Hypermobility

I’ve had a long-standing interest in Eritrea (heh – where don’t I have a long-standing interest in?), owing largely to the pictures I’ve seen of Asmara (an architectural mix of traditional, Italian colonial, and art deco), and the existence of the Danakil Depression, the hottest place on earth, which I find fascinating and terrifying by turns. So, given my interest in random island groups, it makes sense that the Dahlak Archipelago would appeal.

In the Red Sea, off the Eritrean coast, reachable by boat charter from Massawa, if you’re looking for proper desert islands, the Dahlak Archipelago would certainly fit the bill. Only four of the islands are inhabited; the remaining 122 small islands are the preserve of sea birds, turtles and the occasional tourist (generally divers). According to this article, the islands were known in antiquity as sources of pearls and tortoiseshell, and were among the first parts of East Africa to convert to Islam – which would make sense, as the islands are a mere hop, skip and a jump from the Arabian Peninsula (and in fact used to belong to Yemen). 

The only place to stay appears to be the Luul Hotel on Dahlak Kabir, which also has a restaurant and seems to offer excursions to dive sites around the archipelago. There’s also information on diving itineraries around the archipelago here. I know it’s odd that I keep banging on about diving given that I don’t, in fact, dive, despite having been idly planning to take a PADI course since at least 1998, but having known friends to do a liveaboard diving holiday off the Sudanese coast, I’ve developed a mild obsession with diving the more untouched bits of the Red Sea, and the Dahlaks certainly fit the bill there.

A decent amount of information on the Dahlak Archipelago is available at Hans Mebrat’s page, here. Personal accounts seem to be the best way of getting information about the islands, as they – and Eritrea as a whole – don’t have much of a tourist industry or tourist infrastructure: Saagar writes about his experiences on Virtual Tourist, here; there’s another account on Travel Adventures, here; and there’s a diver’s perspective here (incidentally, a number of the other diving pages linked from that one are worth a look – I’m particularly impressed by anyone who’s dived Baikal, given how bloody freezing it was when I was there in early October).

Sadly, UK – Asmara flights seem to be quite pricy, around the £800-900 mark(though cheapflights.co.uk offers one fare from Glasgow to Asmara for £539, which is all right); it may be possible to get there cheaper via elsewhere in East Africa; it’s certainly possible to fly from the UK to Nairobi for under £400 (though not particularly advisable at present), and a few carriers, including Egyptair and the never-before-heard-of(-by-me) Nasair fly between Nairobi and Asmara. And ertra.com is the closest thing that I can find to an Eritrean tourism site.

January is properly starting to set in, and while the weather is not too bad, all things considered, I am becoming increasingly aware that I have no concrete plans to leave the country until May, and am starting to crave somewhere warm. To satisfy my continually itchy feet, I’m considering a brief weekend jaunt to France or Spain or Italy sometime in the next couple of months, but what I am really longing for is somewhere properly, uncomfortably hot, the like of which I haven’t experienced since I travelled through the Middle East in August/September 2006. So, since a great part of the purpose of this blog is to allow me to indulge my tendency to armchair travel, I am deeming January to be ISLAND MONTH at Hypermobility, hurrah.

Way way back when I was an undergraduate anthropology student, I remember thinking that it was perhaps not entirely random that many of the early social anthropologists chose to undertake their fieldwork in tropical paradises – Bronislaw Malinowski got to spend a couple of years kicking back on the Trobriand Islands, while Alfred Radcliffe-Brown chose to spend his time on the Andaman Islands instead. Trobriand Tourism has never really taken off, probably owing to the fact that they’re hard to get to, and the politically turbulent situation in Papua New Guinea (to which the islands belong) doesn’t help either – but the Andaman Islands have had a Guardian travel article written about them (with obligatory Bad Pun Title), so you know that they’ve arrived on the travel and tourism map.

Belonging to India, but physically and culturally closer to Burma, the Andaman Islands offer diving, colonial sites aplenty, gorgeous looking beaches, and, perhaps most interesting from my point of view, some really interesting tribes and cultures. And sea gypsies! Clearly, the Maldives are totally 2007; for 2008 the Andamans are where it’s at. Or something.

- You can fly directly (well, via India) from London Heathrow to Port Blair with Jet Airways. This site claims that it’s also possible to get there by ship, if you have the time.

- In terms of general information about things to see and do, this article on 4to40.com, and this one on smarttravelasia.com are both very informative indeed.

- For more Andaman-related information than you could possibly ever need (in terms of history, culture, etc.), go to www.andaman.org.

- And there are some general Andaman and Nicobar Island sites where you can stare at pretty photos with sad eyes here, here and here.

- Accommodation-wise, this place on Havelock Island looks both cheap(ish) and gorgeous, and is also vouched for my responsibletravel.com, so you can feel all smug and virtuous. It may or may not be the same place run by Barefoot India (who seem to offer various Andaman package options). There’s also the Wild Orchid and Silver Sand, both also on Havelock Island.

- This site seems to be pretty useful regarding island-hopping between the Thai islands in the Andaman Sea (i.e. not the Andaman Islands). There are various rumours that ferries or flights between Phuket and Bort Blair may exist (or may be going to exist in future), which would make a joint Thailand/Andaman Islands holiday an enticing prospect, but I can’t confirm or deny.

Edit: Another useful site is here.