“Explore the magical Andaman Islands – a wondrous realm of stunning marine and coral reefs, swimming elephants, pristine beaches and mysterious tribes who exist beyond the reach of time. Pass through shimmering gates of coral and discover volcanic gardens of an underwater paradise. Here lions, unicorns and butterflies masquerade as fish.” – Jacques Yves Cousteau (father of Scuba)
We were in the Andaman Islands for 9 days and did 9 dives each, but saw a different world than what Jacques Cousteau did.
Don’t get me wrong – the Andamans are still quite something but its heart wrenching to see their beauty strangled by the madness of the tourism industry, the irresponsibility of the tourists, and the impotency of the government to do any sort of conservation work.
A saving grace is that the local population is very honest. The prices of auto rickshaws and naariyal paani (coconuts) are fixed. It’s a soft introduction to mainland India for firangs according to Swiss bunny and an abroad-like experience for desis, who can’t be bothered with passports renewals (like my parents).
This is what we saw:
Day 1: landed in Port Blair
Took a prepaid taxi (not an Ambassador 😂) from the airport to Marina park but the taxi driver roped us into paying him 1100 rs more and driving us around in the morning. We hung out at the Corbyne Cove’s beach, which is quite pleasant in the mornings.
Beware, it could turn into a mad house in the evening with water scooters and peddlers.
Then we headed for our jetty 2.5 h in advance of our ferry, which was a BIG mistake. The jetty was an ugly, foul smelling building, with hundreds of people, and very little air. The only cool thing in this place was their Christmas tree made of painted tyres.
Ferry to Havelock: nice and smooth.
We hired a scooter, arranged our dives with ScubaLov, had dinner at Something Different, which is the top rated restaurant in Havelock but there isn’t anything too much different about it except their denim table mats.
Day 2: woke up at 6am for our first dives in Havelock! Some nice fish, some dying coral, many nemos and their dads, overall quite nice.
A box fish too
However, we were not taken to the best diving sites around the island. The Andamans attract LOADS of discover scuba punters to have their ZNMD experience. It’s much more economically favorable for dive shops to carry tourists like suitcases in shallow water for 15 min than to arrange good dives for certified divers. But better times were coming.
In the afternoon, we hung out by the beach next to full moon cafe, so calm, so pretty, so shallow.
In the evening we drove up to Radhanagar beach. The road is beautiful, lined with supari trees and forests and lush green farms.
Radhanagar is all white fine sand, and attracts loads of tourists, who for some reason just concentrate near the entrance.
We left the crowds and walked down to the very far (left) end to sit on the engagement rock. It was all very nice.
On the way we also met these crabs. They make sand balls of the sand they have licked, to not redo the same bit! Very smart!
Day 3: We woke up at 5 am to go dive at the wall. At the dive site, we could see fish and the sea floor (12 m deep) from the boat itself, also loads of bright blue dots (presumably jelly fish). Super pretty (no pic though)!
Also I have never jumped into a calmer sea, it was like a swimming pool. Down below was a slightly different story though – with quite some current. This site is a wall full of different colored coral and was brimming with life! We saw octopuses and sting rays right at the beginning of this dive.
Next we trekked down to elephanta beach. The path was not crowded and I imagined a white, empty, and beautiful beach with wonderful things to see in the sea (while snorkeling).
The reality however was something else. This is THE place for water sports in Havelock. The air (and the water) was buzzing with the sound of the water scooters, shops, and the deafening seetis (whistles) of the life guards whenever anyone went beyond waist deep water.
Snorkeling was “allowed” only with “guides” who were taking the crowds not more than 10 m from the shore. We were quite put off, and ventured to a cove that was “not allowed” to tourists (presumably because there were no life guards here, GOI please don’t act like nbdu Indian parents). Had they closed off this part for conservation, I would totally understand but fishermen and fishing boats were allowed here. Great.
Sitting in the isolated cove:
Next, we picked up bunny papa and bunny mumma and slept-in for New Year’s Eve.
Day 4: It’s 2020, the hotel garden is filthy from the New Years “party” at 9 am. Where will all this trash go?
We did a day trip around the island with a taxi. We went to Kala Pathar beach which doesn’t have any patther (stones), but was quite nice (apparently good for watching sunrises).
The way to Kala patther is absolutely beautiful with lots of empty beaches where one is not harassed by the seetis of the life guards.
Then we headed off to Radhanagar beach again. We got a disappointing sunset but very happy bunnies.
Day 5: woke up at 5 am again, for 2 dives, one at the wall and the other at an unexplored dive site!
We were 3 advanced divers on the boat and we all felt unanimously adventurous enough to try a new dive site that even our dive master hadn’t seen before.
IT WAS AMAZING. We named it “not the slope”.
We saw a large cuttle fish changing it’s colours beautifully (HOW does it know what’s below it), and I swear I had eye contact with the large octopus Swiss bunny had spotted, who came out after all the divers had left.
He turned black. That’s an Octopissed. (hint: He’s right in the middle of the picture)
Stone fish. Spot the eyes?
Then we did a boat trip to Elephanta beach with the parents (that’s how 100s of people get there, who don’t want to hike 😂).
Boats going to Elephanta. Looks pretty but the beach was full of stray dogs and lots of litter
Day 6: Neil island
We took the boat to Neil island. We stayed at the Seashell which is absolutely lovely.
Enjoyed the sunset at Laxmanpur beach. It was crowded but the sunset was beautiful.
Day 7: woke up at 530 am for 2 dives and road trip around Neil island
Pictures taken while waiting for the dive masters to arrive
Both dives had nice visibility and laakhon (millions) of fish.
Then we hung out at the Bharatpur beach, which was quite pretty even in low tide.
Bunnies pop.
Then we headed to Sitapur beach which is a sunrise view point but in the afternoon was deserted and absolutely lovely.
We found a nice unpretentious restaurant next to it. The owner kept forgetting to add lime to the lime soda (she did that with two sets of customers, pretty sure unintentionally).
That’s the kind of places we like. 😊
Then we went on to see the natural bridge formations. The way to go there was treacherous, full of sharp stones and actually dangerous!
It’s OK to not have a path but we were surprised that there was no surveillance or amenities here at all if anyone got injured. This compared to the absolutely safe beaches where the life guards won’t let anyone swim for “safety” is so ironic.
Loads of people were still trying to get to the rock formation, as we did too. But we saw a much better view of the arch from the other side of the beach where nobody was going!
Why wasn’t anyone else here exploring? Why were all the Indians going in only one direction?
Day 8: 2 dives and ferry back to portblair
We did our first dive at the Junction, which is a 30 m deep dive site, full of soft coral and now, my second favourite site in the world! (Competing closely with my first favorite In Tulamben).
Second dive at the Lighthouse, which is a concrete structure but has become quite full of life. We had to abandon our dives after 55 min though our tanks were half full because of some newly certified divers consuming too much air 😛.
Life at the Lighthouse dive site
Awkward mermaid
Port blair: we went to the cellular jail and attended the sound show in the evening, both of which were pretty unexciting. I wish we had rather gone to the sunset points to see the amazingly purple sky. For next time!
cellular jail
cells of of the cellular jail (bigger than our IIT rooms 😜)
View of the guards from the cellular jail
And Day 9: time to go back to mainland! (with a nice stopover in Hyderabad)
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We reminisce about our Andaman trip with a sweet and sour feeling.
The seas were great, but were suffering. Every second house in Havelock is supposedly a hotel/ lodge. All the waste from the hotels are changing the pH of the seas, and severely damaging the corals. Hotels are being built with no conservation in mind, with mangroves being cut and agricultural land being replaced with concrete structures, forcing more and more import from the mainland. Some hotel owners/ restauranters are crooks but can pull it off because most tourists wouldn’t return (and there is no-little internet connectivity on the islands to check reviews).
The government keeps closing off dive sites for diving companies but allows all kinds of fishing. People do game fishing and pick up large endangered fish, but the government doesn’t bat an eyelid. Conservationists don’t get permission to perform studies and are stopped from doing anything.
The local population is great but is also suffering with the intrusion of mainland Indians. They commit crimes (such as harassing women and children), litter and leave tons of trash behind.
We are abusing this beautiful place, not out of malice, but pure short term thinking.
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Will we recommend popping to the Andamans? Yes, definitely, but please don’t go there as a rich tourist. Go there as a pilgrim. Please give the place the respect it deserves.
Credits: All underwater pictures by Swiss bunny-fish
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