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Published: February 21st 2011
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Diving boat on Havelock Arrived in Mumbai the day before we flew to the Andamans, Tom got sick so the less said about that day the better! It took 2 flights, an 8 hour wait through the night in Chennai, and 1 ferry ride to get to Havelock Island, but when we arrived to crystal turquoise sea and white sand it was everything we'd anticipated and more. We stayed at Emerald Gecko in the cheapest bamboo hut they had, it was lovely. A double storey hut, with attached outside shower, little veranda at the front which was 20m from the sea. As the upstairs of the hut just had thin bamboo blinds in the windows (no glass or anything) we slept to the sound of the waves. Although Havelock is closer to Thailand, it is still part of India and so adheres to India time zone. This meant the sun rose really early, and set really early, so you awake at like 5.30 every morning. There was a great mix of people staying at the guest house, family with young kids, couples, and a few travellers, so we made lots of friends. The food was also really good, fresh fish and a kingfisher beer most
nights. They had no menu, it was just what was caught fresh that day. A break from curry was nice.
We arrived on the Friday, and a dehydrated (still kinda ill) Tom jumped straight into doing his open water dive course on the saturday. Ash had her 1st day alone for 1 month, sunbathing on the beach and got burnt.......Over the next 4 days Tom completed his course, Ash did a dive review which took 1 day to brush up on her diving, and then on Toms last day joined him for 2 dives. The diving was good, but about 10 months ago the island had 3 months of incredibly hot weather which bleached alot of the coral. It had recovered a bit but it wasn't apparently as amazing as it used to be.
With diving done and dusted, we managed to change our flight to leave havelock a day later, rather than spending an extra night in mumbai. We figured, mumbai is far easier to go to again if we want, havlock on the other hand is not. We spent our last couple of days relaxing on the beach, swimming in the sea and eating.
We
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Sunrise on our beach. left the Andamans on Friday afternoon and it took us until midnight Saturday to get back to mumbai. Had a barny with a hotel manager at 1am over price of a room, but managed to get some sleep and so felt rested and excited for a flight to Singapore and a relaxing breakfast at mumbai airport before we flew at 10.30am. However after checking in, the visa problems came back to haunt us. We were taken into an immigration office where we had to wait for 2 hours, listening to officers ringing Qantas repeatedly using the word 'offload'. We were thinking the worst. Typically of India, it seemed all the 20 officers who worked in imigration wanted to view our visas and have their say. Eventually we were taken to the head honcho who explained that he'd messaged the man in charge of all immigration in india, asking for permission to give us exit stamps. If he said no, we would miss our flight, and had to go to another office in mumbai and pay for an exit permission. It was ridiculous, through no fault of our own, apparently we had been in india without a valid visa for 20
days. Even though we had a visa, and had been stamped into India when we came from Nepal. The phone rang at 10am (the flight boarded at 9.30), and after a few mins of listening to a conversation in hindi, he put the phone down and shouted 'go, go, go', he was given permission to let us leave. We were so relieved nearly hugged him, and sprinted through the airport, making our flight even with a few mins spare to buy a croissant.
We had a relaxing flight to Singapore watching lots of movies, arrived at Toms friends apartment last night (sunday 20th) and went out for burgers and pizza down at the river. We have 2 nights here, and then on Tuesday we are going to get a bus into Malaysia and head to Kuala Lumpur. Singapores slightly more expensive than India!!!!!!!! (more expensive than home). Back from Malaysia next sunday, and then we fly to Bali on Monday. Its a tough life.....
Lots of love T & A xxx
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sue Lavender
non-member comment
lovely photos
Sounds like you had a fab time on Andaman Islands - it looks lush. Hope the hassle at Mumbai did not cause you too much stress. Enjoy the high life of Singapore! xx