the kids. If you walk down the street anywhere, you have a good chance of a gaggle of kids running up to have you take a photo of them. It’s great to have a digital camera. They have instant gratification of seeing themselves, and you can delete what you don’t want. I’ve deleted hundreds of kid pics after showing them.

Here’s a canal. Duh.

Here’s just an artsy picture.

Here’s one of the more modest art galleries. Cochi has dozens of galleries. Little one’s like this are some artist or two’s shot at living their dream, living by their art.

Here is the lane behind my hotel. On the left is the Kashi Arts Cafe, one of my usual digs here.

Finally, a typical scene in Cochi, tourist fresh of the ferry from Ernaculam, at the jetty, talking with a rickshaw driver about where they might find a room.

When I was about 13 years old, I started doing some soul searching. It’s what adolescents do, isn’t it? I gained inspiration from a Peanuts poster I had. Lucy is sitting in her 5 cent advice booth with her chin in her hand and thinking out loud, “Whoever said you had to accomplish anything? I thought you were just supposed to keep busy.” When I got older, and had accomplished all anyone would expect of me and become respectible in the eyes of my dead mother or somebody (Sister Alma?), I remembered that poster again. It seemed like all I was doing was keeping busy. As a nurse, life was easy. Money was easy. I had time to travel and did so, money to have a good time wherever I went or lived, no kids to put through college, a girlfriend much of the time, some friends, a few interests. Then my dad got old and his wife got demented, so I had to accomplish something for a while. Then I obtained inherited wealth and decided to not only not accomplish anything, but to not be even busy.

That has proven a little more challenging than I thought it would be. I have always liked to travel, so I’m on the road again. This time is different, though, because I don’t have to go back to work. When traveling before, whether it was for a few weeks or  many months, I was doing something. There were places to go, people to see, in the time I had before I would have to go back to work to accumulate more money to travel again or to have for another purpose. Retirement is way different.

We get to go through these “passages”, as the bestseller described them. Each new one brings with it age old questions, dilemmas, joys, sorrows and pleasures. It’s come time for me to go through this one. I not only don’t have to accomplish anything or prove anything to anyone, I don’t have to be busy.

But wait a minute, I still haven’t gotten as used to the idea as I thought I was. Entrenched thought processes are telling me to do something. Travelling is supposed to be doing something. I’ll have a plan. Today I’ll do this, tomorrow that. There’s so much to see. I’m young for a retiree, so I can see the whole world. Or I can still see an estimable part of it, anyway. I can be accomplished again, this time as a traveler. I haven’t learned to stop needing to do something.

Something needs to be done. I barely make it one day at a time sometimes, and this is one of those times. Here’s the plan, Stan. I’m going to make a temporary practice of not doing much. Fake it till I make it, as they say. I plan to park it here in Cochi till I get bored. If I feel like I need to see another place because that will increase my worldly knowledge but 0.01%, I’m going to shelve that idea just because I can.

I’m going to read to my hearts content. I’m going to write in my notebook. I already filled one and promptly lost it. Good thing, that. I’m going to hang out in this mini-Berkeley (more about that later), have western food if I like, have lattes, watch the fisherman, see the galleries and music performances, and just have what would be a normal life if I could afford such in the US on my retirement income. Maybe I’m destined to be at least a little bit in motion in retirement, but that would be okay.

That said, I reserve the right to satisfy my curiosities.

It’s nice to be free. It’d just also be nice to have walked the path before. You could say that about any “passage”, huh? Maybe I’ll stumble into some precocious wisdom, as I did with the help of Charles Schultz 40 years ago.

This central part of Kerala is famous for Kathakali. Kathakali is a performance art where actors reenact episodes of the Hindu classics, the Mabaharata, the Ramayana, and the Puranas. Each segment lasts about an hour. There are 606 segments in Kathakali. Every night in Cochi, and most nights in a couple other nearby locations, a segment is presented, mostly for the tourists. We’re encouraged to show up early and watch them put on their make up.

This story is about virtue maintained and honor restored. A woman’s husband loses her to a demon (with the winged face)in a dice game. The wife refuses the advances of the demon and vows to not wash her hair, her clothes or herself until the demon is killed and her husband washes her hair with the demon’s blood. Krishna (with the green face), impressed with her honor, makes it so no matter how long the demon pulls on her sari, it will never run out of material and come off. Round and round she spins until the demon gives up. Her husband performs 12 years of penance to seek assisstance from Krisna, and is given the power to overcome the demon. Only a true love could want her by then, but he does so, eating out the demon’s heart and washing his wife’s hair with the blood. They live happily ever after.

There is much yelling, especially by the demon who is thoroughly unlikable. There is music onstage. Though a lot about the very many hand gestures and body movements was quickly gone over by the host explaining all this, it was impossible to remember a fraction of what he said. Basically, the performers can say enough that way, that spoken word is unnecessary.

Here’s Krishna

Here’s the repentant husband.

Here’s the husband duking it out with the demon, who looks a little like Longhorn Leghorn to me. I say I say I say, boy, you need more light to take pictures inside from a distance.

Cochi is a great town to hang out in and absorb culture. This is on every night. There are galleries all over. There are other performances of music and theater here and nearby. The locals are very proud, and the foreigners eat it up.  Oh, today was cute. There are a couple of places that try to be art coffee houses/cafes. One does it perfectly. It’s called the Kashi Art Cafe. You go in and there was a Brit with his framed photos from around India on the brick walls. He’s sitting at a card table with his coffee table book for sale, hoping to sell a signed copy. He sold four yesterday. Today he sold four of his framed pictures. He was real pleased about that. You can go to http://www.waswoxwaswo.net/ if you want to look at his stuff. The gallery music was Dan Ackroyd’s House of Blues Radio Hour off satellite radio. It is 10:30 Saturday night on the west coast. In the garden was the coffee house with a few good coffee drinks made with freshly ground arrabica, some teas and other drinks, and a fixed lunch of perfectly acceptible, by California cuisine standards, chicken salad sandwich on fresh thick sliced dark toast and cream of tomato soup. I felt like I was back in a nice place of that style in Mendocino. I just hung out there after lunch with a limeade and listened to the blues. You can go Indian all you want here, but it was nice to get anything I wanted at Alice’s Restaurant. Actually, if you wanted ANYTHING, you’d have to ask any of the rickshaw guys outside.

For no good reason, here is a picture of my hotel. It’s pretty typical of my nicer urban digs.

  As I said in my last blog, I’m going to chill here for a while, if for no other reason than I’m seeing a lot of cultural things I’ve been meaning to see. I’ll be in touch.