Hornbill Nest Resort Port Blair

... surrounding area didn't offer much so we just grabbed some food from a food stall and got up early the next morning and took a rickshaw the airport. We stopped off at the post office at the airport before our flight just to see about options for mailing my drum home. The man at the post office suggested we take the train into town to the big GPO post office where they mail packages. The man at the post office made sure we knew that all the rickshaw drivers will ...

... seats to the floor aisle of the bus. Our exit from the pier area was hampered by a large crowd of men gather in front of the main gate. Several police officers had to go out and negotiate a path for the bus. When this was done and with several more police to ensure a path wide enough for the bus to traverse, the gates were opened and we exited the pier area. The crowd did not appear unfriendly instead they appeared to be the drivers that manned the long line of Tut-Tut vehicles ...

... it, then changed all the sheets... hopefully he didn't get fleas. Jellyfish. It would be good if they put this in the guidebooks, but every year they have a bloom of jellyfish in the Andamans, usually around March. As a child I had a recurring bad dream where I was falling from the high board of a swimming pool, down towards a pool of multicoloured jellyfish pulsating with extra long tentacles and ready to sting me. It all stemmed from a ...

... come party on Christmas and that we could go out diving with them to a few of the bigger-deal sites for some absurd amount of money. He was cool enough, but I don't really like divingwith people who aren't that impressed with the place they've chosen to set up shop. It's indicative of something weird that I can't put my finger on. (I have to say I'm glad we didn't dive with them, which will become real ****ing clear by the end of this post.)  We walked a bit further up to a new ...

... completed the last day of assisiting instructors with the teaching of beginning diving courses. Since the students are other backpackers I'm meeting a ton of interesting people from around the world. Tomorrow I will be mapping a dive site and completing my swimming skills tests which I'm not looking forward to. There are 4 tests: a 200 meter timed swim, an 800 meter timed snorkel, 15 ...

... is also in the midst of the jungle. Journey to this waterfall includes 4 kms trekking through the forest. ELEPHANT SAFARI ANIFPDCL, who have about 31 elephants in this island, organizes elephant safari through the jungle near the White Surf waterfall. Well experienced tamed elephants are engaged for this purpose. One can really enjoy the exciting ride, sitting on the back of the mighty ...

... the boat is docked. This time, we walk back over a hanging wooden bridge all the way to the dock. It takes us just another 20 minutes to reach Uttara Jetty, the entry point to the North and Middle Andamans. Diglipur, the northern most point of Andamans, is 203kms away. With another day or two, we could even have included that in the travel plan and visited Saddle Peak, the highest point in the Andamans. We find our bus waiting at Uttara Jetty, having ...

... took on. In 1768, a vessel called Viper that carried a senior British Officer, who intended to establish a penal settlement here, crashed near the island. Of course, the wreckage you get to see now is a semi-damaged Tsnunami remnant. The other oft-quoted reason for the name of the island is the presence of large numbers of vipers - today, not much evidence of this either. The jail and gallows were finally built in 1867 and soon got into business when ...

... Danish visitors) has proved herself to be a bit ferocious and it isn't too difficult to imagine why she was abandoned on the island in the first place. Nevertheless they have both settled in well and we don't imagine they will be similarly exiled after we leave. For the time being, however, wherever we set foot on this island we have a small black and white big-eyed dog wearing a collar made of shells running at our heels. I'm sure this has something to do with us staying here for so long.... <br>

... dived into the murky water for a half hour dive at ten meters over the remains of a coral reef that had been dynamited by local fishermen. Once underwater it became immediately obvious that we were funding Atilla's sport of spearfishing which he went off to do, paying scant regard to his customers and smashing ancient coral to smithereens as he probed about and hit out with his fins. Once on the surface the German complained that he had paid for an hour of diving at ...