In August 2019, I had this desire to go on a trip because it was around 3 months following a regular home-office schedule from Delhi to Noida. So I applied for a week’s leave from work without knowing where I would be going. Once my leaves were approved then I started searching the places for my trip. First place that always comes to my mind is Goa, because of the beaches 😍 and party ambience, but September is not the correct time to visit Goa and also I had already visited Goa twice. So other places on my list were Pondicherry and Andman.
So, I finally decided to go to Andaman and Nicobar, a Union Territory of India. One of my really good friends accompanied me on this trip.
We had five days for this trip. So, I started planning with flight bookings, hotels and ferry booking.
Visiting Andman and Nicobar in September is also not recommended because of monsoon time. But I badly wanted to go on this trip, so not thinking too much about the time, I continued with my plans. Due to off season we got flight booking at a reasonable price.
There is no direct flight from Delhi to Port Blair that's why we chose to go via Hyderabad with around two and a half hours layover. Although there were connecting flights available with layovers about an hour or so. but we had plenty of time :P. The flight tickets fare was 6k per head. From Port Blair to Delhi we booked a flight via Kolkata which costs us around Rs 5800.
Our trip started on 31st August at 4:45 AM. We were so excited that we reached the airport at around 2:00 AM and waited for more than 2 hours at the airport.
The Veer Savarkar International Airport, Port Blair is a small airport but with magnificent beauty around it. We hired a taxi from the airport to our stay that we booked from airbnb known as Dutta's Residency for two days and one night which costs us around Rs 1600.
This was the view from the balcony of our stay. If you plan to book the Dutta's Residency make sure that you request for a room with a balcony.
After enjoying this view we decided to explore nearby places. And after checking google map we decided to go to Corbyn's cove beach which is around 2.9kms away from our stay. So we preferred to walk to this beach and explore places in between that took around 30 - 40 mins. It was a very peaceful walk. The weather was so pleasant and had a cool breeze. In between we had tea and mathri at a chai ki tapri. Chai wale bhaiya was so sweet and humble that he made special tea for us.
Finally we reached Cove beach. There were a few people and there were no shacks, no water sports or activity at the beach at that time because of the rainy season.
Next day we had a plan to visit Havelock island for which we already booked our ferry from website experienceandamans. There are different cruise operators and different sitting class that one can book. We booked a premium Makruzz cruise for Rs 2774 for two people that took around 1.5 hours to Havelock island.
This is the Havelock island jetty point, where all the ferries arrive and leave havelock island.
At Havelock island jetty point there are auto rickshaws available that you can book. We haven't booked any hotels at Havelock island and decided to book once we reached there. We booked a government auto rickshaw which was very cheap and we asked him to take us to resorts so that we can decide where to stay. He agreed and the very first resort he took us was Green Valley Resort which is at Vijay Nagar Beach. It was a fine resort and charges for the resort is around Rs 2000 per night so we booked for 2 nights. And we rented scooty from the same resort owner.
Before choosing a resort or hotel at Havelock or on any other island please make sure that they provide wi-fi service. Because we experienced horrible network connections and no wi-fi service at Havelock island. So basically we spend 2 days without the internet.
There are few restaurants or cafes where you can use their wifi service or you can use BSNL sim there that provides good internet speed as compared to other operators.
First we visited Kalapathar Beach which was nearest to our stay. We spent some time there and headed towards RadhaNagar Beach.
It's around 40 mins ride from Kala Pathar to Radha Nagar beach.
This road leads to the most beautiful beach on Havelock island i.e., Radhanagar beach, which is famous for its white sand and blue water and road accidents 😒 . Yes it's true. This was only the second day of our trip and when we were about to reach Radhanagar beach we had a road accident.
I had experienced my life's first road accident at Havelock island and by god’s grace it was not that horrible. But trust me when we recall the accident time it is the good memory we have of this trip apart from scuba diving. My friend and I were totally ready to go to the beach wearing new clothes and we had goggles and we had this swag 😎 but after the accident our goggles were on the road and my friend’s trousers torn off around her knees that again became fashionable 😁. It was not funny at that time but surely it is now.
We had this accident when we were just 1Km away from Radhanagar beach and we knew that we were not going to visit Andman again. So we decided to go to Radhanagar beach first then back to our resort and before exploring the beach we stopped at a food stall which was at the entrance of the beach and had our lunch there.
The day after the accident we had a plan for scuba diving. There are many beaches where one can enjoy different activities at the beach but most famous is Elephant beach. But at our time of visit the activities at Elephant beach was closed because of the rainy season. But at few beaches Scuba diving was still open. We got the contact details of the person who arranged scuba diving from our resort reception and informed him about our injuries from the accident as well. As we didn't want to take any risk.
We paid Rs 2500 per head for scuba diving and headed towards the beach number 5 for the activity. It was around 40 minutes of activity including 5-10 minutes training time. Though the water was not clean,we still enjoyed it a lot. After this activity we directly went to the hospital and had injections and bandages.
The remaining two days of our trip we spent at a hotel in Port Blair because of our injuries and injections soreness . And we had TV in our room but only one channel in which only one song was repeatedly playing was Arijit Singh's Bada Pachtaogey (hahaha...) 😜😟 and we listened to that song around 5 or 6 times because we had no choice. no internet no wifi, other than turning off TV.
Overall it was a good trip 😀. There were few incidents on this trip from which I have learnt a lot and met few people who were really generous and helpful and the opposite kinds as well of course.
' fill='%23359391'%3e %3cpath d='M46.1538462%2c43.5714286 L41.5%2c50 L36.8461538%2c43.5714286 L36.8670256%2c43.5714286 C36.3173077%2c42.7142857 36%2c41.6851429 36%2c40.5714286 C36%2c37.4854286 38.4535641%2c35 41.5%2c35 C44.5464359%2c35 47%2c37.4854286 47%2c40.5714286 C47%2c41.6851429 46.6826923%2c42.7142857 46.1329744%2c43.5714286 L46.1538462%2c43.5714286 Z M41.4294872%2c39 C40.6150641%2c39 39.9487179%2c39.675 39.9487179%2c40.5 C39.9487179%2c41.325 40.6150641%2c42 41.4294872%2c42 C42.2439103%2c42 42.9102564%2c41.325 42.9102564%2c40.5 C42.9102564%2c39.675 42.2439103%2c39 41.4294872%2c39 L41.4294872%2c39 Z' id='Location-white'%3e%3c/path%3e %3c/g%3e %3c/svg%3e)
