After India we decided to take a trip to the Andaman Islands, an idyllic paradise nestled in midst of the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman sea. It is one of the Union Territories of India and is an unspoiled tourist gem.
We flew from Kolkata to the Andaman Islands. We only spent a day in Kolkata visiting Mother Teresa’s museum and retracing the steps of Nick’s Grandfather who grew up here. It was one of the most developed towns we have seen in India and Nick thought it had come along way since his last visit fifteen years ago.
When we arrived in the Andaman Islands we had two options. We could either jump from ferry to ferry, explore new and unexplored beaches or just stay on one island. We decided to do the latter after city hopping in India the idea of transporting all our bags island hopping was too much.
The island where we decided to base ourselves was called the Havelock islands. This is the largest island in the Andaman island with its perfect beaches and mangrove forests. We were surprised by how deserted the beaches and sea were so everywhere we walked was like having a private beach to ourselves.
When the ferry arrives into Havelock your first introduction is that it’s crowded as you see a lot of people in the nearest beach called beach number 1. All the beaches in Andaman island are called by numbers. And then you soon realise that as you move on towards the other beaches, you hardly see anyone. We didn’t expect to have beaches to ourselves but we could walk for miles round the island and not see anyone. It was magical especially after our city living in India.
These were some of the most beautiful beaches we have seen since starting the trip. They were pristine, spotless and the white sands look like they have been purged of every speck of dust. The sunsets are beautiful with each cloud floating past changing the colours in the sky.
The only thing that caught us off guard was the lack of connectivity. Beforehand we hadn’t read there would be an issue with WiFi or with Indian mobile providers, however it caught us completely off guard so our admin list ground to a halt. It was a struggle to get signal throughout the island so should bear this in mind.
Havelock was our escape after our adventure in India and gave us much needed R & R before our next stop, Sri Lanka