There is a popular idea that all Middle Eastern airlines are the bees knees. Well having flown with Etihad, I can confidently say that this is a misconception.

The flight from Heathrow to Abu Dhabi was marred by the internal temperature of the aircraft which was something like 30 degrees and dry as hell. Like many other victims/passangers, I was quickly stripped off to the minimum of clothing and constantly drinking and nipping off to the toilets to run cold water over face wrists and arms to try to cool down a bit. Fortunatly, we eventually arrived at Abu Dhabi airport (looking suspiciously like "Moss Isley" from the Star Wars movies) and got out of the plane to be greated by the relative cool of the desert morning - who would have thought you'd feel the pleasant cool when arriving in the Middle East ?

In full accordance with international guidelines, the airport terminal was emblazoned with signs staying that smoking was prohibited except in designated areas. Unfortunatly, the effect of this was slightly marred by the fact that the designated areas included all the food stalls and coffee shops and there was no ventilation at all. The resultant haze of smoke, sounds of coughing westerners and hords of exotically dressed people (almost as exotic as Saltley in Birmingham !) reinforced the "Moss Isley" feel of the place and I was constantly expecting to see some wee fella jump up and shout "Ootinii" from a darkened corner.


The onward flight to Mumbai was delayed by 2 hours so we arrived after the last connecting flight to Goa had gone. Fortunatly, I'd realised it would be close cut and so hadn't pre-booked the connecting flight. With flying out of the question, a prepaid taxi took me to the long distance bus stand and I soon had an overnight bus ticket booked to Mapusa in north Goa and after a two hour wait, I started the final 10 hours of the journey out.

After setting out from home at 13:00 on Saturday, I finally rolled into Arambol at 08:00 on Monday morning in dire need of a wash and a bed.


Whilst having a coffee with my bags besides me, Scott ("Worldfisher" on the Indian Angler forum) rolled up in the restrurant and whilst I admit to a quick (manley) hug and handshake, I decided to decline the "and kisses" (and indeed the plural "hugs") suggested by his mother for when I met him.

He was looking well but considerably skinnier than he was when we last met, but cycling 15000km to India from Surry will do that to a body.

Now, general guidance on jet lag is to adopt a sleeping pattern appropriate to your destination as soon as possile after your arrival. Unfortunatly, I decided to forgoe this basic biological acclimatisation process and slept through the middle of the day and went out fishing between 23:00 and 3 in the morning on the day of my arrival.

We've been pretty much noctournal ever since !


The locals haven't been catching a lot of late but Scott and I landed three fish each on the first night with an average weight of 6kgs each. I also lost a huge fish that just ran and ran before jumping and throwing the hooks.

The next night, I only had one but Scott landed four and the sizes were bigger with fish averaging 7.5kg's.

We went out again on Wednesday night but were a little concerned about the reception we might recieve after doing so much better than the locals the previous two nights, so we fished another location and had a nice Mangrove Jack each and I had another Barramundi of 8kg's.


There was no fishing for me last night 'cause I had a stomach bug. I had 8 hours of misery starting out with some impressive stomach pains and then it was gone, which suggests that it was a virus rather than the result of eating something dodgy. Unfortunatly, being sick also meant that I missed the jam session at Loekies bar but I could hear it from my room. It sounded like I missed a really good one with a couple of guys playing some first rate blues at the start and then more of a mixed bag a bit latter on. Obviously, I need to track down the guys who were playing and make sure I'm there when they play next. I've also caught a Bindoo Babas gig and Prana, Assi and Matura were on good form. In short, the music scene here is as good as ever.


One thing that has changed in the last 12 months is the pantheon of hippydom. In addition to the familiar Jesus/Charley Mansun hippy, the Cyberpunk hippy and the Sadhu wanabee hippy, there is now the Pirate hippy, repleate with silly beared and mustoush (I know, people in glass houses etc), appropriate piraty clothes and whitty banter and even a tricorned hat !

Disney has a lot to anwser for !


In a few days Scott and I are planning a trip up the coast to Ganapatapuli in Maharashtra for a bit of shark fishing from the beach. Expect tails of toothy beasties soon.

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Thats a right adventure mate. Looking forward to the next installment and hopefully a few pictures

Nice one Ken. Look forward to the next instalment.

(That is after I got over the initial disappointment of realising, it wasn't your adventures with a big indian you were talking about. )

John.

Snatcher mate. I'll be taking the fly rod as well as the usual bait and lure fishing kit.
Pictures may have to wait until I return as internet connections are a bit slow, but I'm quite likely to be seen peering out from the pages of Scott's blog

This post has been edited by Ken L: Jan 18 2008, 10:21 AM

Just prior to leaving for Ganapatipule, one of the restraurants that we suplied some fish to (Lamwellas in Arambol if anyone fancies a good feed when they visit) cooked us a free meal. To say that it was good would be a major understatement...
Think a starter of raw fish caspachio with salad followed by pan fried mangrove jack with a sauce of herbs, garlic and lemon zest served with fondant potatos and a side salad.
It goes without saying that the fish for food exchange programe will be extended.

We're now back from our little side trip and Wow! what a stunning place Ganapatipule is. Clean sand, clear blue sea and a mixture of casurinas and coconut palms lining the beach.
Three of us shared a 4 man permanent tent for 600 Rs per night and we had access to a restraunt that would happily cook our catch for dinner.
Unfortunatly, there had been a bit of a storm prior to out arrival so there were big waves, a strong current and lots of sea weed in the water. This made soaking big baits for the sharks almost impossible but I still managed to catch something every day we were there.
First night, I bagged a Barramundi (locally known as "Chanak") from the mouth of the little river that runs in at the north of the resort and Scott got bitten off by something that sheared through his 50lb flouro leader in a second. As we were fishing at night in shallow water, it was almost certainly a shark grabbing the lure and making short work of it.

After that first night, I had a coulple of p-i-k-e-y sea bream ("Palu"), with the biggest going about three and a half pounds, a Sandshark (no idea of the local name) of about 8 pounds and a couple of catfish.
Catfish are henceforth to be refered to as "Squeekers" - it's what they do !
Scott also had some nice Mangrove Jacks ("Tambuche") and an as yet unidentified Lucjanid that I'll have to look up when I get home.

No proper sharks but a very worthwhile side trip and a place that I suspect I'll return to at some point in the future. It's certanly an option for breaking up a trip from Goa to Mumbai into two rather pleasant train rides and a stopover on the beach.

Tonight, there is a Jam session on at the local bar and a full moon to fish by after, hey, it doesn't get much better.

This post has been edited by Ken L: Jan 30 2008, 06:15 AM

Hi all.

Here abouts I can induldge in reiki, crystal healing, at least six different flavours of yoga, tai-chi, colon clensing (sounds messy! - and if you're not suposed to drink the local water, should you be letting someone push it up up your bum ?), satsang, breathing workshops, emotional release therapy, Tibetan body pulsing (whatever that is), chakra balancing, colour therapy and my personal favorite; "tachyon healing" .....amongst many others.
I can also find some dreadlocked hippy on every corner who is not only keen to tell me about the benefits of a raw, organic, vegan diet, they'll also happily sell me one as well.

I've also had a conversation with an astonishingly pretty young lady with a very strange accent who told be in all sincerity that she believes in "positive energy".
Apparently, there was some unnamed Japanese fella' who spent an hour telling a cup of water how much he hates it and swearing at it and then putting it in a freezer and taking photographs as the water froze.
He then got another cup of water and said nice things to it and told it how much he loved it for an hour before freezing that one and photographing it as the ice crystals formed.
Amazingly, the crystals were different and that proves the existance of "Positive energy"...apparently....and as we're made of 90% water, it's bound to have an effect on us....
I did ask about consistecy of results, repeatability, peer review, the nature of "positive energy" and how it could be measured but predictably, I was greated with a blank stare.

Undetered by my obvious skepticism, she then told me that her father had had a lump that was "probably cancer" cured by a faith healer.
Suitably impressed, I asked where the lump was and wasn't exactly shocked to hear that it was on a tendon.
The conversation went of at a tangent about herbalism (Some amazing folk knowledge mixed with a lot of BS) and came back to me saying that the conditions with the highest number of folk remedies were those that tend to resolve sponaneously like warts and ganglions (lumps on tendons) precicely because they will at some point resolve and Johnny charlatan can claim a success - think bash it with a bible of rub liver on it and burry the liver in the garden.
Was there a recognition of the fact that I was refering to a lump that was "probably cancer" ?
There was not...

To top it all, I spoke to "pirate hippy" and despite his home counties accent, he goes by the name of "Gopall". Oh dear !!!!

As a result of all this, my personal B---S---o'meter is currently maxed out and off the scale and I think it's time for an injection of fishing related normality and an associated trip to the hills in search of stunning senery, wildlife and big fish.
Last time out, I managed to sneak up on spotted deer in the coracle and had five wild elephants come down for a drink on the far bank of the river whilst I was preparing dinner. The cream on the cake would be to see one of the big cats. There are leopards about and as of last year, 4 tigers (a mother and three cubs) had taken up residence in the 25000 hectares of forrest on the far bank of the river wich is conected to a national park by a wooded coridor. Oh and snakes, lots and lots of snakes, from the fiesty little 2 footer that we had in camp on the fist visit to the big 8 foot beasties that lurk in the rice fields.

My only concern is the wheather up in the hills. It's unseasonably clear and cool here at the moment with people going out in jeans and a jacket at night and me and scott having to wear a fleece on the beach at night (OK so we're in shorts and bare feet but it's still cooler than normal) so it might be distinctly cold in the mountains.

When I'm out and about, I'll be away from such luxuries as electricity, running water and basic sanitation so the internet will also be off the agenda.
No doubt I'll get in touch from town but it might be infrequent.

Can't wait !

Ken.

Well, we coudn't get a train to Mangalore so had to settle for the overnight bus which takes twice as long but saved us having to pay the higher taxi fare to the station. Fortunatly, the arrival of our bus dovetailed perfectly with the departure of a local bus that climbes the Western Ghats and we made the 4 hour onward trip as the sun came up.
We booked into our usual hotel and set off to sort out the jeep trip to the river and buy all the usual camping gear, drinking water and food.

There was the inevitable begger on the way out of the bus station and although we walked on by, a quick sideways glace revieled that the poor old sod had lost all of his fingers and thumbs to leprosy so a few rupees changed hands on the way back.

On arrival at the river, the water levels were quite high and here was a distinct murky cast to the water.
Things didn't look good for lure fishing but things appeared to have brightened up when my rod slammed over just 25 minutes into the first coracle trip. At 15lbs, it wasn't a huge fish but it was very welcome all the same.
Unfortunatly, the first fish wasn't a harbinger of great things to come and we struggled to get fish to respond to lures throughout our 10 day stay. I had the best fish to a lure at about 18lb but bait appeared to be the only way to go.
Scott had fish to 25lb on raggi after we were shown an alternative and much better way to prepare the stuff that leaves the bait soft enough to pull a hook through on the strike.
Not being a keen bait angler, I decided to call it a day after day 10 but Scott is still there trying for the big one. I will hopefully be making a return visit in March when the clarity improves and the fish will hopefully feel a little more inclined to chase lures.

As ever, the wildelife was impressive and we had wild elephants come down to drink on the opposite bank when we were fishing and saw snakes, monkeys. clouds of brightly coloured parots, hornbills and Sambar deer durring the stay. The Sambar were particularly impressive because I saw one out of the orner of my eye and stopped fishing and just let the coracle drift. One by one, eight of them came tripping down the bank to drink and as soon as I moved, they faded back into the jungle.

Despite the fact that there are now two resident crocodiles in the stretch (one of 4m and the other about 3), we had our fishing disturbed by one of the local nutters who swims in the river regularly. He swam past us and carried on up the river maybe 500m before turning arround and swimming back. He did this 5 times, up and down and I can only assume that he gets away with it because he's wearing flippers and not splashing a lot. Even so, there is a certain morbid facination in watching him swim up and down waiting for the sight of a big splash and the big rolling reptillian tail.
Mugger crocodiles arn't really known for attacking people but I just hope that the idiot never visits Africa or Australia where swimming would be a short and terminal experience.

One frustrating aspect of the trip was my ongoing failure to hook a mahseer on the fly. One afternoon, I had five mahseer and a murrel grab the flies only to have every single strike fail to hookup. Nonetheless, my under mango tree casting technique is now much improved and hopefully, I'll hook one next time.

I rolled back into Goa on Saturday evening and will probably go visit Querim tonight.
Things are very quiet on the subject of a British guy who was beaten to death on the beach on the same day that we left for the river. The only news that I've heared was that his hands were tied with wire when the body was found but the strangest thing is that there's no mention of the incident on any of the news services, which is odd given the forore that surrounded the guy who was killed in Maharashtra last year.

I had an interesting conversation the other day with a western resident. It turns out that the terrorist scare last year was a hoax perpetrated by a few people who had been victims of Israeli rip offs. They set up false e-mail accounts and sent one another mails discussing their plans to blow up Israelis in Goa and this was inevitably picked up by the inteligence services (Who says "Enchelon" is a myth ?) who alerted the Israeli authorities resulting in the cancellation of all direct flights fron Tel Aviv to Goa.
In a bizzare twist, life has now immitated "art" and a cell of muslim extremists have recently been found guilty of planning exactly the kind of strikes set out in the hoax.
My conversation with the local chappie also encompassed the MOSAD pressence in Goa (with upto 65,000 israelis a year here, it's not suprising really) and the facilitites that exist to bail out Israeli nationals that get into trouble with the law, drugs or mental health problems.
Shame the UK government doen't offer similar facilities for it's own citizens in holiday spots.

I'll be off to Panjim tomorrow to see if I can sort out some fights to eithe Sri Lanka or SE Asia for a short visit.

This post has been edited by Ken L: Feb 18 2008, 09:13 AM

Well, my two week blow out in Sri Lanka got completely wrecked by the nice people at Lloyds TSB.
I've had problems with my ATM card since arriving in India and despite several very expensive calls to call centres, I couldn't get a straight answer about what the problem was with the card (just BS, interminable periods on hold and constantly changing stories), much less get it resolved.
In India, I've been able to get buy on bank counter withdrawals but (Oh joy) no such facility exists in Sri Lanka.
The upshot of all this is that I had to survive more than two weeks on the limited hard currency that was in my wallet.
There was no diving, no boat fishing, no nice meals, severely limited travelling and drinking and I was limited to cheap guest houses with no blow outs on a nice hotel, even on the last night in Colombo.
Instead, I stayed in the same place through the two weeks ate crap food and on my last day, after walking for 4km carrying 35kg's, I spent my first (and hopefully last) ever night in a YMCA.
"Pi$$ed off" doesn't even come close to my current feelings towards my bank and I will be having "words" when I get home.
Sri Lanka was suposed to be the blow out at the end of my trip and those ******d's *****d it up for me.
The closest I came to a party was a couple of bottles of Lion Stout on St Paddy's day.

Although the family that I previously stayed with in Akurala were mostly OK following the tsunami, I was told more heartrending takes than I could really deal with and got graphic descriptions of that day's events from a French ex-pat that I know from my previous visit.
Not something that I'm going to go into now but it was hard to deal with people who I sort of know telling me their stories with a numb look on their face even 4 years on.
It would have been nice to get away from bumping into people who I know, even if only for a respite from the tales but I couldn't afford to travel......

Weather in Sri Lanka was mixed with regular thunderstorms but I managed a bit of beach fishing and caught lots of small fish that I'm going to have to spend time identifying when I get back.


On getting back to India, I ran into a major tropical depression and there was heavy rain and flooding throughout the 1000km from Trivandrum to Mangalore. between the weather and the fact that the banks were shut because it was Good Friday, I decided not to head inland for my planned second shot at mahseer fishing - It looked like the river might be in flood and I didn't want to find myself in a position wher I travelled that far off the main track and was unable to pay for my fishing side trip.
Instead, I got the next onward train north and headed for Goa. It continued raining right up to the border of Karnataka and Goa and even here, we are having intermittent thunder storms.
Yesterday, the banks re-opened and when I picked up 20,000 RS on a counter withdrawal, I felt like a drowning man getting a lung full of air.

At the moment, it looks like I'm going to stay arround hear for a couple of weeks but if the depression develops into a fully fledged cyclone, I may have to bug out and go north.

Ho hum.

blimey no wonder my mrs cant get an upgrade to her DLA

Been fishless for the last two nights but on Sunday, I caught one of the strangest things I've ever seen when I hooked into a bit of crap on the retrieve. As I lifted the lure from the water, the stuff hanging from the hooks started to sparkle. At first, I thought it must be some sort of mylar strip that was reflecting the lights but it was just a short piece of coconut rope and it was flashing like a string of fairy lights with bioluminecence.
I put the torch on it but couldn't see a thing so whatever was doing the glowing was pretty small.
Last night, my mate Ashok caught a nice fish at Keri and as he was sorting out the fish bag at the end of the session, I offered to clean the sand and slime off the fish in the little lagoon behind the sand spit that we fish from. As I stepped into the water, I again saw what looked like reflections of lights arround my feet and just ignored them untill I bent down to clean the fish and every movement generated swirls and eddies of light.
If I moved my hand through the water, it was like stirring up a galaxy of stars. each individual light was difuse and impossible to focus on but the overall effect was mesmerising and one of the most beautifull things I've ever seen.
I darn't tell people here about it because there'd be drowned stoners washing up on the beach in the morning with big smiles on their faces.
As it is, I'm quite tempted to put my goggles in my fishing bag tonight and go for the full on LSD experience without the drugs.