Enter Havelock

After lunch we headed to Havelock without any idea what to do or expect. We just headed there. It was a darn good decision.

We reached Havelock in the afternoon along with other backpackers - most of them European. I recall seeing a family with 4 little kids with long hair - thought they were cute. As you approach the island you see the surrounding water in various shades of blue, green and blue-green.

The laid back culture (I can call it that) was apparent when we asked a bus driver for a free ride instead of taking a rick. He simply nodded asking us to hop on. It was a private bus taking a group of Gujarati families into the island. We got off at the village's only main market. The market looked like a market from any small town in India - a cluster of shops, busy, people standing, sitting and doing whatever. I recall seeing a tourist sitting on a stool and reading her book in front of a shop.

We decided to rent a scooter. Pradeep purchased cheap sunglasses and toothpaste for us. The shop window had a display of the most curious condoms one would imagine. The rental guy wanted to no papers, nothing - he asked for a nominal deposit and gave us the keys. It's a little hard to believe. People in this village trusted each other and strangers by default. He just told us that we'd have to fix if he broke something. He also told us that if the scooter stalled somewhere to give him a call. That's it.

We headed to the Radha beach on village number 7. Whole of Havelock's villages are numbered - 1 through 7. Asking around we found a gas station. It isn't a gas station really. It's again a shop with an asbestos roof that stored petrol in a big container and sold it for Rs. 50 a liter. Amusing.

Village 7 is a longish drive (for Havelock yes). You cut through a forest and then finally approach a small market that signals the arrival of the beach. It was nearly sunset and we saw the yellow sky gently turning darker. Having decided to stay at the Barefoot resort, we walked through the tall, tall trees that seemed have been there since eternity. It was quite dark by the time we got to Barefoot. To our disappointment (which was great actually!), we found that Barefoot had no rooms left. A taxi driver that Pradeep befriended (Joy Fernandes from Trivandrum) directed us to the Gold India resort on Village 5. Alright, we said and we started to village 5 - both of us sweaty, hungry and a little tired. Gold India had rooms for Rs.600 a night; we took it, bathed and headed to the Venom bar for beer and dinner. I slept well and didn't know the passing of the night.