India has never caught my imagination as a tourist destination, and never been on my bucket list, even the The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel couldn't entice me. Now that we are here, India is everything I expected it to be - busy and full of colour, but also squalid and littered with rubbish.
Immigration procedures here in Port Blair were not quite as bad as they had been in Chennai, but there were still a few hoops that they wanted us to jump through to get off the ship. Once off, Peter and I had decided to walk. The area didn't look like it had much to offer, and I was hoping to see some of the local wildlife. As we approached the exit gate, we bumped into Raoul (the Shorex guy), who grinned and asked if we had our hard hats ready?
And he wasn't joking. As we walked out of the gates of the port, the tuk tuk drivers came at us in a wave of bodies. And boy are those guys persistent! No. No. No! We repeated again and again, but they kept asking. One driver must have kerb crawled (well it would have been kerb crawling if there had been a kerb), for a good 5 minutes as we kept repeating "No! Go away!" to him.
We reached a stretch of road where we were given a little peace (which means the tuk tuk drivers only stopped every 5 mins or so, rather than every 10 secs), and we walked along in the heat, looking, photographing, and getting a feel of the place.
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| A roadside garage. All makes and models of vehicle fixed here. |
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| I think this is a long tailed shrike. He was perched above a load of rusty waste oil drums. |
The photographs have been selected to show the best of the area, but in truth the beaches were covered in rubbish, and it was piled in heaps at the side of the road, looking and smelling disgusting.
Even the photographs showing it are disgusting, so I couldn't bring myself to post one. Suffice to say it was easily equal to the rubbish surrounding the slums in Chennai.
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| It took a while before we came to a stretch along the coastline that wasn't covered in floating debris and plastic bottles. |
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| This white throated kingisher was beautiful. Even the rusty old boat it was perched on had charm |
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| The cows wander freely, and yes, the cars, motorbikes, and tuk tuks just drive carefully around them. |
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| Tumble drying indian style. This washing has been hung out by the local launderette, and included the towels and sheets for the nearby hotels. |
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| This is the launderette. It seems all that washing has been done by hand. |
Eventually we reached the city centre. Using Maps.me (an excellent app and highly recommended), we worked out that it was only a little way to reach the bay opposite Ross Island. The path ran alongside an open sewer at one point, but we walked on, thinking that we would get a tuk tuk back from the bay on the other side.
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| A very much respected and revered man. |
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| The streets were full of noise and colour. An amazing place. |
2 hours from our start point, we were sitting on the pier in the bay, enjoying the view and the sea breeze. A couple of passengers from the ship walked past, asking if we were going across to Ross Island as they went. Since it was something I had read up about and sort of wanted to do, Peter agreed and we made our way to the ferry point. But we didn't have tickets, we should have got them from a hut about 5 mins away and the ferry was about to leave! Amazingly, the ferry crew arranged for someone to come from the ticket booth with our tickets, (I think there may have been something funny going on cos the $5 we gave them seemed to be shared out between the three guys on the gate). In a couple of minutes a guy in a brown uniform hurried up the pier with the tickets and we were able to climb into the riverboat and set off.
Ross Island was used by the British as a penal colony back in the day. It sort of reminded us of Isle De Salut, only not quite as memorable. The deer, ground squirrels and peacocks added to the colour of the place, and not only that, it was only litter free area we'd seen here.
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| It's like something out of Lord or the Rings. We loved the way the trees have taken over the old buildings. |
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| Remnants of the luxury lifestyle of the British wardens, which included tennis courts and a swimming pool, |
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| It's a palm squirrel |
We caught the ferry back a couple of hours later, agreed a price of $2 with a tuk tuk driver for the crazy ride back to port, (but paid him $5 anyway) and arrived back on the ship just after 2.30pm. Too late for lunch, but that gave us an excuse to dive into afternoon tea, which we normally miss.
All in all a good day out. I still don't think of India as a holiday destination, but I really loved the opportunity to see new wildlife and a little of the culture.
Tomorrow is a sea day and a chance to rest the feet. After that we have Thailand and Malaysia, now those countries do peak my interest. I am really looking forward to them.
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