Andaman was still India: Samosa, anyone?

One of the very best parts of a trip like this is the people you meet. The first unfortunate part of the story is that you have to say good-bye to them. Then second part - when you're a lousy photographer like myself - many of the pictures of the best people are out of focus.......... (like in the woody allen film, for the ones who have seen it ;-D) anyway - here are a crowd of a great group of friends from Andaman (Love you guys! Hope to see you again very soon! Laos some of you?...)

...so I was dying to post tons of more photos now that we have this rapid thai internet connection again, but it seems that I can't export photos from Lightroom (the application we were using for pictures) to jpg anymore since Raphael installed Photoshop as default today (that's why I can't show you the lethal coconuts as an illustration... sorry... ;-D but you get the picture, I'm sure! ;-D)

But here are the last jpg format pics I can find on our newly fully operating hard drive (thanks to Thai efficiency) - first a picture of a happy gecko

Another reason to get out of there

...quickly.... coconuts falling BAM!!! to the ground at unpredictable moments - confirmed by managers inhigh-end resorts on the island, who said that they hire people to pick coconuts off the trees every day because they could not risk their clients being hit by one... People at our guest house were changing the place of their hammocks regularly - the notion of Paradise is always relative (especially when you have kids who love hanging out in hammocks)

...it bugs me to think that I'm posting pictures that will make you think that it's always paradise, our trip... so here's one illustration that it's NOT: this is not a mosquito, it's the mark of a mosquito... I have never ever seen more voracious mosquitos than in Andaman. They were not only numerous and extremely hungry, they were FAST. So you see one, want to be zen and observe it, and suddenly get overwhelmed (e.g. because your son woke up with an unimaginable number of bites covering the entirety of his body) (what is it with Noam's blood that they love so much??) so you just want to "BAM!" kill the bastard (despite your most honorable inner work of compassion) - you most of the time just can't kill them anyway- they're too quick: mosquitoes are normally pretty easy to kill if your killer instinct gets awaked by them: not in Andaman. We understood quickly why every hut (even the cheapest ones) had a mosquito net in it.

Somehow, though, this didn't prevent us from dreaming of (and planning to) staying on longer

oh what a pleasure to have super rapid internet! here's a pic many of you India-lovers will recognize

Going snorkeling with happy koutz (oh how I love him)