Expectations, the Andamans, and the final moments...

Welcome to the final stop on our trip. We had been looking forward to this last week for a long time because it was supposed to include beautiful beaches, good diving and a final moment of rest, one last time with just the two of us before returning to "home"... whatever that is now-a-days.
Read my ramblings about the final stop...
Our voyage to the Andaman Islands was something we had been looking forward to for a while. Well, we hadn't been looking forward to the Andamans in particular but somewhere "resort like" at the end of our travels, a final vacation from our vacation. We didn't decide on where to go until a few weeks before and didn't buy plane tickets till the week before (as Meg already mentioned). We originally were planning on visiting the Maldives, but as we kept adding everything up, the price kept coming in too high... (much to our disappointment- not only did it cut out a whole country but also a pretty unique one), so it was off to another island chain instead. It's a rough life, I know. A lion fish. He has fins (I think they are fins) that stick our from behind his head making a great "mane." I was going to get closer but I thought he might have been poisonous... so I didn't, for better or worse.

Additionally, the goal of this final island visit was a "resort-like" experience, a deviation from traditional backpacker protocol and a chance to let someone else take care of us. We had spent enough time being cheap and wanted a final moment to relax and enjoy where we were because soon it would be back home... back to school and back to jobs. So after finally deciding on the Andamans, we picked a guest house online, booked ahead of time and caught a plane to the Andamans. Off we go to our final "resort-like" place...

A clown fish on our of our dives. I have grown to love clown fish.

Unfortunately, we were going to be disappointed upon arrival. The most obvious problem was the weather. September in the Andamans can be a little hit and miss, seeing as how it is still late monsoon season. So a solid sheet of grey greeted us when we landed, right where the beautiful blue skies were supposed to be. Adding to that was the hassle of getting to Port Blair which involved a 4:00 AM flight from Chennai (which itself is an eight hour train ride from Bangalore). Now despite arriving at 6:30 AM the flight still got us to the main island too late to catch a ferry that morning to the smaller island of Havelock where we were staying. So, after hanging around the airport all night, we got to hang around the docks from about 9:00 AM till 1:30 PM. Then, our lackluster ferry took another three hours putting us onto the final island around 4:30... and it's pitch dark at 6:00, giving us just enough time to find our guest house and unpack (all of India is on the same time zone, despite the Andamans being closer to Thailand than India!)

After all of this traveling (and waiting to travel), when we finally arrived the island was covered in a solid drizzle... great. We made it to our guest house and while the spaces were fine it wasn't quite what we expected. Still not a big deal. But we began to walk around some, and while the guest house was solidly above our normal accommodation, it still fell short of our "resort-like" requirement. On top of this Meg was feeling a little sick. It just kept getting better.

Note the solid grey sky. This is the weather that greeted us upon our arrival to the "tropical" Andamans, and it was one of the better moments because it wasn't raining! Also, we decided this was a weird ferry as it really felt like a small cargo ship where the cargo bay had some chairs and (non-working) fans mounted inside.

I have to say it was a bit of a disappointment to walk into a place that we thought would be a relaxing haven before having to deal with life back in the states only to be let down continually across the board. That first night was rather rough; we debated leaving or finding another place but ultimately we thought that seemed rather short-sighted. We decided to give day #2 a shot before making our decisions. The biggest solace we had was that at least everyone said the diving was good... it was just the time outside of the water that was tiring and leaving something to be desired.

The weather slightly on the mend. It is bright and sunny but off to the left you can see the ever threatening clouds. Though even with the weather like this the place was still quite beautiful.

The thing was, though, that it all got better. MUCH better. After hitting an emotional rock bottom that first night, the weather improved, the guest house felt more like a resort when the sun was out, the food was pretty good, and the diving was great. At the end of the second day I had really enjoyed myself and as the weather continued to improve, I enjoyed myself more and more. It was such a relief to have built myself up to expect the worst, based on the first day (and the reports we kept hearing about days of rain), only to be relieved as things got continually better. We went from slouching and downtrodden, to elated and constantly commenting on the beauty of the place. The place, like the beautiful weather, just got better and better!

An Anemone.

A clown fish checking me out as I float above his home.

A view of the beach with the tide out and beautiful weather. Many sections of the beach were covered with mangroves that sat right where the sand met the sea.

In the end we had a great time, the weather was quite good (two days of clouds, the rest were all clear, hot, and sunny), the diving and visibility were good, and our accommodation was relaxing and restful. We left feeling quite content with the time we had spent there. It still wasn't a resort but it did come closer to that ol' "resort-like" qualification. We got tans (as much as pale Meg can while also on an anti-malarial that causes photosensitivity!), we ate alot of food, we slept... it was good.

Playing with a hermit crab. (He didn't like me much)

I'm never sure about the name of these crabs but they range from several millimeters wide to a couple of inches. They dig holes and then push out the sand in the form of smooth round balls and they litter the beach. There were stretches where we couldn't even walk along the beach without stepping on their holes.

The Andamans also served a nice purpose as they allowed us a means to prepare to return. We have now spent 8 months away from our traditional responsibilities and roles. We have worked "fun" jobs, we had time off, we did what we wanted, and I hadn't thought about school for most of that time. The Andamans were a moment to say goodbye to the lives that we had been able to lead for a bit, reflect on what we had learned about ourselves (for example, that I follow a hard line better than Megan but she is much more gracious than I am), and simply have a moment to breathe before it all ends.

Starfish... I was tempted to live a childhood fantasy and t0 use them as throwing stars but I didn't think it would work as well as it does in cartoons.

A crocodile fish. They are REALLY hard to find(I often still don't see them even when pointed out) and look quite prehistoric.

During our stay at the Andamans I was both quite happy and incredibly sad for this trip's finality. There were parts of traveling that had started to wear me down which had especially come to light in India (the continual bartering, everyone trying to get a bit more cash, constantly having to figure out our next steps), so I was looking forward to relief from that. At the same time I also knew that while the end of the trip would bring some relief it would also be the end of something we had been talking about for several years. It was the end of a dream, and when a dream ends it is both so fulfilling and disappointing. After all, if you've been dreaming about something for years that's now over, what do you have to dream about? Where do you go when you reach a life long goal, and at the end of the road there is simply an end?

We considered this our final night while laying on the beach and watching some amazing shooting stars. It was a melancholy moment. We had (more or less) finished this achievement of our lives, and while there are future plans, they are as-yet unconnected with how we've spent the last year. The time, work, and energy spent here and for this trip is all self-contained, lacking a broader impact to the professional parts of our lives that we abandoned. With all those emotions I spent most of the time in the Andamans trying to figure out HOW I should feel, as happiness and sadness went hand in hand as our plans were drawing to a close. In the end though I was happy about going home, sad about leaving, scared of what was to begin next, and feeling so fortunate to have been able to do what we did.

A final view from our dive boat. It turned out to be simply beautiful, despite our early fears. Thinking about it now, I still long for those beaches.