We had not originally planned to go to the Andaman Islands but after many conversations with a French acquaintance in Auroville, we were convinced that this was a stop that must be included in our itinerary. However, getting to the islands was more challenging than we had anticipated. We were informed by our acquaintance that the islands were reachable by plane or by boat, the boat being the less expensive option. With this information, we asked the travel agencies around Auroville if they could help us reserve some boat tickets, but every one if them answered that they could only book plane tickets and that we had to make our way to the port to obtain the tickets. This would have been fine if the port was not a three hour bus ride away. We resolved to call the reservation counter to find out if there were tickets available since the boat was scheduled to set sail at the end of that week and, with only three sailings per month, tickets were limited. With a little bit of luck, anlot of patience and some perseverance we were able to buy two tickets for the next sailing that month. A few days later, we were waving goodbye to the mainland and sailing towards the Andaman Islands.
The boat left on Friday evening and arrived at Port Blair, the main port in the islands, on Monday morning. We spent a total of two full days and three nights in the boat. There was not very much to do besides looking out at the ocean and catching up on a few blogs.
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are a group of islands off the east coast of India. They are so far from the mainland that they are in a different time zone, but since the Indian government wants all of India to function on the same clock, the islands use the same time as the mainland. This means that instead of rising at 6h30 and setting at 18h30, the sun rises at 5h30 and sets at 17h30. Port Blair, where all planes and boats arrive, is an island that was used by the British as a prison for many Indian freedom fighters. The prison, though it us no longer used as a prison, has become the island's main attraction.
Port Blair was a stop over until we were able to get a ticket for the ferry to Havelock, a nearby island. We had hopes to leave Port Blair the same day we arrived, but because we were misinformed and told to wait for tickets, we missed the 11am and the 2 pm ferry despite being at the ticket counter at 8 am. This was a very disappointing set-back that forced us to stay the night in Port Blair. Fortunately, we were able to obtain tickets for the 6 am ferry leaving the next morning. Being misinformed turned out to be a good thing since it allowed s time to buy some snorkeling gear in the Port Blair bazaar, which was cheaper than buying it on the island, and we had no problem finding a room in Havelock since we were on the first ferry. Our luck continued when we found a small hut not too far from the main village for only 300 rupees a night (about 6CAD!). A few days later, the resort manager was renting the neighboring huts for 600-800 rupees a night, the price depending on his mood at that moment.
The villages in Havelock island have no names and instead are numbered from one to seven. The main village is village number three and our hut was in village number five. The beach near our hut was nice but we had heard rumors that the beach in village number seven was the best. With this information, we set off for beach number seven the next morning. We knew that one of the two city buses could bring us there so we walked to village number three and waited for the bus. The bus arrived with its usual lateness and we sat in the only available seats, at the rear of the bus. The bus ride lasted about 20 minutes during which we were bounced around the bus like popcorn! The roads were not in good condition and the bus was in an even more pitiful state. There were times when we no longer touched our seats and could only hope that we would land on them and not in the aisle. The bus driver sped down the winding road constantly honking his horn, as many Indian drivers do, while carrying on a conversation that seemed to require quite a bit of hand gestures considering he was driving bus. Once we arrived at beach number 7, we were blown away by its vastness and beauty. It felt as if we had walked into a postcard. The sand was white, there was an abundance of trees lining the beach and it was almost deserted! We walked along the beach until we found a spot that pleased us, we took out our snorkeling gear and headed out for a swim. Unfortunately, much of the coral that lines the beach has died as a result of the 2004 tsunami. After our swim, we walked along the beach and found a nearby lagoon where there had recently been a crocodile spotting and as a result, there was an armed guard warning beach goers to not swim in that area. We did not see any crocodiles but we didn't test our luck with a swim in the lagoon.
After a full day at the beach, we got back on the bouncing bus and made our way to the main village. We found a restaurant with some fresh fish and ordered a whole fish to share. The selection depended on the daily catch, but we were always able to choose the fish we wanted and the sauce we wished to have with the fish. The meal included a small salad, a bit of rice and some french fries, and the total price was around 250 rupees, or 5CAD. We ate fresh fish and shrimp at almost every restaurant we went to. Not far from our guest house, there was a restaurant which we had been told was very good, and when we ate there we discovered Banoffee pie. More of a cake than a pie, it consisted of layers of bananas, crushes graham crackers and a caramel sauce. Though we had never heard of banoffee pie, we later found out that it is a well known and popular dessert in many countries. This is definitely a recipe that I will be looking up!
We continued to go to beach number 7 every morning and it never ceased to amaze us. We eventually walked in the opposite direction of the lagoon to explore the reef on the other end of the beach. The snorkeling here was much better and we saw countless fish of different colors. We enjoyed this end of the beach much more and never returned to our initial spot near the lagoon. On one of our snorkeling trips we saw some sea turtles, which was completely amazing, a small octopus, a sting ray and a few dolphins. That day was the most impressive day of snorkeling we had in the islands.
One late afternoon, as we were lounging on the beach, we saw an elephant with his trainer in his back slowly walking our way and disappear into the trees just before reaching us. It was the most surprising encounter we could have made at that moment. After that initial sighting, we saw him a few more times and were just as amazed as the first time!
We saw many people with hammocks hung outside their huts and hung on trees on the beach. Marco really wanted a hammock to take naps in so we went shopping in the two stores that sold hammocks and found one to his liking. It was great to hang it on the beach and lie in it while looking at the ocean.
Our hut neighbors were a young couple from Luxembourg who were also traveling to India for the first time. They were both enthusiastic and expressive people with whom we spent many days until they left to catch their flight to Kolkata. Thanks to them, Marco was able to open his first fresh coconut and we were able to enjoy it as a snack on the beach. There were many coconut trees around our guesthouse and they regularly fell allowing us to collect them and eat them! As delicious as they were, the coconuts were also a source of danger. We heard stories about them falling through the roofs made of palm leaves. Thankfully, we had a metal roof on our hut but there was still the danger of them falling while we were walking on the streets. We heard that there are about 20 people a year that die as a result of a falling coconut, though we never verified this information.
One problem that we encountered while in the islands is finding sunblock. Because the sun is so strong, we eventually ran out and had to start shopping for more sunblock. The only ones we found at first were either with a skin whitening agent, which we really did not want, or they were imitation banana boat sunblocks with many spelling mistakes in the descriptions. We eventually found one that suited our needs and the only problem we found were white streaks that appeared after having gone for a swim.
The other problem that we had was finding an Internet connection. When in a city on the mainland, we expected to pay around 20 to 30 rupees for one hour of Internet usage. On the islands, the least expensive Internet cafe charged 120 rupees an hour and the Internet was excruciatingly slow and unreliable! It took us two hours to try and book plane tickets online and at the final step to confirm the tickets, the system crashed and we were not able to complete the transaction. We ended up having to go to a travel agency and pay the hefty commission to obtain our plain tickets off the island.
We heard quite a few funny stories while on the islands but the best one involved Indian tourists who go to the islands to snorkel but don't know how to swim. In these cases, they each require a swimming guide to hold them while they are in the water so that they don't drown. We heard that the ones who think they know how to swim are worse than the ones who can't swim at all because they make attempts at swimming by kicking and flailing their arms, making it that much more difficult for the guide to hold them.
We spent 18 memorable nights on Havelock islands filled with good times, new friends and lots of sunshine. We flew out of Port Blair on February 18th and headed to Kolkata.