Jeanne arrived on Monday March 25. I had to work all day and night so couldn’t pick her up from the airport. I was so sad, as I always want to greet my visitors when they land. Jeanne did not know I had a new driver, Umesh and I had warned her that I may not be able to go to pick her up but her phone was not working that day (data was turned off) so I couldn’t confirm that or advise that Umesh, not Mallappa, would be picking her up. But like a champ, she figured it out! I sent Umesh a picture of her, he showed the picture to her so she assumed it was the right person to go with. She told me later that she was thinking, “Is this Mallappa? It doesn’t look like Mallappa? This can’t be Mallappa. Okay, this isn’t Mallappa.” Umesh’s English isn’t great so she was pretty much on her own to trust and figure out what was going on.
I worked on Tuesday and she came to the office with me so that we could have lunch together on campus. It was so nice to have her there!
On Wednesday, we flew to Port Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar islands. These are remote, Indian islands off the coast of Myanmar. If you know about North Sentinel island, where the native people have never had contact with the outside world and are famous for killing anyone that nears the island, you’ve heard of one of the Andaman and Nicobar islands. Not many tourists know about them because the Maldives and Sri Lanka get all the attention but some US rotationals had told me about it and that it was a must-visit spot. I knew I wanted to take Jeanne.
Port Blair’s heat and humidity was stifling. We got a cab from the airport to our first stay, a little rustic resort on the coast. We had a little bungalow to ourselves with a view of the ocean. I worked the rest of that week, with breaks to the pool and ocean and to catch up with my mama.
On Friday, we boarded a ferry to Havelock Island and I’ll just say right now: I wish we had had more time on Havelock island. The weather was so much nicer as was the hotel. On the way to Havelock, I started looking into booking our ferry back on Sunday. I started to realize that the ferries from Havelock to Port Blair on Sunday morning were completely sold out. The 4 pm ferry had seats available, but our flight was at 2 pm so that wouldn’t work. After some minor panic and many people telling me they could get us ferry tickets only to find out that of course they couldn’t get us tickets on sold out ferries, I realized that we could take a ferry from Havelock to Neil Island, and then from Neil Island to Port Blair. And fortunately, the timing was such that we had JUST enough time to make our flight. I felt a huge sense of accomplishment and relief and could finally enjoy the weekend! By this time, Jeanne had convinced me to watch the most recent season of Love is Blind and although she had already watched it, she watched along with me so that we could be outraged together. It was awesome.
We walked to the hotel’s beach that night after dinner and the tide was so far out, I’ve never seen anything like it. It was almost like that part of the ocean had just dried up. I really thought there was no real beach where we were but the next morning, we walked back out to see before taking a drive to another beach for the day, and alas! The tide was in and it was perfect and gorgeous. We were the only ones on the beach, the water was warm and waist deep for 40 yards out.
That night, a driver took us to a nearby beach for the sunset. The beach and ocean were packed with people swimming and playing. The sunset was stunning and afterward, Jeanne got the “Indian bazar” experience. Street shopping with gobs of people and so much STUFF.
Sunday worked out perfectly. We made all of our ferries, driver was waiting at the ferry port to take us to the airport where we hopped on the plane and flew back to BLR. Jeanne left on Monday night and it was as hard as you might imagine. I’d never give it up but being left as visitors return home is TOUGH.
Emily in India 
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