|| A-N-D-A-M-A-N ||

Blue sea lagoon….

Incredible India…

Pristine Beauty…

Nostalgic Holiday….

It’s Just THE Perfect Place to be in INDIA….

How do I begin, is always a question pondering in mind when I begin writing a Travelogue. So let’s begin here with planning… and then let’s flow with the tide. It all began with the planning starting way back in June 2011 exactly 5 months before heading to the Island. The biggest dilemma was “Shall I Plan on My Own” or “Shall I head through Travel Agency”. After much thought, I decided lets plan it on own and move ahead with the travel.

 Started with searching on hotels, resorts, flight, how to head.. where to land… itinerary… juggling up everything. Finally sorted out the way.. booked the flight tickets three month in Advance by Air India. Shortlisted the hotel, resorts and finally plan was ready.

23.11.11 – 24.11.11 (Hyderabad – Chennai)

Started my Andaman trip from Hyderabad Railway Station via train to Chennai Central. Booked a railway room and stayed there as we had a flight early morning next day. The retiring room at Railway Station was nice and comfy with 2 AC in Delux room. Bang… bang… ohh.. no one is knocking… the sound was due to heavy rain. Luckly rain stopped and we had our chance to explore a bit of Chennai for breakfast and lunch. Left for Marina beach and enjoyed the climate, cloudy sky. After exploring Marina beach, we turned back for Rickshaw to Chennai Central. “With friend’s advice & reading travel forums, I got to know that fairs are fixed in Chennai but might need to negotiate to get the exact fair”. Chennai Central.. how much.. one said 100 toh other said 70. Since we came in Rs.60 from Chennai central, I thought that would be fine and then we finalized one auto for Rs.60.

While enroute to Chennai Central, he took from different route and we were enjoying the view, till suddenly he said ‘your stop is here and we understood in bits and pieces. “Chennai Central” I said. “City Centre” he said. And the game begins of language war… Tamil V/s English… Outcome .. I can’t understand you.. and you can’t understand me… stop at Traffic Police Fellow was my reply. Our Translator (traffic police) helped us and Negotiated the further price which I said I would pay of being non tamil… and he shouldn’t be at loss too .. Finally Chennai Central came. Who says Language Test is essential to visit UK, USA, Australia, NZ, etc etc. instead I think Language book should be essential to visit places in India ;)

At night we visited Saravana Bhavan (heard a lot about it) for dinner. Booked a Pick up cab at night for early morning flight to PB in advance. Again downpour started and this time it was too much, was tensed about my flight… water logging… Finally caught the cab at 12.30 which was too early but was worried about water logging and rain. Though streets were filled with water but we reached by 1 am. Firstly Air India management (mis-management) gave tensed moments from my booking till this day (whether it will fly or not) & now this downpour.. was the thought going on till I finally cleared the Security Check.

25.11.11 (MAA - IXZ) – PORT BLAIR

Finally landed in the flight with vide eye open as if the flight is landed at IXZ. As the flight took off we were wondering when the island would come and when flight will land… soon due to no sleep I was in deep sleep when suddenly captain said.. we are about to land in 20 minutes and…. Wooooo… what a pleasant view of sea… soon the brown water turned into blue… and the flight landed on 8.30 am to this pristine beauty island known as ANDAMAN.

Thanks to Yatin and few messages exchanged with him, we took Auto for our resort. What a view it was. Loved our Dome shape Resort (different from normal hotel which I actually wanted) and a view to Sea. Completed the check in formality and started making plan for the day, places to travel, contacting the reception desk for travel assistance (which off course betterhalf was resisting as she wanted to Rest and I wanted to explore Andaman). Finally we planned our day and started the journey to explore port blair with a walk to beach.

Corby’s beach was around 1 km from our resort and thus we decided to walk and enjoy the nice sea breeze with sea view. After enjoying a corby’s, we took an Auto from their for the city towards Cellular Jail. Cellular Jail followed by Anthropology Museum, Gandhi Park, Andaman & Nicobar Tourism Office, Water Park was our first phase of travel when we decided to take a hault and have something good too feed ourself. Took an auto & asked him to take at some good veg restaurant. He took us to Annapurna – A very nice Vegetarian Restaurant in the market. By the time we completed the food it was 5pm and we headed for Light & Sound Show at Cellular Jail.

Queue at Cellular Jail was as-if tickets are in limited no. and later tickets would be available in Black. So we thought lets both of us stand in respective queue of Gents/Ladies. As prevail in India, she got the ticket easily and very early. Enjoyed the light and sound show and then headed to our Resort. It was a tiring day with lot of travel & hardly any sleep a day before. During our visit to A&N tourism, we planned our next day & booked the tickets for Jolly Bouy Island.