The winnings
Last night I dreamt I was being showered with dollar bills, then when I awoke, the bed was covered with money. I’d left Izzy in the casino and fallen asleep in the cabin and when she came in 15 minutes later she had won $350 on a penny machine. She got it in small bills and threw it up in the air over the bed.
We’re enjoying great weather and calm seas and today we were in Port Blair, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, 11 degrees North of the equator so it was hot, real hot. We hired a private car dockside with a couple of other people to take us to the islands attractions which are few and not your usual tourist fare. $10 per couple for the whole day, our driver promised, it was about 11.00am and the ship sailed at 05.00pm so we had some time to spend seeing the sights. Bill and I climbed into the back seats of the six passenger Toyota, Izzy, Shell and Christine had the middle bench seat and Richard took shotgun. The scene outside the dock gates was pandemonium as hundreds of taxi and tuktuk drivers jostled to capture the few passengers who walked out, fortunately we were isolated in our non air conditioned vehicle.
The cellular jail, Port Blair
We drove through part of the commercial district to our first stop, the cellular jail, a foreboding prison built in 1896 by the British. The prison housed mainly political prisoners and has survived in relatively good condition from the solitary cells to the gallows building.
Downtown Port Blair, it's a bit bluish in colour as its viewed through the rear window of the vehicle
Next we went to the main commercial street and Izzy bought some saphron stems, but was unsuccessful in finding a suitable Punjabi suit. We next headed to the beach which was in a beautiful picturesque location but was quite narrow with rough waves stirring up the bottom.
The beach
The bar at the beach
After everyone was done swimming, we spoke to some kids on the beach and gave away what pens and candy we had in the bag then we went to over to a local bar and had a bottle of beer, opened in front of us, drunk from the bottle, as we were all scared of getting a stomach bug from the local water. On the way back to the ship, we stopped at the Marine Museum for a short time, not much to see, we piled back into the Toyota and were back at the dock about 02.30pm. Since none of us had any local money, the driver had paid our entrance fees to the jail and the museum, in addition he had paid for the beers, so we knew his fee would have increased a little. Somehow, he now figured we owed $30 per couple, which seemed like a big difference for a beer and a couple of entrance tickets, but since even $30 was a good deal for the excursion, we didn’t argue and just paid him. We had a late lunch on board and I spent some time in the pool, the water was positively hot but better than sitting in the stifling heat and humidity of the deck around.
