On the 14th I was up just about sunrise and walked down the beach on Neil Island's north coast to the western tip of the island and then back to my hotel on a path through the trees. I left Neil just before 9 on a ferry bound for Port Blair, a trip of almost two hours. I checked into the hotel where I'd stayed before, had lunch and then spent the afternoon at what remains of Port Blair's Cellular Jail, built by the British around 1900 to house particularly dangerous political prisoners. It originally had 693 cells in seven wings radiating from a guard tower, only three of which remain. It is now a museum commemorating "freedom fighters" and was filled with Indian tourists. I seemed to be the only westerner. I spent about three hours there looking around. Besides the cells, the guard tower and the gallows, there are photographic exhibits in some of the administrative halls. Outside the jail there are statues honoring six prisoners who died on hunger strikes. It seems the prisoners housed here were violent ones, the type India would classify as terrorists if they were fighting for the liberation of Kashmir as opposed to India. The jail was shut down by the British in the 1930's, though the Japanese used it to imprison Indians during their occupation of the Andamans during World War II. It seems they killed far more of their prisoners, Indians they suspected of loyalty to Britain, than the British did. Subhas Chandra Bose, the leader of the Indian National Army, the army formed of Indian prisoners of war that fought alongside the Japanese in Burma along the border with India, raised an Indian flag here during the war. He is now a national hero, commemorated especially in West Bengal, as he was a Bengali. He called himself "Netaji." "Neta" means "leader" while "ji" is an honorific, so it sounds an awful lot like der Fuhrer or il Duce. It was very hot and humid that afternoon, much hotter than it had been when I was in Port Blair in March.
The next morning I took a ferry at 8:30 to Ross Island, only about half a mile from Port Blair. This small island was the British administrative center and is covered with derelict old buildings from the colonial era. I spent the whole day there walking around and exploring the ruins, plus a very few restored buildings. The atmospheric overgrown buildings included the arcaded "Subordinates' Club," the Presbyterian Church, the Commissioner's Bungalow, and many others, all covered in vines and roots. Some of the ruined buildings have fig trees growing on them and are covered with masses of roots. The island hosts many huge trees and many coconut palms, all of which have numbers, up to almost 2000, painted on them. There are also relatively tame spotted deer, peacocks and peahens and squirrels. A cemetery has graves from the 1860's. There are also some Japanese World War II bunkers and a small museum with interesting photos from the colonial era.
The day was sunny and hot, with great views through the forest towards the sea. Lots of Indians were strolling around, but I seemed to be the only westerner. Some very polite non-Indian looking children said hello and their parents told me they were tribal people, Nicobarese. The father told me he works in Port Blair. While there are less than 1000 tribal people, from four different tribes, left in the Andamans, there are about 30,000 in the Nicobars, almost all (there is one other tribe) Nicobaris who are Christian and have adapted well to modern life. I took the last ferry back about 5 and had an okay fish dinner in an outdoor restaurant as darkness fell. My room was hot that night at bedtime, with my thermometer registering 88 degrees inside the room.
I was up the next morning at first light, about 4:30, and headed to the port soon after 5 to buy a ticket for the ship leaving for Little Andaman Island south of Port Blair. This ship was much larger than the other ferries I had taken, maybe 300 feet or more long, with several decks and even a helipad. It left at 7, with tugs pulling it away from the dock. I spent the almost seven hour voyage on the deck. We rounded Ross Island and headed south along the east coast of South Andaman Island heading for Hut Bay on Little Andaman, about 75 miles south of Port Blair. South of South Andaman we passed large Rutland Island, then the two small Cinque Islands and then the even smaller Sisters and Brothers Islands. The long, low coastline of Little Andaman became visible and we cruised down its eastern coast with its long white beaches visible. Little Andaman is the southernmost of the Andamans. South of it is the Ten Degree Channel between Little Andaman and the northernmost of the Nicobars. Little Andaman is the only island in the Andamans to suffer loss of life during the 2004 tsunami, with almost 100 killed. At least that is the official toll; other estimates are higher. The Nicobars suffered much more loss of life, with thousands killed. In Kalipur in North Andaman the hotel owner had been on Havelock when the tsunami hit. He said the sea first receded rapidly and the ensuing wave was chest high at his hotel on Havelock's east coast.
We docked at Hut Bay at 1:45 and the ship immediately refilled with passengers for the return trip to Port Blair. There were only two other western tourists on the ship and the three of us took a crowded jeep to a little hotel about seven miles north from the dock at Hut Bay, near the little village of Netaji Nagar. There are about 20,000 people living on Little Andaman, almost all migrants from the mainland. About 100 tribal Onge people remain in reserves that you are not allowed to visit. I checked into my comfortable hut, had a late lunch, and then walked across the road and through the trees for fewer than five minutes to the long beach, stretching all the way from the Hut Bay dock. Little Andaman's beaches are known for their sand flies, so I quickly walked along the beach to its nearby northern headland, and then across that low but rocky headland to a much smaller beach lined with huge trees. At its northern end is a pool fed by the tide backed by big black rocks. Just beyond the pool is the headland between it and beautiful Butler Bay to the north. I found a lookout over Butler Bay from the rocky headland and then a path through the big trees to the southern end of Butler Bay. The tide was low. It was getting late, so I headed back, but took a road inland from the small beach that led to Netaji Nagar village, with some very friendly people. From there I took the main road back to my hotel, arriving just at 6 as darkness fell. We had a delicious fish dinner that night, a grouper cooked in butter and garlic, with french fries and salad. There were only four of us staying there, the Canadian-Argentine couple that had arrived on the ship with me, plus a young Norwegian guy who had been there for two weeks or more.
I was up the next morning about 5:30 and took a two hour walk, first along the beach, but the sand flies soon drove me off the beach into the trees and onto the road heading towards the dock. I enjoyed the morning walk along the quiet road, passing a school, three other small hotels, a few houses, and lots of areca palms, coconut palms and high padauk trees. One stretch between the beach and the road was lined with casuarina (ironwood) trees. I walked to a lagoon fed by the sea that is just alongside the road. Salt water crocodiles are said to appear there, but I saw none. I did see several birds. Back at the hotel I had a leisurely breakfast and then went swimming in the very blue water off the beach near the hotel. There were good waves, too. In fact, Little Andaman is known for its surfing, particularly at the northern headland of Butler Bay. Most of the very few tourists on the island seem to have come for the surfing. Back at the hotel I read and had a late lunch before going for an afternoon swim. From about 4 to 6 I took a walk, first along the road for over a mile to Butler Bay and then back along the beaches and headlands.
I slept late the next morning, until about 7:30. I read, had breakfast, and took a swim. I was going to rent a scooter to explore the island, but there was a gas shortage, so I rented a bicycle and biked south along the road and then inland to a waterfall about four miles away. The waterfall was about 40 or 50 feet high, but not particularly scenic. I took a path to the top and sat there for a while. Very big flies, bigger than horse flies, bedeviled me both at the falls and on the bike trip into the forest on the way to the falls. Swatting them didn't necessarily shoo them away; you had to brush them away. From the waterfall I biked an additional three miles to the town of Hut Bay, the island's largest village near the dock. Uniformed men were playing cricket in the hot midday sun on a mostly grassy field, or perhaps I should say pitch. A loudspeaker announced the action, but there didn't seem to be any spectators. It took me a while to find the ferry ticket office, as it had no sign. When I found it, I had a 40 minute wait as the one guy working there was out to lunch. When he did arrive, he was not particularly helpful. I biked back to the hotel, went swimming and then had something to eat. From about 4:30 to 6 I took a walk on a road that head inland just north of our hotel. It passed through an oil palm plantation and by an oil palm factory. I met some very friendly little girls, living in the decrepit wooden housing near the factory. There were lots of flies along the road. In fact, insects were quite a problem on Little Andaman. My legs had many sand fly and mosquito bites and flies were a problem during the day.
We had heard during the afternoon that the Norwegian guy had been in a motorcycle accident and was hospitalized. It turned out it was quite serious. He required thirty plus stitches in his scalp and one arm and one leg were badly hurt. Fortunately, he didn't seem to have any internal injuries. He was evacuated by helicopter the next morning to Port Blair.
I was up the next morning about 5:30 and took a walk into the oil palm plantation for a little less than an hour. Workers were arriving at the mill. Back at the hotel I had breakfast, read and swam. It was quite a lazy day, as we were all dispirited by the motorcycle accident. From 4 to 6 I did take a walk to the pool at the little beach between the long Hut Bay Beach and Butler Bay. I sat among the big trees there for a while and watched the sea grow dark.
The next morning I awoke about 4:30 and listened to the birds and the waves. I got up about 6 and read for a while. On Little Andaman I missed taking early morning walks along the beach, as the sand flies were particularly bad in the early morning. After breakfast I caught a passing share jeep into Hut Bay and got off at the ferry ticket office. There was a big crowd is a disorderly scrum at the little window, with men on one side and women on the other. I pushed and shoved with everyone else for about an hour before I got my ticket for the next morning. At the end, I reached my relatively long arm with my form requesting a ticket over others in front of me into the little ticket window, perhaps three inches square. You could barely see the guys dispensing tickets inside. After getting my ticket, I took a bus back to the hotel and went for a swim before spending most of the afternoon reading. From about 4:30 to nightfall I walked among the big trees between the road and the beach. Two of them had fallen, years ago. Big waves crashed on the beach and a few cows were grazing below the big trees. We had another very good fish dinner that night. The previous two nights the dinners had not been particularly good, as the manager was dealing with the motorcycle accident.
The next morning I was up before 5 and caught a bus shortly after 5:30 to the port. To my surprise, the ship listed on my ticket was not there, but a huge ship about 600 feet long had just arrived from Port Blair. It disembarked its passengers, including only one western tourist. About 200 of us boarded, with me the only westerner, and it turned out I could have avoided the scrum at the ticket office the day before and bought my ticket at the dock. The ship, the Campbell Bay (named after a bay on Great Nicobar Island, the southernmost of the Nicobars), was brand new with a capacity for 1200 passengers. It was almost 8 when we departed, almost an hour late. I spent the first two hours on deck and watched Little Andaman go by. I could see the big waves at the northern headland of Butler Bay. The ship was air conditioned and I had a bunk in a room with ten or twenty beds. I spent hardly any time in my room but sat in an empty lounge in a comfortable chair next to a big window. I read and enjoyed the views. About 2 we were off Ross Island, where we stopped dead in the water for a half hour or so, apparently waiting for the pilot to board. It was a slow process getting to the dock and we finally docked at 3:30 not at the dock I had used for all other ferries, but at the dock used for the big ships to the mainland. I took an auto rickshaw to my hotel and then checked about boats to Calcutta. One was scheduled to leave in four days' time, but the previous ship had been delayed several days and my hotel owner was not very positive about the ship that was going to Calcutta, so I decided to fly. It was very hot in Port Blair.
I bought my ticket to Calcutta the next morning for the next day. It cost me $160, about four times the ship fare. The day was another very hot one, I walked to the anthropological museum and spent a couple of hours there. It was very interesting, with some great tribal artifacts and photographs, including a photo of almost naked North Sentinelese standing just offshore the island and aiming bows and arrows at the photographer. A signboard said the Andaman and Nicobar Islands had a population of 282,000 in 2001 (one of my guidebooks says 350,000 now, with over 100,000 in Port Blair), 23% speaking Bengali, 19% Tamil, 18% Hindi, 12% Telugu, 9% tribal languages, 9% Malayalam, 5% Ranchi languages, and 5% other languages. The religious breakdown was 67% Hindu, 24% Christian, and 8% Muslim. I didn't do much the rest of the day. Internet connections were often very bad in the Andamans. I did see a guy near the bus stand drinking from a cow. He massaged the cow's udder and then put his mouth to it to drink. I am certain that I have never seen that on a city street anywhere else. In fact, I don't think I've seen that anywhere else, period. Around 5 I walked to the esplanade fronting the sea before Ross Island. Massive clouds filled the sky. In the adjacent park were a tank, a missile, a warship gun and statues of Tagore and Bose. A statue of Rajiv Gandhi stood on a dock out into the sea. At 6 I went to the sound and light show at the Cellular Jail. Hundreds of Indians attended and I didn't see any other westerners. It wasn't very well done, I thought. One of the heroes featured was Veer Savarkar, an extreme Hindu nationalist who was imprisoned in the jail for about ten years until 1921, when he renounced violence and was released from his life sentence. He was a great opponent of Gandhi and gave his blessing to his assassin. And he is now a national hero. Port Blair's airport is named after him.
The next morning I took a ferry at 8:30 to Ross Island, only about half a mile from Port Blair. This small island was the British administrative center and is covered with derelict old buildings from the colonial era. I spent the whole day there walking around and exploring the ruins, plus a very few restored buildings. The atmospheric overgrown buildings included the arcaded "Subordinates' Club," the Presbyterian Church, the Commissioner's Bungalow, and many others, all covered in vines and roots. Some of the ruined buildings have fig trees growing on them and are covered with masses of roots. The island hosts many huge trees and many coconut palms, all of which have numbers, up to almost 2000, painted on them. There are also relatively tame spotted deer, peacocks and peahens and squirrels. A cemetery has graves from the 1860's. There are also some Japanese World War II bunkers and a small museum with interesting photos from the colonial era.
The day was sunny and hot, with great views through the forest towards the sea. Lots of Indians were strolling around, but I seemed to be the only westerner. Some very polite non-Indian looking children said hello and their parents told me they were tribal people, Nicobarese. The father told me he works in Port Blair. While there are less than 1000 tribal people, from four different tribes, left in the Andamans, there are about 30,000 in the Nicobars, almost all (there is one other tribe) Nicobaris who are Christian and have adapted well to modern life. I took the last ferry back about 5 and had an okay fish dinner in an outdoor restaurant as darkness fell. My room was hot that night at bedtime, with my thermometer registering 88 degrees inside the room.
I was up the next morning at first light, about 4:30, and headed to the port soon after 5 to buy a ticket for the ship leaving for Little Andaman Island south of Port Blair. This ship was much larger than the other ferries I had taken, maybe 300 feet or more long, with several decks and even a helipad. It left at 7, with tugs pulling it away from the dock. I spent the almost seven hour voyage on the deck. We rounded Ross Island and headed south along the east coast of South Andaman Island heading for Hut Bay on Little Andaman, about 75 miles south of Port Blair. South of South Andaman we passed large Rutland Island, then the two small Cinque Islands and then the even smaller Sisters and Brothers Islands. The long, low coastline of Little Andaman became visible and we cruised down its eastern coast with its long white beaches visible. Little Andaman is the southernmost of the Andamans. South of it is the Ten Degree Channel between Little Andaman and the northernmost of the Nicobars. Little Andaman is the only island in the Andamans to suffer loss of life during the 2004 tsunami, with almost 100 killed. At least that is the official toll; other estimates are higher. The Nicobars suffered much more loss of life, with thousands killed. In Kalipur in North Andaman the hotel owner had been on Havelock when the tsunami hit. He said the sea first receded rapidly and the ensuing wave was chest high at his hotel on Havelock's east coast.
We docked at Hut Bay at 1:45 and the ship immediately refilled with passengers for the return trip to Port Blair. There were only two other western tourists on the ship and the three of us took a crowded jeep to a little hotel about seven miles north from the dock at Hut Bay, near the little village of Netaji Nagar. There are about 20,000 people living on Little Andaman, almost all migrants from the mainland. About 100 tribal Onge people remain in reserves that you are not allowed to visit. I checked into my comfortable hut, had a late lunch, and then walked across the road and through the trees for fewer than five minutes to the long beach, stretching all the way from the Hut Bay dock. Little Andaman's beaches are known for their sand flies, so I quickly walked along the beach to its nearby northern headland, and then across that low but rocky headland to a much smaller beach lined with huge trees. At its northern end is a pool fed by the tide backed by big black rocks. Just beyond the pool is the headland between it and beautiful Butler Bay to the north. I found a lookout over Butler Bay from the rocky headland and then a path through the big trees to the southern end of Butler Bay. The tide was low. It was getting late, so I headed back, but took a road inland from the small beach that led to Netaji Nagar village, with some very friendly people. From there I took the main road back to my hotel, arriving just at 6 as darkness fell. We had a delicious fish dinner that night, a grouper cooked in butter and garlic, with french fries and salad. There were only four of us staying there, the Canadian-Argentine couple that had arrived on the ship with me, plus a young Norwegian guy who had been there for two weeks or more.
I was up the next morning about 5:30 and took a two hour walk, first along the beach, but the sand flies soon drove me off the beach into the trees and onto the road heading towards the dock. I enjoyed the morning walk along the quiet road, passing a school, three other small hotels, a few houses, and lots of areca palms, coconut palms and high padauk trees. One stretch between the beach and the road was lined with casuarina (ironwood) trees. I walked to a lagoon fed by the sea that is just alongside the road. Salt water crocodiles are said to appear there, but I saw none. I did see several birds. Back at the hotel I had a leisurely breakfast and then went swimming in the very blue water off the beach near the hotel. There were good waves, too. In fact, Little Andaman is known for its surfing, particularly at the northern headland of Butler Bay. Most of the very few tourists on the island seem to have come for the surfing. Back at the hotel I read and had a late lunch before going for an afternoon swim. From about 4 to 6 I took a walk, first along the road for over a mile to Butler Bay and then back along the beaches and headlands.
I slept late the next morning, until about 7:30. I read, had breakfast, and took a swim. I was going to rent a scooter to explore the island, but there was a gas shortage, so I rented a bicycle and biked south along the road and then inland to a waterfall about four miles away. The waterfall was about 40 or 50 feet high, but not particularly scenic. I took a path to the top and sat there for a while. Very big flies, bigger than horse flies, bedeviled me both at the falls and on the bike trip into the forest on the way to the falls. Swatting them didn't necessarily shoo them away; you had to brush them away. From the waterfall I biked an additional three miles to the town of Hut Bay, the island's largest village near the dock. Uniformed men were playing cricket in the hot midday sun on a mostly grassy field, or perhaps I should say pitch. A loudspeaker announced the action, but there didn't seem to be any spectators. It took me a while to find the ferry ticket office, as it had no sign. When I found it, I had a 40 minute wait as the one guy working there was out to lunch. When he did arrive, he was not particularly helpful. I biked back to the hotel, went swimming and then had something to eat. From about 4:30 to 6 I took a walk on a road that head inland just north of our hotel. It passed through an oil palm plantation and by an oil palm factory. I met some very friendly little girls, living in the decrepit wooden housing near the factory. There were lots of flies along the road. In fact, insects were quite a problem on Little Andaman. My legs had many sand fly and mosquito bites and flies were a problem during the day.
We had heard during the afternoon that the Norwegian guy had been in a motorcycle accident and was hospitalized. It turned out it was quite serious. He required thirty plus stitches in his scalp and one arm and one leg were badly hurt. Fortunately, he didn't seem to have any internal injuries. He was evacuated by helicopter the next morning to Port Blair.
I was up the next morning about 5:30 and took a walk into the oil palm plantation for a little less than an hour. Workers were arriving at the mill. Back at the hotel I had breakfast, read and swam. It was quite a lazy day, as we were all dispirited by the motorcycle accident. From 4 to 6 I did take a walk to the pool at the little beach between the long Hut Bay Beach and Butler Bay. I sat among the big trees there for a while and watched the sea grow dark.
The next morning I awoke about 4:30 and listened to the birds and the waves. I got up about 6 and read for a while. On Little Andaman I missed taking early morning walks along the beach, as the sand flies were particularly bad in the early morning. After breakfast I caught a passing share jeep into Hut Bay and got off at the ferry ticket office. There was a big crowd is a disorderly scrum at the little window, with men on one side and women on the other. I pushed and shoved with everyone else for about an hour before I got my ticket for the next morning. At the end, I reached my relatively long arm with my form requesting a ticket over others in front of me into the little ticket window, perhaps three inches square. You could barely see the guys dispensing tickets inside. After getting my ticket, I took a bus back to the hotel and went for a swim before spending most of the afternoon reading. From about 4:30 to nightfall I walked among the big trees between the road and the beach. Two of them had fallen, years ago. Big waves crashed on the beach and a few cows were grazing below the big trees. We had another very good fish dinner that night. The previous two nights the dinners had not been particularly good, as the manager was dealing with the motorcycle accident.
The next morning I was up before 5 and caught a bus shortly after 5:30 to the port. To my surprise, the ship listed on my ticket was not there, but a huge ship about 600 feet long had just arrived from Port Blair. It disembarked its passengers, including only one western tourist. About 200 of us boarded, with me the only westerner, and it turned out I could have avoided the scrum at the ticket office the day before and bought my ticket at the dock. The ship, the Campbell Bay (named after a bay on Great Nicobar Island, the southernmost of the Nicobars), was brand new with a capacity for 1200 passengers. It was almost 8 when we departed, almost an hour late. I spent the first two hours on deck and watched Little Andaman go by. I could see the big waves at the northern headland of Butler Bay. The ship was air conditioned and I had a bunk in a room with ten or twenty beds. I spent hardly any time in my room but sat in an empty lounge in a comfortable chair next to a big window. I read and enjoyed the views. About 2 we were off Ross Island, where we stopped dead in the water for a half hour or so, apparently waiting for the pilot to board. It was a slow process getting to the dock and we finally docked at 3:30 not at the dock I had used for all other ferries, but at the dock used for the big ships to the mainland. I took an auto rickshaw to my hotel and then checked about boats to Calcutta. One was scheduled to leave in four days' time, but the previous ship had been delayed several days and my hotel owner was not very positive about the ship that was going to Calcutta, so I decided to fly. It was very hot in Port Blair.
I bought my ticket to Calcutta the next morning for the next day. It cost me $160, about four times the ship fare. The day was another very hot one, I walked to the anthropological museum and spent a couple of hours there. It was very interesting, with some great tribal artifacts and photographs, including a photo of almost naked North Sentinelese standing just offshore the island and aiming bows and arrows at the photographer. A signboard said the Andaman and Nicobar Islands had a population of 282,000 in 2001 (one of my guidebooks says 350,000 now, with over 100,000 in Port Blair), 23% speaking Bengali, 19% Tamil, 18% Hindi, 12% Telugu, 9% tribal languages, 9% Malayalam, 5% Ranchi languages, and 5% other languages. The religious breakdown was 67% Hindu, 24% Christian, and 8% Muslim. I didn't do much the rest of the day. Internet connections were often very bad in the Andamans. I did see a guy near the bus stand drinking from a cow. He massaged the cow's udder and then put his mouth to it to drink. I am certain that I have never seen that on a city street anywhere else. In fact, I don't think I've seen that anywhere else, period. Around 5 I walked to the esplanade fronting the sea before Ross Island. Massive clouds filled the sky. In the adjacent park were a tank, a missile, a warship gun and statues of Tagore and Bose. A statue of Rajiv Gandhi stood on a dock out into the sea. At 6 I went to the sound and light show at the Cellular Jail. Hundreds of Indians attended and I didn't see any other westerners. It wasn't very well done, I thought. One of the heroes featured was Veer Savarkar, an extreme Hindu nationalist who was imprisoned in the jail for about ten years until 1921, when he renounced violence and was released from his life sentence. He was a great opponent of Gandhi and gave his blessing to his assassin. And he is now a national hero. Port Blair's airport is named after him.
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ReplyDeleteAndaman Hotels
Nice trip. Thanks for sharing your trip experience. Floating in wonderful seclusion, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (andaman) are a group of 550 scenic islands, each of them being a naturalist's haven. Out of the 550, 26 still remains uninhabited. Explore all best hotels in Port Blair also.
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