Somalia
Somalia Key facts, figures and dates
Coloured Chicks
Dyed chicken, anyone? This photo was taken one Saturday afternoon on our way to the Arattupuzha Pooram elephant festival at a temple in Kerala. Elephant photos are so cliché so how about one of imbued infant avians instead? You’ve gotta love that one lonesome red chick!
Followtheboat’s Piracy News Updates & Alerts Now Launched
Our free Piracy Updates service was launched yesterday. It aims to offer a number of ways for anyone to gain up-to-the-minute news, information and piracy attack alerts. The service provides filtered news searches sourced from news agencies around the world. It is delivered via hourly news reports from Twitter, daily updates via RSS or email, and a weekly email too, with consideration given to mariners on low-bandwidth email connection. We encourage you to forward on the www.followtheboat.com/piracy/ link to anyone you think may benefit from the service.
Followtheboat’s Piracy News Updates & Alerts Now Launched Read Post »
A Dash Of Curry In Your Tea, Sir?
If you had told me a year ago that I would be in India drinking curried tea, I’d have laughed you off the boat. I’d heard of curry for breakfast and I’d even heard rumours of curried ice cream, but curried tea? As a tea-drinking Brit I spluttered and guffawed at this ridiculous notion.
A Dash Of Curry In Your Tea, Sir? Read Post »
Ricky Ticky Tavi
My Mum and Dad have been on at me for not writing anything since we left Turkey, but I’ve been busy, and they write so much there’s nothing left for me to write about. They even stole my favourite topic, FISH, and wrote about all their fishing successes. What they failed to mention, of course, is how I actually lure the fish to Esper with my witchy, feline, telepathic senses, so all their successes are really mine. Anyway, here are my initial impressions of India. Damn snakes.
The Day I Almost Bought A Goatherd’s Son – Tamil Nadu
Today I had an encounter I will never forget. Meet Chella Duri, a goatherder from Tamil Nadu, working in the neighbouring state of Kerala. He earns as much in a month as we spend on an evening out, but I’m not asking for your pity, just a few moments to listen to what he had to say when he heard that I was a rich westerner living on a boat in Cochin…
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Munnar Munnar – Do Doo Da Doo Doo
Munnar is a corner of Kerala that’s tucked away in the mountain peaks of tea plantations and lush green valleys. Miles and miles of strange looking tea trees, interspersed with cardamom bushes and coffee trees, provide great walks and views not seen anywhere else in this mainly tropical state. In this post Liz provides some insight into these wonderful valleys, and throws in a visit to a tea factory.
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WHAT??? Piracy Is Costing $12 Billion!
As if you non-seafaring people out there needed convincing, the latest figures via The Times has piracy costing the global economy $12 billion a year. In the same week that Dutch marines kill two Somalia pirates, a London law firm which specialises in the field, was quoted as saying “matters are deteriorating at every level”.
Whilst our sailing friends are well aware of the dangers of piracy, it’s not until one reads the numbers that the problem of piracy is put into perspective for the rest of us. It is truly a global concern that affects everyone. In a future post we’ll be putting together a couple of ideas on how you can help support anti-piracy causes. Meanwhile, read about the latest figures here. We’d like to hear your views on the subject too.
WHAT??? Piracy Is Costing $12 Billion! Read Post »
Canon’s Waterproof, 3D Digital Compact Camera – Bargain!
Yotties, divers and landlubbers alike are going to love Canon’s latest product release: a 3D compact digital camera, retailing at $250!
Launched last week at the Digital Camera, Imaging and Media Show (DCIM Show) Canon were demonstrating the Powershot 3d-A1sT, a powerful 15 mega-pixel compact, waterproof camera that is capable of shooting high definition 3D video clips. Played back on an HD TV and viewed through the normal 3D glasses this is going to change those precious family moments forever.
For yotties, however, the camera has a more pragmatic application: because it is waterproof it can act as a forward-pointing sonar. When synched with Google Earth running the ‘oceans’ layer (underwater bathymetric contours), the yachtsman can now draw true, real-time submarine information. No more excuses for grounding the boat. Get one here: http://tinyurl.com/3oojmbl
Canon’s Waterproof, 3D Digital Compact Camera – Bargain! Read Post »
Eerily Familiar Kodaikanal
We’ve now left Madurai and we take you up into the mountains. Kodaikanal is an old hill station in the Western Ghats and at over 2,000m it is cool, quiet and peaceful, the perfect juxtaposition to Madurai, that mad and crazy city in the plains. This mountain village offers some of the best views of the Ghats and this little post provides photographic and video evidence of exactly how English some of the countryside looks. Think Lake District in the autumn…
Eerily Familiar Kodaikanal Read Post »
The People And The Places Of Madurai
Firstly our apologies for some unscheduled email updates regarding Somalia and piracy. We’re experimenting with a new service but the emails today were only supposed to be test alerts and you weren’t supposed to receive them. Ooops. Please delete these messages. So…before we leave Madurai we wanted to show you our photographs of the people and the scenes of our fave city. It is a pictorial observation of our time there, presented as two slide shows. Once you’ve clicked on the slide-show to activate it, you can select the four-arrowed button to view in full-screen mode. You’ll need a fairly decent connection as they’re high res images but it’s worth it as the portraits are very personal, whilst the street scenes will give you a good idea of the environment in which these people live.
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Thirumalai Nayakkar Palace – Easy For You To Say
As is probably evident from our previous posts, Madurai is a pretty crazy place. Rest, then, from the madding crowd in the calm of one of her grandest buildings, Thirumalai Nayakkar Palace. Deceptively understated from the outside, the open court-yard of the interior is imposing and beautiful. Liz: “If you are in southern India please do not miss this most beautiful palace. I fell in love with it in many ways. Its shape, colour and structure are sublime. Palest peach, vanilla, apricot, and cream combine to impart an ethereal quality”. The palace is close to becoming a UNESCO World Heritage site, which goes some way to illustrate how wonderful this simple building is. At the end of this short post we include a little slide show of a few of the buildings of Madurai.
Thirumalai Nayakkar Palace – Easy For You To Say Read Post »
Meenakshi Amman Temple Of Madurai
Last time we left you we’d been wandering the back streets of Madurai and offered plenty of photographic evidence of its energy. In this post Liz gives a more cerebral account of our experience in this fabulous city, taking in the huge Meenakshi temple, which wouldn’t look out of place in Disney World. Her guide teaches Liz about the five sense, and they’re not the sense you or I learned about at school. Strangely every single photograph taken inside the temple ‘disappeared’ from Jamie’s camera, but we have plenty more images of the huge ‘gopurams’, as well as the people of Madurai. Liz’s prose is what travel writing is all about…
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The Magic And Madness Of Madurai
Having finally made it to Madurai after our fairground ride through the Western Ghats, we were able to relax, put on the walking boots and go for a romp through the back streets of this great city. It is full of strange wonders and fascinating people. This post, with its many photographs, captures just a small part of this: street vendors, manual labourers, layabouts, kids, beggars and strange architecture…
The Magic And Madness Of Madurai Read Post »
Indian Navy Demonstrates How To ‘Do’ Pirates Properly!
This morning the marina manager brought us the fantastic news that the Indian navy has caught yet another boat load of pirates! It was a huge catch with 61 seized in all. Yep, 61 of the b******s. Good.
The Hindu has a good report on the capture, which we precis in our blog post. What’s most encouraging, however, is the photograph that has been issued along with the report. It’s a photo of all 61 pirates sitting like lame ducks on board the navy vessel.
Whilst I do not condone the death penalty I do hope these pirates are proverbially strung up alive by the Indian justice system. Good riddance to them.
Indian Navy Demonstrates How To ‘Do’ Pirates Properly! Read Post »