Andaman Vacation
During the summer break in Sona's college we visited Andaman from 12th to 16th May 2019.
We had earlier planned to visit Leh Ladakh in this period thinking that a trip to the mountains
would be more comfortable in the summer heat than one in the sultry seaside. We changed
plans when dada told us that since Leh is at a higher altitude everyone inevitably suffers from
altitude sickness here. So on remembering our problems during our Darjeeling trip when Sona
was quite small I decided for a seaside vacation instead.
We took the early morning 600 am flight from Pune to Chennai by Indigo. Flight was on time
and we reached Chennai airport by 8.00am. Here we had to wait for 4 hours as next flight to
Port Blair was at 1.00 PM. The airport was chillingly cold and although Sona and I had bought
jackets, Sum had not brought one and I was forced to buy some expensive wraps(dupatta) at
the airport shops so he would not catch cold. I had forgotten to wear socks. Anyway the next
flight was also on time and soon we were near Port Blair. When the flight was near to landing,
I got the first glimpse of the beautiful islands of Andaman, green with vegetation, surrounded
by blue waters of the bay of Bengal! It was a pretty sight! Veer Savarkar airport at Port Blair
reminded me of Pune Airport. It is a small airport with limited flights. From the airport we took
a cab to go to Ramkrishna Mission located near the main tourist centre where we had booked
accommodation. Port Blair is a picturesque place being near the sea as well as hilly at some
points. Roads are excellent here. It is well light up at night too with the seaside promenade
light up with bright fairy lights. There are excellent restaurants which serve Indian, continental
and Chinese dishes, though expensive as most things are imported from the mainland. After
freshening up in the room we decided to go out and scout around. The famous cellular jail was
at a walking distance and we booked tickets for the sound and light show that evening. Shreya
was taking a nap in the room while we were out and so was fresh when we went to have dinner
and then watched the show from 7.30-8.30pm that day. The show was visually impressive
relating the trials and tribulations suffered by the Indian freedom fighters at the hand of their
British jailer David Barrie. It was very moving .The next day we had decided to visit the nearby
islands namely North bay for water sports and Ross Island - historically important. So we
took a boat to the islands. It took around 30 mins to reach Northbay island where Sona was
supposed to do scuba diving. Sum had booked 2 tickets. Seeing his reluctance to go with
her, I then decided I'd go with her. We got into scuba clothes and went to the trainers who were
already in the water. My trainer an obnoxious man called Sridhar asked me to put on the mask ,
breathe through my mouth and not nose. The oxygen tank was strapped to my back. I tried
it couple of times but somehow felt panicky beyond a few seconds underwater. A feeling of
suffocation engulfed me and I started to panic. The trainer made it only worse by not guiding me
properly and making negative comments. "You are not doing it properly" , " look here not there"
and such like. After trying for some time I decided that this was not my cup of tea and gave
up. Meanwhile Sona had grasped the ropes pretty quickly from her trainer and was ready for
the dive by the time I had given up. She went ahead while I turned back to the shore. She had a
wonderful experience during the dive - the corals and fishes underwater were really worth seeing
and the videos and pics taken , also made us feel a part of it. Only downside was some water
must have entered her ears during the dive which gave her an earache later on , but the dive was
truly excellent. Sum tried to do snorkeling but chickened out in this also. On the whole it was a
good day. After this we were taken to Ross island which was an island where the colonial life is
well documented, and island is dotted with buildings built by the British - their officer's quarters,
clubs and bungalows now mostly deserted. There was even a club called subordinate's club.
We took a golf cart trip which took us around the entire island enumerating the various places
of interest. That ended our activities for that day. The second day we visited some nearby
places- namely Corbyn's cove, cellular jail, saw mill , joggers park , chidiya tapu by hiring an auto
for the whole day. Cellular jail is pretty impressive historical monument as well as a unique
architecture. Earlier Andaman islands was notorious as Kalapani - the black water island where
convicts were sent to lead a life of torture and deprivation. Chidiya tapu was a pretty place with
greenery, clear waters, though seemingly infested with crocodiles, which prevents people from
going for a swim here. The next day we went for an excursion to the middle andaman islands-
called Baratang for which we had to pass through territory which was reserved for the tribals
called Jarawas of Andaman. For this we had hired a vehicle - Ertiga. We started at 5.30am in
the morning and reached the convoy point at 8.00 am. The route was through some pretty bad
bumpy roads though green forested areas. At the convoy assembly point around a 100 odd
vehicles like cars, buses, jeep etc had collected who were left through the reserve forest at only
some fixed times of the day . 6, 9 and ,12 ,3 o clock only . We had breakfast at some tapris here
and at 9.00 am the convoy of vehicles started. Jarawas numbering around 300 are a protected
tribe, and we were strictly prohibited from filming them, offering food etc to them. We were
soon eagerly looking here and there for a glimpse of these elusive tribe. Soon our curiosity was
satisfied when our driver pointed to two people a woman and man standing on the roadside
as jarawas. We saw that they were of negroid features wearing normal clothes. Further ahead
Sona spied a man up in the tree sand also a group of children chatting with a forest ranger.
We were thrilled to see them. At around 11 we reached the point where a launch ferry took us
to another point where we got into speed boats which would take us to limestone caves. The
speed boat took around 45mins travelling through the waters took us to the point where the
mangrove forests started. Here a young guide took us - a group of 10 people to the limestone
caves. These caves contained formation of stalagmites and stalactites which I saw for the first
time in my life.The caves were at a distance of 1km from the point where the boat had dropped
us. The return was in the same way. We returned to the hotel by 6.00pm, tired out. The next day,
our last day we were planning to visit the famous havelock island by steamer. But since we
had not booked seats earlier, it was all full and ones which were available was very expensive.
Also Sum and Sona had repeatedly refused to go to havelock as we had been warned that
everyone vomited during the passage, so we dropped the idea of going there. Instead we
decided to go to north bay once more. Here Sona and I both did snorkeling which we both
enjoyed immensely. I was witnessing the beauty of the corals and colorful fishes for the first
time and it was beautiful! Sum was feeling a bit left out and did not try snorkeling again. That
day Sona started to develop earache. Since next day was our departure we decided to keep it
light on the last day. In the evening we took a leisurely walk around the seaside promenade and
once more marvelled at clean and green andaman. Next day our flight was on time at 10.30 from
Port Blair . By 12.30 we reached Kolkata. Even in the heat we had had a lovely time during our
andaman vacation and treasured memories of our time there.
During the summer break in Sona's college we visited Andaman from 12th to 16th May 2019.
We had earlier planned to visit Leh Ladakh in this period thinking that a trip to the mountains
would be more comfortable in the summer heat than one in the sultry seaside. We changed
plans when dada told us that since Leh is at a higher altitude everyone inevitably suffers from
altitude sickness here. So on remembering our problems during our Darjeeling trip when Sona
was quite small I decided for a seaside vacation instead.
We took the early morning 600 am flight from Pune to Chennai by Indigo. Flight was on time
and we reached Chennai airport by 8.00am. Here we had to wait for 4 hours as next flight to
Port Blair was at 1.00 PM. The airport was chillingly cold and although Sona and I had bought
jackets, Sum had not brought one and I was forced to buy some expensive wraps(dupatta) at
the airport shops so he would not catch cold. I had forgotten to wear socks. Anyway the next
flight was also on time and soon we were near Port Blair. When the flight was near to landing,
I got the first glimpse of the beautiful islands of Andaman, green with vegetation, surrounded
by blue waters of the bay of Bengal! It was a pretty sight! Veer Savarkar airport at Port Blair
reminded me of Pune Airport. It is a small airport with limited flights. From the airport we took
a cab to go to Ramkrishna Mission located near the main tourist centre where we had booked
accommodation. Port Blair is a picturesque place being near the sea as well as hilly at some
points. Roads are excellent here. It is well light up at night too with the seaside promenade
light up with bright fairy lights. There are excellent restaurants which serve Indian, continental
and Chinese dishes, though expensive as most things are imported from the mainland. After
freshening up in the room we decided to go out and scout around. The famous cellular jail was
at a walking distance and we booked tickets for the sound and light show that evening. Shreya
was taking a nap in the room while we were out and so was fresh when we went to have dinner
and then watched the show from 7.30-8.30pm that day. The show was visually impressive
relating the trials and tribulations suffered by the Indian freedom fighters at the hand of their
British jailer David Barrie. It was very moving .The next day we had decided to visit the nearby
islands namely North bay for water sports and Ross Island - historically important. So we
took a boat to the islands. It took around 30 mins to reach Northbay island where Sona was
supposed to do scuba diving. Sum had booked 2 tickets. Seeing his reluctance to go with
her, I then decided I'd go with her. We got into scuba clothes and went to the trainers who were
already in the water. My trainer an obnoxious man called Sridhar asked me to put on the mask ,
breathe through my mouth and not nose. The oxygen tank was strapped to my back. I tried
it couple of times but somehow felt panicky beyond a few seconds underwater. A feeling of
suffocation engulfed me and I started to panic. The trainer made it only worse by not guiding me
properly and making negative comments. "You are not doing it properly" , " look here not there"
and such like. After trying for some time I decided that this was not my cup of tea and gave
up. Meanwhile Sona had grasped the ropes pretty quickly from her trainer and was ready for
the dive by the time I had given up. She went ahead while I turned back to the shore. She had a
wonderful experience during the dive - the corals and fishes underwater were really worth seeing
and the videos and pics taken , also made us feel a part of it. Only downside was some water
must have entered her ears during the dive which gave her an earache later on , but the dive was
truly excellent. Sum tried to do snorkeling but chickened out in this also. On the whole it was a
good day. After this we were taken to Ross island which was an island where the colonial life is
well documented, and island is dotted with buildings built by the British - their officer's quarters,
clubs and bungalows now mostly deserted. There was even a club called subordinate's club.
We took a golf cart trip which took us around the entire island enumerating the various places
of interest. That ended our activities for that day. The second day we visited some nearby
places- namely Corbyn's cove, cellular jail, saw mill , joggers park , chidiya tapu by hiring an auto
for the whole day. Cellular jail is pretty impressive historical monument as well as a unique
architecture. Earlier Andaman islands was notorious as Kalapani - the black water island where
convicts were sent to lead a life of torture and deprivation. Chidiya tapu was a pretty place with
greenery, clear waters, though seemingly infested with crocodiles, which prevents people from
going for a swim here. The next day we went for an excursion to the middle andaman islands-
called Baratang for which we had to pass through territory which was reserved for the tribals
called Jarawas of Andaman. For this we had hired a vehicle - Ertiga. We started at 5.30am in
the morning and reached the convoy point at 8.00 am. The route was through some pretty bad
bumpy roads though green forested areas. At the convoy assembly point around a 100 odd
vehicles like cars, buses, jeep etc had collected who were left through the reserve forest at only
some fixed times of the day . 6, 9 and ,12 ,3 o clock only . We had breakfast at some tapris here
and at 9.00 am the convoy of vehicles started. Jarawas numbering around 300 are a protected
tribe, and we were strictly prohibited from filming them, offering food etc to them. We were
soon eagerly looking here and there for a glimpse of these elusive tribe. Soon our curiosity was
satisfied when our driver pointed to two people a woman and man standing on the roadside
as jarawas. We saw that they were of negroid features wearing normal clothes. Further ahead
Sona spied a man up in the tree sand also a group of children chatting with a forest ranger.
We were thrilled to see them. At around 11 we reached the point where a launch ferry took us
to another point where we got into speed boats which would take us to limestone caves. The
speed boat took around 45mins travelling through the waters took us to the point where the
mangrove forests started. Here a young guide took us - a group of 10 people to the limestone
caves. These caves contained formation of stalagmites and stalactites which I saw for the first
time in my life.The caves were at a distance of 1km from the point where the boat had dropped
us. The return was in the same way. We returned to the hotel by 6.00pm, tired out. The next day,
our last day we were planning to visit the famous havelock island by steamer. But since we
had not booked seats earlier, it was all full and ones which were available was very expensive.
Also Sum and Sona had repeatedly refused to go to havelock as we had been warned that
everyone vomited during the passage, so we dropped the idea of going there. Instead we
decided to go to north bay once more. Here Sona and I both did snorkeling which we both
enjoyed immensely. I was witnessing the beauty of the corals and colorful fishes for the first
time and it was beautiful! Sum was feeling a bit left out and did not try snorkeling again. That
day Sona started to develop earache. Since next day was our departure we decided to keep it
light on the last day. In the evening we took a leisurely walk around the seaside promenade and
once more marvelled at clean and green andaman. Next day our flight was on time at 10.30 from
Port Blair . By 12.30 we reached Kolkata. Even in the heat we had had a lovely time during our
andaman vacation and treasured memories of our time there.
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