Exploring the Unexplored...

This is my personal tour diary of the Lakshadweep trip.. I am gonna try to make it as short as possible.. But the length of the trip and the amount of enjoyment cannot be shortened much, so here it goes..

Since the start of my professional life more than 3 years back, i had been to quite a few trips.. None were as unique as this one.. Since childhood i have always dreamt of travelling on a cruise(more than on an aeroplane) and visiting an island.. Both my dreams were satisfied in one go..

But there was one disappointment that we were not able to enjoy the night time view of the sky, because of the incessant rains and cloud cover during nights(started raining just the day we started our trip :().. This robbed us of our sunrise and sunsets as well.. On the brighter side the days were pretty cool with just the cloud cover and no rain, meaning there is no sun as well..

The trip started with the 7 of us.

Boyzz, Monks, SPB, MoMS, Finny, PPR, Tintin

Day -1:
We had our train from Bangalore to Cochin at 5.45PM on 24th of November.. We passed our time on the train by playing UNO Card game.. We had our dinner and decided to sleep early as our train was supposed to reach at 4.30AM the next day..

Day 0:
We reached Eranakulam junction by 4.45AM in the morning.. Were supposed to report to the Lakshadweep office well after 8.30, so we thought of charging our mobiles and taking rest.. After resting for around 1 hour, we had our breakfast in the Railway station and started at around 7AM to the Lakshadweep office, which is some 10 kms from the railway station, on reaching the office we came to know that the office wont be opened before 9AM. So we started roaming around the cochin port..

At Cochin port

After a while we came back to the office and collected our cruise tickets and got a complimentary t shirt and a cap..
From there we were taken to the check point where our tickets were checked and luggages scanned.. Here we met a Lithuanian named Tom who had come on a tour to India.. Then we boarded the Cruise and got a feel of it..

Our majestic cruise

Lunch was served around 1PM and the ship started at 3.15PM.. Thus started my first cruise journey and Lakshadweep was awaiting my arrival :D..
On the way out of the port we sighted few dolphins merrily swimming in the ocean.. This was my first time seeing dolphins out of captivity..
Freshened up and came out hoping to see a nice sunset, but it was not the case due to the cloud cover.. Then we had our snacks and started playing UNO again till our dinner was served.. Then after dinner we again went to the top deck to get some fresh air and sat down chit chatting..

This became our daily sitting place.

We decided to play Dumb charades, and since Tom was also accompanying us we decided to guess only on Hollywood movies.. And we had an awesome time enjoying the different acting styles and the great guessing of SPB.. Had our dinner, we went off to our cabins and had a good night sleep..

Day 1:
Woke up early in the morning in hope of seeing sunrise, but the cloud cover made it almost impossible for the sun to shows its face to us.. After getting over the disappointment, we were able to see our first island, Kadmat it is..

Kadmat Island visible in the cloudy sunrise

We had our breakfast and we boarded a small boat which was to ferry us to the main island, since the island is surrounded by Lagoons and coral, the cruise could not reach the shore.. It was still drizzling and after enquiring with the locals we were disappointed to know that scuba diving wont be good in this weather..

Thus we set foot on the first island, drenched completely.. We were welcomed with welcome drinks, coconut water(would have preferred hot tea in that weather :P).. Then we were informed that we were to be briefed about the activities by the tour manager in some time.. But we were in no mood to wait for it.. For almost 18 hours we were completely surrounded by water, but not able to jump in it.. Now was the chance and we grabbed it with both hands, actually whole body :D.. All of them wore life jackets and me being the bond who knew swimming jumped in the ocean just like that..

We played for some time trying to hit each other with the volley ball we got.. Some got nice hits on the face and some acted as if they got seriously injured :P though nothing happened.. Then we were told that we were to go for a snorkelling session, a guy was to accompany us and show us corals and fishes.. We were given instructions of how to breathe with the snorkel.. For the next 1 hour we were taken one by one into the ocean for sight seeing :) while others were still enjoying the swim and some were posing for the cameras..

Torturing the natural inhabitants

Then we were informed that kayak'ing can be done on the other side of the island.. The island was not even 100 meters in width so we had no problem in reaching the other side.. Then we started our session.. Since there were 7 of us, i volunteered to risk myself with a single kayak while others took a double one.. Thus started our journey alone into the sea.. We kayak'ed for the next hour or so, making all others wait for us to return.. I personally thoroughly enjoyed this one..

After more photo sessions, we went to enquire about scuba diving as the climate now had become good, clouds clearing and sun deciding to show its face.. They told it will cost 2.5K for a 20 minute session at 2 meter depth, which we thought was not worth is, as we expected it to be at least 10 meters depth.. And there was only one diver to guide us, so we wouldn't be able to do it simultaneously.. Due to these reasons we thought against diving..

Then we had our lunch and while others took some rest, me and monks played a game of TT.. After some rest we started playing volleyball until they called us for a trip around the island to visit some local factories and the north most point of the island.. After returning each one of us split and went their own way alone in the beach.. This was when i built my marvellous sand castle.. I don't remember when was the last time i built a sand castle.. PPR was jealous of my castle and made sure that he took his castle's snaps more than mine :P..

My sand castle

The best we could see of the sun setting

That's it for the day, and we were called to board the boat which would take us to the cruise.. Again it started drizzling and became cloudy, to ruin our sunset once more.. Had a nice hot water shower and went up the deck once more.. This time Tom had stayed back in Kadmat for a longer trip, so we didn't worry about playing antakshari.. This was one funny and enjoyable antakshari with songs from 4 different languages(Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada) being sung by chorus voices.. This continued for the next 1 hour or so, and we went for our dinner.. After dinner we continued our trend of playing cards.. This time around we changed to playing poker.. And we went to sleep around 10PM thus ending an eventful day..

Day 2:
Again as usual, the day started enthusiastically at 5AM in the morning, in hope of catching a glimpse of the rising sun.. But alas it was not to be the day.. Just the same old disappointment of getting up early to no avail.. Had our breakfast and got ready to board the boat which would take us the next island Kalpeni.. Here again we had the same old welcome drinks.. After that we were taken to a smaller island nearby, this time in a smaller boat :o..

Enjoying the welcome drinks :)

Here we were to do snorkelling and kayaking.. Since the other day we had a long session of kayaking and we were more interested in snorkelling, we decided on snorkelling.. We snorkelled for a very very long time, going around the back water, looking out for different kinds and colors of fishes and corals.. After this we were again taken back to the main island, where we had our lunch and started playing volleyball..

Insides of the lighthouse

After that we were taken for local tour, visiting factories, lighthouses and the north most point of this island as well.. The view was fabulous here, and i was able to collect lots of shells..

Sri krishna parmathma trying to start a war :P

We never wanted to leave this place.. But forcefully we were evicted as others were waiting for us..

Then there was a delightful folk dance done by the locals, where a 73 old man was dancing so enthusiastically that i got floored by him.. His energy levels, stamina were so good that even though people younger than him were taking longer breaths he was still smiling and dancing gracefully..

Posing with the folk dancers

Then we had to leave the island for the cruise, and again it was cloudy thus depriving of our well deserved sunset..

This was again reserved by us for our club

On reaching the cruise we started playing poker again.. Continued the same after dinner, and slept at around 10PM thus ending our day..

Day 3:
Again the same old story till the welcome drinks, so i am not repeating it.. But this time the cruise was very near the island.. This island being Kavaratti the capital of lakshadweep.. It is a completely commercial island.. Our first trip today was a glass boat ride.. Since it cannot accommodate all the tourists at the same time, we decided to go last.. We played football for sometime, throw ball with a human monkey :P for some time..

Then we saw a normal looking girl, who was glorified due to the non availability of any girls for the past 3 days, and all 6 of us sat and started sight'fying her.. After some time we got bored and went the co-ordinator to enquire about availability of other water sports.. Oh yeah you might be wondering why i mentioned only 6 of us right!!.. PPR was sitting far away from us, thinking that even looking at a girl will make god prick his eyes :P.. (Lyt ra PPR feel avvaku)..

Me kayaking

We came to know that there were no other water sports other than the same old snorkelling and kayaking.. Since kayaking was already included in our package, we went for it.. By the time we came back to the shore, our glass boat was ready to take us for a ride, and we were able to see lots of different species of fishes in the deep sea.. Scuba diving at this place would have been awesome.. Missed scuba diving :'(..

We came back to the island and were treated with another folk dance show this time by kids of the island.. That's it.. Our Lakshadweep trip was abruptly ended.. We had to go back to the cruise.. Some of us took a last dip in the sea and boarded the cruise full wet.. Took a hot water shower and went to the top deck to catch a glimpse of the last possible sunset, and even that was not visible.. Then we had our dinner and played a game of UNO and slept early feeling sad that the trip ended so soon..

Day 4:
This time only 3 of us woke up early in the morning to catch a glimpse of the rising sun.. Though it was not a great one, it was more than what we could see the previous days.. But none of us had cameras and by the time we woke up the other guys, it was gone, poye pochu..

A glimpse of the sun rise

We had our breakfast and awaited our arrival to cochin port which we did arrive at around 11AM.. On the way we sighted few more dolphins..

The only dolphin we were able to capture thru our cam

We roamed around cochin for the next few hours and boarded our bus at 5.45PM.. Our bad luck, the tyre got punctured and delayed the bus by an hour.. Next day morning we reached Bangalore and back to boring office..

To summarize it, it was great trip.. Enjoyed the first time cruise ride.. Food was very very good,, Enjoyed snorkelling and kayaking.. Folk dances were good.. Sceneries were awesome.. It is a must go for those who want to try something different other than the same old trekking's and hill stations..

Snaps
http://picasaweb.google.com/ppr.bms/Lakshadweep#
http://picasaweb.google.com/unithinbhat/LakshadweepCruise#
http://picasaweb.google.com/shashidharvg/Lakshadweep#


A Jobless Idiot..