India: Feb.-Mar.2014

Cute little electric car. It's a Reva Classe'.

We went further south to tranquil Tranquebar, a former Danish fort and trading post from where pepper was shipped to northern Europe. There was an outdoor festival one night - we went to watch with a couple other foreign couples. When the organizers saw us, they got all excited, decorated us and sat us in the front row. After some music and dancing, a bunch of politicians showed up on the stage and started giving speeches. We were dutifully photographed in the front of the crowd - staunch supporters of their political party!

Ridin' Shotgun 2: John pretending he understands Tamil...

We spent a week near Diglipur at the north end of the Andaman Islands, and are now heading for Hampi and Goa.

The Andaman Islands are out in the Bay of Bengal, a lot closer to Myanmar and Thailand than they are to India. They're the textbook tropical paradise! We picked up scuba masks and snorkels before we flew over and spent a few hours each day in the water. There was a little island called Craegy Island a couple hundred yards off the coast (outside this picture, but to the left) that was surrounded with the most amazing coral reef and a stunning collection of fish. We spent four days paddling around there, amazed at the reef world. In the picture above in the upper left, Roxanne is out looking for crocodiles with her trusty walking stick. There are salt-water crocodiles in that part of the world, but they only come out in the area where we were during the monsoons when the creeks flood and raise the salt level in the fresh water.

The Andaman Islands are covered with tropical jungles. We stayed up near the northern tip of the islands at a resort made up of some beach houses and cabins. Alex the owner of the resort (the last person seen in the video) took us with him when he went out to grind up his lentils at a big organic farm down the road. The ponds are full of fish.

Alex also took us out to see the sea turtles coming up on the shore to lay eggs at the night-time high tide. This gal is an Olive Ridley turtle who just finished laying her eggs and kicking sand back over them, and was pounding down the sand with her body to protect them (the guide only turned the light on after she was done laying the eggs).

Digging up the turtle eggs to take them to the hatchery. Apparently almost all the little turtles survive if they do it this way...

Roxanne and the jungle patriarch...

John talking turkey from our porch...

Hampi

Elephant stables in Hampi.

Roxanne hanging out with Hanuman.

Looking for a used car for Alex...

Lakshmi the temple elephant.

Lakshmi blessing Roxanne.

Hampi haircut.

Goa's tiniest saleslady... We didn't bring any jewelry including wedding rings while we're travelling. Roxanne received a fancy toe ring from one vendor who didn't have enough change, so she wore that as a wedding ring to avoid extra attention. That didn't work too well - the next time we were near a sales stall, one of the sales ladies said, "I like your toe ring, but why is it on your finger?" We finally found a more believable 'travelling wedding ring'!

Roxanne at Paradise. In Goa we stayed at the Paradise Guest House in a small village called Anjuna. While we were there, someone making a documentary showed up in their tuktuk which they had named 'Roxanne the Rickshaw' - had to take a picture...!

This page is full - please go to India: Mar-Apr.