Quja, the man from Helsinki

The previous evening we noticed a sign to "Kala Patthar" and wanted to check it out. We learnt that it had an elephant park. Hoping to spot elephants, we drove to another forest area. Walked for about a kilometer to discover yet another beach. Nice. Very nice actually. It had several uprooted trees, glorious sea shells and nearly isolated. Pradeep read. I swam. No elephants. However, on our drive back we did see four elephants - one of them chained but taking the royal piss.

We stopped again at El Dorado that announcing to all passersby: chilled beer. A bald, tatooed man was sitting quietly and sipping Golden Eagle beer. He was dressed in a colorful bottom wrap, a necklace, several piercings and nothing else. I learnt that he was from Helsinki and his name was Quja (you-ha). We seemed to have common tastes in movies. I think I've seen those absurdly melancholic Finnish movies by Aki Kaurismaki (there's one where every character's name is Frank). He'd been in India for 2.5 months (his third trip) and in Andamans for 2.5 weeks. He was into fishing and was so excited about the meter-long Barracuda that he caught a couple of days ago. While he freelanced now, he worked as TV producer and had done several gigs from website design to photography to writing. Of all the places he'd been (which are very many - he didn't have a count), he found Laos near Thailand to be the most honest and nicest. Quja told us about his unfinished 3-round kickboxing fight in Bangkok - the blood and sweat got him a Thai girl friend. He left her after three weeks to head back to Helsinki because he had work to complete. North of where he lived in Finland is the Lapland region (that extends from the Norwegian Sea to the White Sea and lies within the Arctic circle) and he said that that was the best place in the world for him - provided its summer and he was there when the sun never set for three pleasurable days.

We wrapped up Havelock with our lunch at Rony's - great cook! Hurried to the Jetty and barely made it to the ferry to Port Blair - we were the last ones to get on board. Later on the boat, I sat down and laid down and sat down again and laid down on the roof of the boat watching the blue sky, remote clouds, the passing water all around, a setting sun, a rising moon, and stars and constellations. Before long, Port Blair arrived. It was city.