Barefoot at Havelock, Andamans

...is an eco-friendly resort in Havelock Islands in Andamans tucked away behind the tropical tree fence on Radhanagar beach.

Having read some great reviews online we decided on this place for our summer holidays and it surely was worth it.

Pristine, unspoilt beach with aqua waters and surrounded by lush tropical foliage it is a treat for city dwellers.

All the structures at the resort are constructed using locally sourced natural materials. The reception area...

A vibrant arrangement of tropical flowers floating at the reception area gives us a small peek into the amazing things to be experienced during our stay...

The Nicobari-styled dining area completely engulfed by lush foliage...

Exotic tropical flowers...

We enjoyed the airy dining area with a great view....

Eco-friendly-ness is evident in every aspect of the hospitality experience, the place-mats are made of handmade paper and dried flora.

The low dining arrangement was out favourite during our evening chai sessions, listening to the sound of waves on a high-tide, the changing shades of sky and excitedly watching fireflies at dusk...

The sandy path scattered with dries leaves of various shapes and colours lead you to the various cottages...

What a practical way to keep the sand off your cottage, just wash your feet and enter 'bare feet' into your room...

Sit outside and enjoy the sounds of the tropics, the intoxicating symphony played by the crickets, chirping birds and croaking frogs.

Our place on the deck for many cups of tea...

...and hours of reading.

The interiors of our cottage, antique four poster bed with mosquito nets, which the housekeeping staff would spread out in the evenings...

What a memorable experience of being surrounded by nature's best elements....

Will be doing a post on our travel experience soon on Rang~ The Colours of Life.

( Images by Arch)

Denali National Park

Every year in Denali National Park you can enter a lottery to drive your vehicle all the way to the end of the road. This is kind of a big deal because there is only one road and normally cars aren't allowed on it more than a short distance inside the park (to the first campground). Instead you must pay a noticeable fee to ride on a bus. There are many buses throughout the day, and you are free to get off of the bus at any point, catching the first bus that comes by in either direction when you are ready to continue.

The road starts off in forested valleys. There is a lot of wildlife too see almost immediately. We saw a single limping Caribou walking along the river here. It is eerie to see an animal you know is doomed to die. It may have gotten it's injuries from a very recent attack.

After the first hour the land opens up into vast plains and empty braided river valleys.The first distant view of Mt. McKinley along the road was peachy with haze early that morning.

If you do win the lottery you won't know until September, and the catch is that you have to wait until the end of the season, after the buses stop before they let you come by. There is a 4 day window for lottery winners to make the drive, and you have to obey the same excruciating speed limit as the buses. Because of the late notice and the short window just a couple of weeks later, it's generally not feasible for non Alaskans to take advantage of the lottery. We like it that way.

Lone Wolf

 Dall Sheep

I'm disappointed in these blurry Lynx photos. While only people from the lower 48 will get out of their seats to look at a moose, everybody jumps to their feet when a Lynx is spotted. I was caught off guard as we drove through an unattractive shaded area. Although i was sitting on the correct side of the bus, everyone else was jostling for position, rocking the bus all over the place while i was pulling the trigger.The Lynx was moving too fast to make any adjustments.

I've included this one just to illustrate how well the cat blends into it's surroundings. A few seconds later and it was gone. Lynx feed almost exclusively on Snowshoe Hares, and their population goes through boom and bust cycles to match those of the Hare. The Hare follows 10 year cycles and as of 2010 the population had passed it's peak and began plummeting. Many Lynx will starve to death as a result, and they will become an even more rare sight. The Hare cycle affects a wide range of other animals, including eagles, fox, coyote, owls, and even moose and sheep.

Golden Eagles will not lay eggs during years that coincide with a low Snowshoe Hare population.

This past September i went to the park on the last day the buses ran for the season. I decided to go only to the Eilson Center viewpoint (going to the Wonder Lake campground takes hours longer). It's the first time i've been there in almost 10 years, and in that time the park service has built an entirely new visitor center at Eilson.

A tour bus is already dwarfed as it drives towards Denali, at this point still distant at more than 40 miles (64 km) away.

 

This mountain has been climbed only once in January. One day i'd like to climb one of the mountains in that grey range. I bet the view is ridiculous from there. All i have to do is walk 17 miles from the road across trailless wilderness and cross a river, then climb the mountain.

Like my dog, Mt. McKinley appears much larger in real life than it does in photos. It's one of the biggest things you'll see anywhere on earth. In fact, it's MUCH larger than Mt. Everest in both vertical height and mass. Mt. Everest is 29,000 ft.(8,839m) but it rises out of the Tibetan Plateau which is already 17,000 ft (5,000m) high. So it rises 12,000 ft (3,657m) above you. That's impressive.

In Denali, you can stand on the banks of the McKinley River and stare at the summit rising 18,400 feet (5,608m) above your head, and you may be at a loss for words. It's much more impressive than the Grand Canyon. Here's a picture comparing the two mountains.

When it's behind the clouds, as it is 66% of the time during summer, and the clouds clear, people routinely can't find it because they don't look high enough. This happens so often that in the new visitor center the park service has drawn an outline of the summit on one of the windows so people know how high to look.

I imagine this is the kind of stuff you see in Tibet and Nepal. I should go verify that. This is some piddly wink mountain off the side of McKinley. It's called Peter's Dome.

It was well below freezing the morning of my bus ride, and also well past the peak of fall, but there was surprisingly little snow on the mountains, especially after our incredibly wet summer. But, even in a dead "waiting for winter" state of being the scenery was still spectacular, and the passengers on the bus, many of them locals, were a much more relaxed crowd that you'd meet in the summertime.

Back at the hotel the Nenana River was flowing swiftly through a more hospitable landscape.

Dawn from my room. Those clouds worried me without warrant. You can tell by now the day turned out great.

There were only two hotels still open, and the one i was in was half closed. It reminded me of back in the years when i worked in National Parks and we closed the hotels ourselves at the end of the season. Fortunately there was still an awesome beer and pizza restaurant open across the street.

This is the crazy entrance to some guys property. It's right on side of the road with no place to park a car. There is nothing on the other side of that door except a trail that runs down the side of a hill. The door says PRIVATE.

I always drive by this place, and i finally stopped to take a look on the way back from the park. The gorge gets narrow but twists around and goes for some distance clogged with trees.

I didn't realize i hadn't posted a full view of the mountain.

Yellow Bird, Black Spider - a primer in individuality

Yellow Bird, Black Spider is by Dosh & Mike Archer and published by Bloomsbury Children's Books.  I came across it in an airport bookshop while on a long journey to somewhere far.  It made me giggle out loud. The Sunday Times wrote: "Not just a very funny book, but it is actually a primer in individuality."  

It's got that visual rhythm that good picturebooks have, a surprise ending and is provocative enough to get discussion going.  The front and back covers are a whole illustration.  Not exactly like any of the pages inside but almost - they're a taster of what's to come. The illustrations are quirky, a mixture of flat colours, horizontal or angled horizons and carefully placed cut and paste montages.  I like them a lot, clear and easy to see at the back of a room. 

The endpapers, both front and back are the same but for one detail, (I leave the detail for you to discover).  They show us eight of the objects which appear in the story, repeated in no particular order on the left and right sides.  They are lots of fun to return to as they act as a visual support to help children remember and retell  the story.  The leopard skin cushion will have their brains whirring!

The copyright page shows us the stripey socks from later in the story.  So, past an illustration of the two protangonists in a boat and off we go...

"Yellow Bird, blue boat" ... and we know that the bird is going sailing as we've seen her on the previous page.  

And here she is with the spider and they have a short conversation, "'Why don't you fly across the sea?' asked Black Spider. 'I like to sail, actually,' said Yellow Bird."  This is the visual-verbal format that we follow for several pages: the bird + object; page turn; the bird interacting with the object and the spider asking a question; the bird flipantly justifying her individuality. 

We see a close up of the bird and a hotel, the words tell us: "Yellow Bird, white hotel".  Turn the page and we are shown the bird lounging on cushions a very real looking strawberry milkshake being offered by a waiter, and the question is, "'Why don't you make a lovely, cosy nest?' asked Black Spider. 'I like hotels, actually,' said Yellow Bird."

"Yellow Bird, red guitar". And can you guess the spider's question?  Of course you can, for we know that birds fly, build nests and go tweet, tweet!. 

"'Why don't you sing tweet, tweet, tweet, in a beautiful way?' asked Black Spider. 'I like strumming, actually,' said Yellow Bird."  ... and she contunues:  She likes dancing on the beach, having baths, vanilla ice-cream and wearing stripy socks.  We are shown Yellow Bird in an overflowing bath with a  Mr Softy ice-cream and those stripy socks we saw earlier.

Socks hanging up to dry, (after all she got them wet while having a bath) and Spider is perplexed, "'Birds don't usually wear stripy socks,' said Black Spider." It's just too much for the Yellow Bird... and we return to the original visual-verbal rhythm, "Yellow Bird, Black Spider"; The Yellow Bird is looking at the spider and the spider is surprised, nervous even. Page turn; "'Why don't you eat some yummy, squelchy worms?' asked Black Spider.  'Actually', said Yellow Bird,"

"... I like to eat spiders."  We are shown a nonchalant Yellow Bird munching on the Black Spider, his legs are still wiggling for sure.  That did shut him up though, didn't it?  All those silly questions! 

If you go back and look at the spider in each illustration his eyes are terribly expressive, showing surprise, annoyance and fright.    And Yellow Bird looks right annoyed too! 

Those endpapers again... and what's missing?  Can you see?  

Our Yellow Bird wears stripy socks, which is unusual true, but she does all sorts of unbird-like stuff, what an unconventional thing she is! Does it matter?  She's still a Yellow Bird, much like other Yellow Birds, who may fly across oceans, make nests and go tweet, tweet - but they all eat annoying Black Spiders!  

Giggle-worthy!

My nose, your nose - celebrating individuality

One of the picturebooks I read to all my pre-school groups, no matter what, is My nose, your nose by Melanie Walsh... and in preparing this blog post I discover that it's not that easy to get hold of: only second hand copies available through Amazon.co.uk and hardback editions at The Book Depository.  But I'll post about it all the same. 

In addition to the message this picturebook carries, I think what I like about this particular title is the bright bold colours and the structural rhythm, which is very visual. 

The cover is fabulous, those two faces, simply outlined looking at each other and the title fitting snugly just above their noses.  On the back it says:  "Arthur's nose turns up. Agnes's nose turns down. But they both like the smell of chocolate cake. Spot the differences and similarities between people in this celebration of individuality." 

There's no exciting peritext and we open immediately onto the title page, showing us another of the  characters we are going to meet inside ... We know about Arthur and Agnes, and here's  Kit and later we'll meet Daisy - Negro, Caucasian, boys, girls, tall, short, curly hair, straight hair, blue eyes, green eyes - they are all different but the same too. Let's see how Walsh helps us discover this important lesson in life.

Here's Daisy in all her glory.  "Daisy's skin in brown." Those hot colours and the beach scene are natural associations to the brown skin ... I love her sun glasses!

"Agnes's skin is white."   As white as her porcelain bath, which we can see her peeking out of.  And the pink background is another association to pale skin.   "But ..." 

 "... they both have cheeky pink tongues!"  They certainly do!  

And so our celebration of individuality continues. "Arthur's hair is brown and straight." It's easy to comb, and there's a comb in view.  "Kit's hair is black and curly."  No comb in site, just a bobble hat which keeps him warm.  "But ... they both hate washday!" Poor Kit and Arthur, shampoo on their heads, glumly staring out at the reader.  

"Arthur's nose turns up. Agnes's nose turns down."  You can almost smell the cheese and socks! Yuck!  We aren't told they don't like the smells, just shown this information.  But then we are shown and told what they like smelling, emphasising the similarity. Yummy, delicious chocolate cake!

The above is a great little sequence, "Daisy has short legs.  Kit has long legs." ... and we have to turn the page over so that Kit's legs fit in.  This is a trick we saw in Small Mouse BIG CITY.  The inclusion of the kitten on each page  is a nice comparison too, she's looking up at Kit, he is BIG! 

So we've seen Daisy and Agnes, Kit and Arthur, Arthur and Agnes, Daisy and Kit.  There's a nice rhythm here, the two children shown as different, each on different spreads, then brought together with a similarity onto one spread.   Melanie Walsh uses this rhythmic, visual structure to reinforce her message, which culminates in bringing all four children together. We see a pair of children on the same spread, peeking out at us from under bed sheets.  "Agnes has blue eyes.  Kit's eyes are brown."  "Arthur has grey eyes. Daisy's are green. But ..."

Ahh!  That is so nice, and what a great way to end!  My pre-school kids usually pretend to go to sleep too and then quickly call out, "Again!".   We read this book several times over and then find things we like and dislike and similarities and differences.