Eureka! (Or was it Ahoy there?)

So I ended up going to the West Indies to see India lose pathetically to the Lankans – and no, girls and boys, this is not an a possible explanation of their incompetence (that seems to be the catch phrase for public sector companies in UK, but more about that later) or a blame-game to see if the coach, Tendulkar or Hanuman (for not completely destroying Lanka back then) is ultimately the reason for their fall. This is something of a travelogue to relive the discovery of the Indies by the Europeans back in the 1400’s.

Isabella was one with the vision, wasn’t she? She knew that she wasn’t satisfied with the warm winds of southern Spain; she knew there were some bluer waters waiting for the Spanish empire than the ones of the Mediterranean. Great move. Applause! What a place to discover, the Indies! The locals call the ‘discovery’ a joke, obviously. I wonder why our history textbooks in India still say that Columbus ‘discovered’ America. He just traveled there, didn’t he?

To give the uninitiated a primer the WI consists of X number of countries, I don’t know how many. However what I want to point out is that each country (usually a separate island, but sometimes nearby islands are grouped into a country) has a completely different accent of English and different looking people, cultures, colors and habits – practically different countries. I learnt that the tribes that came from Africa into Jamaica were more aggressive than the ones coming into Trinidad, and to date you see the difference in the people on that genetic basis. In fact countries like TrinBago (short version) are 2-3 hours by flight from Jamaica – sitting far away watching commentary we always thought that you can walk across the border from Jamaica to Barbados(at least I did).

Imagine Southern tip of India 200 years ago, lesser people and lower temperatures, a 20 minute ride to the beach wherever you are, laid back people so content with what they have that shops close at 5, and nothing moves on a Sunday - another interesting thing about all these countries is that people give you personalized attention and help when they know you are there to see their island. Maybe in a way they have realized that their economies depend on us tourists. We landed in Port of Spain (Trinidad and Tobago) and I spent one hour lying outside the airport in a t-shirt! Felt so good after spending the last three months in the UK.
Important discoveries about TT:

1. Two different islands, Trinidad is commercial, industrial center with a university etc and tons of Indian origin people who have a very cute sing song accent.
2. Easy to get pot in Trini(only 10 TT dollars a sachet, 2 USD) – Hey, Venezuela and Columbia are only so many miles away.
3. Don’t listen to Chutney music unless you are very high.(menta-physically, I mean)
4. Tobago is a tourist paradise with transparent turquoise waters and a big rainforest and no you can’t watch movies here as there are no movie theaters.

Didn’t get a chance to explore the nightlife much, but have heard its quite something in Trinidad. There’s always people ‘limin’ or ‘hanging out’ (in uncool American terms) whether or not the Windies lost the game yesterday.
Remember the imaginary island I talked about last time when I was crying about the UK? I think I ‘discovered’ it. Without Isabella’s help.