The tips that I am going to share with you are random. I still hope some of it might be of use to you.

• If you will not book your flight early, you will pay a high price or like me you will then go with a package tour because their cost looks more attractive. So if you wish to go to the Andaman Islands book your flight early.
• Port Blair is not really a beach destination, Havelock is. Neil Island is also said to be a beach destination. Though I have visited only Port Blair and Havelock.
• My package tour had more days at Port Blair and less at Havelock. If I could have it my way, I would spend more time at Havelock and less at Port Blair.
• But even at Port Blair there is plenty to do.
• Around Port Blair from whatever I have seen, I found the Wandoor Beach most beautiful.
• Remember that Andaman was penal colony at one time, so there is plenty of history to be discovered.
• Ross Island which is now in ruins used to be the British capital. I wonder how they made it in the wilderness.
• Anuradha is a very passionate guide at Ross Island, I was told she has been coming to the island for the past 40 years.
• Ross Island is full of red cheeked bulbuls.

• Viper Island used to be an open jail, there was nowhere to run to with fetters on the feet and miles of ocean all around.
• Snorkeling can be done at North Bay near Port Blair but I am not sure how clean is the equipment offered. But I still did it!

• The most moving (for me) bit for me was the light and sound show at the Cellular Jail which is where the political prisoners were kept. One of the tour guides admitted he cried when he watched it for the first time. I did not but managed it with great difficulty.
• To visit the limestone caves the vehicles move in a convoy to reach the Baratang area as the road passes through the Jarawa Tribel belt.
• One cannot click pictures in the tribal area without special permission but the tribal people do come near the convoy. There is a huge debate about this road and the tourism around it.
• Don’t miss on Scuba Diving. I did it at Havelock.
• The ferries from Havelock come back in the evening and the flights from Port Blair are in the mornings. So unless you have some way of getting back early, you will need to spend a day at Port Blair to catch your flight out.
• I was wondering that the Andamans (known as Kala Pani) became a tourism paradise from a penal colony in about 100 years, times sure do change!

Andamans. I’ve visualised it, and in the seconds that my mind was painting its picture on my blind eyes, I was smiling…laughing with glee! In my mind it holds a lot of beauty. The kind of beauty that my eyes welcome no matter what my spinning-wheel of emotions has stopped at.

Silence? There’s plentiful. Enclosed between each and every grain of sand on its white beaches.

Joy? Ceaseless. Like the blue waves that wash its shores.

Romance? Is ever present- in the way the stars shine there, dotting a perfectly navy blue sky; in the way the morning breeze rustles through palm leaves, scattering the sun’s warmth or in the solitude reflected by my own feet lavishing in the sand and leaving their imprints of love for travel behind…

Even noise, unity in chaos? Present. In the form of all people lucky enough to live there. And these people I imagine have a tolerance for other people’s weirdness. After all the beauty surrounding them, I believe it isn’t possible for them to see things as anything but beautiful.

It holds all the mystery of an undiscovered, pristine island for me. I imagine it is one of those few places where my laughter could ring true, it feels capable of being my escape without actually being an escape. It seems like one of those places which could turn me from a mountain person to a beach person. I just want to go there. It is a place which has the power to beckon. If it were a person it would be intriguing. Because it would be beautiful yet modest, bold but graceful and powerful yet calm. It would be a person who would have definitely been my friend.

There were many things that made me lose my heart to the place called Andamans. One of them was this mesmerizing picture. It has left a mark like none other and has inspired this small little write up on ‘What I expect out of my holiday in Andaman & Nicobar Islands’.

As I closed my eyes, this is all I could imagine -

The serene beach…

The greens, blues, whites, browns… the hues of the golden Sun…

The salty smell of the waters which was sweeter than honeysuckle…

The crunch of gravel and then the softness of the wet sand…

The perfect shape of my small footprints on the soil…

The soft touch of the flowers that my feet could feel as I tread on them, strewn all over the beach…

The beauty of what I saw when I closed my eyes for a moment to savor this…

It was like Andamans was making an irrevocable imprint on my soul, a mark of beauty, a mark of Life.

I have always imagined my morning to be like this whenever I get to holiday in Andamans. The Emerald Isle (better known as Andaman & Nicobar Islands) has always been one of the dream holiday destinations. And everytime I think of it, all I do is ‘smile’ and ‘anticipate’; whether it will be more beautiful than my imaginations or much more beautiful. Being less than what I think, is not a possibility, I am sure.

Andamans was already reaching up to my soul… mending repairs with each step that I took towards the sea. The horizon far ahead had a strange magnetic pull to it; as if the crashing waves had a lesson to teach, an answer to preach. The persistence of the beauty that I was witnessing and the song that nature was playing for me- were spelling perfection for me. At that very moment my feet met the water. The cool blue water. Had I known Bliss before? May be yes. May be no. But this moment was one of its kind.

I was having a rendezvous with life. Khayyam saab’s words reverbated in my ears – “Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.”

I closed my eyes and spread my hands to welcome the warmth that I was witnessing. The feel of embracing the winds, the light, the music – I felt as if I was being untangled ! The serene, impeccably clean and quiet beach of a far off island by the name Andaman was teaching me a great lesson of life – life is beautiful, very beautiful. If only you know how to celebrate the small, random things in life.

I was happy. Happy as I allowed ‘me’ to take over my own self while squatting at the beach for like hours, looking at passers by taking a stroll at the beach. Happy as I made doodles and meaningless pattern on the wet sand and saw them being washed away by the ferociously beautiful waves. Happy when the waves brought me back a beautiful stray shell as a memoir.

I was happy that I was having the best conversation with myself, that I was finding some part of myself which I had lost somewhere in the pace of life. I was happy that I was making friends with my best friend – myself!

I am not much of an adventure person. Yet, the coral reefs are the second priority on my list of to dos during this holiday. If I am done with romancing nature, I would definitely want to have a look at these marvels of nature. A fortnight or may be more, of ceaseless vistas of blue and beauty would be a perfect window to rejuvenate and emerge. A beach cottage would perhaps be the perfect place to be known as home then.

Andamans is different things for different people. Romantic getaways, adventure getaways, exploration getaways – you name it and you will find something in Andamans for sure. I do not know whether I go with friends or family. But, I know that I will have my moments of solitude. For me, it will always be a journey of finding peace, even if momentary. It is the place where I would want the mind and heart to come to confluence. In solidarity I would like to have the best companionship of my own self in a place like Andaman. It is where I am sure to find respite from life, where I am sure to find a better, simpler and more wanted life.

We spent one night in Port Blair in a nice guest house called Aashiaanaa, had dinner with a couple of Aussies Karim & Annie and got our 9am ferry to Havelock with no problems. We went for “chair” class as had no idea what anything was. As we boarded we were ushered past everyone else going into the main cabin, into a side cabin where there were 7 comfy chairs like on a plane with aircon and one porthole. There were 3 other people apart from us so we felt pretty posh. Very bizarre.

In Havelock we have a 8ft x 10ft hut consisting of a double bed with mosquito net, a sideboard, a ceiling fan, a lean-to ensuite at the back (painted pink) and a porch at the front. The hut is less than 100m from a small sandy beach and the blue blue sea. Lush.

First few days, bought a hammock, found 2 trees on the beach, laid and read in said hammock with calm relaxing waves in the background.

Hired a moped, neither of us had been on one before. Matt being main driver, me back-seat driver made our way along 12km of bumpy roads surrounded by rice paddies and jungle across to the North West side of the island to Radha-Nagar beach to watch the sun set. The return journey was more interesting with it being pitch black and raining. Made it back alive.

Started a PADI Open Water diving course on Tuesday with Dive India and did our first ever dive on Wednesday. Neither of us ever yearned for diving but as we were on an island with good diving we thought we’d give it a go. How do the American’s say it? Awesome.

On our 2nd dive we saw a turtle. A real-life sea turtle (a hawskbill) which was about half the size of me. Wow. Plus Nemo and his babies popped out of some sea anemones. The Longfin Bannerfish were also a favourite of mine. Also saw shoals of baby barracuda (we’d eaten a barbequed adult barracuda for our dinner the night before).

Today we had our 3rd and 4th dives which included a 4-year old shipwreck. Eerie but very cool. So many fish inside just bobbing side to side like some kind of ritualistic dancing. The best dive was the last one along the side of what was called “The Wall” which is a huge reef that drops down almost vertically about 55metres. We went down to 18m. There were so many shoals of different fish of all sizes. A lionfish covered with tentacles, large parrotfish with huge foreheads, an electric clam sparking away in it’s cubby-hole, a huge thick moray eel entangled in the reef where you could see glimpses of its long grey body and its head just poking out with it’s beavis and butthead jaw moving slowly up and down.

We couldn’t believe that so much life is going on just below the surface of the ocean. It’s fantastic. And whilst above water the winds were blowing and the current was strong, below the visibility was still good and it felt like another world. Very dream-like.

Fingers-crossed we pass the exam tomorrow so we’ll be qualified and so Matt can take a camera down and start snapping. He spotted their G10 in its underwater casing earlier and now can’t wait to get his hands on it and get into some underwater photography.

I just want to get back to the Full Moon cafe next to Dive India so we can have more roast chicken and excellent mashed potato. That’s the closest taste to home we’ve had since being in India. Plus homemade lemonade with fresh mint. Yum. The place is a really lovely chilled out place which I think it has something to do with the New Zealand girl who manages it. So many restaurants and hotels etc in India are run by men only and they just don’t get how a few nice touches here and there make a place so much more.  Like all food being served on a banana leaf on a plate. It’s a lovely idea.

Posted on November 15, 2010

It’s the Diwali festival of lights today. Such a shame it’s hardly stopped raining. We have been in the hut most of the day. I ventured to the beach to do a quick weather check earlier today only to see the storm coming once again across the sea towards me and by the time I’d run the 100m back to the hut I was drenched! We’ve heard the edge of a cyclone is hitting the island and it’s expected to stay for another few days. Just our luck! I’m glad we had a few days of sun. We met a couple at dinner who arrived on Tuesday and have had rain everyday. Ferries were cancelled for some of Wednesday and all of Thursday due to rough seas. They’d heard from a guy who arrived on the last ferry that only about 5% of the passengers managed to survive without being sick. Ugh.

Ooh Ooh we passed our PADI Open Water Diving certification. Whoop! We have our names down for diving again Sunday if the weather gets better and Matt’s shotgunned the underwater camera

Haven’t mentioned food much lately have I? Well as Havelock is pretty small there isn’t an abundance of restaurants and it’s been dark and rainy so we have been rotating in a triangular formation between Eldorado for basic noodles, paratha and puri, Anju-coco-resto across the road with good fish & prawns and Full Moon cafe, which admittedly I have mentioned but not enough. We had very good west indian fish curry and the scrummiest warm apple & cinnamon muffin today. I could have kissed the woman. I have been praying for good cake since leaving Darjeeling’s Cake Lady and it was delivered!

We tried to venture outside of our safety net this evening even though we risked getting wet and run over (no streetlights here and crazy moped & jeep drivers who only use their headlights sporadically) but failed miserably. First we headed to “World’s best pizza – cheap price” as we are desperate for pizza. On receipt of the menu it looked surprisingly similar to all the other places round here. Curry, chapati, pakora, etc etc. In one corner under “Veg dishes” one line said Pizza 100 rupees. Interesting we thought for a pizza place with such high claims of being the best in the world. On enquiring what pizza they had the guy innocently answered “one flavour of tomato sauce”. Of course, had to be tomato sauce. Because they have that with everything here. I thought Wendy ate a lot of ketchup but in India it’s served with anything you order. That and green chilli sauce which I love. Anyway we decided to leave as it had severely scared us. The only other couple in the restaurant said they’d found the name a little misleading too but had been too lazy to leave once they’d got there! This place is honestly losing out. If they were serving pizza, they’d make a killing. It doesn’t have to be the world’s best. Just any pizza with topping will be better than none when you’re claiming to be a pizza restaurant.

We wandered 15mins in the other direction to Sunrise Resort which we’d heard had OK food and was the busiest bar in the restaurant. Right. Any night except tonight yeah. Unless you call one old hippy sat alone staring out towards the trees a buzzing bar. I’m sure he’d been sat there in the exact same place when we’d checked out the accommodation last Friday lunchtime. Hope he’s still breathing.

So back to trusty Anju-coco we trotted for delicious fish special with garlic bread. Plus a special Diwali festival dish of rice pudding with cardamom. They’re not big on their puddings in India. Cake Lady needs to branch out!

Posted on November 18, 2010

8am I woke up looked out the window saw blue sky and was like a small child on Christmas morning jumping around over-excitedly. Sunbathing here we come!

I rushed over to order to brekkie whilst Matt dragged himself sleepily out of bed and into the shower. Just as he came out of the hut the black clouds swallowed up the blue and the rains descended.

And it’s rained and rained and rained and rained. All day.

Nowt else to say. Nowt much to do on an island when it rains. Apart from eat, read, eat. Perhaps a bit of thought about what to do with the rest of our lives. (Didn’t get far with that). More eating (we found dairy milk and it was goooood – not all shrivelled up like the mars bar – like proper Cadbury chocolate you have in a selection box. So I did get to be a bit of a kid at Christmas today after all).

And in a brief moment between downpours I managed to capture a photo of one of the beautiful butterflies they have in India.

Happy 1st Anniversary to John & Kelly Wass! Can’t believe it’s been a whole year since your wedding. Time has flown. Miss you guys lots!

Our last day of diving today. It rained all night long heaviest we’d heard and was still raining at 6am when the alarm went off. But by the time we boarded Hammerhead the blue sky was winning and Matt has his first sunburn of the Andaman Islands.

We didn’t quite realise whilst sat on the boat in our “shortie” wetsuits quite how strong the sun was. So both of us have really  attractive sunburn marks just above the knees.

We were taken on a 90min boat ride to South Bottom dive point which was a small island surrounded by reef so had a longer day with much chilling on the boat whilst passing acres of mangroves. And Matt was able to take the camera – hooray! He got some really good photos which I’ll make sure he puts here. Saw a lot of the same fish as before plus  a crocodile fish lying in the sand and some red striped clown fish.

Only 2 proper days left on Havelock. Sad times. Please sun keep shining….

Posted on November 18, 2010

Sun is shining yay!

Spent most of Monday on our lovely little bit of secluded beach. Matt in the hammock hiding from the sun and me in as much sun as poss. Had bar-b-q fish again for dinner at Pellicon. This time we had the biggest chunk of tuna fillet I’ve ever seen and a delicious Silverfish marinated in tandoori sauce.  Delish.

Tuesday we decided to get up for sunrise. Alarm set for 5am, we dragged ourselves out at 5.15. Mr Sun was already half up but it was still pretty. The tide was out which reveals lots of old coral rocks and leaves lots of sealife behind like bigger rock-camouflaged crabs and teeny blue fishes swimming through the coral tunnels.

Hired a moped and headed to the jetty to buy ferry tickets for Wednesday. Matt offered to “queue” whilst I sat and alternated between watching him get elbowed out the way by 80-year old women and watching two kids (baby goats) skipping around trying not to get run over by rickshaws whilst eating anything they could get their teeth into.

Went on a bit of a joyride towards the south of the island and found the elephant training camp which was deserted apart from one guy in a hut whose only words were “Don’t come back”. We didn’t realise at the time that the elephants are trained for logging and later two went stomping down the road as we were sat at a cafe covered in logging chains with men shouting at them continuously. It was terrible really and we’re glad we hadn’t seen any at the training camp.

In the evening we went back to Radha Nagar beach (beach no. 7) and kind of watched the sun set behind clouds. An effigy from the recent festival was sat on the beach without a head. So Matt felt obliged….

The beaches here are covered in hermit crabs of all sizes plus small white crabs that are almost invisible and can move extremely quickly. I have a video of one moving in and out of it’s home in the sand. Unfortunately videos are a pain to upload on here so will have to put in on YouTube. Instead here’s a photo of the patterns they make on the sand:

And here’s a hermit crab:

Our last night in the hut on Havelock and had a lovely surprise when I popped to the bathroom at 2am.  I usually take a few seconds to survey the bathroom to check for cockroaches so you can imagine my pleasure at spotting a snake slithering around the floor by the loo. I thought I was going to have a heart attack! Fortunately our bathroom is quite long and the door is at the opposite end to the loo so didn’t get too close to it, shot out, slammed the door shut and shouted for my knight in white shining armour to save me. Matt clambered sleepily out of bed and apparently his first thought was where’s my camera? But as I was in such a state he bravely went to investigate minus the camera whilst I flitted around babbling about the possibilities it could be hiding behind the loo and be ready to jump out at any moment. But the rascal had fled the scene so was probably more scared of me than I was of it. Who knows what we’d have done if it had still been there though. Anyone know how to catch a snake? Matt probably would have been setting the ISO on his 7D in an instant.

I’m glad that it occurred on our last night and not our first otherwise I’m not sure I could have stayed in that hut for 11 more nights. Matt had often used the bathroom in the middle of the night and not switched on the light so as not to disturb me. Wonder what creatures could have been lurking in there then…

More sunbathing Wednesday and as we looked at the clear turquoise sea with other islands on the horizon we realized we could have easily spent a few more days doing absolutely nothing on the beach and maybe another day of diving. But good to leave on a high and we know we want to see much more of the world too.

So back to Port Blair we went on our ferry sat in “seat” class this time. Which was cheaper and comfy enough. We just had more people to stare at us or not very subtly try to take our photos. As we were the only westerners in the room. But we’re getting used to the stares. Even those when you look up and they keep staring.

Managed to get back into Aashiaanaa Guest House and found the LP recommended restaurant Lighthouse Residency for dinner.  We felt like we were in a Fawlty Towers episode. All the waiters wore black waistcoats and bowties like Manuel. And we had about 4 guys trying to take our food & drinks order at different times. We’d order from one, another would come and ask us what we wanted to drink and we’d try and explain that we’d already ordered but he didn’t understand and tried taking our order again. Then they didn’t have what I wanted so I had to choose again and then a 3rd guy came and tried to take our order again and trying to explain when the others had once again disappeared was hysterical. That makes no sense whatsoever and doesn’t sound funny at all does it. Guess you had to be there.

Reproduced from Matt & Karen’s Blog – http://bit.ly/rrZnTZ

The islands started to cast their magic spell even before we had landed. We could see the lush green islands with marquis-blue sea all around from our airplane windows – I now understood why the Andamans are called Emerald Isle.

We had already shortlisted a few hotels but could not see the other options as we quite liked Sinclairs Bayview, the first one on the list. Almost every room offers you a marvelous view of the bay. The manager gave us a good deal as it was off-season time but you would be well advised to book your hotel in advance if you are visiting the Andamans islands during peak-season (September to March).

We had lunch in the hotel itself (it has a pretty good restaurant) and set off for the Corbyn’s Cove, the only beach in Port Blair. After spending some time at the beach and trying the local kulfi-malai (nice taste but too sweet for me), we went to the Cellular Jail. The stories of the great patriots who spent a part of their lives in the dreaded ‘kaala-pani’ came alive. The son-et-lumiere (light and sound show) narrated spine-chilling tale of how the patriots were made to live an inhuman life in the jail and moved us to tears. They spent the best time of their lives behind bars suffering torture and humiliation so that we can be free. I salute their sacrifice – Vande Mataram.

We had our dinner at the lovely Icy-Spicy vegetarian restaurant. While it serves a very good variety of veg food, the highlight of this place is that the lights at the restaurant wear a diferent colour every day. The owner told me that every day of the week has a different colour associated with it as per Vaastu and they light up the place with the ‘right’ colour everyday. While there, you must definitely try the variety of offerings at their sweet shop upstairs. I particularly liked their soan-papdi and gulab jamuns very much.

We were to visit the Havelock island, arguably the best place in the Andamans the next day and I went to sleep dreaming about the beaches, the exciting scuba diving and snorkeling that we will be experiencing at the Havelock.

Day 2
You have already read about our first day at Port Blair. On the 2nd day, we were booked on the Makruzz, a catamaran that was to take us to the Havelock Island. I recommend that you take the deluxe class (there are premium, deluxe and royal classes) as this offers the best view. The royal class has leather seats and lots of privacy but does not provide a good view. You can buy snacks and soft drinks or coffee onboard though these are a tad expensive (expected, no?). It is a beautiful 2 hour inter-island journey.

MV Makruzz - Private catamaran

The Havelock island is a very laid back place and does not offer the typical luxuries of a big city but you will be bowled oer by the lush green ambience and the sea all around. We tried a few places on our hotel/resort checklist but were greeted by rude staff who showed us small and expensive rooms. I am sometimes surprised at how the reception people can afford to have “I don’t care” attitude towards guests who are checking in at the place.

Finally we landed at the Munjoh Ocean Resort, a recently developed property where we met a very friendly Avinash who showed us around the different type of rooms. We settled for the Garden Cottage, with 2 well appointed rooms and a living room in the middle. This was the perfect place for us (couple with 2 grown up kids). You can also check out Barefoot Resort (apparently the best), Wild Orchid and Silver Sands. There are several other resorts at different budget levels that offer decent rooms and you would be spoilt for choice.

So what do you do in the evening? The only option – visit Radhanagar Beach (beach 7).  It was recognised as the best beach in Asia by Times magazine. You should definitely try having green coconut water from one of the several vendors just outside the beach area. We had a great time playing in the water and swimming as there are plenty of large waves hitting the shore every few seconds. The lovely view of the sunset behind the dense Mahua forests is  enchanting and Shubhangam went crazy with his new toy, a Canon DSLR camera shooting more than 300 pics in about 2 hours. We had a lovely continental dinner at the Blue Betel cafe, served by Mukesh, a very helful and ever-smiling attendant.

We were very excited about the upcoming scuba dive on the next day and went to sleep talking about the fun that is going to engulf us – well – literally.

Day 3:

I hope you are enjoying reading about our Port Blair and Havelock tour. We were very excited about our scuba dive and landed at the Dive India centre bang at 7.15 am after having a quick breakfast at Munjoh. Man, they were ready with the wet suits, rubber shoes, air tanks and all the other stuff. We tried out the wet suits and went through a simple but very reassuring intro by Mandy. All our worries were laid to rest by him. Yeah – even complete newbies like us could explore the underwater world of corals and fish. We got in the boat and set off for the diving site near the lighthouse.

Once we anchored there, we got down in the water and Rohit and Melissa showed us the different exercises. Can we really breathe through our mouth using the regulator mouthpiece? What if water gets in our mouth? What if water enters the mask? What if the mouth piece slips out of the mouth while we are underwater? Funny people – they answered every question with a confident “No problem”.

After doing some practice in shallow water, we were ready for our dive. And what an experience this was. It felt like we have broken an invisible barrier and entered into another beautiful world where the coral and the fish are within a few cms. of our hands. We felt like Alice who had just stepped into the Wonderland.

Scuba Diving at Havelock

While we were underwater for a much smaller duration, Shubhangam stayed underwater for almost 50 minutes and we all had absolutely no mood to go back. Alas, all good things come to an end and we were soon riding back to the Diveindia centre, sipping on hot tea and eating some really nice samosas.

The afternoon was spent resting at the resort as we were very tired.

In the evening, we were back up to do some more exploring. We took a jeep and visited Kala Patthar, a smaller but quite beautiful beach further down the road. We had an amazing view of the sunset from there. On the way back, we went to the village no. 3 for some time and rounded off with a good dinner at Barefoot Scuba Resort.

We were to look at the sea again the next day – this time through the snorkeling expedition. Stay tuned!

I was very sceptic of snorkelling. What is the point for going snorkelling when we have done scuba diving already? But we went ahead anyway. This time, we took a speed boat from the jetty to the Elephant beach. This was a much longer ride and the water was choppy adding to the splash and fun.

Ah, so the snorkling trip is a lot of fun too. This requires much lesser effort (we did not have to swim as the boatsman took us inside the sea) and since there was much lesser splashing around, we did get to see lots of fish and coral. I was amazed to see the sea bottom even at 15 meter depth level and was very happy to spot several starfish, barracuda and parrot fish in addition to so many other varieties whose names I cannot recall. Mind you, we are just scratching the surface and there is a big and very beautiful sea life to be explored, if you dare to take the dive (well literally).

Sunset at Havelock

The second half of the day was largely uneventful though we had a very lovely brunch at B3 (Barefoot, Bar and Brasserie) at the Jetty. We finally left Havelock Island for Port Blair aboard the government ferry as Makruzz was not sailing on that day. Most of the time we were on the deck appreciating the vast expanse of water and watching a very beautiful sunset. A bit of advice – do whatever it takes to travel aboard Makruzz and not the government ferry. The two have no comparison in terms of facilities and comfort.