A vacation within a vacation

The spoils of the sea
Originally uploaded by Amberly & David.

Sometimes you need a break. As previously promised, we've been idling on a remote island in the middle of the Indian Ocean. After cold mountains, smoggy cities and too much transit, we finally found some respite on a hammock by a beach, with a coconut in one hand and a book in the other.
If you spin your globe a few degrees east of the Indian coastline, you might spot the Andamans as specks out there, not far from the epicenter of the tsunami of a couple years back. Most of the chain was relatively unharmed by the tidal waves - our guest house saw a beer cooler and an oven float away - but the crash in tourism really hurt the local economy. So we went on a relief mission to prop it up. This was the humanitarian portion of our trip, really.


Havelock Island is one of the most accessible and visited of the chain. While it is the most touristed, it is still a backwater with frequent shortages of just about anything except fish. As you might imagine, we ate a lot of fish. And laid around in hammocks. The island is relatively sheltered from the open sea by surrounding islands, so the surf was negligible, the water cristaline and the temperature bath-like. It was like the island was surrounded by a giant heated pool. We went snorkeling in a 'Finding Nemo'-like environment one day. The going was difficult.

Seriously, though, the downtime proved a great time to do a little bit of meditating, both of the quiet-sitting and mulling-over-your-life type. A kind of peace has settled over me and I got a glimpse of what I would like my life to be. In some ways, this was no profound insight. The elements have been there before - socially conscious concerns, including sustainable agriculture, a degree of income independence, and a strong desire to father a family - but the path to unifying them became a little clearer last week.

I'm writing this from Delhi, where we are taking a brief break from our three-day sojourn to Rishikesh to celebrate Passover. As we've descended into the thick of India's cities (Calcutta for a few hours and Delhi overnight), a broad smile has come over my face. I love this place! Both of us were sort of dreading leaving the quiet easiness of island life, but as we sped by, and later walked through, the city streets teeming with life, my blood starting pumping again. It's hard to believe it's been nearly two months and harder yet to grasp the reality of returning in about two weeks. I've absorbed so much, but it's only a scratch on the surface of this amazing country. So it goes.