In the Arabian Sea at Bangaram Island

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On the morning of 6 Novemberwe say goodbye to Old Harbour Hotel ...although we do come back in 5 days time....and head to the airport to catch Air India ATR flight to Agatti Island in the Lakshadweeps a group of 36 Islands in the same chain as the Maldives but belonging to India.
Agatti Is seems to be long & skinny with the sea seemingly being 50 metres each side of the runway. It takes a little while to be processed permits checked etc before we are put into a little van and taken through villages to the wharf where the interislsnd boats depart. There are 9000 people on Agatti but the registered population on Bangaram where we are going is 10. The boat trip takes 1 hour with the last part being a zig zag path through the barrier reef surrounding the island...lots of coral heads. The water looks lovely and blue and clear...a bit of a change for Indian waters but we are 400 odd kms off the coast.
First views of Bangaram do not disappoint. ..the boat docks at a floating pontoon arrangement and we are met by staff with drinking coconuts.
The island is small..tlakes 1 hour leisurely walk at low tide to go right around. There are about a dozen cottages non A/C for us plebs and 5 or 6 A/ C for government officials. In fact the day after we arrived 10 govt officials arrived by chopper with an advance group of armed police to look after them. The rooms are basic but clean we have aircool no hot water and the water is sulfuric.But we knew all this beforehand and it is fine. The restaurant and food is surprisingly good the bar is unlicensed but I do have a couple of whiskies while there by buying a licence for 5 rupees each drink.
We quickly adapt to the island routines of eating swimming etc. I book a scuba dive which was 50 min's at 30 feet on the reef...nice without wetsuit and saw plenty of nice fish and colour although a lot of the reef seemed to be suffering from bleaching.
I also book a fishing trip for 6am one morning. ...we go out for 3 hours trolling for tuna first and the when the guys say no tuna today we go for grouper using heavy monofilament hand lines with big plastic lures...in fact same as tuna rig. It's only a few minutes before the first grouper comes in and we end up with 13 around 2kg each and my fishing buddy catches a GT.All fun
and dinner that night includes lovely fresh grouper cooked in Masala spices. Saw sea turtles while fishing but none on dive.
We meet some lovely folk there and have an invitation to visit Kashmir, and on our last day a young kiwi guy from Kaikoura turns up. He is travelling by himself with no fixed plan...we think he may be out of a relationship but even though we have dinner together not even Sandra can elicit such personal info from him...a nice young man.
On the morning of departure we need to catch the boat at 7...Air India had changed its departure from Agatti from 11.55 to 10.30. There are 2 boatloads of people leaving . We had a great time on Island but now looking forward to a lovely shower at Old Harbour.A bit of a misunderstanding at airport...agent had sent driver to collect us at international terminal at Cochi so over one hour late being picked up. At Old Harbour we get an upgraded beautiful room called Rampart, decide to eat at hotel which was lovely and splash out on a bottle of Big Banyan Rose which was surprisingly OK.
So we depart Old Harbour Hotel for the last time and fly agree with their entry in the Best small hotels of the world was fully justified. Staff were amazing. Off to the airport...we feel we know this one pretty well.

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