Quickie On The Beach

Looking back on the time I spent on our final stop in the Andaman Islands, namely Havelock Island, it seems that not much happened and there isn't that much to tell. So, you guessed it: it's time for another Quickie, to keep the bonds of affection and attraction between us fresh, albeit perhaps devoid of meaningful content.

Havelock Island is the most touristy of the islands. It's small but has several nice beaches, a bunch of beach hut resorts, and places to book boats for scuba trips and the like. It's in a group of small islands called Ritchie's Archipelago, which is nice, because it means many of the beaches look across perfectly smooth, turquoise, lagoon-like waters to unspoilt jungle islands just a short way away. There's also a good patch of jungle in the undeveloped parts of the island. As a place with actual tourist facilites, unlike some Andamans I could name, Havelock is meant to be an easy place to sit around and chill.

Of course, that would be durng the tourist season. When Girlface and I arrived we found that the majority of restaurants, for instance, if they weren't owned by the family next door, would inevitably have no more than three ingredients available with which to prepare meals. At one place I asked for some chicken noodles and was told "Sorry, sir, we have no chicken. Is not the season." In reply I said "You'd better not be trying to tell me it's not the chicken season. Throttle a bird."

At another place I asked for my fish, boneless, as was offered on the menu. "Sorry sir..." the waiter began, "... we do not have the sliced fish available. Whole fish only." I took a long moment to ponder if this man was as much a fool as he sounded,  or if he had ever heard of cutting things with knives, then suggested "Oh, well then, you should ask the fisherman to catch you a sliced fish."

One day I cycled across the width of the island to see Radhanagar beach, reputedly the finest in all of India. Well, you certainly do have to a damn long way to visit it. As for most beautiful in India? I think not. Perhaps the impending monsoon clouds of doom that soon drenched me as I pounded the bike furiously back through the jungle had a negative effect on the color of the ocean and the lighting on the sand. In any case, I could name several beaches in the Andamans, even on Havelock itself, that I find finer.

One day we also bicycled south into the jungle to visit the government's Elephant Training Camp. After following a trail through the coastal forest for some time, we came across a small, primitive camp where two grubby-looking men were lying around, with no traces of elephants to be seen. "There are no elephants?" I asked. "Elephant no" was the answer. It didn't occur to me to ask him if was enjoying the government salary he was receiving for not training any elephants.

Anyways, I must be off. I have a plane to catch. There will be some Big News soon. But first I need to kill about a trillion mosquitoes. There will be no hostages.