Holy Stones are rocks/coral that have a natural hole all the way through it by years of water/ocean eroding it. One in our group travels to Thailand a lot and he told us they represent good luck.

Regarding the manual transmission-Yes, we had a safari truck and it was the nicest one I have seen down there! It had a nice cover over the back of it and the seats were very nice. It was night and day difference compared to the trucks we used in Anegada