Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2011 12:09 am Post subject: Trypanocide In Tranquebar
lly!!!! A nx ken. as en n y nda or oo long. wo ars f ing as ally ome o tion. (ot rally f urse. e 'nt ect ny uits.)
No need to get alarmed here. I have always wanted to start a post with only the end of words. I am pretty sure if you put those letters together, you will arrive at the name of some character from one of those Japanese anime cartoons.
I will try to restore normalcy here. But I do warn you, these weird wants are getting worse by the hour and might relapse anytime in the middle of the post.
Finally!!! A jinx broken. Has been in my agenda for too long. Two years of waiting has finally come to fruition. Not literally of course. We did'nt collect any fruits.
Tranquebar lies in the southern part of Tamil Nadu and is a former Danish settlement. More on Tranquebar here : Tranquebar
From a hobbyist point of view, Tranquebar is a really awesome place to collect in. It happens to be the type locality of Ompok bimaculatus, Neotropius athernoides and Mystus vittatus. Plus a few Gobies too.
Oh and I realise some of you might be puzzled by the topic name. It is just a small part of the extremely obscure,silly,arbit,abrupt, illogical, unexpected,absurd and sub-moronic things I have been wanting to do of late.
Other ideas include :
Point at someone and shout "Your one of them!" Run and pretend to trip. Crawl away slowly
and
Ride in a cold air balloon.
So to clarify things, Trypanocide means killing of trypanosomes which we never did. Heck we don't even know what they are.
Getting back to fish now, the team that went on the trip included
Bala
Shankar
Rajeshwaran
Krishna (from Villupuram)
Dick Cheney and
Me
The rest of the team (excluding Cheney) left on Friday (29th July '11) evening and reached Karaikal by around midnight. I had an an exam on Friday and hence could leave only on Friday night. I couldn't get tickets for an AC bus so had to go by a normal crappy run down pile of junk which was probably made in France during the French Revolution.
No window seats either. That is until I told my neighbour how sick I could get and could regurgitate even last weeks oatmeal. I have never seen a man move faster.
Two uneventful journey's later, we met at around 6 am on Saturday. Accommodation was arranged by Krishna in the Government
quarters in Karaikal. Very cheap but very comfy too. He had also arranged for a guide to help us locate spots feasible for collecting.
A heavy breakfast later, we followed our guide onto the first spot.
It was between Karaikal and Tranquebar and also somewhere between a river and a cess pool. Only for the truly adventurous or those who have had their TB shots.
We sighted a Goby and and Rajeshwaran managed to collect a catfish from a small pool of water. This pool had hundreds of these cats swimming around. These were 'bout half an inch in legth and looked really emaciated. Bought back a few of 'em One is holding on strongly now. These appear quite aggressive as they were fighting over space at this size itself.
It could be an Arius as it seems to have only 3 pairs of barbels but I wouldn't stick to that ID and wait until it grows a bit more.
A bad pic to show size. This one has grown to close to an inch now.
We then headed to the second spot which was much cleaner.
The second spot.
And the first few swipes bought out a Mystus Sp!!!!!! These are currently with Shankar. All of 'em were betwen an inch and two in length (TL). Other fish collected from here were an Aplocheilus Sp, Anabas testudineus, Pseudosphromenus cupanus and a few crabs.
Pic : Krishna
I am sure everyone loves pics like these. A bunch of village kids posing with the cliche hand behind the head. "Oh look at the village kids. Don't they look so rusty. I have always wanted to take pics with 'em!!!!!!". Well stop liking it this instant!!!!! This asinine bunch of morons ran over a huge crab we collected with their cycle before we could stop 'em.
A few kilometres down, we tried collecting again and landed a few Gobies. There were come other fish but only Gobies were collected here.
Pic : Krishna
Crab from this spot.
We then decided to head to Tranquebar directly. The guide suggested we try at a place where the Cauvery runs into the sea.
Home of the Mystus vittatus. Anyone notice the spelling mistake???
This spot was a few hundred metres away from the beach. En route we saw a small drying pool with a lot of fish trying to swim out.
Pic : Krishna
ID needed.
Pic : Krishna
ID needed.
Whatever was left of the Cauvery.
Bala and Rajeshwaran collecting.
Pic : Krishna
Goby from this spot. ID needed.
Pic : Krishna
Aplocheilus Sp
Pic : Krishna
Fishing Eagle???
Pic : Krishna
A hermit crab.
The Danish Fort / Museum
Translation anyone???
It was 3 pm by the time we were done with this spot and we were feeling a bit peckish.
Bala,Shankar and Krishna wanted to eat vegetarian food while Rajeshwaran and me wanted meaty food. We split for lunch.
Not the five start kind but suited our expectations perfectly.
Bon appetit.
And Rajeshwaran went on a rampage here.
No eggs, maida, chicken left in the town. I hear the cook and the waiter have developed a severe and strange case of tennis elbow and an aberrant form of carnophobia.
Looks like he has discovered another version of the RPP (Rosa Poo Prota) here. Seemed to like it. He kept talking 'bout this place in Madurai where they make thousands of these a day and they still manage to run out. I am sure he will elaborate soon.
Found a small fish market near where we ate.
Secutor ruconius
ID needed.
ID needed.
ID needed.
The South Indian version of a Cuban cigar. Rolled in a tobacco leaf. If these ever came out in packs, the warning on the cover should be pics from World War II or the Balkans War. Truly hard hitting.
W th dec t he t mo fre wa sp. Th fi tw we no poss t coll i a th riv w runn i spa.
Sacre bleu!!! There I go again. The beginning of words this time!!!!! This trait is becoming rather uncontrollable now.
We then decided to head to more fresh water spots. The first two were not possible to collect in as the river was running in spate.
The third one was ok but the water here was too deep to collect in.
Pic : Krishna
The spot.
A Mantis.
We collected Cardinia gracilirostris, an Aplocheilus Sp and Etroplus maclatus here. Not really a joyous spot for diversity but our guide seemed to running outta spots while the Sun God Rah was busy pulling his chariot across the sky and Dick Cheney was nowhere to be seen.
But then you know what the old saying 'bout good luck right???
"It is considered good luck for a bride to meet a lamb, a dove, a spider, a policeman, a clergyman, a doctor, a blind man or a black cat on her way to her wedding ceremony. "
While I realise this has nothing to do with the write up, I couldn't resist but post this!! Trust me. I do not have the time or the energy to come up with something as outrageous as this. This is a real belief!!!!!!
We were neither brides nor did we sight any of the aforementioned items but the next spot did turn out to be a god damn gold mine!!!!!!!
The spot.
The catch!!!!!!
Every swipe bought out atleast 2 or 3 Mystus Sp. There is M.vittatus and possible another species here too. Some do have a comparatively larger adipose but at the risk of repeating myself, its best to wait till they grow up a bit to confirm ID's.
In 'bout twenty minutes of collecting, we had 'bout 40 specimens!!!!! If this is not a gold mine, then nothing is!!!!
Selected a dozen healthy and decent sized ones to bring back. The biggest one is just over 2 inches in length. They are in a grow out tank now. Being fed FBS,Tetra Bits, Hikari Carnivore,JBL Novo Bits and ANS Sting Ray food.
Rajeshwaran sighted a large fish,ran to collect it,collected it, lifted it and killed it.
The fish lasted a FEW SECONDS out of the water. One lift and off it went to push the proverbial daisies.
Hyphoramphus xanthopterus. Had a lovely yellow tinged caudal.
Other than this, we collected some Puntius sarana and Puntius sophore from this spot too.
It was 5pm by the time we were done with this spot and we decided to hit one more spot before we wound up for the day.
Now here is a small poem 'bout bad luck. Again, I did not come up with it.
"Monday for health,
Tuesday for wealth,
Wednesday's the best of all.
Thursday brings crosses,
And Friday losses,
But Saturday - no luck at all. "
I should say the number of Mystus we collected sorta disproves the above whatever-it-is.
The final spot was a well shaded part of the river with a decent flow. This was the first time we encountered any flow during the trip. The substrate was primarily sand with plants.
Pic : Krishna
The spot.
Pic : Krishna
Puntius sophore (???). Unable to make out because of the angle. Anyone ID???
Pic : Krishna
A lovely Etroplus maculatus.
Pic : Krishna
Pseudosphromenus cupanus
Pic : Krishna
Pic : Krishna
Channa punctata
Pic : Krishna
The first Clariid I have encountered in the wild!!!!!! A baby Hetropneustes fossilis.
A few lovely eels too. About 2 inches in length. Shankar has 'em. Maybe he could post some pics for ID. Were a fiery red in colour. That s all I remember of 'em.
With everyone satisfied with the catch, we decided to wind up at 6pm and headed back to Karaikal. Stopped en route at a bar. This was the Union Territory of Pondycherry. The people pay less for booze than most people in the country. I can attribute this to only one possible explanation. The hijacking of liquor trucks.
Its insane!!!!! The amount of liquor that is consumed is insane!!!!! I really don't know how they can tell apart New Year's from say, Monday or Tuesday. "Oh new Year's, well that's when we drink with hats on".
So I bought this beer called 8 . That is it. Its called 8 and is marketed as Triple Strong Beer. And by god the label speaks volumes of truth. The strongest beer I have ever had. Not much taste wise but packs a wallop. Only for the bibulous.
Back in the room, we repacked the fish and left for dinner at around 8 pm. Since the day went well, Krishna and me decided to go on a fluid diet before dinner accompanied by this :
Dinner for Krishna,Rajeshwaran and me was biryani. I had prawn. Was very fresh and tasty as hell. More importantly, Rajeshwaran couldn't eat it cos he is allergic to it.
There were some incidents happening across the state on that day. So we decided to leave early Sunday morning and collect on the way back.
I had asked Rajeshwaran earlier in the day if he wanted hermit crabs as they were found aplenty but he waved 'em away with a disgusted stare. One phone call to Massive Quotes Open SOMEONE Massive Quotes Close later, he decided he wanted atleast ten.
So the first stop on Sunday morning was to collect crabs. And yes, Rajeshwaran was all smiles after they were safely packed. Never has anyone packed and kept those insignificant things in a Styrofoam box!!!!!
The first spot we stopped at was useless. The water was extremely fast flowing and very deep too. The second spot was lovely. Proved perfect for collecting.
The spot.
Bala and Rajeshwaran collecting.
Pic : Krishna
Mystus
Pic : Krishna
Devario malabaricus
Pic : Krishna
Is this Puntius sarana???
Pic : Krishna
Channa punctata
And a few more species that we had collected on the previous day.
This was the only spot we collected in and we headed to Villupuram to drop Krishna off. Stopped for a small visit to his farm.
His Etroplus canarensis set up. I love it!!! Nothing complex. Just sand,rocks and some wood. The fish looked happy and healthy and another word starting with H too. They keep spawning repeatedly.
We skipped lunch and headed straight home.I managed to reach home by 6 pm richer by a dozen Mystus.
Take Outs :
i) Definitely warrants another trip. We hardly collected any brackish water fish. Maybe after the monsoons. Most of the spots were pools of water.
ii) Hermit Crabs work in mysterious ways.
iii) Saturday does not mean bad luck.
To part with, a recent pic of the Gastronomical Monster.
Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2011 10:20 am Post subject: Re: Trypanocide In Tranquebar
Awesome account but a very bad post to read in the when morning you havent had any breakfast...
the fish for stomach are first n last squid n second one is mostly mackerel.
Posted: Tue Aug 23, 2011 11:15 am Post subject: Re: Trypanocide In Tranquebar
That is seriously some sick trip.. awesome.. if you guys ever come this side let me know.. would love to join.. and btw which parota shop is that in madurai?
Awesome account but a very bad post to read in the when morning you havent had any breakfast...
the fish for stomach are first n last squid n second one is mostly mackerel.
Ha ha. This place is heaven for sea food. Unfortunately, we couldn't really experience it for want of time.
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