Enter Andamans

I'm sitting in a ferry back to Port Blair with sleeping passengers all around. The heat makes everyone sleepy. I can't believe that Havelock is gone - it seems like a long and short trip - both at the same time.

48+ hours ago, we landed in Port Blair's small international airport. I was quite amused at how immigration officials filtered passengers based on skin - brown, go here..white, go get a permit. Without checked in bags, we were free to step out in five minutes and were approached by several taxi and auto rickshaw drivers. We selected a lanky man with glasses who indicated that bargaining the Rs.80 for 10 min down was impossible because they had to pay Rs.25 for parking themselves.

Our driver, Alok turned out to be very interesting. Like several of his townsmen, he hopped on a ship and came to Andamans several years ago. He noticed the very many cultures and how everyone lived peacefully and thought, "What's this? This is unlike Kolkatta!" He said he saw his vision of India here - 28 states and even two more countries (Nepal and Bangladesh). He liked it so much that he got a livelihood and settled in Port Blair.

Port Blair itself is an interesting city where people give right of way for pedestrian crossing and wait a full foot away from the stop sign at the signal -- very unlike anywhere else I've seen. He pointed us to a small corner lunch spot and we had a thali meal, which was functional.