It has been a while since I blogged. All the interesting things on returning to India started irritating me as I got sucked into the daily grind. And when I found something interesting to blog about, time was not on my side. All cribbing aside -
In this post I am going to blog about my trip to the Andaman Islands, where I went for my honeymoon. Without delving too much into geographic details, this is an island off the Indian mainland in the Bay of Bengal with tropical climate (short unpredictable spells of rain at all times during the time of the year when I visited)– about 2 ½ hours (by flight) away from Chennai or Kolkata. Port Blair is the capital city and has an Indian army base set up there. We traveled by flight & all flights to Andaman land at its capital - Port Blair.
Day-1: Port Blair
Our entry into Port Blair was rocking in the truest sense. I must have to say that Indians (in general – however there are exceptions) are not the most civilized travelers. The volume of background chatter in this particular flight surprised me. There was heavy turbulence in the last half hour and just before landing, the pilot had to abort, pull up again and land from a different approach. The wonderful sounds of people throwing up and prayers to appease the wrath of the turbulence gods replaced the chatter.
We reached the resort and after catching up on sufficient sleep, we set out to explore Port Blair. The first place that we planned to see was the Cellular Jail @ Port Blair and watch a light and sound show there. I must have to admit that the ride from the resort to the Jail was like being in an awesome James Bond movie in some exotic European / Italian location that had winding roads bordering the ocean. And what is the first thing we see after such an awesome ride – The Gallows of a prison to mark the start of a honeymoon (gee how romantic!!!). The light and sound show later that evening filled in on the details of the atrocities committed by the men in uniform. This was accompanied by background sounds of whiplashes / prisoners screaming etc. My wife and I could not stop exchanging glances that had - W T F???? Imprinted on our faces. That was all the awesomeness we could handle and called it a day.
Day-2: North Bay and Ross Island
North Bay was called the “sports complex” where you could snorkel, scuba dive, ride a Jet boat, see corals from a transparent glass-bottom boat, go on some ride called “banana ride” that actually drives you bananas. Apparently, a group of people sit on a banana shaped raft that is towed by a speedboat and somewhere, the banana overturns dumping everyone into the water. So here, we tried to see some corals from the glass bottom boat – not much was visible due to lack of sunlight / dirty glass at the bottom of the boat / combination of both. We then did something apparently called snorkeling – we just walked on water with the totally douche looking glasses fitted with a breathing pipe and tried to see something near our feet. That is a “Coral” – we were told as the guide pointed his toe at something. I could neither see his toe nor the thing he was pointing at. It was like looking for a lost coin in a water tank that had not been cleaned for a decade. So after some spectacular fiascos, we headed to Ross Island.
Ross Island was the place where the British officers posted at Andaman lived. Man!!! I must give it to the British – they knew how to live. You could walk around this Island in about an hour. It was filled with deers & peacocks. It was a wonderful sight to see herds of deers swiftly swish past us when they heard their call for food (it was their feeding time).
The evening concluded with a “romantic candle light dinner” at a cove by the beachside. This was seriously awesome. The sound of beach waves kissing the shore was like soothing music to the ears. The food served was fantastic by a spectacular waiter whose hospitality was admirable. It was a thoroughly splendid evening to end the day.
Day-3: Havelock
I would say that this was the beginning of awsmness. Havelock is a 2½-hour ferry ride from Port Blair. We traveled by a ferry – M. V. Bambooka. I really liked the name – so I mention it here. We were there at an off season and were surprised to find out that there were ONLY 2 people in the resort – us. The rooms here had a very rustic feel to it. It was all wood and Bamboo. A beautiful beach with water in different shades of blue with soft white sand was a 2 minutes walk from our room. There were some reclining chairs overlooking the beach. Lying on one of those and gazing at the ocean felt like looking at paradise – it was quiet and the only sound in the backdrop was the sweet sound of the waves.
This place was so remote that cellphones did not work – there was a TV in our room but with very limited “doordarshan” channels – I did not even bother turning it on. It was like being isolated from the rest of the world. To the city-breds like me, who are so used to the sounds of honking and automobile pollution & spending most part of life in enclosed environments – this kind of natural purity outdoors and peace was confusing at the beginning. The brain was missing all the chaos and did not know how to react. It took a while to go to “unwind” mode but once there – the feeling of B L I S S entered. This was a lazy day where we basically did nothing but slack at the pristine beach, which on that day felt like our private beach!!
Day 4: More of Havelock and more awesome things
On this day we wanted to try something adventurous. So we decided to go Scuba Diving. My wife & I cannot swim which made us a little uncomfortable with the idea initially. But then we consoled ourselves with the thought that if a hydrophobic like Hrithik (in the film Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara) could do it, we could certainly take our chances. The movie gave quite a good glimpse of what to expect and how you would be trained. I must say the Oxygen Cylinders and the weights on our waist that would keep us below water were pretty heavy. Putting on the wetsuit, the weights and the oxygen cylinder for the first time was very awkward. It was not easy to stand straight with that weight. The actors in the film were bodybuilders of sorts, so might not have felt the weight – which is very different from the scenario of a common man. Another point of difference from the movie – you are not allowed to dive alone. Your guide drags you along – so you are supposed to do nothing (just see) and you do not even have flippers on your feet.
The scuba diving experience as such was out of the world. I am sure majority of the people reading this blog have seen the movie Finding Nemo. This was like a live version of that. And we did actually see some clown fish and their nest of eggs. When I tried to touch the nest, he would try to bite my finger and made me get my hands off. “LAY OFF OR ELSE I KILL YOU!!!!” was the spirit there. I got to hold a sea cucumber. Although I loved the idea of showing off to the rest of the world that I did scuba diving and held a sea cucumber under the ocean, that thing was squishy, nasty and gross. We got to see some fabulous fishes in every imaginable color from the palette.
Before the dive, you are trained to breath through the pipe under water and pressure builds up at your ears. If not released, it leads to a massive headache. When you get into the water, initially, for the first few minutes, you are very conscious of the way you breathe, release pressure in the ears etc. But after sometime you get comfortable and begin to draw long mammoth breaths. It is a very nice feeling to only see exquisitely colored fishes & beautiful underwater life that you have never seen before, feel the oxygen enter and exit your lungs & hear your heart beat. My wife and I were speechless for a while after the dive trying to digest everything that we saw and felt.
After some rest and food, we headed to another beach at Radha Nagar. This is listed as one of the top 10 beaches in Asia. We were under the impression that the beach by our resort was the best. Then we saw this beach and we had to redefine awesome. This beach had softer, whiter sand than the other and it actually had waves. It was quite a long stretch and there was a forest almost overlooking the beach. From a distance, it looked like the ocean blue was kissing the forest green - a divine sight to savor.
Day 5: Bicycling around Havelock
On the final day, we decided to rent a bicycle and investigate the island. All along, it was a splendid sight of different shades of blue to the left of the road we were on, separating a dense green of forest cover to our right. After a good half hour of pedaling, the landscape changed to paddy fields in a typical village like setting. We pedaled till our batteries ran out and felt a great sense of accomplishment. We went to the resort and decided to rest our backs at the comfortable reclining seats overlooking the ocean – and we did that were in for another shock. There was no water in the ocean for quite some distance. At the same place where there was water yesterday was now exposing the seabed. Both of us exchanged glances – was a tsunami about to lash out at Havelock? Both of us strained our ears & eyes to hear or see something remotely resembling a rumble, ready to run the fastest sprint we could run. But after a full 15 minutes, when nothing happened, we comforted & laughed off our fears for it was just the ebb of a tide.
We felt that the tour had concluded well and were all set for a peaceful journey back to Chennai not knowing what was in store next. The ride back from Havelock to Port Blair was by my favorite ferry – MV Bambooka again. The trip to Havelock was smooth and neither of us felt that we were on the ocean. However, on our way back we had the immense pleasure of traveling in a storm (or storm like turbulence at least). The sea was rough and the ride was turbulent. Very soon the only voices that reverberated our cabins was of people throwing up. So to avoid this, we stepped out to the open deck to get some fresh air. What we saw was scarier. It was like being in a smaller version of the storm that we saw in the movie, the perfect storm. Huge waves surged right ahead of us and our ferry would climb and fall into the ocean waves. Then it would climb another big wave only to fall back again. We had to make an executive decision – whether to endure the sight of our tiny ferry battling its way through a rough and scary ocean or to brave through the encouraging sounds & smell of people throwing up – which by now became much louder and stronger with the number of people joining the ranks rising. The fact that neither of us knew swimming and the fear of falling off into the rough ocean made us reluctantly choose the second option. After reaching Port Blair, the first place we headed for was a temple to thank the gods for bringing us to the shore in one piece.
The next day we took a flight back to Chennai with lots of memories to be cherished for the rest of our lives.
In this post I am going to blog about my trip to the Andaman Islands, where I went for my honeymoon. Without delving too much into geographic details, this is an island off the Indian mainland in the Bay of Bengal with tropical climate (short unpredictable spells of rain at all times during the time of the year when I visited)– about 2 ½ hours (by flight) away from Chennai or Kolkata. Port Blair is the capital city and has an Indian army base set up there. We traveled by flight & all flights to Andaman land at its capital - Port Blair.
Day-1: Port Blair
 | |||
| Cellular Jail - Port Blair |
We reached the resort and after catching up on sufficient sleep, we set out to explore Port Blair. The first place that we planned to see was the Cellular Jail @ Port Blair and watch a light and sound show there. I must have to admit that the ride from the resort to the Jail was like being in an awesome James Bond movie in some exotic European / Italian location that had winding roads bordering the ocean. And what is the first thing we see after such an awesome ride – The Gallows of a prison to mark the start of a honeymoon (gee how romantic!!!). The light and sound show later that evening filled in on the details of the atrocities committed by the men in uniform. This was accompanied by background sounds of whiplashes / prisoners screaming etc. My wife and I could not stop exchanging glances that had - W T F???? Imprinted on our faces. That was all the awesomeness we could handle and called it a day.
Day-2: North Bay and Ross Island
 |
| North Bay & Ross Island |
Ross Island was the place where the British officers posted at Andaman lived. Man!!! I must give it to the British – they knew how to live. You could walk around this Island in about an hour. It was filled with deers & peacocks. It was a wonderful sight to see herds of deers swiftly swish past us when they heard their call for food (it was their feeding time).
The evening concluded with a “romantic candle light dinner” at a cove by the beachside. This was seriously awesome. The sound of beach waves kissing the shore was like soothing music to the ears. The food served was fantastic by a spectacular waiter whose hospitality was admirable. It was a thoroughly splendid evening to end the day.
Day-3: Havelock
 |
| On MV Bambooka & our resort beach - Silver Sand @ Havelock |
This place was so remote that cellphones did not work – there was a TV in our room but with very limited “doordarshan” channels – I did not even bother turning it on. It was like being isolated from the rest of the world. To the city-breds like me, who are so used to the sounds of honking and automobile pollution & spending most part of life in enclosed environments – this kind of natural purity outdoors and peace was confusing at the beginning. The brain was missing all the chaos and did not know how to react. It took a while to go to “unwind” mode but once there – the feeling of B L I S S entered. This was a lazy day where we basically did nothing but slack at the pristine beach, which on that day felt like our private beach!!
Day 4: More of Havelock and more awesome things
 |
| Scuba Diving |
The scuba diving experience as such was out of the world. I am sure majority of the people reading this blog have seen the movie Finding Nemo. This was like a live version of that. And we did actually see some clown fish and their nest of eggs. When I tried to touch the nest, he would try to bite my finger and made me get my hands off. “LAY OFF OR ELSE I KILL YOU!!!!” was the spirit there. I got to hold a sea cucumber. Although I loved the idea of showing off to the rest of the world that I did scuba diving and held a sea cucumber under the ocean, that thing was squishy, nasty and gross. We got to see some fabulous fishes in every imaginable color from the palette.
Before the dive, you are trained to breath through the pipe under water and pressure builds up at your ears. If not released, it leads to a massive headache. When you get into the water, initially, for the first few minutes, you are very conscious of the way you breathe, release pressure in the ears etc. But after sometime you get comfortable and begin to draw long mammoth breaths. It is a very nice feeling to only see exquisitely colored fishes & beautiful underwater life that you have never seen before, feel the oxygen enter and exit your lungs & hear your heart beat. My wife and I were speechless for a while after the dive trying to digest everything that we saw and felt.
After some rest and food, we headed to another beach at Radha Nagar. This is listed as one of the top 10 beaches in Asia. We were under the impression that the beach by our resort was the best. Then we saw this beach and we had to redefine awesome. This beach had softer, whiter sand than the other and it actually had waves. It was quite a long stretch and there was a forest almost overlooking the beach. From a distance, it looked like the ocean blue was kissing the forest green - a divine sight to savor.
Day 5: Bicycling around Havelock
 |
| Cycling @ Havelock, Radha Nagar Beach (Top center & Bottom Right) |
We felt that the tour had concluded well and were all set for a peaceful journey back to Chennai not knowing what was in store next. The ride back from Havelock to Port Blair was by my favorite ferry – MV Bambooka again. The trip to Havelock was smooth and neither of us felt that we were on the ocean. However, on our way back we had the immense pleasure of traveling in a storm (or storm like turbulence at least). The sea was rough and the ride was turbulent. Very soon the only voices that reverberated our cabins was of people throwing up. So to avoid this, we stepped out to the open deck to get some fresh air. What we saw was scarier. It was like being in a smaller version of the storm that we saw in the movie, the perfect storm. Huge waves surged right ahead of us and our ferry would climb and fall into the ocean waves. Then it would climb another big wave only to fall back again. We had to make an executive decision – whether to endure the sight of our tiny ferry battling its way through a rough and scary ocean or to brave through the encouraging sounds & smell of people throwing up – which by now became much louder and stronger with the number of people joining the ranks rising. The fact that neither of us knew swimming and the fear of falling off into the rough ocean made us reluctantly choose the second option. After reaching Port Blair, the first place we headed for was a temple to thank the gods for bringing us to the shore in one piece.
The next day we took a flight back to Chennai with lots of memories to be cherished for the rest of our lives.
