Blogs from Havelock Island, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, India, Asia - page 4

The journey to the beautiful Andaman Islands was an interesting one to say the least. A jeep with no clutch, a train with cockroaches to touch and a night in Kolkata where you sweat too much. But we made it to Port Blair, getting off the plane with a sigh of relief and excitement at the island adventure that awaited us. The Andaman Islands that sit 1000km east of mainland India were not originally on our itinerary, but who needs itineraries when you’re in India. Since landing in Delhi people had told us of the little secret that is these deserted islands and after being in the cold Nepali mountains we decided to find some cheap flights and go there, which subsequently enabled us to see Darjeeling. The even colder Darjeeling left us yearning for sun ... read more

Breaking news! Barack Obama is the next president of the United States of America! Namaste and welcome to the election headquarters here in the beautiful Andaman Islands of India. Our team consists of Scott, chief political analyst, George, chief technical correspondent, and Sharon, director of chai and chapattis. We've all been here since 5am this sunny morning to watch the results as they come in, thanks to Nafita for opening up the internet cafe, ah hem, I mean "office", early for us. We had a few difficulties at first trying to get one slow computer to play the Nashville radio coverage of the election while the other struggled to load up the CNN and Yahoo! web pages simultaneously, but our chief technical correspondent, George, managed to get everything up and running. Two hours in, just ... read more

halloj! Vi befinner oss sen tva dagar pa haveloc island i det andamanska oriket. Forsta natten bodde vi pa ett resort som var fullt av israeler som bara rokte gras hela tiden.. Vi trottnade ganska snabbt pa det och bor nu pa ett ack sa gemytligt resort i en bambu hydda. Vi har hyrt skoter och akte igar till en fantastisk strand med en otroligt vacker lagun dar vi badade hela eftermiddagen. Pa kvallen drack vi litet rom och larde kanna de andra som bor pa resortet, de verkar vara trevliga manniskor. Idag har vi akt till en strand som heter Elefant Beach med en bat som vi hyrde med 8 andra personer och vi har snorklat dar hela dagen. Pa havsbotten ser man koraller och fiskar i alla dess farger, otroligt vackert! Har ser man ... read more

30th September, Havelock. Okay, now for the sown seeds of yesterday. The Bengali restaurant owner at lunch time had mentioned one Elephant Beach, which was either accessible by boat or by a trek through a forest trail. It was secluded and empty and stunningly beautiful.... So next morning, it seemed that the idea was to find that beach. Now treks through forest trails leave me essentially cold, so my bet would have been the boat, but the hotel guys made it sound quite easy, the map looked like it was really a small stretch and so like a fool I agreed to what seemed like a walk to the beach, yes through some vegetation. To note, I was dressed for the beach, with my beach flats on, just the WRONG thing for a forest trail. ... read more

I almost made it (again!) to an easy confluence but fate (or disorganisation) meant that it was not to be. The Andaman islands had been a destination I'd wanted to visit for many years - another of those exotic places that seemed terribly difficult/expensive to get to until fairly recently. So when I discovered I had the time and money while on my Indian trip, I couldn't resist the temptation of a few days on a tropical island. Besides, I'd realised that there was an unvisited confluence on Havelock Island, and I figured it should be easy to get to. The flight from Kolkata to Port Blair was pleasant, and the islands from the air looked great. The monsoon had already officially started - in fact the previous week the airport had been flooded...but while I ... read more