Ascension

Just a quick update to let you know that I'm currently in Yuksom in West Sikkim! Met a lovely girl in Pelling called Paula, and her friend Nicola, whom Rob and I have been trekking with the past few days through the stunning green gorges and valleys of Sikkim. No photos at the moment because it's just too slow here to upload any!
The four of us decided to do the harcore thing, and tomorrow we'll be heading off on the Goecha-La trail, up to around 4500m on Goecha-La peak over 10 days very close to Kanchenjunga. We'll have a guide, equipment, yaks, etc., sleeping in tents and trekkers' huts if we come across them, so it should be well fun and damn good exercise! Costs a bit though (150 quid), but I'm here now, so why not?
Expect the next update in about 2 weeks time!

The Himalayas

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Well, I've gone from 30m below sea level off Havelock Island to 2200m above here in Darjeeling!
Spent a few days in Kolkata (Calcutta) to watch the Champion's League final (Arsenal lost, but at least we kept Thierry Henry from moving to Barcelona!). Had a few nice meals there in a nice restaurant called Mocambo, where I ate Devilled Crab for starters and Chateaubriand steak (perfectly done, medium-rare!). The steak was huge, probably 400g, and cost only 150 rupees (2 quid!). Went back a second time the next day!
Kolkata is a pretty cool city, not as upmarket as Bangalore, probably more like Mumbai (Bombay) than any other city I've been to. Robert (the divemaster from Havelock) and I also went down College Street, famous for the endless number of book stalls selling mainly educational books (since it's right by the University of Calcutta). Apparently rumour has it you can find virtually any book amongst it's thousands of stalls and shops! The area is also famous for the cafes, where scholars, artists, philosophers and authors gather to discuss and debate, trying to solve all the world's problems over a cup of chai or 'cawffee'. After browsing the stalls for a while, we took some time out to shelter from the searing sun in the famous Indian Coffee House, set inside a former coffee warehouse. The setting is pretty amazing, with waiters rushing around sporting frilly hats and white uniforms, a mesh of swirling fans above bordered by balconies that overlook the main seating area. Loud conversations and words of retaliation from debates echo from table to table. It's quite amazing! Loved the scene.
3 days after arriving in Kolkata, Rob and I took an overnight train to Siliguri, the access town to Darjeeling, the world famous tea plantation town which was originally a hill station for the British. I'll tell you, I had THE most pant staining ride of my life taking a jeep the 3 hour, 80km journey up to Darjeeling from Siliguri. The terrain changes abruptly from flat land to majestic hills at the foot of the Himalayan mountain range. The narrow twisting roads rarely have any sort of barrier to prevent you from plummeting the steep inclines. Our driver must have been doing about 70km/h up the road, round blind corners, literally inches from the edge of a steep drop! I lost count of the number of times we swerved at the last minute to avoid an oncoming truck or jeep, putting the wheels right on the edge of the steep drop! My knuckles were white from holding on to the grip bar at the back of the jeep! And it got even worse when he decided to take a 'short-cut' off the tarmac road up an incredibly steep gravel driveway to save 10 minutes! I really thought we were going to slip off and roll the 1000m back down to Siliguri! I was sorely tempted to manufacture a diaper made from toilet paper to prevent any brown staining incidents... It certainly seems in India that the more dangerous the road, the more dangerous you have to drive.
Following the long winding road up to Darjeeling is a very narrow gauge railtrack which leads the 'toy train' up the mountains. We spotted it in Kurseong, 5km from Darjeeling. It's still driven by an old steam engine, pulling it up the steep roadside, terminating in Darjeeling.
Darjeeling isn't really what I expected. I knew it was touristy, but I never imagined it to be so built up. It's virtually a city, straddling both sides of a long, steep narrow ridge, it's buildings perched precariously on the hillside, tumbling from the top of the ridge to several hundred meters below. I'm staying at the Long Island resort, one of apparently 500 hotels here, right at the top of the ridge with fantastic views overlooking Bhutan some 40km away to the east. On the other side of the ridge, where the town center is, you can see Nepal less than 20km to the west. It's amazing up here, nestled among the clouds in India being able to see two countries either side! It's kind of dreamy sometimes when the clouds come in and wash up and over the hills. You can't really see the tea plantations below the town due to all the buildings in the way which is a shame. I wanted to visit the Happy Valley Tea Estate today, but it's closed on Mondays, and tomorrow I'm leaving. It's pretty cold here, a nice respite from the 40 degree heat I've been enduring the last 2 months! During the day it hovers around 14 degrees, and drops to around 4 degrees at night. For the first time since I was in Rajasthan in the desert, I've had to wear a jumper and jacket!
Visited the zoo here yesterday which was quite fun, seeing some animals I have never seen before, like a snow leopard, red pandas and some beautiful pheasants. I was thinking about trekking from here, but have made the executive decision to spend some extra time in India and head north into Sikkim, a restricted area, a region disputed between India and China, with some spectacular scenery. Getting the permit today was quite fun. Rob and I had to walk down to the bottom of Darjeeling to get a letter from the District Magistrates office, which we then had to take all the way back up to the top of the town for it to be stamped by the Foreigner's Registration office, then take it all the way back down the steep moutainside to the District Magistrate's office for final consideration. Oh, and then we had to walk all the way back up into town again. I think it's some kind of test to make sure you're worthy of all the climbing and descending before you're allowed into Sikkim! So now I have a 15 days pass for Sikkim, and will head there tomorrow, to a small town called Pelling. From there, I'll set out on a trek, where I'll finally get to lay eyes on Kanchenjunga, the third highest peak in the world at 8,586m (Everest being the tallest at 8,850m, K2 comes in second at 8,611m. For comparison, Mont Blanc in Europe is only 4,810m!!).
I don't know if I like Darjeeling or not. I think I don't. I think that's why I've made the decision to head into Sikkim. I wanted to go trekking from here, but there are just so many people here, and the treks from Darjeeling don't really afford you the amazing views of the Himalayas as in Sikkim. The people are nice and friendly here though. You can really see the difference here, the people are mainly Nepalese or Bhutanese, rather than Indian. It feels like you're in Nepal! I guess that kind of makes up for missing out on Nepal! The food here is also quite different, I've even had dim sum and soup noodles for lunch!
I doubt they have internet cafes up in the mountains (I wouldn't want to bet on it though, they are everywhere!). So next time you'll hear from me is when I return to Darjeeling perhaps in a week's time! Hopefully I'll have some gorgeous photos of the Kanchenjunga mountain range and some buddhist monasteries!

The Andaman Experience

I have to admit, I have just had the most amazing two weeks of my life. The Andaman Islands are simply breathtaking, there is no paradise I can imagine that exceeds the beauty of the beaches and sea, the reefs and the jungles, the remoteness of the islands and how pristine they are.

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From Pondicherry, I stayed one night in Chennai before heading to the airport early in the mornig, only to find my Air Deccan flight had been cancelled. Almost all the passengers rescheduled for the next day, but about 10 of us hung around, hoping perhaps the plane might be fine. Instead, after 2 hours waiting and arguing, to the point I almost gave up and went back into town for another night, they put us on a Jet Airways flight to Port Blair!
Port Blair is the hub of the Andaman chain of Islands, closer to Myanmar than to India, situated on Middle Andaman Island. I didn't stick around and took a boat 2 hours to Havelock Island where the diving occurs. On Havelock, all the beaches are numbered, from #1 to #7. #1 is where the boat jetty is located, #3 to #5 are further along, and #7, preportedly the best beach in Asia and the second best beach in the world, is on the opposite side of the island.
Checked into the Emerald Gecko resort for the first four days, where I met James, a friendly Englishman, and Marco, an affable Italian. The two were hilarious together, almost like a bickering couple although they had only met a couple of days before! I ended up checking out of the Emerald Gecko as it was costing me to much, and moved to the much lower budget Sunrise Resort a short way along, where I met a nice bunch of other travellers, including Sonaar (an American born Indian), Tina, the German trio (Tino, Clemens, Gregor), Asim and his girlfriend Amba (both from Auroville!), Mikael and Ahout, two Israelis. The first day I arrived there, they were holding the inaugural 'Havelock Games' that involved chopping open coconuts and filling as many glasses with the water, swimming and running! It was also Tina's birthday which we celebrated that night with a nutella and biscuit pancake with candles for her bitrhday cake!
Since it was end of season (the monsoon comes end of May), the group trickled away slowly, leaving the German trio and me left before I took my leave of the Andamans.
The diving was superb. I went with Dive India, just next door, and met Vinnie, a local Indian instructor who owns the place. Turns out he goes to Koh Tao during the monsoon season to teach diving at a shop 5 minutes from Ban's Dive Resort where I'm working! So I'll be seing him there in a month's time. I did about 17 dives off Havelock Island, amongst the top 3 places in the world for divng, and I have to say it deserves it. The variety of life is incredible, the corals undamaged, reaching for hundreds of meters in all directions. On my second day diving, Johnny , one of the local Divemasters, although a Karan by blood (from Myanmar), and I spotted a dugong (sea cow, similar to a manatee) (click for info)!!!!!!!!! I never expected to see one, EVER. Forget about whale sharks, these are even rarer to scuba dive with as they are incredibly shy and highly endangered, nearing extinction. It had to be the highlight of my time there... Incredible!! Even Vinnie who's dived there nearly every day for 6 years has never seen one! I've swam with dolphins(!!!), eagle rays, seen manta rays, 6 varieties of triggerfish, nudibranches, loggerhead sea turtles, a 70m shipwreck, night diving and sooo much more. But the best was still to come!
Vinnie invited me, as I'm a Divemaster, to join on a day of exploration diving for free, to discover new dive sites around Havelock! The diving here is so unexplored, some of the potential sites too far away for daily diving (4-5 hours by dunghi, the small long boats they use). End of this year though, Vinnie hopes to complete building of his large fast dive boat, and wanted to find new sites. So Robert (a cool Austrian Divemaster working there for a short time), Johnny and I headed out one day on the dunghi armed with a map of the sea depths and GPS. The first dive we found an above average reef, with HUGE barrel sponges (we named it 'Sponge City', original huh?), and the second dive..... the second dive.... Wow.... We dived off Middle Button Island, a place never dived before, to what was the most amazing reef I have ever seen. I remember scouting the area and Robert sticking his head into the water with a mask on as the boat was moving to see the rocks below and he just came straight up after two seconds screaming "It's F*CKING BEAUTIFUL! STOP THE BOAT!". In fact, Johnny, the local diver living and working there, agreed it was the most amazing reef he had seen, and WE found it! WE were the first divers ever to dive there! We dived the site twice, and on the second dive on that reef, Robert and I managed a 104 minute dive on one tank of air (most dives last 50 minutes)! So that was quite an achievement! But most of all, we got to name this reef, and I christened it Dr. J's Reef. Why? DRJ. Dominic, Robert, Johnny. So there's a huge coral reef in the Andamans named after me, Robert and Johnny, and named by me! Woohoo!!!!
The final day on Havelock, I headed to #7, and by all means, I'm supposed to tell you it is rubbish, full of huge sand flies, souvenir sellers and tons of tourists. But I won't lie. It's almost like something out of 'The Beach', the book and movie. I'm not supposed to tell people about it (some of the locals mentioned especially to Israelis). But it's stunning. The main beach itself is rather standard, but round the corner a few hundred meters away hidden from view is a deep emerald lagoon, embraced by a steep bank of sand. You can easily see why it is voted the second best beach in the world, and the top beach in Asia. It's empty. No one is there (ok, maybe 4 to 5 people).
So there it is.... I've had such an amazing experience. Of dugongs and dolphins. Stunning beaches. Reading in a hammock. Playing cards with the German trio (I taught them Chinese poker - Chaw Dai Di). Discovering new, uncharted coral reefs. There's so much more I want to share with you, but this entry would just be so long... It was certainly the perfect tonic to the two weeks of troubles before I arrived!! I feel refreshed, alive, and so, so happy that I've had the chance to experience the Andamans. Especially before it goes downhill, and unfortunately it will. Soon. They're filming 'Shantaram' there (the book I mentioned before). It'll star Johnny Depp and they will shoot the Goa scenes on Havelock. Why? I don't know, but I've seen what 'The Beach' did to Maya Bay and the rest of the Phi Phi Islands. So if you plan to go to the Andamans, you'd better go NOW. The islands are the most pure, unspoilt place I've ever been to, and it'll disappear quicker than you can blink.
I'm back on the mainland now, in Kolkata (Calcutta), and will watch the Champion's League final tonight (ARSENAL!!!!!) then spend a day or two exploring before heading up to Darjeeling ("Tea, Mr. Braaiithewaaaaite?" - Penny will laugh at that!).

A Taste of France

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Currently in Pondicherry, albeit only for a day and one night. I arrived this morning on the 2nd having taken an overnight bus from Madurai and will have to leave tomorrow to arrive in Chennai (Madras) on the 3rd so I can catch my flight to the Andaman Islands early in the morning on the 4th. Phew!

Pondicherry is lovely, a very picturesque town on the seaside with a huge French influence. Not surprising seeing as it was once an important French trading post after they took it by force from the East India Trading company who founded the town. Almost all the roads here are named in French, such as Rue Suffren, Rue de la Marine, Rue de la Compagnie and Rue Francois Martin among many others. There's a plethora of French restaurants with names like La Terrasse, Le Club and Le Rendezvous, many French bakeries selling croissants, pain au chocolates, and baguettes, and surviving French colonnial buildings en masse around the sea shore, including the lieutenant governer's residence, the Hotel de Ville and a branch of the Alliance Francaise. You'd think you were in a town on the south coast of France (with the hot weather)! Plenty of French expats live here, and it's surreal hearing some of the locals talking in French too! Even the policemen here have hats like the French policemen back in France! Makes me think I'm in France sometimes! Makes me think about Sev and how I used to see her in France most weekends! I'm gonna miss her!! Oh well! C'est la vie! Have to move on, there's so many more places to see, countries to explore, different nationalities of women to experience! ;)
Checked into a cheap hotel, the International Guest House, run by the SAS. No, not the British elite force, but the Sri Aurobindo Society, a strange new age 'cult', one can only call it, founded by a Bengali philosopher-guru called Aurobindo Ghosh and his chief disciple, personal manager and mouthpiece, 'The Mother' who are revered by the locals. Aurobindo and 'The Mother' are both entombed in the ashram they founded back in 1926. There's even a new-age 'City of Dawn', called Auroville, inspired by 'The Mother', built 10km north of Pondichery in 1968. A bunch of people live there in little communities with name like 'Fertile', 'Sincerity', 'Revelation' and 'Certitude'. Very odd. They live by very strict rules, and own most of the businesses in Pondicherry, just like the hostel I'm staying in. I'd visit Auroville, but I don't have time, plus I'm worried about being kidnapped and brainwashed into joining their 'cult' in the Matri Mandir, their huge space-age spherical meditation center, 'a symbol of the Divine's answer to man's inspiration for perfection', apparently. There's a huge 1m crystal ball hanging in the center of the place too, 'symbolising th neutral but divine qualities of light and space' by all reports. Strange. The hostel I'm staying at has tons of rules, such as a curfew (back by 10pm), no killing of mosquitos (ok, any living thing found in your room, but they're certainly the most abundant), no smoking, drinking, music, etc, and you have to smile. There's signs everywhere declaring overpowering 'philosophies of life' that you just can't avoid.
So anyhow, I wandered around town the last few hours, that's all it takes to see the whole place. It's not very big, perhaps 2km long by the seafront and reaching 1km or so inland. I stopped by a French bakery and had a delicious croissant, pain au chocolate and a cold coffee (aaah, such a nice change from dosas and idlis for breakfast!) Wasn't going to drink a hot coffee in the 40C heat here! The seafront is lovely, just like the French mediterranean ports. Evidence of the tsunami that hit here is scarce, although a few buildings being renovated late after can still be seen here and there. It's hard to imagine so many people lost their lives here in Pondicherry, along the coast of Tamil Nadu, which the tsunami wreaked the most havoc in India. People walk and mill by the seafront, with ice cream sellers abound, and most of the destruction caused by the tsunami has been rectified quickly.
Otherwise, there's not much else to do here, but walk around and enjoy the distinctly French ambience here in this colonial corner of India. This'll probably be my last blog entry for the next two and a half weeks since there's no internet on Havelock Island, where I'll be staying and scuba diving in the Andaman chain. After writing this, I think I'll head to a nice terrace restaurant by the seafront and have myself a glass of St.Emillion red, steak aux poivre (bleu-rare garcon!) and a Gauloise cigarette for finishers. Chin-chin, bon appetite, merci et au revoir pour deux semaine mes amis!