Monthly Archives: May 1970

Changed £10 into rupees Had a fairly good day today but even so a simple operation turns into a big problem. Getting Gas, We went into Cooks Travel Agency to be met by the most arrogant man I have ever met. He called us Hippies and wouldn’t book us unless we had £100 per person. … Continue reading »

Changed £400 at the bank to get bankers cert. by doing that we lost £160 by the black market price. Cooks Travel would not entertain us at all, price per person £37-8-0 and for LD £72-7-0 total for the 7 of us and 2 land rovers  7360 rupee. Not a bad day on the whole, we expect … Continue reading »

Letters from Mam and Larraine Tried to finalise the bookings for the boat and once again a simple job becomes a serious problem. We entered the building at 12-30 and after tramping up and down alternately between 4 floors and heaven knows how many offices, we finally left for another office with tempers frayed two … Continue reading »

Wrote home Mam and Larraine. We have 3 boys here who are our helpers, Michael, Peter and Balem real characters they are. Sons of Fishermen in the village, they love working for the tourists. Yesterday they earned a little money so they brought us mango’s jap fruit and rice wine and pinched some coconuts. They eat the rice from … Continue reading »

Tamil is the language they speak here on Elliott beach; the boys say that’s the name of the village too. A fisherman from the village was heading across breaking waves when oar snapped and hit him in the stomach rupturing his abdominal wall. We drove him into the hospital. It was an education it looked … Continue reading »

Normally they would have to walk to the hospital sometimes impossible and they die because they cannot afford the taxi fare. It’s a good village and the people are good but their life is very hard. Living in coconut huts for shelter.  Had a nice meal the lads cooked today also rice wine and a drink … Continue reading »

Spent the night at the pictures in the village, big night out with the boys. Finally we managed to complete the formalities for the shipping the vehicles, it was unbelievable the pieces of paper must have passed over 20 desks, been entered into numerous books, each time it all had to go to yet another … Continue reading »

A fantastic day Indian came down did conjuring tricks, good too, then he had a cobra snake and a mongoose fight to the death, unfair fight though the snake had no chance at the speed the mongoose moved. Then out fishing on the sea. The boat consisted of 5 shaped logs lashed together with rope, … Continue reading »

Up at 6am  lashed the boat together then out fishing, with nets this time it was great but hard work rowing and hauling the net you needed a good sense of balance, I fell a few time and once overboard. Hauled the net about 9 times before surfing in. Hot sun fish sea and sand. … Continue reading »

Took a drive into town. No mail. Boat sailing 4th now, engine trouble. Another day working. Line fishing again caught another big basket of fish, Moutab sorts out the catch and brings them back cleaned and prepared for us. They really work hard out fishing and they have nothing. This is there theme when drunk with rice … Continue reading »

Its festival time in the village, they have it every year and we are all invited On the way came across a massive big dead turtle on the beach smelling bad. The festival consisted of a wooden god painted with real gold like a huge pyramid carried by 80 men. It cosy 20 thousand rupees, … Continue reading »