Chee chee ghar pe mummy hai aur Egypt se Mummy laane ko bol raha hai :E

Kaise zamana aaya hai :E

N :E

main khud teek se tujeh dikhaayi nahi deti phir avtar kyon dikhaayi dehga? fisool mein time waste hoga

aur rahi baat book likhne ki bahut logon ne issi vishai par pehle se hi likh daala hai.

Yeh sab chorro kahin aur mann lagaao

N

Hmmm interesting Iqbal ji. How about a brief writeup on your experiences there? What was it that impressed you or rather that you found very interesting out there?

My interest in Egypt is basically to see the architectural details of the pyramids, and the art and hieroglyphic writings.

Awaiting your post

N

why would i disturb if I will turn into one and stay inter there?

If I go there I shall never return! That should make a lot of ppl happy

N

I think Tunisia’s just a nice ‘all rounder’ country, the North very westernised, the South still living like they did hundreds of years ago. Also so much history so you could combine the generations.

I met up with some troglodytes (cave dwellers) in the southern parts which was really fascinating.

There are some beautiful places to visit like Sousse, Hammamet, Khairouan, Tunis (the capital) and the beaches are lovely.

Iqbal ji this sounds more than interesting! Phew I need to plan a vacation juz to Tunisia alone!!!!!!!!! Tunisia reminds me of Asterix comics -

quote: I met up with some troglodytes (cave dwellers) in the southern parts which was really fascinating.

How responsive are these ppl? Must be very shy type. When I had been to Andamans I was hoping to meet some of the tribes from the nearby islands but nope I didnt get a chance to meet any But managed to know a lot about them. Each of my vacation has been very educative and very very enriching

Thanks Iqbal ji. I must do some more reading about Tunisia now that you mention all of this

N

Hey Nimii,

Why dont u share some of ur travel experiences with us. How about beginning with Andamans. Did u get a chance to go to Ross Island? How about Jollybuoy island? Tell us about the other beautiful places that u have visited.

Here is a site that might interest u
http://www.ancient-egypt.org/

Oh yes Lata ji Ross Island and Jollybuoy were both under our tour. I loved Jollybuoy. Ross Island brought the history live. We had a guide engaged for the trip to Ross Island (one Mr.Singh) Though the island was such a small one, the remains of the old buildings, the printing press, the old chapel - made you go back in time.

I will copy paste from my travelogue after editing some personal stuff

N
ps: Thanks for a giving patient "eyes" to read my travel experiences

Wowow a coral to take home!! grrr now they have become so strict and environment conscious and one cannot take corals or shells (esp the rare ones from any of the beaches) outside the islands.

Here is my first day detail -

The flight to Port Blair was at 5.30 a.m. on 6th morning. We left for the airport at 4 a.m. and after hazaar frisking and baggages being checked and we were confirmed as normal passengers and not any terrorists. Phew! A ordinary citizen has to go thru so much hell Travelling aint so pleasant these days. The flight took off on time. The flight by Alliance Air (IA ka beta) was smooth.. and 2 hrs went by with no major catastrophe! As we got closer to the Andamans we could see the small islets scattered over and the sea at its expanse.

The flight landed safely and we were received by the in-charge of our tours - one Mr.Niyogi (we guessed he was from Orissa from his surname and ofc his accent!). We were given a Bolero (a 6 seater) for all our local riding with a chauffeur (Mr.Salaam! - a localite!) The time was 7.30 a.m. and guys you wont believe it seemed it was 10 a.m.!!!!!!!!! The weather was humid but definitely tolerable compared to Chennai! We could breathe fresh clean air and that felt good. The sinus headaches that were bothering me at home and in Chennai just vanished the moment I landed in Andamans. So you can guess what the state of pollution is in the mainland of our country!!!!!!!!!

Mr. Niyogi got us checked into Peerless Resort - the only resort that is situated on the beach (Corbyn Cove). The hotel was a clean and decent place. We were offered tender coconuts as a welcome drink! My o my what a wonderful taste of the tender coconut! The size of the coconut was bigger than those available here and sweet and very very filling!

Mr. Niyogi briefed us with the changes made to our already planned itinerary. He had cellular jail, samundrika museum, anthropological museum on the card for the visits for the day.

The 1st day tour

Yes we were on Andamans.. and it was a dream. Right in Port Blair at Peerless Resort .. the journey in quest of the emerald islands began...

Right out we could see the sea .. beautiful is not the word! I have never seen the waters with so many layers of blue. One talks of the beauties of the ocean in Bahamas.. and many such dreamlands.. but to me it was right here .. I didn't have to waste my time getting passports, visas to see this serene stretch of the blues of the sea.. The sea around the islands is not rough and extremely safe for swimmers too. The tides are higher during early hours and as the day moves on you can notice the sea receding and you have the wide coastline to venture for all the washed ashore marine lives.. crabs, shells, pieces of corals.. The crabs leave beautiful patterns on the beach with a small hole in the centre. IT still seems a puzzle to me as to how they do it. Unfortunately I never got around to seeing one of them actually going about it!

It was 10 a.m. and we had relaxed in our rooms.. still catching up with huge yawns all from the waking up early at 4 am to get the flight. We washed up and were at the lounge waiting for Mr.Niyogi to take us on our conducted tour for the day 1. He arrived on time and was happy to see us all ready waiting for him. We scrambled into the vehicle - the heat was slowly catching on and though a sweaty weather - the excitement of the trip dissipated all the exhaustion and heat and sweat. He took to us first to Samundrika - the aquarium. I grumbled presuming it to be just another aquarium like in Chennai (I was a Chennai resident earlier). But I dismissed the thought of it being just another aquarium after moving past a couple of boxes.. awesome.. the corals they have collected is amazing! One cant believe that small unknown creatures to all of us have built those colonies of corals and all of that has taken many years to form! Each one is so intricate and beautiful. The marine life, fishes, sea urchins, all live in one place collected and maintained so nicely remarkable is what one can comment.. esp. with the Govt. in charge of it.

The aquarium was such a nice start for the forthcoming trips around the islands.. we next moved to the depressing place.. which is why Andamans was called Kala paani.

*A small anecdote folks - did you know how Andaman's came about as the name for the islands.. It is a derivative of the word hanuman. Apparently Rama and Hanuman were planning to attack Lanka from these islands and later they decided to move over to lower tip of India.. Danushkoti to build the bridge and ofc the rest is history to us.

Ok now,we were at the entrance of the cellular jail. The place was painted and look neat from outside.. Didn't seem like an old building. We moved on into the jail and went through the museum that is attached right in the front part of the jail entrance. There were anecdotes, letters, clothes, weapons, everything that was found in the jail. With pics of the prisoners of the independence movt. The people who were sent to gallows.. it was a disheartening to read the stuff that these prisoners had to go through. The chores for the prisoners was to crush the coconuts shells and extract oil. There is a shed right in the centre were the oil extraction equipment is found. In the villages these equipments were operated by the animals being harnessed to it.. while in the prison you know who replaced the animals The oil extraction was fixed per prisoner and the amount was way too much for a human being to do. When the quota was not met .. they had to face the whipping and thrashing The worst punishment was they had to wear gunny bag cloth-tailored shorts pants and a shirt.. which was frightening to even think about. The food served to them was awful.. the vegetables were cooked with worms and insects.. and gawd the whole picture gets visualised when you read it all there

The cellular jail is built like a wheel with spokes. So each wing does not face the other wing - this was built in a way that prisoners never could get a contact with the inmates of the other wing. There were two storey and each cell was a small room with just a window at the top for ventilation. There were totally 7 wings of which 4 have been destroyed in major wars.. when the Japanese came to stay for 3 odd years in Andaman's. The remaining 3 wings are intact and we saw the cell no. 123 - were Veer Savarkar was prisoned. This is the last cell on the 2nd floor.
There is a light and sound program every evening which we decided to go after a couple of days. The visit itself was so depressing and going thru the sound and light program was definitely not on our cards for that day!

After the cellular jail visit we moved on to the anthropological museum. This is also in the city. The place is a small room - with models of the villages of the tribes. There are basically 4 tribes on Andamans and 2 on the Nicobars. The Andamans - Andamanese (32 people are left), Onge (approx 498 people), Jarawahs (3000 to 4000 people) and Sentilinese (500 approx). In the Nicobars we have the Nicobarese and the Shompens. If you notice the pics of the tribes they are basically belong to the two races - Negroid race and the Mongoloid race. The Nicobarese - esp of Mongoloid race. If notice the geographical origin the islands are more or less follow the line of the Malaysia.. so it could that these tribes have been a part of the land.. it reminds the theory of the Great Continental Drift. *Source of the tribes info: from the anthropological museum and from Mr.Singh - who was guide on Ross Island. Of these tribes the most unsocial and hostile tribe are the Sentilinese.

It was almost 2pm when were through with the tours to all these places and exhaustion was catching up and so was hunger and sleep. So we scrambled back into the Bolero and we halted at Hotel Annapurna. This hotel is a small place, but is known for good south-Indian food! *growl that was my stomach* and we all waited for the ordering some quick rotis and a good sabzi to go with it.. Yummy yum - hot rotis were served with dal and a nice spicy alu gobi. Hmmm why alu? Well guys you wont believe the people out here are very laid back and all they grow is alu. Most of the ingredients, veggies and provisions come from the mainland! Would you believe it!!!!!!!!!! Grrrrrrrrrrrr all that fertile land is nothing but being wasted ( Ofcourse long standing crops - you can see are Arecanut, coconuts and pepper growin on the arecanut trees. The picture of land is more or less like Kerala. There are thick dense forested areas, but what I didn't see amongst the plantation there were the bamboos.

Day 2 (to be contd. tomorrow!)

N

DAY 2 7TH OCTOBER 2002

Jollybuoy Islands

Oh boy! It was 7th morning and we were all set for the trip to Jolly Buoy! On the way to the jetty to get into the motored boat to JB we visited an agricultural farm - Sippighat Farm. Around 80 acres - this place is under Central Agricultural Research Institute. We got around to see all the various species of plants, trees, spices.. being grown here.

I guess this was routine stop before the tourists are being to taken to the small jetty to board the boat to JBuoy. We were not enarmoured by the farm, as we get to see such plantations on the ghats of Karnataka .. We waited to get back into Bolero and finally after all of us cramped into the vehicle we reached the port to get into the ferry that was about to take us to Jolly Buoy. The usual cacophonics of the people sitting in the boat (most of the crowd were chatting up Bengali) we found some decent seats by the window.. Gawd it was hot and humid and not a whiff of breeze The boat left on time and we moved over the expanse of the sea. It was serene despite the heat, sweat and cacophonics around us, which we tried to ignore..

We moved past so many tiny islets and it was awesome to see the changing sky above us. The clouds were moving so fast that we couldn't figure whether it was going to rain or we will have a steady sunshine. An hour passed by quite easily for me as I was humming my favourite singer's songs, and enjoying the clouds moving and the islands that we were passing by.. We finally got closer to the J Buoy Islands. It is a small island and we can walk around the place in less than 20 mins. The personnel in the boat told us that we would disembark from the big boat and be ferried to the coast in the small glass boats. So, group by group, people got off the boat and we took our time to wait and watch most of the occupants leave the boat. We were last ones to get off.

I was looking forward to seeing the sea creatures thru the glass bottomed boats but all I saw was sand and we were taken to the coast. Now, this place has no eat out joints, no soft drink counters or any kind of rest house. There were small huts meant just for changing clothes. We had to carry our own packed meals and water and ofc swim suits, if anyone wanted to go swimming, diving or snorkeling. It was very exciting when the fellow-in-charge for us the vip guests handed us the snorkeling equipment and a ring to hang on while snorkeling. We went over to the huts and changed our clothes. We carried our bags dumped by the low branch and put away our shoes and walked into the sea. The water was crystal clear and we could see the ground below. Almost a km from the coast the sea is safe to even walk into, the water comes only up to your hips. The fellow-in-charge came over and told us that he will take us one by one for the snorkeling. My chance came I was worried my eye lens falling off , took a deep breath and wore the head gear and hung to my dear life = the rubber ring!! My! What a sight it was. The waters were clear and there were clown fishes, tiger fishes, sea anemones, moving as tho' they were in the aquarium! Awesome sight that was! Something one cannot describe and what we saw still lingers in the memories so fresh! The corals were a something that no words could describe. Beautiful colours and shapes. AMAZING was God's creation indeed!

We were informed that the boat would leave at 2 p.m. It was only 12.30 p.m. and the sun was shining brightly. The fellow-in-charge asked us to follow him to get into the glass bottom boats to see more of sea life further into the sea. We were so excited but the sun was so hot we wondered how we would see it all in there. We took our bath towels and put it on our heads and made a kind of a shelter so that the bottom of the boat do not deflect the sunlight and we can see the sea below with all those beautiful life out there. The next ten minutes were fantastic. We saw more of the sea creatures. What a variegated colours of fishes, the corals were awesome!!!!!!!! Wish we had more time for learning diving. I am sure it would have been worth all the effort!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Snorkeling and diving is a must if anyone ever goes to islands that are noted for coral reefs!

The time just moved so fast and we saw it was 1.15 p.m. We had a quick lunch with the aloo parathas that were brought packed with curds to go with it! We were all set after the meal to just go around the island, but the fellow-in-charge called us again to take us for a second glass bottom boat ride. IT was fun! We had a second spin of that. It was almost 1.50 p.m. and it was time for us to get into the motored boats to get back to Port Blair.

Back into the boats, it took another good 1 hour of sailing back to Port Blair with more cacophonic. I had a short nap despite the heat, sweat and the noise around me and when I opened my eyes we were docked near the jetty to get off the boats.

We had to declare that we had brought back our plastic bottles and claim our refund of Rs.100! Now what was that, you might ask.. Well that is one of the environment protection enforced in J.Buoy. We cannot take plastic bags. No throwing around of bottles or any kind of waste on the islands. When we take bottles of mineral water, we have to declare the number of bottles that are being taken and a deposit of Rs.100 is put in. Good thinking on the local authorities. Wish more of the tourist's places enforce such laws!!!!!!!!!!!

Back on Port Blair our next stopover was the local Cottage Emporium and Khadi Gramoday. A good 1 hr stop we had a look at the display of the shell-wares. We then moved onto the Chidiya Tapu. Here, many birds arrive after their migratory flight from their native habitats. You could probably guess from the name itself. It was 4.30 p.m and the tide was low. The waters had receded and we could see the wide coast extending into the sea. Some of us went walking towards the sea. I was exhausted and decided to sit on a small rock by the side of a tree. I was watching the sea and the surroundings. I could see the small teeny weeny little fellas.. small crabs moving around making small holes into the ground. They were in and out of the holes, as though they were playing some game. I could hear birds on the trees that were perched so high, but didn't get to see any of them. Our driver, Salaam told us that a little away from the spot we were sitting is a view point where one can see the sunset which is breathtaking.

Nimii, From ur description I feel that Andamans has improved a lot since I went there, especially for the tourists. To begin with we were taken by a small motor [ seven seater ] boat which was open and then ofcourse we had to disembark into a small boat. Here again it was just a two seater boat i.e. the boat man on one side, one in the middle and one on the other side to balance. The kind of small boats u find in Kerala. My Mom just refused to step on the small boat. We had a tough time convincing here. Aakhir kar maanna hi pada. Till date she hates boat rides. Jollybouy island mein there were no shacks/huts. Boy! did we ladies have a tough time changing clothes

day three ka intezaar hai