Ah...relaxing island life once again! We flew from Chennai to Port Blair, the most developed and populated city on the Islands. From there we took a ferry to Havelock Island where we had organized a dive stay package for 6 nights with Dive India, one of the more reputable places on the island. On arrival, the weather was humid and rainy making the water around us look gloomy. We were a bit nervous that we had picked the wrong time of year to visit. Luckily the next day when we woke we saw that the clouds were beginning to clear and the water sparkled blue! We stayed in a basic hut but it was clean and served our purpose as a place to sleep. The next 6 nights we relaxed and enjoyed the resort, the beaches, the group of friends we met through diving and most of all 4 dive trips to various dive sites! Diving in the Andaman's was very different to our experience in South Africa. The water was so warm we only needed thin wet suits, the seas were relatively calm, except for one day when Courtney got sea sick 3 times, and the visibility was amazing!! Each dive we lucked out by getting to dive with Sayeed, an Indian Dive Instructor, who made us feel relaxed and secure. He was very informative, organized, would share air so we could dive longer, and best of all would plan our safety stops (a three minute break at 5 meters) in the best locations. Two times during our safety stops we were surrounded by a school of barracuda and then a school of yellow fusiliers, which the other groups missed out on. The marine life surrounding the Islands was incredible. We really enjoyed getting to know how to identify certain fish and loved trying to spot the rare species ourselves. We went from being very nervous divers to totally relaxed and happy to be swimming around face to face with fish. Once we relaxed our our air consumption improved, allowing us to stay under longer. Our longest dive was 75 minutes! One of the dive sites was considered a deep dive where we dove to 28 m for around 45 minutes. It was called Dixon's Pinnacle and it was basically a huge conical shaped coral reef where we would swim around. Looking up from below was magical as you could see schools of fish swimming around, eating and interacting with one another. The photos of one dive are courtesy of Sanjeet, another diver on vacation testing out his new underwater camera case. After our 7 night stay at Dive India we headed to Neil Island by ferry. Neil is much smaller, quieter, and calmer compared to Havelock. There are way less hotels, dive centers and shops. Neil also had only one cell phone service provider and really expensive internet so we were out of contact for over a week! Our hotel was set in a pretty forest on the west end of the beach. One side of the resort had a beautiful area for watching the sunset. The hotel was also next to two beaches which had the best snorkeling with the possibility of seeing a dugong, a large marine mammal comparable to an underwater cow. Underwater cow...you can imagine how excited Courtney was, so she spent the next 6 days in search of one. Unfortunately she wasn't lucky enough as they are very rare so we'll have to return with more time. We reunited with one of the guys we had been hanging out with on Havelock, Kane the Aussie, who we spent every day with biking around the island snorkeling, and chatting over many long meals. Everyone runs on island time there so the service is ultra slow; for example, one dinner Courtney ordered thali (a set meal) and it came out cold in 15 minutes while everyone else's meal came out 1 hour later! Although slow the staff were friendly and the food was decent. As a group we chartered a boat and visited one of the smaller inhabited islands near Neil called Little Neil. Our boat driver was the owner of one of the three places we ate at. He was really nice and offered to drop us off as close as he could get without damaging the bottom of the boat on the rocks. In the end it was a very wet landing so the majority of our stuff (including our camera) remained on the boat. We had a really nice day enjoying the peace and tranquility and the feeling of being deserted on an island. For Courtney it was a dream come true, alone with 6 guys on a island...not!
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After a lovely 6 hour bumpy bus ride we arrived in the not-so-touristy city of Erode, where we would stay with Elango’s family for two nights. Elango is an Indian friend who studied with Courtney in Edmonton. One cold wintery day in Edmonton while Courtney and Elango chatted about India, Elango offered for us to visit his family if we made it to India. We said, "for sure!" and were very excited when the time had come! While we waited at the bus station for Elango’s “brother cousin” (male first cousin) Arvind, we noticed we were the only foreigners around, which obviously was exciting to the locals as they gathered around us. Eventually a friendly guy came up to us and introduced himself as Arvind. We walked to his car and drove the 30 minutes to Elgano’s parent's house. On arrival we were greeted by Elango’s mother, father, two aunts and his sister cousin Somiya. Arvind and Somiya were the only two who spoke English so they acted as our translators and guides for the next two days. We couldn’t believe that Arvind had travelled all the way (6 hour train) from Chennai the day before we arrived and Somiya had taken off school just so they could show us off… I mean around. We settled in to our own room where they had prepared us a bed and our own clean bathroom with a western toilet! We were instructed to shower and then we would prepare lunch. I (Courtney) had asked Elango if his family could teach me how to prepare some Indian dishes. So happily his mother and Aunts taught me how to make Vada, an onion spiced doughnut fried in oil. After the cooking lesson Somiya asked us to sit on the ground while she served us lunch. The first thing she brought out was a large green banana leaf. Then she scooped out rice, veg curries, a coconut based chutney, and a sweet for dessert. We then were shown how to properly mix the food by using only one hand to intensify the flavours. We took a bit of everything, placed it in a pile neatly at the center of the banana leaf and then mashed it all together into a fine paste by squeezing all the food in our palms and through our fingers. Once the food was well mixed we would scoop it up and eat it with the same hand (the right one). I found it a little difficult to get used to but I had a lot fun eating because hey, our mother always told us not to play with our food so this was a treat! After lunch we visited the family’s relatives and friends. At each house it was customary for them to serve us chai and some sort of sweet. We were already totally full but had to fit in several more chai’s and sweets before the day was up. We weren't omplaining, we love chai and sweets! Later in the evening we headed back to Elango’s family home and had Malasa dosa, a thin rice flour pancake stuffed with spiced potato served with dal and chutney. After dinner (10:00pm) Arvind and Somya took us to a Bollywood cinema where we watched a Masala film called Thuppakki . It’s called a Masala film as it had a mix of romance, comedy, singing, dancing, and action. The theater was retro and freezing with the air con blasting and fans circulating the cold air. The movie was entertaining but totally ridiculous at parts. It was a Tamil film with a few English lines thrown in to help us foreigners understand the plot. We had to fight falling asleep as we were completely wrecked from the long day of travelling and meeting every person in Erode. The next day we woke up early, washed up and went to their kitchen where Elango's Mom and Aunts were once again preparing food. Even after we explained we washed up we were asked to go back and take a full shower as we were heading to temple after breakfast. Once clean, Arvind dressed Andrew in a white shirt and a traditional white dhoti. The temple was situated 40 mins from the town up on a high hill with a great view of the surrounding area. Somiya was very excited as it was her first time visiting this particular temple, which she had been waiting to visit for along time. We really enjoyed learning about Hinduism, the gods and watching a prayer ceremony inside the temple. We also felt honored when Arvind and Somiya added us to their prayers in front of the Brahmin. After temple we headed back home. The women had spent the morning preparing us a delicious non-veg meal of chicken and mutton curry for lunch. It was fun chatting with the other family members who had come over for the special lunch and tasting local non-veg dishes. Somiya and the Aunts teased Courtney about not sucking every last bit of meat off the bones and picking through the curry. The truth was that Courtney had gone completely vegetarian while in India and found it very difficult to eat/digest all parts of the chicken. We felt like we were on a stage being watched while we ate, only we were sitting on the floor. While the men ate in the kitchen the women surrounded us and watched us eat then would giggle when we would miss our mouths and food would fall onto our laps. After everyone ate we were offered a leaf with calcium paste and a few red hard seeds. We rolled all three ingredients together then had to chew and swallow; this was supposed to help with the digesting of meat. The taste of this digestive product was overwhelming and hardly enjoyable. Once again the family got a kick out of watching their guests politely chew the leaf concoction and eventually Courtney had to spit the chewed leaf substance out. After lunch we got taken to visit more extended family members. Our favourite visit was to Elango’s cousins who farm. We loved visiting their farm, and playing with the animals. We then visited a sugar cane farm next door were we learnt about the cutting and processing of sugar and got to taste real raw sugar that had been made earlier that day. After the farm we visited more homes; everyone was very excited to meet us, feed us and take a snap of us in their home. They said they were honored we were in Erode and thrilled when we would patiently look through their children’s wedding albums. The wedding albums were from the 1940’s up to as recently as a few months ago; they also ranged in size, colour and extravagance! One cousin had 4 huge bound coloured albums for us to go through from the engagement to the wedding then to fun after wedding shots. Learning about the arranged wedding process was really enlightening; we also appreciated how everyone was so excited and happy to answer all of our questions. Once we were finished with the visits we picked up the aunts along the road and continued to a shop, which sold a huge variety of sarees and clothing of other types. To our surprise the family insisted they purchase us authentic India attire. When Courtney would try on the Salwar Kameez all the aunts would clap their hands in excitement then ask Andrew which one he preferred. Andrew politely turned down the offer for a Dhoti. After we were done in the saree store we went to another shop which sold men’s branded clothing. I (Courtney) then got to pick out a nice new outfit for Andrew. Again the aunts and uncles were so happy with the new purchases and that their foreigners were starting to fit in! We had been told we were done visiting but after dinner some more family friends came over then asked if we would visit their house, so in our new clothes, we were back to visiting. After the last visit Somiya applied a special dye, similar to Henna but lasts longer and is good for the body, to Courtney’s palms and then we finally went to sleep. In the morning we packed up, said our goodbyes and were off to Chennai with Arvind. ChennaiOur time in Chennai was pretty uneventful except that we were attacked by bugs. Not sure if they were bed bugs but none the less we had bites everywhere! We switched hotels and treated ourselves to a 3 star hotel for the night in hopes of reducing our chances of being eaten alive! Once we had wifi and TV we only left the room to eat!
We were quite sad to be leaving our sunny paradise that was Goa but after 17 days of swimming, tanning, scootering and yogaing we were feeling rejuvenated and excited for the last month of our one year trip around the world! We were able to grab some last minute tickets on a train that was mostly full from Margao in Goa to Bangalore and then on to Mysore. We hadn’t heard much about Mysore except that it was probably the most laid back city in southern India. We checked into a cheap but decent hotel near the Mysore train station and immediately went out in search of some grub. We were quite shocked to find that Mysore had sidewalks. Yes sidewalks, for pedestrians, like in the movies. We quickly found ourselves in the heart of the city on a Sunday night staring up at the City Palace, which was lit up like a Christmas tree on steroids. It was so bright that after I looked at it for a few seconds I had those same sun spots burned into my retinas like the ones you get when you stare up at the sun. We ate some seriously greasy Dominos pizza for dinner and shortly after 8PM the lights on the City Palace turned off so that the rest of Mysore could enjoy some electricity for the evening. We were tired but we felt good walking around through Mysore. It was quite easy actually. People left us alone, we could follow sidewalks and we even had a half-decent city map that our hotel gave us. After wandering for about an hour we found ourselves near the backside of the City Palace adjacent to what appeared to be an exhibition of some sort. For 15 rupees (25 cents) each we gained access to Mysore's version of the Canadian National Exhibition. But instead of only lasting for a few weeks, this one lasts for a few months. Oh and it’s about 100 times cheaper than its Canadian cousin. Inside we were dazzled by all the sights and sounds. There were kids trying to sell balloons by rubbing their fingers on them and making that annoying scratchy sound that balloons make. There were robots that would play music or guess your weight. There were shops selling everything imaginable. Courtney bought 2 pairs of shoes for less than $6. I bought popcorn for 20 cents. Then we found the rides. I was having flashbacks of my childhood at the Red Lake fair where the old Legion grounds would get taken over by rusted old rides and their carnie operators. There were so many similarities here in Mysore. The ferris wheel, the salt and pepper shakers, the swings, the teacups and many more! The tickets were pretty cheap too so we bought some tickets to ride the teacups and ride the teacups we did. Overall we had a great first night in Mysore and we were starting to see why people call it the most laid back city in south India. The next day we got up early and asked to switch rooms because of an absolutely foul stench coming from the room across the hall from ours. Its hard to describe the pungent smell but I would say it smelled like old formaldehyde mixed with varnish and it stunk! Now, keeping in mind that the places we stay in are not 3 star or 2 star or even 1 star hotels. In fact their star ratings usually dip down below zero. As we were moving our bags out of our room and up to the floor above where the smell hadn’t reached yet, Courtney asked one of the hotel employees what the smell was coming from because we were starting to think that someone had died in the room. A smile crept across the man’s face as he replied, “its medicine… for cockroaches.” We couldn’t figure out why this place was trying to help the cockroaches rather than exterminate them but we are often baffled by foreign logic. Actually, we’re guessing he meant to say something along the lines of poison for cockroaches, because it was certainly strong enough to gag a human. After solving the case of the smelly hotel room we ventured out to the local market. Mysore has an enormous market that has basically everything from fruits and vegetables to fresh meats to clothing and handicrafts to human hair. We ended up buying a couple small bottles of scented oil so that when we get to Australia we smell (and hopefully look) half-decent. The next day we ran a couple of small errands including sending a package home and checking the bus schedules to our next destination Erode. We had expected these two tasks to take the better part of the day and we were completely shocked when we finished them in under an hour! It must have been a new record. The post office was really, really organized and the bus station was too! We had the rest of the day to visit a couple of the sights around town so we did! First we took the bus up to Chamundi Hill where we visited the Sri Chamundeshwari Temple, a huge and beautifully carved golden tower. We returned back to the city bus terminal and hopped on another bus to the Brindavan Gardens. They were constructed on the downstream side of the massive Krishnarajasagara dam that was built in 1924.
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