MUA : Lakshadweep - Part III
Where are we ? I lost track (thanks to two total twist-movies : Departed and Don)
Let me check........ :-S
Okay, so we have already finished L'deep description. Probably, I can add some other info as tail. What follows now, is the return trip - L'deep to Kochi, and Kochi to Blr. Enjoy reading... The last part of MUA: Lakshadweep
The day went very quick. It felt like we landed just a few mins back, had a round of scuba diving, drove around, and its sunset and time to leave! By this time, all the tourists had mingled up very well. Joshua was all the time with us. It was with Sho that he got friendly with, first. Slowly he left his gang of 3 (dad,mom,cousin sis) and joined, what he calls, "boys" :-D
With all the items packed up and kept ready, the 'boys' walked towards the sea, for one last round of photoshoot.. Low-light photography is an art in itself. Adjust the shutter speed properly, and the night will look awesome. But too much of 'adjustment', and the night will look like day!
This one it toooo much of night content in it :-S
Its already 7PM and we are off-schedule already by 2 hours, thanks to an engine problem and slightly dis-obedient weather. At the jetty, we were informed, that the ship is running on just one engine - and that would mean, a slower return-back to Kochi! No issues, as long as we dont miss the next-day (Monday) 6PM bus to Blr.
20mins of wait at the jetty, and the ship came. We got loaded into a boat, to board the ship. Since the sea was a bit rough, the boat ride was interesting.. Lotsa ups and downs :-)
Bin and I were on our foot, holding the mast of the boat - braving the waves.
(Screaming with each wave :D )
At the ship, we bid adieu to the L'deep tour organisers "See you next time".
We were welcomed by the crew in the ship. The same crew, but different passengers, of course.
The crew informed us that the ship is near empty, and you can go and sit wherever you want to, do whatever you want to :)
Well, we got in, safely tucked the bags beneath the seats and left for the deck. Since we had already taken dinner from the shore, we limited to the on-board dinner to just some fruits, which were given to us. Veer-Zara was playing inside! I hadn't seen this movie. So we got in and enjoyed the movie. Was surprised to see Hema malini in the movie! I knew there was AB in it, but not HM! Post movie, Sho slept on 2 seats, in a lie-down posture. So did Bin and Sand. I tried the same for some time, but came back to sit back and sleep posture.. ZZzzz.... End of Sunday.
Monday Morning.
Renjith woke us up - Renjith is our fellow-tourist - "Come letz capture the sunrise".
"Okay, chalo"
At the deck was Sand, all set with his cam. Joined him, and got some peeping-sun pics.
Post breakfast, we got into the engine room, and the control room. Met Capt Raphael and got a first hand info on what all those gadgets were, in the control room. In the engine room, we had a visual inspection of the malfunctioning engine. The engine will be serviced, once we reach Kochi.
Again, got on to the deck, for some stupid Titanic pose, and some ladder-sit-down poses. Also tried out some dance steps over there :-s
Meanwhile, the movie playing in the ship was Krrish. Since we had all seen it, dint care it too much..
Since we were running on one engine, the ETA at Kochi was 2PM. And we reached somewhere around 1.45PM.
Bus to Sand's house.
Reached by 4.30PM. Sand's dad, mom still in office.
We freshed up, copied the pics. Burnt cd's full of pics..
The hang-over of the ship journey was still on top of our head. At least in mine! I was not able to stand still. Felt like going outta balance !
Sand's parents came by 5.30PM. Got tea to energize ourselves.
Chatted over tea, about the fun things that happened in L'deep..
6.15PM.
Time to leave.
Bus at 7PM from Angamali.
Reached Angamali by 6.30PM.
Sand's dad dropped us and went back home..
A funny incident there.
Not seeing the bus, we called up KPN travels and got the bus number.
Some KA-xx 9199.
A KPN bus with number ending 9199 went by, and dint stop there!
:-S
We called up the travels again and complained.. They said, they will contact the bus and get back. Soon another KPN bus came - number ending 9199. But some other 'xx'. That one was ours :-SS
Landed in Blr by 6.30PM, Tuesday.
Some rest, relax, framed a nice excuse to tell in office, for absence on Monday, and off I went...
Tail:
1. one pond per house - thats one speciality in L'deep. This pond is for bathing purpose. Probably, also for small scale irrigation.
2. shy kids - The kids, the galz in particular, are very shy. On one instance, when we spotted 3 galz sitting on a swing, I tried capturing them. By the time I switched on the cam and looked thru the viewfinder, the kids were gone :D
3. 90% muslims - Yeah. The population is dominated by muslims. Putting it in trademark Sand-words "90% of L'deep population is muslims. The rest are also muslims" :-))
4. hospitality - Awesome! From the moment we landed on to the island , we were impressed by the hospitality of the ppl in general, and the tourism crew in particular. One point wort mentioning is that it was Ramzan fasting time. They were fasting , yet serving !
5. language spoken - It is Malayalam. Not pure Malayalam. They speak with themselves in a no-script Malayalam. But they'll communicate to you in the Malayalam you know. (Well, if you dont know malayalam, then of course the tourism crew can converse in English)
6. cell phone coverage - Apna BSNL :-) Full coverage ! No private players here. And dont think, they have any plans to set up a n/w here
7. how to reach Lakshadweep - From Kochi, a 13 hour ship journey will take you to the island of Kalpeni. Thats where we went. Since the islands are all close by, it might at max take 1 hour to commute between islands. But of course, you dont have regular ships for commuting ! The ship which we boarded was "Amindivi" - a twin-engine new ship. In fact, the newest ship commuting to L'deep. 2 new such machines are in the process of being put in the same route. Well, for more info on how to reach L'deep, check this link : www.lakshadweeptourism.com
There is flight to L'deep. But I recommend a ship journey (i.e. if you are first timer)
8. ship cautionary measures - Bin's bro is a homeo doc. He suggested that we take 'tabacum-200' 1 hour b4 getting into the ship. This is to get rid of the vomitish feeling, which you may get while on-board. May be, due to this, all of us had safe journey :)
9. Need to know swimming? - No! For the water sports, scuba diving, kayacking, you will be given life jacket.
10. statistics of kalpeni - a small peaceful island. Why peaceful? We asked the locals. They said, "Everyone here knows every other person. suppose i kick this guy, or say get into a house and steel something. There is no place for me to hide. Its a "small world", you see!"
Yeah, really small.
Kalpeni is just one of the 10 inhabited islands of the L'deep clustre. Geography says, there are 27 islands in total.
11. Tuesday midinght - bin got up and sat on bed, sleepless for a few mins. He complained of side-ways swaying, while sleeping ! After-effect of the ship journey ? Or a weird dream ?!
Some cool pics b4 i sign off..
Let me check........ :-S
Okay, so we have already finished L'deep description. Probably, I can add some other info as tail. What follows now, is the return trip - L'deep to Kochi, and Kochi to Blr. Enjoy reading... The last part of MUA: Lakshadweep
The day went very quick. It felt like we landed just a few mins back, had a round of scuba diving, drove around, and its sunset and time to leave! By this time, all the tourists had mingled up very well. Joshua was all the time with us. It was with Sho that he got friendly with, first. Slowly he left his gang of 3 (dad,mom,cousin sis) and joined, what he calls, "boys" :-D
With all the items packed up and kept ready, the 'boys' walked towards the sea, for one last round of photoshoot.. Low-light photography is an art in itself. Adjust the shutter speed properly, and the night will look awesome. But too much of 'adjustment', and the night will look like day!
This one it toooo much of night content in it :-S
Its already 7PM and we are off-schedule already by 2 hours, thanks to an engine problem and slightly dis-obedient weather. At the jetty, we were informed, that the ship is running on just one engine - and that would mean, a slower return-back to Kochi! No issues, as long as we dont miss the next-day (Monday) 6PM bus to Blr.
20mins of wait at the jetty, and the ship came. We got loaded into a boat, to board the ship. Since the sea was a bit rough, the boat ride was interesting.. Lotsa ups and downs :-)
Bin and I were on our foot, holding the mast of the boat - braving the waves.
(Screaming with each wave :D )
At the ship, we bid adieu to the L'deep tour organisers "See you next time".
We were welcomed by the crew in the ship. The same crew, but different passengers, of course.
The crew informed us that the ship is near empty, and you can go and sit wherever you want to, do whatever you want to :)
Well, we got in, safely tucked the bags beneath the seats and left for the deck. Since we had already taken dinner from the shore, we limited to the on-board dinner to just some fruits, which were given to us. Veer-Zara was playing inside! I hadn't seen this movie. So we got in and enjoyed the movie. Was surprised to see Hema malini in the movie! I knew there was AB in it, but not HM! Post movie, Sho slept on 2 seats, in a lie-down posture. So did Bin and Sand. I tried the same for some time, but came back to sit back and sleep posture.. ZZzzz.... End of Sunday.
Monday Morning.
Renjith woke us up - Renjith is our fellow-tourist - "Come letz capture the sunrise".
"Okay, chalo"
At the deck was Sand, all set with his cam. Joined him, and got some peeping-sun pics.
Post breakfast, we got into the engine room, and the control room. Met Capt Raphael and got a first hand info on what all those gadgets were, in the control room. In the engine room, we had a visual inspection of the malfunctioning engine. The engine will be serviced, once we reach Kochi.
Again, got on to the deck, for some stupid Titanic pose, and some ladder-sit-down poses. Also tried out some dance steps over there :-s
Meanwhile, the movie playing in the ship was Krrish. Since we had all seen it, dint care it too much..
Since we were running on one engine, the ETA at Kochi was 2PM. And we reached somewhere around 1.45PM.
Bus to Sand's house.
Reached by 4.30PM. Sand's dad, mom still in office.
We freshed up, copied the pics. Burnt cd's full of pics..
The hang-over of the ship journey was still on top of our head. At least in mine! I was not able to stand still. Felt like going outta balance !
Sand's parents came by 5.30PM. Got tea to energize ourselves.
Chatted over tea, about the fun things that happened in L'deep..
6.15PM.
Time to leave.
Bus at 7PM from Angamali.
Reached Angamali by 6.30PM.
Sand's dad dropped us and went back home..
A funny incident there.
Not seeing the bus, we called up KPN travels and got the bus number.
Some KA-xx 9199.
A KPN bus with number ending 9199 went by, and dint stop there!
:-S
We called up the travels again and complained.. They said, they will contact the bus and get back. Soon another KPN bus came - number ending 9199. But some other 'xx'. That one was ours :-SS
Landed in Blr by 6.30PM, Tuesday.
Some rest, relax, framed a nice excuse to tell in office, for absence on Monday, and off I went...
Tail:
1. one pond per house - thats one speciality in L'deep. This pond is for bathing purpose. Probably, also for small scale irrigation.
2. shy kids - The kids, the galz in particular, are very shy. On one instance, when we spotted 3 galz sitting on a swing, I tried capturing them. By the time I switched on the cam and looked thru the viewfinder, the kids were gone :D
3. 90% muslims - Yeah. The population is dominated by muslims. Putting it in trademark Sand-words "90% of L'deep population is muslims. The rest are also muslims" :-))
4. hospitality - Awesome! From the moment we landed on to the island , we were impressed by the hospitality of the ppl in general, and the tourism crew in particular. One point wort mentioning is that it was Ramzan fasting time. They were fasting , yet serving !
5. language spoken - It is Malayalam. Not pure Malayalam. They speak with themselves in a no-script Malayalam. But they'll communicate to you in the Malayalam you know. (Well, if you dont know malayalam, then of course the tourism crew can converse in English)
6. cell phone coverage - Apna BSNL :-) Full coverage ! No private players here. And dont think, they have any plans to set up a n/w here
7. how to reach Lakshadweep - From Kochi, a 13 hour ship journey will take you to the island of Kalpeni. Thats where we went. Since the islands are all close by, it might at max take 1 hour to commute between islands. But of course, you dont have regular ships for commuting ! The ship which we boarded was "Amindivi" - a twin-engine new ship. In fact, the newest ship commuting to L'deep. 2 new such machines are in the process of being put in the same route. Well, for more info on how to reach L'deep, check this link : www.lakshadweeptourism.com
There is flight to L'deep. But I recommend a ship journey (i.e. if you are first timer)
8. ship cautionary measures - Bin's bro is a homeo doc. He suggested that we take 'tabacum-200' 1 hour b4 getting into the ship. This is to get rid of the vomitish feeling, which you may get while on-board. May be, due to this, all of us had safe journey :)
9. Need to know swimming? - No! For the water sports, scuba diving, kayacking, you will be given life jacket.
10. statistics of kalpeni - a small peaceful island. Why peaceful? We asked the locals. They said, "Everyone here knows every other person. suppose i kick this guy, or say get into a house and steel something. There is no place for me to hide. Its a "small world", you see!"
Yeah, really small.
Kalpeni is just one of the 10 inhabited islands of the L'deep clustre. Geography says, there are 27 islands in total.
11. Tuesday midinght - bin got up and sat on bed, sleepless for a few mins. He complained of side-ways swaying, while sleeping ! After-effect of the ship journey ? Or a weird dream ?!
Some cool pics b4 i sign off..
Labels: trips
posted by Rat at 11:20 PM
2 Comments:
Airtel is launching on 1st of May.......Wait for It....
@anony1 -> thanks for the spam :D
@anony2 -> Airtel coming is good news! Will check it out next time I set my foot there :-)
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