testmeat photoblog

when i first looked at the andaman islands on a map i saw that it was closer to myanmar and thailand, despite being part of india, so i thought if i did visit i’d go when i was geographically closer in south east asia. however as my friend and i were making travel plans at the start of the year two facts brought it closer to my thoughts, firstly it was said to be the best place in india to go scuba diving, and secondly they don’t do international flights so it’s only possible to arrive from the mainland of india. those facts directly led to me booking some flights with the intention of spending a few days diving.

the best diving seemed to be on havelock island, which required taking a boat from where the aiport is in the capital of port blair. there was only one government ferry running by the time we landed, and we were told that tickets for these get snapped up well in advance, something which was confirmed to us by a baying mob of taxi drivers upon arrival. but we didn't like the idea of losing a day so we thought we'd chance it and went straight from the airport to the seaport.

if we were unsure whether these islands were really part of india, the bureaucratic forms and disorganised queuing that greeted us at the ticket office left us in no doubt. but it all paid off and eventually we were sailing in the andaman sea on our way to havelock island. we hurriedly booked some last minute accommodation just before losing phone signal, but when we docked at the pier and walked to the hotel there were no signs of life. by this point we'd been travelling for well over 12 hours, starting with an early morning tuk tuk to catch a bus to bangalore airport, and i desperately wanted food and rest. so when we finally got hold of the hotel owner on the phone and heard him say he was too tired to come and check us in - well that didn't help with the hanger. i recalled passing a dive centre on the walk, which google maps indicated also had rooms, and the pendulum of luck swung right back in our favour when we got there. the had one spare room available, they were still serving food and they would happily arrange all of our dive trips for the next few days - it was also by some distance the nicest place i stayed in the entire country. i thought we'd used up all of our good fortune with our tiger sighting, but it turned out india still had more blessings to offer.

i saw this little dude walking on the outside of my bathroom window, and immediately grabbed my phone to take a photo. as it was a live photo i'm compelled to also make it into a video