{"id":2602,"date":"2009-11-03T09:33:20","date_gmt":"2009-11-03T04:03:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/?p=2602"},"modified":"2014-10-27T12:08:43","modified_gmt":"2014-10-27T06:38:43","slug":"andamanned-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/2009\/11\/03\/andamanned-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"Andamanned – Part 1 – The Chennai conditioning"},"content":{"rendered":"

I could say \u201cNo man is an island, yet Andaman is\u201d or I could say \u201cNo man is an island, nor is Andaman, it is a group of islands\u201d. Bwahaha. Forgive me, all that time in the water must\u2019ve diluted the brevity of this twit. Either that, or the brewed stuff that was also consumed occasionally. Really cheap stuff, that\u2019s apparently made in AP – light Gult stuff that won\u2019t make you feel guilty.<\/p>\n

As per the status message across platforms,\u00a0 I was off to Havelock, away from keys, I wouldn\u2019t get bored, though I wouldn\u2019t be surfing, because I\u2019d be watching surf, and waves (of the non-Google kind). Ironically, the first notable event was meeting a fellow Twitterer. 6AM finds me groggy, if awake, flight or no flight. Anyway, since my display picture across networks is an initial, I\u2019m usually saddled with the responsibility of initiating conversations with people I recognise. I remembered this person because of his awesome puns (like this gem<\/a>), so it was good fun to suddenly turn and ask him \u2018Are you Partha?\u2019, and to see him looking at me curiously. If he wasn\u2019t Partha, I was prepared to give the 6AM excuse. But he handled it pretty well when I introduced myself as the handle he knows on Twitter. So, at the high altitudes where birds usually tweet each other, two Twitterers ended up having a normal chat. It turned out that he was off to AP, and as his profile states, he is into ‘consumer research to help sell beer’<\/span>. Beery eyed and bleary eyed, we landed in Chennai.<\/p>\n

Chennai usually gives me a warm welcome, okay, that\u2019s an understatement, it\u2019s a bloody hot one. So its kind of insulting to insinuate that Chennai gave me a cold, but my sinuses are proof that the Chennai airport, which seemed to be making a desperate attempt to get rid of the \u2018bloody hot\u2019 (no, that doesn\u2019t make it anti Channel V)\u00a0 tag, was on freezer mode, almost did. Every time I found a relatively warm corner, it did a Sub Zero (from Mortal Kombat) move on me.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t help that our flight was delayed. On the board, the time never changed to the new time. From an earlier adventure, I had my doubts and I finally asked the KF Help Desk what time the flight was expected.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can go for the security check, sir\u201d, she said, \u201cthe flight will take off in less than half an hour\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, why don\u2019t you change the status on that board\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there is a delay, we don\u2019t change it, sir\u201d<\/p>\n

It was only about 9.45 (during vacations, sleep-wake patterns are deferred by about 2.30 hours), so I didn\u2019t trust myself to have heard correctly. Anyway, it was a welcome break from the real time status updates on Twitter and FB. So, we made the flight, and though we didn\u2019t expect a meal on the flight, we actually got breakfast. The only disclaimer is that when they announced \u2018alpaahar\u2019, they really meant it literally. After they served the meal, I thought I\u2019d ask the air hostess for the main course, but D played spoilsport again<\/a>. Oh, okay, I couldn\u2019t be mean to anyone who gives me a chocolate mousse anyway. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

Andaman didn\u2019t quite hit it off with us in the beginning. I was quite worried. After our sulk with Goa,<\/a> we\u2019d planned Andaman last year, but that\u2019s when D reacted violently<\/a> to the idea. I was afraid if there was some jinx involved. There was a driver from our resort at Havelock, he was holding a placard that displayed the resort name, the snag was that he was looking for a single foreigner, and I failed on both counts. Obviously D was partly to blame. After all the passengers had left, we were left looking at each other, and he finally took us to the ferry. Mis-communication, we were told, but fortunately, we didn\u2019t miss the ferry to Havelock, they had tickets. There are only 2-3 that ply daily, and even boats worked like a well oiled machinery only when palms were greased. The rishwat ka rishta<\/em> with the mainland, I was touched. Apparently, getting tickets was a real pain, and that was what had prevented Havelock from becoming like Goa.<\/p>\n

\"I,<\/p>\n

The boat had a a\/c and non a\/c options (within the latter, there were even a couple of 7 seater rooms, with what seemed like lounge chairs). We couldn\u2019t see outside from the a\/c section (which was at a lower level) but realized its worth only on the return trip. Moreover, we could move around the deck with no restrictions. A vast ocean, dark, angry, choppy, an awesome contrast to the equally vast, light blue, calm sky. The journey takes two and a half hours, and somewhere in between, D wondered if she should try these instructions on me.<\/p>\n

\"overboard\"<\/p>\n

To be continued……<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I could say \u201cNo man is an island, yet Andaman is\u201d or I could say \u201cNo man is an island, nor is Andaman, it is a group of islands\u201d. Bwahaha. Forgive me, all that time in the water must\u2019ve diluted the brevity of this twit. Either that, or the brewed stuff that was also consumed […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4649,4410,17],"tags":[1122,64,1120,1123],"class_list":["post-2602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-andamans","category-india-travel","category-travel","tag-andaman","tag-chennai","tag-havelock","tag-partha-jha"],"aioseo_notices":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2602"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8812,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2602\/revisions\/8812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}