Deadly Coconuts

23 March 2013

The lack of precipitation emphasised the silly decision to buy an umbrella in Norainland.

We escaped the city of Chennai and its heat, and the whole mainland of India for a while, for a mini holiday within our holiday. Our destination was the Andaman Islands, about 1300km east of India. It’s closer to Burma and Thailand than India, although it is still under Indian rule. Like most people, we’d only heard of these islands in 2004 when they bore much of the brunt of the tsunami that Christmas, and didn’t even consider coming here in any of our plans until we picked up the guidebook in India that we’d bought in Thailand on the way here that we hadn’t actually bothered to look at until we were bored in Chennai after the cricket. We booked some flights and a few hours later we arrived on paradise’s doorstep.

Jesus liked his party tricks

The crab was very curious about the photographic device on the sand

Everything you want in a tropical beach paradise is here, and then some more.

We stayed in some cheap but overpriced huts on the stretch of beauty that is Beach number 5 on Havelock Island. Beach number 5 is next to beach number 3 and just opposite Beach number 7. They name their beaches like that here; such is the simplicity of life. The whereabouts of the other numbered beaches is unknown to most, and you get the feeling that they may never be found and labelled, because that required effort and there is not a whole lot of that that goes on ‘round here. The Pellicon Beach Resort is run by an illiterate fat man who doesn’t know his birds, originally from the mainland who sits around in his underwear playing X Box while his female employees-one of whom is his wife- are out in the garden on hands and knees pulling weeds from the weed patches while avoiding death from falling coconuts. The palm tree fruits are a serious danger here. At any time of the day we were woken from our hammocks or had the shit frightened from us at night by a falling coconut on either one of the neighbouring huts’ tin roofs or from yelping dogs who had a narrow escape. We had to be careful walking around the grounds. Many a hut was left damaged overnight from the deadly fruits.

Beach hut living

The fiery coconuts added a new dimension of danger

The huts were fairly simple, bed with mosquito net full of holes, toilet and cold water shower and resident frogs and centipedes in the bathroom. But it was comfy and quiet and added to the beach atmosphere and relaxing time we were seeking.

The blind crab could easily braille his way home

Snorkelling on one of the pristine reefs was a thoroughly relaxing activity. One such reef was situated on Elephant Reef, so called because an elephant might have visited there once. The trek down to the shore involved a steamy humid walk through dense forest all while occasionally disappearing down elephant footprints. After half an hour you come to a clearing, a naked, razed plain; remnants of the tsunami which cut a particularly devastating swathe through this part of the island nearly ten years ago. Giant uprooted trees litter the landscape and lead you to the water, which is also famous for its local crocodiles. A half eaten sign on the beach alludes visitors to the inherent dangers.

Radha Nagar Beach

The swizzle stick was kept shaded by the cocktail umbrella

Our quest to find the worlds best bits and bobs continues, and we have found a beach that rates in the top couple. Radha Nagar Beach, on the west of Havelock Island, is a fucking beauty. Fringed by huge leafy trees providing shelter from the relentless heat and surrounded by dense forest and pseudo mountains, its easy to forget about the alluring crystalline waters in front of you that invite you for refreshing dips on a hot summers day. From the sea the brilliant powdery white sand hugs the bodies that lie in shelter under bamboo umbrella huts. After a day of worshipping the elements and natural beauty, completeness comes with the hot orange sunset that kisses goodbye to another Indian summers day. If you can only ever go to one beach, once, for the rest of your life, make this the one.

Lets hope the Indians respect this, as the Island has no real recycling program in place and the people are nuts for plastic bottles and lack of education in what to do of them and how to dispose of them. A drifting Evian can interrupt the most serene swim in the calm waters.

The Tsunami tree on Elephant beach, still rooted.

We took a day out to Radha Nagar beach, by moped, which we hired just for the reason of being like the locals here, not just in riding one, but by keeping my finger on the horn non-stop, because that’s what they do. But it was much more comfortable than the bus we took on a separate day, which wasn’t the most pleasant experience on the pot holed back roads. It was a race for the driver to get from A to B as quickly as possible, as B was a siesta for half an hour until he was required to turn back.

Just because you find a spot on the beach, with a nice bit of shade and fluffy bit of sand, doesn’t mean that you will have that spot all to yourself. Indians, not used to the feeling of personal space in the big cities, will often park their arses and their things right on top of your stuff. Often we would be in the sea, after laying our towels down on the sand under a hut, making it our home for the day, only to see an old man or a family join us. We could only wave to the sari-laden women from the water who would return to us a generous thick smile.

The mosquitos felt very much at home in here.

Of course with beaches come foreign hippies, strangely. India seems a magnet for holier than thou rich kid English public school twats who have come to India to “find” themselves and instead of travelling with guide book and an I-pod they possess yoga mats and Frisbees, dressed in man shirts and kumbaya haircuts. The other fashion accessory in vogue seems to be hula-hoops. What possesses a hippie to pack a kids toy in the false belief that any one else on the planet will be interested in his or her lame tricks is anyone’s guess. I guess the entertainment value of how stupid they look and the fumbles of packing them in tight baggage compartments on public transport is priceless enough.

Stealth toothbrush would pounce at any minute

I can’t pass up a beach cricket game, and of course I put my laziness aside and left Kylie to her book on a hammock to join some local kids for a quick hit. They were very un-Indian, they weren’t very good at all, mind you, they were about six years old. But I showed no mercy, and made 75 runs off 8 balls. This isn’t actually mathematically possible, but this could be due to local rules the kids were playing or their inability to count. The game finished when I lost the ball in the scrub.

The groundsmen would need to explain the sandy wicket

Many injuries were experienced at cover

The team would be promised shirts if they won the cup.

It was tough to give up the lifestyle of the past seven days, but reluctantly, we had to. We spent a night in the capital of the Andamans, Port Blair, and a two-hour ferry ride from Havelock. Its an ugly city with a seemingly poor choice of restaurants, highly unusual for India, but did possess some potential in the bar scene. A cold beer has been quite difficult to get so far in this country; its heavily taxed in Chennai so many places avoid serving it, and most places on the beach in Havelock didn’t serve it either. But upon quick investigation into the few back street bars in Port Blair revealed that they probably weren’t the happy locals you might see Andy Capp knocking back a pint but mere watering holes for the destitute drunks of this town. So two weeks in, and we are still dry. How we are longing for a cold Kingfisher.