Andaman islands, Dec 2012

Christmas 2011 has taught me that never spend a festival, important for the country you live in, alone coz all your friends go away to celebrate it with their family and you are left alone. So I decided to spend Christmas 2012 in India with my family and since I got the travelling gene from my parents I wanted to gift them a trip to Andaman islands. It was December 24, 2012 when we (Dad, Mom, Sis, Vishal and me) started our journey by train from Allahabad (my hometown) to Chennai, after almost 36 hours we reached Chennai Egmore on 25th afternoon, after checking-in and relaxing for sometime in Hotel Chennai gate (located just infront of the Egmore railway station) we went out to eat something, but that turned out to be a difficult task and after waiting for almost an hour we received our dosas. Gulping it down was comparatively quicker and we were ready to see Marina beach, worlds second longest beach of 13km, an auto took us to the beach.

Marina beach

We spent the evening there with waves becoming higher and higher as sun was setting, a sea beach is a romantic place and that was proved by my dad who bought gajra for my mom. After it was dark we started back through the market at the beach, had tea and later while walking back to the hotel we saw M.A. Chidambaram stadium and had banana pakodas, when we were near the hotel my mom was keen to know the market where she can buy Chennai silk, so my parents and sis went to the T market famous for shopping and Vishal n me were waiting for Shubhankar (a close friend of mine) who was supposed to meet us, soon he arrived and I went down to pick him up to our room. We spent some time chit-chatting, later he took us for dinner to a Bengali restaurant nearby where we had fish paturi, chicken and rice. Parents came back by 11.00pm to the room with some silk that mom bought for her.

Dad and Mom

 26th morning we had our flight to Port Blair at 10.30am that took 2 hrs to Port Blair, Shakti Singh the person responsible for the tour was present at the airport to receive us, he took us to the hotel (an rss ashram) that was located in a very peaceful area, we freshened up and went out for lunch in Anand restaurant followed by a fun bath in the waves of Bay of Bengal at Corbyn's Cove beach and later a watch of the light n sound show of the cellular jail depicting the struggles and tortures went through by the freedom fighters. We weren't hungry when we were returning so Vishal and me went out later in search of a restaurant to pack something for dinner, ending up into a small fast food corner we bought egg rolls, fish and chicken chops.

Corbyn's Cove beach

place where prisoners were hanged in Viper island

Ross island

Ross island

North bay

Next day was for the island trip by ferry, we covered Viper island where freedom fighters were hanged, Ross island, old capital of the island where British had administrative building and officer quarters. Now all are in dilapidated condition, the island is like a forest with some deer moving around without fear of humans and also the island is full of coconut trees. Later we went to the North Bay which is famous for water sports and coral life, we enjoyed a glass bottom boat to see coral and a family speed boat and the rest of the day in the water. We were back in Port Blair by 7.00pm and had dinner in Anand restaurant on the way back home. The day ended with playing cards with mom, sis and Vishal. 28th was allotted for local sightseeing tour that included the Anthropological museum showing the lifestyle of the tribes still living in Andaman and Nicobar islands, the Cellular Jail also known as Kala Pani the name is derived from the architecture of the prison, each room is like a cell 4.5m x 2.7m with only one ventilator keeping the prisoners from communicating with each other, there were 7 wings with 3 stories of such cells radiating out from a central watch tower, Fisheries museum, Chatham Saw Mill in the first half of the day followed by lunch and visit to Rubber plantation, spice garden and the quiet n beautiful Wandoor beach. We were at the beach in water playing with sand and water till the beautiful sunset, with that another wonderful day came to an end. We all loved the egg rolls we ate as dinner on the 1st night in the island so we had them again, played cards and slept.

Rubber plantation

Spice garden

Wandoor beach

Vishal, sis and me (left to right)

Next day we woke up early in the morning as we had to travel for long to see the Tribal Reserve Forest and then Baratang island. We drove through the forest with a hope to see something but it was just a nice drive through the nature ending up at the ferry port that took us to Baratang island where motor boats were ready to take us for a ride through the water to the Mangrove forest. We entered the forest, there was a wooden bridge over the marsh that took us deep inside the tropical rainforests, I love such kind of hikes in nature and I was already enjoying the day when I saw the huge limestone cave infront of me, this was the first time I saw mangrove forest and limestone caves, I was so excited to see the stalactites and stalagmites.

On the way to Tribal Forest Reserve

Temple on the way

Mangrove forest

Tropical Rainforest

Stalactite and Stalagmite

The long drive back, was tiring and everyone in the car slept, we reached Port Blair, had dinner and then called it a day as next day was going to be another long day to Havelock islands. 30th morning started early again and we were pretty excited to see the beautiful beaches of Havelock island until it came to our knowledge that the ferry from Port Blair to Havelock was full and no tickets were available.

Vishal swimming @Mundapahad beach

Maa with kulfi

Kulfi in water

Mundapahad beach

Everyone in the travel group was upset but Mr. Shakti Singh offered us to show some other place of the island. After breakfast he took us to Gandhi park, driving through Chidiyatapu to Mundapahad beach. It was really a beautiful beach with clear water and we couldn't resist to get wet. That day became important for me because I learnt floating from my teacher Vishal. In the next trip to any beach I have to learn swimming from him. Later dad bought kulfi for us and we four had it while sitting in the water. We wanted to stay long but we were running out of time for the next destination, Mount Harriet was another wonderful drive through nature on the mountains to see the panaromic view, a walk in the woods and also to see the scenery capturing North Bay from the mountain printed on Rs 20 note. After such a great trip we went back home had egg rolls in the dinner, went out for a walk as it was our last night in the beautiful island.

Wandoor

On the way to Baratang

We had our flight back to Chennai at around 1.30pm from Port Blair that landed around 3.30pm in Chennai. We hired a taxi from airport directly to Chennai central railway station to catch our train back to Allahabad. We spent the new years eve in the train while travelling with a hope that new year will bring many more such memorable trips for us.