They say time flies when you are having fun but I reckon time flies even faster when you are bored shitless - like when I've been since arriving back from Makunudhoo two weeks ago...

I had a terrific time in HDh. Makunudhoo, exploring the island itself and the neighbouring three uninhabited islands, all of which lie within the same 17 mile long reef. Makunudhoo is amongst a natural geographical atoll called "Maa Makunudhoo Atoll" which sits situated all by itself in the North of the Maldives, displaced slightly to the West from the typical Maldivian North-South stretch of atolls (see map).

Makunudhoo is famous for being the home to President Maumoon Abdul Gayyoom when he was sentenced to banishment during President Nasir's rule. The owners of the house he stayed in then, infact, now proudly hang pictures of him on their walls! The island also played host to the infamous Bodufenvalhugey Seedhee who gained country wide fame for his supposed supernatural feats and healing powers - abilities which led to the "Seedhee" title. He is (still) well-respected by the elderly for feats as "walking on water" across the seas, instantaneous travel, healing the sick, "helping" the infertile conceive etc. His long abandoned house in Makunudhoo now lie in ruins.

The sea, the reef and the lagoon of the atoll were nothing short of being deliciously exquisite and as a Maldivian who'd been away from these beauties for a number of months, I was simply overwhelmed! I hadn't seen starfishes, jellyfishes, different kinds of rays, turtles, dolphins, eels, sea cucumbers and multicoloured fishes and numerous weird sea creatures for ages and it was a thrilling experience to see them again while snorkelling in the reef and/or while strolling along the beach. Most notable was the presence of turtles in and around the atoll. We even sighted turtles cruising in the shallow waters near the beach. I also got to travel to the west-most piece of land in the Maldives - which is one of the uninhabited islands in the Maa Makunudhoo atoll. Exploring along its beaches and lagoon made it clear that the island was slightly different from the typical rest I'd seen (but then again, I haven't seen much of Maldives!).

I was pretty sad to hear that the island people still do catch turtles, which are a protected specie in the Maldives for fear of extinction, for food and that too on a regular basis. I'm not a particularly big supporter of the animal protection schemes but these animals, if they do disappear, are something I would miss indeed. There were other sea animals that had depleted significantly as well - including sea cucumbers and "raakani" (English name?) - which were aplenty in the atoll when I visited the place 10 years so ago!

I've uploaded some of the photos from the trip to Flickr. Check 'em out!

UPDATE (18/08/2007): Azeem has uploaded a lot more beautiful pictures from the trip to his Flickr gallery as well.

I left for Makunudhoo earlier today to do some work and try have some fun at the same time (or vice versa!).

The jump upto Haa Dhaalu atoll (Hanimaadhoo), for the sake of cutting down travel time and cutting down on sea-sickness of my trip mates, was taken on a plane and another jump from there to Kanditheemu (via Kulhudhuffushi) done on a speed boat and the last leg upto Makunudhoo completed on a traditional "Masdhoani" admist rough sea.

There's no bloody publicly available Internet here except via GPRS on my Dhiraagu mobile, which turns out to be extremely slowwww. I've just given up after trying to post some pictures of the day.

Adios for now...

Museums are among my favourite places. Never do they fail to instil a sense of wonder and belittlement in me... especially the sections on pre-historic life and cosmology. Nadha and I spent the day at the Manchester Museum yesterday, ogling and gawking at all those things on display.

I adored the dinosaur on display - a Tyrannosaurus rex named Stan. It is a cast replica from the original and consists of 199 bones that have been discovered. Standing at about 20ft tall and 35ft long, the thing is just gigantic. I only come up to its knees! I was introduced to dinosaurs when I was very young via a book on dinosaurs. It came with special glasses for viewing the special 3D renditions of dinosaurs, including a T Rex. Yet, none of the books, pictures or even movies prepare one for the massively awe-inspiring sight of a real-life fossil reconstruction of the beast!

Anyway, here are some snaps from the museum visit.



Enjoy.

Selamat Datang! I am in Malaysia at the moment after flying into Kuala Lumpur yesterday. I am here on a business trip and plan to stay put for a week.

This is one country I hadn't been to before and so was quite surprised by the sights. I quite like the looks of the things around here. The city is landscaped amazingly well and gives the impression of being well developed. The airport, the public transport system (LRT) and the buildings are very admirable.

The shops are vast in number and there seems to be quite a lot of range - in quality and variety - available here. Most noticeably of all, the price of things are very much affordable (especially compared to the UK!).

Here are a few photos from my recent trip bouncing around in India.

Ah! I just got back after two weeks of "backpacking" in India. With my girlfriend as my travel buddy, we hit parts of the state of Kerala and Tamilnadu - Trivandrum, Kochin, Ooty, Mysore, Coonoor to name a few interesting cities. We were able to pull off the entire trip on a looowww budget of 200$ or so for the entire trip - minus the Maldives-India air tickets ofcourse.

We stayed at low class lodges; some had walls that were peeling off, some had bed covers of questionable cleanliness and all had bathrooms with low toilet seats accompanied by broken/no flushing mechanism. Despite that, for some weird reason, most of them had a TV. I kept to trying out and eating mostly Indian sort of food at standard Indian food stalls. Masala dosa and South Indian Idli passed my taste bud tests . The India chai (tea) became one of my favourite drinks. It tastes heavenly compared to the normal "packet" tea we drink usually. The dodgier food stalls seemed to make better chai than the (better) restaurants - really!

Traveling around was what took the most time out of our schedules. It was a very tiring activity too. However, traveling around was easy thanks to their extensive bus system. We avoided the more expensive auto rickshaws and chose to acquaint ourselves with the cheaper-yet-crummier buses which turned out to be a really fantastic mode of travel in India. We traveled mostly during night time and spent daytime exploring and sightseeing. The buses make stops every few hours for food to fill the hungry stomachs and also for toilet escapades to empty up the screaming full bladders.

Fending off from all the "businessmen" that kept on popping up every now and then annoyed me heaps - they don't bugger off when paid a 1 rupee coin unlike the myriad of beggars that pound at you for some money. Almost everyone seems to attempt to swindle you out of some money - so when it comes to ANY monetary transaction one has to be on total guard. I reckon this is especially true when they figure out we weren't locals. Sadly, we spoke zilch of Hindi and thus were easily marked as being "foreigners". That said, the younger generation was admittedly more helpful - they kindly gave us directions and (most in Kerala) seemed to speak good English.

It was definitely a fun and enjoyable trip. The temples, the palaces, the gardens, the museums, the galleries, the backwaters, the tea and coffee plantations, the mountain tops, the waterfalls, the journeys to-n-fro, the people and the animals made the sightseeing very exciting. However, what impressed me most of all, was the harmonious coexistence of all that diversity that populates the land. It was very impressive indeed!

[Trring triing]
Hello, this is Jaa. I'm away right now, please leave a message at the beep.
[Beep!]

Hey ya! I'm calling in from Reading (UK) from the (dis)comforts of my room in a university accomodation hall. I flew in to Gatwick via Doha from the Maldives on Qatar Airways. The trip was bothersome and the planes were really a disappointment, really. The wait at Doha was terrible more so contributed by the horrible airport itself. The fellow at the boarding gate took a clean 5 minutes looking at my passport. At first I thought he had something in his eye and was using my passport as mirror - he surely had it up close to his eyes! Then he started eyeing me up and let me go after ages of waiting and getting wierd looks from fellow passengers. Just as I thought the hassle was over, the fellow came over as I was sitting the boarding lounge and took away my passport for another 15 minutes, all without a mention of what was up. Later he came back with it and was courteous enough to let me know there was something "abnormal" about my passport. Oh well, the Maldivian government issued the passport so I should let them know there is something abnormal with their passports...

On arrival to Gatwick, Qatar Airways had managed to loose my luggage somewhere - hopefully not into a deep ocean. I continued my journey to Reading -minus my luggage- on a train on which I kept falling in and out of some wierd reality. Maybe the lack of sleep the previous night contributed to this yet again "abnormal" event. I took a cab from Reading Railway Station to my accomodation hall. Ofcourse, this was no easy feat when I kept feeling wierd realities mixup with each other but I finally stumbled into some university representatives that pointed in me the correct direction and rid me of using my intellectual faculties at all.

The accomodation hall is quite wicked and I love it. The building is quite new, modern looking and beautifuly decoured. (Coolest of all, all access to building areas including my room are controlled by RFID cards). There are 7 other tenants in the flat block I am in. All of them British and none of them study any science. Oh yes, there are girls too and some(one?) quite yummmyyyy delicious too.... sigh.

It is the fresher's week now and lots of stuff happening. The enrolment stuff and faculty and course introductions going on as well as lots of fun social activities. While I am trying not to be anti-social, I don't think I'm making much progress in being sociable. My eyes are bloodshot from continuous wear of contact lens - part induced by the lack of spectacles and lens cleaning solution with me.

I'd post some pictures but I don't have the camera cable either. Oh well I guess I shall continue wearing the same clothes for a little more while too! All these thanks to Qatar Airways. These airline buggers have been crawling at the speed of snails. They are being really really careless and have not located my luggage still.

On a slightly more optimistic cheerful note, I am liking it here. I really am. I guess I'll have to wait for uni studies to start to make a solid comment though.

Toodles.