The yearn to travel is an ode to the desire of breaking free from the monotony of regular life. All said and done, we are nothing but memories at the end. The more we travel, the more stories we gather, and the richer we get through the plethora of vivid experiences that we have. Additionally, getting to experience the culture of a place far away from one’s own, and being able to learn from the ways of living of the local populace is an extremely enthralling opportunity which is irresistible in more ways than one. I still hold the notions that I expressed in my last blog post on the Arunachal trip – to me, travelling will always be a therapeutic experience which I would not trade for anything else.
The Andaman Islands had been sitting on my bucket list for a long time. With the innumerous tales I had heard about its pristine beauty and the turquoise waters that it offers, in stark juxtaposition to that of the coastal beaches – it was finally time to hit India’s eastern archipelago. In retrospect, it was one of the best tours I have had the opportunity to embark on – replete with smiles, surprises and spontaneous adventures that made it all the more fulfilling.
Planning the nitty-gritties
Some musings for having the Andaman trip started one fine day from the confines of a meeting room in my office – possibly the last of places one can expect such plans to be charted! But could I expect any less from a bunch of free-spirited travel-freaks, who luckily also happen to be my colleagues? We were a group of five folks, a truly diverse pan-Indian group, and with a shared hunger to explore the unknowns. The trip was to be done in the first week of September – essentially when the South-West Monsoon still prevails over the Bay of Bengal at large. This meant that we were heading for the Andamans in an off-season, with most travelling during the winters. A consensus was also arrived at to plan independently without the aid of a travel agency, so that we gain on the flexibility to customise our plans extensively, besides the obvious bit of saving on commissions.
We booked our flight tickets at the earliest – a return trip to Port Blair and back home (Chennai) costed us around ten thousand rupees on average. This was a steal as the mean fare can be higher during other slots. The next logical step would be to plan the itinerary – but as first-time travellers to Andaman, how do we ensure that we have the best plan on our hands? Of course – one way is to do a LOT of extensive research, studying multiple travel blogs and devouring recommendations. This is too tedious – and frankly can make one even more confused with the variety of opinion on the internet. It clicked to me that a service like ChatGPT can essentially do all of the planning given a custom input. This is an exact snippet of the prompt I fed to the system, and it worked out all the details for us.
The only area where we invested some time scavenging the internet was to ascertain good accommodations at the destinations we would be put up. The bookings were all done online – and with the prevalence of card offers these days, one can save a fair bit applying the right offers.
Lo and behold – before we realised, the D-Day had arrived. It was time to pack the bags and jet off to the tropical paradise of the Andamans!
First Impressions: Port Blair tales
Port Blair sits in the South Andaman Islands, surrounded by the Bay of Bengal on all sides. A flight from Chennai takes around two hours to reach the capital. The view from the aircraft enroute Andaman, especially moments before the landing, is spectacular. The sighting is better on days where the weather is clearer, but even with not-so-perfect skies, we couldn’t complain much. Here is how some snaps looked like:
The airport, named after the famed freedom fighter Veer Savarkar, has been recently upgraded to meet the growing passenger footfall. Our hotel, Lemon Tree, was only about 500 metres from the airport – arguably the shortest ‘walk’ to a hotel from the airport – it was funny! We checked in, had our lunch, and planned to visit the Cellular Jail in the evening.
The Cellular Jail was one of the largest jail premises in British India and was meant to hold those captives who stoked sentiments in favour of India’s independence or secession from the British rule. Surrounded by water on all sides, a trip to the Andaman Islands back in those days would mean a complete cut-off from all socialization besides being subject to unthinkable hardships and torture. With all its chequered history and legacy, a walk through the Cellular Jail campus humbled us into evaluating what freedom truly means to us. We were also able to catch an evening light-and-sound show at the jail premises taking us through a hundred years of its history, which was deeply moving to say the least. The ticket to the show needs to be pre-booked through an official portal online.
We returned to our hotel post the show and spent the night at leisure. We had a ferry to Havelock Island (Shaheed Dweep) the next day, and couldn’t hold our excitement at our first ferry trip to the island!
A Heaven called Havelock
There are a couple of ferry options to reach Havelock Island from Port Blair. One option is the government-run ferries, which typically are much cheaper, and the other to book through private ferry operators. However, I would recommend booking through the private operators (Makruzz/Green Line/Nautica) as they are less crowded and offer much better comfort and experience. Most ferries would take an hour and a half to reach Havelock from the Port Blair jetty.
We chose SeaShell Havelock as our stay. We were highly satisfied with how the resort was run and the property in general. We had individual cottages booked, which were not too far from each other. The property is nestled in greenery and the ambience is very calming. The best part was that our cottage even had a hammock to it – oh the joys of swinging without a worry in the hammock!
Given that we had reached in the afternoon, we quickly had our lunch at the in-house restaurant, which we savoured. The plan was to visit the Radhanagar beach in the evening – a famed beach with white sands where sunsets are known to be surreal. And boy did it deliver! Despite all the odds stacked against us with a downpour being predicted – the rain gods had mercy and unfurled the last of the sunrays against the dreamy purple sky. It was a sight I would never forget.
The evenings were mostly free as most commercial activity on the islands shut by six at best in the evening. We were engaged in exploring the resort and took a dip in the pool to cool ourselves.
Cut to day two at Havelock, and we started our day by heading out for scuba diving. This was a early morning activity, around 6 AM. We reached the diving academy where we had to fill up mandatory declaration forms at the outset. A charge of โน5500/- per head was incurred, as we chose to do ‘boat dive’, meaning that we go a little further into the bay where we dive instead of doing it near the shoreline. The activity started with us gearing up in our special scuba suits – they also provide additional equipment like an oxygen tank, an actuator and water-tight goggles. This is followed by an instruction session where one is taught the foundations of the dive alongside some hand signals. The most important one, to me, was to know how to equalise the pressure at the eardrums when you go deeper towards the seabed. It is quite easy, and one is also guided by an experienced and certified scuba diver. We got up in a shared boat that took us towards our diving spot – and we backflipped our way into the sea!
This was an incredibly good memory that will stay with me forever. The pleasures of being able to experience sea life in person, and be able to interact with schools of fish around you, is crazy! I was also able to spot multiple living corals on the dive. The whole dive lasted somewhere around thirty to forty minutes, but it still felt like a very small time as we could take in the experience for as long as we could afford – it was that beautiful.
While we initially had a plan to visit the Kala Pathar beach during the second half, our flexible itinerary allowed us to change it to visit the eponymously named ‘Secret Beach’ – mostly a secret as no tourists are allowed into it. We were made aware of the existence of such a place by the diving academy proprietor – with whom we had a good chat earlier post our dive sessions. However, visiting the beach needed some persuasion with the police authority, who allowed us on the condition that we had a guide along. Fortunately for us, our Havelock driver agreed to tag along. The entire trek is around forty-five minutes one-way, through dense forest where nothing else exists. You only hear the cacophony of the forest; the raindrops falling on the leaves below, and obnoxious tree branches blocking whatever ‘path’ there is every few metres. However, once we reached the beach – there was no regret for all the efforts we put. We were the only people in that space – and it is in these very moments that you truly feel one with nature.
Nothing like Neil
After an adventure filled stay at Havelock, we were craving for more! The next leg in our journey was to explore Neil Island, the smaller of the two major islands in the vicinity of Port Blair. We had an early morning ferry from Havelock through the Green Ocean liner – this time, we had an open deck access. It is a beautiful experience traversing through the high seas with waves crashing onto the bow of the ship – and with light rain in the background, the scenes were as pretty as one could imagine.
True to its name – the waters in Neil Island were as clear as glass! I was delighted to see the shade and went into my shutterbug mode. The captures on camera will not do justice to what the eyes can make, but here is my attempt anyway:
At Neil, we were to stay only for a day. Here as well, we were staying with the SeaShell brand, more specifically the SeaShell Samsarra at Neil Island. The Samsarra is a luxury resort and the property was well crafted. However, because we did not have much time at hand, we only put down our luggage at the hotel rooms, had some elementary freshening up, and moved on to our next destination(s) for the day – the Bharatpur Beach and the Natural Bridge.
The Bharatpur Beach is an exquisite beach, but because of the lunar cycles we reached at a time when there was a low tide. This meant that the water had moved away from the beach, and thus we were not able to capture the beach in its full glory unlike the Radhanagar beach earlier.
Whatever we missed out because of our ill luck at the Bharatpur Beach was more than compensated for what we saw at the Natural Bridge. The natural bridge is a bridge carved out of dead corals over thousands of years – and still standing strong. We also took the aid of a local ‘marine guide’ who follows tour parties towards the natural bridge and gives them a flavour and background towards understanding the many intricacies that surround the place. Did you know, for one, that sea cucumbers are extremely expensive species for trade and are used to treat cancer? That the sea urchins are lethal and must not be fiddled with? These, and many more were some of the interesting facets we got to know about. Of course, we could not leave without a few good clicks.
Return to Port Blair
The final leg of our journey involved a return to Port Blair from Neil. However, the trip was far from over as we were soon to find out. But before I go into the details surrounding our escapades at Port Blair – as they say, twice is the charm – I must mention our AirBnB, which was truly a gem of a find. This was called ‘Villa by the Sea’ and is hosted by Zakir.
Our local Port Blair driver-cum-guide suggested us to hit the ‘Mundapahad’ mountain trek and cover the ‘Suicide Point’ viewpoint. Pretty weird name for a spot so serene, but it is what it is. As always – due to the cramped arrival times we had picked for ourselves – we had to settle for lunch on the road. We reached the Mundapahad trek point just past the edge of the allowed entry slots, but some hard bargaining let us through. We were doing yet another forest trek (woohoo!), but this time it was only more challenging. The entire climb uphill was strenous, albeit fun, but a lot of slush all along made it extremely challenging. We laboured through, motivating each other to push the extra mile – and we did make it to the top. For me, this was the best part of the trip – I had nothing more I could expect from one single trip. To me, this was salvation. The view was so ethereal that it felt like I had attained moksha.
Our excitement was soon to convert into bewilderment as the distant clouds rolled in at a pace faster than we could presume. This evidently left us perched atop a mountain, with no umbrellas, exposed to the heavy rains that lash a tropical paradise like the Andamans. This was also another core memory- I had the time to record it while I could.
The climb down was even more challenging than when we had made it up. This is because with the heavy rain, the already slush-filled path had turned even more trickier – unlike the Secret Beach trek which was on a flat level, this essentially had elements of climbing down a mountain. Add to that the fact that we were all drenched in totality, that evening was quickly dawning on us, and even the light was receding behind the horizon faster than we would have liked – in a nutshell, we were in a bit of a soup. We backed each other on the climb down – all alone, unaccompanied – as it was too late for other folks to be on the same route as us. We did manage to get to the base of the trek – and thanked God for the experiences that we just had, and the fact that these were truly, once-in-a-lifetime experiences.
We travelled back to our cozy AirBnB stay where we had nothing else planned for the evening. After all the travel through the day, it was only natural that we would fall asleep soon. And that we did.
The next day was our penultimate day, before we wrapped up our trip. We had to visit Baratang Island – in the Middle Andamans – through the Jarawa tribe reserve. The Baratang Islands has a unique Limestone cave, which we were to visit. The journey started early, as only four convoys are allowed into the Jarwa reserve each day, and we targeted the 9AM slot as we wanted to make it back the same day. The Jarwas are one of the native Andamanese tribes, but over time they have gotten closer to the modern humans. They are the least aggressive of the other Andamanese tribes, the most being the Sentinelese. We were lucky to catch a glimpse of them during our journey on the convoy. However, any photography involving the Jarwas is strictly prohibited. We moved past the Jarwa reserve area and then had to take a ferry to go to Baratang Island, from where we had to take another motor boat to reach the Limestone cave. The motorboat traverses through a mangrove route, which was noteworthy. It reminded me of our Great Sunderbans of Bengal, the largest Deltaic region in the world.
The Limestone cave is a natural formation that has been delicately put into existence through the synergies of natural working. We explored stalactites and stalagmites, besides other patterns of interest within the caves.
Bidding Goodbye
With us having covered the last day in Port Blair, it was now time to say a fitting good-bye to the Andaman Islands! What a trip this had been – everyone was happy to have been a part of it and were carrying back loads of memories for themselves. We had a flight to Chennai booked around 1 in the noon, so we checked out of AirBnB early. We headed out to a gift shop before packing our lunches, which we ultimately had in the airport itself.
Trips like these are much needed – not only do they rejuvenate our souls, but also provide important perspectives on where we fit in the universe. More often than not, our minds condition us to believe that we are at the center of things, that we drive events around, and the like. It is very rarely the case. Travelling sets the notion right – it tells you that your place in the universe is that of a visitor, who is meant to arrive, appreciate, and depart. One has no business beyond that.
I would highly recommend an Andaman trip for anyone sitting on the fence. It is worth it if you happen to make it, down to each penny. With all the exploration we did, we still could only cover a fraction of what Andaman has to offer. Plan ahead, and plan well – you are in for a treat of a lifetime!
3 responses to “The Great Andamanese Escapade: Experiences of a lifetime”
Wow wonderful pictures. Thode der k liye I feel k mai bhi waha thi..
Nice escapade, I’ll try to copy your itinerary without the forest treks when I finally go ๐
Andaman is on the cards for years but this blogs tempts me to plan as early as I can. ๐
Wonderfully put your experience into words.