Blogs from Port Blair, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, India, Asia - page 2

Option A: Half Day tour: Rs 500/head Leave your heels and fancy shoes behind: this one’s for the adventure and nature lover. Don’t forget to apply mosquito repellant even during daylight hours…it’s pretty much a jungle out here. Remember the hat. This 30 acre mass of overgrown flora, legally referred to as ‘The 5th Island’, is nothing more than an organic island-plantation. Situated six km from the airport by road, the last point of drivable land ends at the Attam Pahad village football field that doubles up as a parking lot. From there it’s a 300mtr stretch of offroad, followed by another 200mtrs of a walkable path that ends in the sea. This sea is part of a bay called ‘Flat Bay’. And from this final point of land you will be transported to this Island ... read more

ARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH What's the point. If someone doesn't do something quick, someone's gonna get shot. And although my aim's not that great...I am motivated. I've just posted this to not only mark how ridiculous our political representatives are but also our media. This is the same member of parliament who wants to commission a railway line that runs through the andaman islands from port blair to diglipur right where the great andaman trunk road currently stands. He's talking about a bridge that will join two islands.... Get me some f@#k^*g water to drink first. Everything sounds like something out of a god-d@mn sci-fi movie. We've started getting fresh water supply now ONCE in four days for twenty minutes. That's twenty minutes of water supply every four days!!! And to think that we are suppose... read more

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 ... read more

After the blissful Radhanagar beach, we headed to Baratang 90 kms from Port Blair. The selling points for this day trip were the glimpse of remote Jarwaa tribe, active mud volcano and spooky limestone caves. My suggestion stick to the sun washed, white sand and crystal clear water beached instead of wasting the day on this trip. The day started quite early at 4 am. A bus from Win travels which conducts daily package picked us from the hotel and went on to collect different families and groups who had bought the package from their respective hotels. Inevitably in such cases, there has to be a family which will show up late. In our case, it was a family of three from Malad, a Mumbai subarb. The girl was the center of attraction on our bus ... read more

In order to get to Little Andaman we had to catch a ferry back to Port Blair, stay an evening, before a 6am departure for Hut Bay. It was a long, but enjoyable 6 hour journey with our new friends Joni and Uni. Amazingly the long journey to Little Andaman only cost 25 rupees each compared to 250 rupees to Havelock. This, perhaps, was the first sign that we were coming to a wilder, less tourist frequented island. We were again greeted by hordes of rickshaw drivers vying for our business but this time the path wasn’t so clear, we didn’t really know where we wanted to go. Joni had been to the island about five years ago and had spoken of a few beach huts by Butler Bay beach. We asked to go there but ... read more