Day 6 : Port Blair

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The last day on the islands was for Port Blair local sight seeing. We loaded ourselves with the delicious masala dosas at Annapurna hotel and headed to Chatam Saw Mill, the largest and the oldest saw mill in Asia. Established in 1883, the mill uses the techniques and machineries for wood logging and sawing prevalent in 1950s. Instead of being ashamed of it, we make it a tourist destination ! It has a completely forgettable and haphazard museum and a second world war bomb pit. The next stop was Samudrika, a naval marine museum , a small but very interesting museum. The inspiration is 'Sangar Manthan', the mythical legend where the gods and demons churn the sea to dig out the hidden treasures. The section on Andaman and Nicobar islands talks about the geography and history of the archipelago and displays breath taking aerial views of some of its most beautiful islands. The winner is definitely the Cinque Island which also seems to be the poster boy of A and N tourism. It has a couple of lush green islands connected by a narrow patch of white with the turquoise sea on both sides. The section on tribals holds picture exhibits on the Jarawas, Sentinalese, Shampoons and Nicobaris the aborigines of A & N, some interesting facts and stories and three large Hawksbill turtle backs and their sad story. The aquarium show cases the 'finding nemo' fame sea anemones, the very strange sea urchins, various colorful starfishes, murderous stone fishes and many more. Next comes the coral section with finger corals, brain corals, red corals, a wide variety of murex and a number of shells. It is a small but very interesting and innovatively created museum. The zonal anthropological museum is too big for a museum-allergic person like me and the Rajiv Gandhi water sports complex aquarium pales compared to Samudrika. The science center is interesting and amusing but I have seen better ones. The second highlight of the day was Cellular Jail, a monumental and a dark chapter in the India's history. Cellular jail was a huge star shaped building with 7 wings jutting out from a central tower erected to keep a watch on all the wings. It could 700 prisoners at one time and was termed Sajaa - E- Kalaapani for the heinous atrocities committed on the prisoners, almost all of them freedom fighters. The jail was so huge and strict about its solitary confinement laws that Veer Savarkar lived for 2 years here without knowing his real brother Ganesh Savarkar was also imprisoned in the same jail. Bar fetters, shackles, oil extraction, coconut peeling were some of the harshest punishments in the Jail. Now the 4 wings of the jail have been torn down and a hospital stands in its place while the other three wings have been declared as a national monument. There is huge picture gallery of all the freedom fighters imprisoned here. Gandhi, Tilak, Bose and all the leaders whose pictures show up in the history texts have a certain aura with them and they seem to be perfectly capable of the extra ordinary things that they have done. However these guys looked very ordinary and yet the immense courage, valor and tolerance they showed is definitely inspiring. The sad part of the story is there used to be only a few British officers in the Jail. The people who took their orders and committed those atrocities were actually Indians. After a one hour of guided tour, we sat down for the famous Light and Sounds show. Although informative, it is very long and not spectacular enough to hold your attention. Add to that the constant flashing of thousand cameras (cameras are strictly prohibited), mobile ringtones, chats and all sorts of disturbances and it kills the show. With that we finished up our small but very enchanting 7 day trip to Andamans.

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