Message in a bottle

Gobbled up as many vitamins as is physically possible before boarding MV Nicobar, our ride to the Andaman Islands some 700 nautical miles east. Coconuts, bananas, oranges, sultanas (could've settled for a bowl of Special Crunch eh) were consumed en mass in a last ditch attempt to avoid a bout of cholera, or rickets even, at sea.

There really aren't enough words to describe our 70 hour trip. But given the sights and sounds below deck I'm gonna give it a go! Right, we went "bunk" class. We're talking Marit and I sharing a dorm with 1500 Indians at the very bottom of the Nicobar's hull. Get the picture?!

Right, now imagine the smell and noise "below deck" after three nights at sea. Not pretty eh! Christ, the ship even had some bloke hosing down turds every morning that were stacked in the four toilets a mile high. Showers were blocked with rice and dhal - Indians' obviously deem showers as advanced forms of dish washing - while bins somehow attracted flies! How the hell do you get flies 500 miles out at sea?

But that is nowt compared to the melee that unfolded when the same 1500 Indians landed on the canteen for meal time! I must add here that upon boarding all passengers in "poverty" class are forced to exchange cash for meal tokens ensuring the system of alloted times works smoothly - it doesn't! I can only say it was like being in the frontline during feeding time at San Diego zoo! And this lot want the western world to hold them in a better light....animals, they're all animals! Food was great though. Rice and dhal followed by rice and dhal followed by rice and dhal followed by, get the picture! Come to think of it, the dhal must have been responsible for the colour of the squatters down below.

Noise and smell aside, the trip was truly great and an unforgetable experience. Time was passed drinking the liquor travellers successfully smuggled aboard, playing cards, writing, hide n'seek, sunbathing and, in our case, doing the cliched "message in a bottle" thing. After all, who knows where the thing may end up!

The sight of Port Blair (the islands' capital) on the horizon was a welcoming one and was only marred by the red-tape bollox (that can only happen in India) that held us back two hours after 1500 savages had descended on the town as we waited patiently for our permits to enter the islands.