Chennai to the Andaman Islands

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Wow - even the views from the airplane were pretty spectacular as we were flying in to Port Blair which is the capital on the island of Little Andaman. When we arrived at Port Blair we thought we would have to stay a night in the "capital" as the ferries to our final destination of North Havelock Island were only in the morning - it turns out if we hurried up we could catch an afternoon boat - yippee, Chennai to North Havelock in one day.
Before we left Port Blair however we managed to book the cheapest accommodation on the Island at a government run place called the Dolphin resort which was pretty nice. It didn't take us long to explore the island and to find ourselves on a stunning beach with white sands and warm clear water and there is no one else here - once again it seems that we have the entire beach to ourselves as we seem to have the most amazing places we visit on this trip to ourselves. As nice as the beach is we decide to explore further a field and we soon found the infamous Beach No. 7 - the nicest beach in Asia...
Wow, and wow again - I’ve seen some pretty nice beaches in my time and I have to say this has to be up there with the best of them - the only one that comes close as far as I’m concerned is Whitehaven Beach in the Whitsunday Islands, Australia. Hopefully the pictures will do the place justice but it's a shame you can’t feel the even softer and even whiter sand than the other beach, not to mention the even clearer water lap up on the shore - paradise. And to make things even better we met a couple from New Zealand, Leigh and Gail, and a couple from UK/Oz, Ebony and Steve. Everyone else was staying at the beautiful (and pretty expensive) barefoot lodge which was actually on the Number 7 beach - well it only took a quick look at their accommodation which included a great restaurant and everyone had their own separate log cabins with big comfy beds so we ran back to our place and checked out to join the rest of the crew at the Barefoot resort - how could we resist especially as the resort had it's own elephant - honestly, how many hotels have an elephant.
The following days were mainly spent enjoying the beautiful beach until myself, Leigh and Steve were a nice shade of bright red and then it was time to return to the bar and crack open the Uno cards during the evening - thanks to everyone for letting me win by the way - you know I was going to take the cards home if I didn't win. On one of the days a few of the people went snorkeling which by all accounts was amazing but due to over exposure I hid indoors and returned to a slightly less shade of bright red and maybe even a little brown in colour - not bad for a wee Scottish boy. Another morning was spent watching the elephant and his owner go for a swim - all was going well until we saw the biggest floater you've ever seen - I don’t think I’ll go for swim just today then…
Once again we thought we had to stay a night in the capital due to flight times but the owner of the resort talked us into staying another night and he would arrange for one of his boats to take us in the morning - well it didn’t take much convincing I can tell you, when the morning came though it was hard to leave as it was just such a nice place and we were we did eventually leave the island it was sad to be leaving.
I wish I could write more about the place but there isn't much more I can write apart from - We found paradise and it's at North Havelock Island - get there before everyone else does.

Which by the way they plan to do - for those who have read the book Shantaram (very good book by the way), they plan to film here next March so if you want to bump into either Johnny Depp or Russell Crowe then I suggest you book your tickets pretty soon…

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