This was one of the most awaiting trip since it got postponed couple of times from October 2019 to February 2020. Thanks to my wife as she did all Planning, flight and hotel booking, I simply had to slip in the last to understand the trip and plan further.
In our trip, along with Ankita (my wife) and Karnik (my kid), Ankita brother(Himanshu) and her mother had also joined. Trip started on 20th February from Bangalore with lot of enthusiasm.
We reached Port Blair around 9:30 am and found it more hot and humid as compared to Bangalore's weather. Port Blair airport is very small with very basic facilities. Phone network are very limited. Data internet was not at all available. Downloading all the trip tickets/booking in our phone was very helpful throughout.
We hired a cab from pre paid taxi booth on airport which was very economical. As everyone speak Hindi there, communication was easier for us.
We had booked an 2BHK apartment via airbnb, which we found decent enough. After quick breakfast we left to take scooter on rent. Finally 2 Activa in good condition @ Rs 500 for 24 hours booked. We visited archaeological museum. I found it small but was a good start for knowledge of island. We paid small fees of Rs 30 per member for its entrance. From there we left for samudrika museum but found it closed for lunch break. We were also feeling hungry, so we headed towards everyone's recommended Annapoorna restaurant. Restaurant was decent and highly famed as best pure veg restaurant but we didn't found it exclusive in any sense. After lunch we left for Corbyn's Cove beach. Roads to the beach, are very clean roads with one side ocean view. Many views were picture square. We took lot of pictures near flag hosting point on the route and then reached to the beach. Mind blowing, was able to see a beach after a long gap.
My son got the best place to play with his sand toys, Himanshu had hands on jet skii. Ankita's mom was very scared of the sea on that day as she got on the sea beach after a long time. There were few other water sports activity which i was not interested on. After spending quality time on the beach we left for light and sound show inside the cellular jail. As we didn't knew the exact route, google map not working due to internet and both the scooters were running in different route. Since everything in Port Blair is very close to each other, we got united again in few minutes. Show was interesting and a must seen point for every tourist. This is what for Andaman is known for.
Later we felt very tired and took dinner again at Annapurna (since we felt lack of choose) and went back to the hotel. Once reached, we realized that we had to leave very early to catch the morning cruise therefore we decided to return the scooter back in the night itself. With the help of care taker at the hotel we booked 2 autos to help us morning journey till jetty.
We woke up at 4:45 in the morning and left to catch the cruise by 5:15 am. There was a formal process of checking the ID's and boarding the cruise. Soon our first journey on the cruise begin and it was good view of the sea and sun rays on the sea but soon, we felt sea sickness. For rest of the 2 and half hour journey we either slept or sat holding our stomach.
After reaching the Havelock island, we booked taxi to take us to our stay again booked via AirBnb. In between every person that we met was trying to convince us for cheapest Scuba Diving but we wanted to wait for our home stay manager guidance. We enjoyed the sandwich that we made as we were carrying all the items to prepare sandwich and left again looking for scooter on rent. We felt all the shop keeper has a side business of providing scooter on rent to the tourist. We also found that havelock can be covered using one road only. Very small island with all the market, tourist destination, hotels on the same road. Havelock was full of tourist and we found it difficult to get a scooter on rent since most of them were already booked. we hired an auto to help us in finding scooter. Finally paid Rs 100 extra for each scooter and got 2 scooter @500 each. From here the fun begins.
We wanted to cover Elephanta beach first to enjoy sports activity. To reach Elephanta beach there are 2 different route. One via boat, another via 30 minutes track. Himanshu and I choose to track while others choose via boat. Boat was expensive @950 per person with complimentary basis snorkeling. Last time to start jungle track was 1 pm as beach is closed by 3 pm every day. Track was splendidly beautiful. The Boat reached early, again on the beach me and my son enjoyed the waves and sand plays as usual. Ankita enjoyed the complementary snorkeling and experienced corals and fish. This time mummy seemed little comfortable with the beach and water unlike day the before. Since few of the boat members were not interested in snorkeling me and himanshu also got the chance to do snorkeling on their behalf :D
Once snorkeling completed, I understood that my interest to see the corals is very limited and we all decided to drop the idea of scuba diving.
By 3 pm every one has to leave the beach and we all followed the same route though which we came.
Our next destination was Radha Nagar beach sunset point. Once we reached Radha Nagar beach, we found it splendidly beautiful, One of the best I have seen ever. Very clean water, long, well maintained beach. After the sunset, we returned to the market had dinner and went to sleep in the hotel.
Next day morning, we woke up at 7 and quickly got ready to reach Kalapathar beach for the sunrise. It was again a nice experience. We spent around 1.5 hours and came back to have brunch.
After brunch we took rest and decide to do kayaking in the night.
At around 4 pm we left Radhanagar beach for sunset view again and discover a silent spot called as Neils cove near Radhanagar beach. To reach Neils cove, we had to track 20-30 mins inside the jungle just beside the beach between the 30-40 ft high trees.. aaahhh what an awesome feeling we got. We found lot of photo square places at Neils cove and enjoyed sunset all alone. Best sunset spot ever.
After the sunset, we reached to our night kayaking destination to experience next level adventure. While booking the kayaking it was day time and sea beach was very quite but when we reached the same spot in the night, found High tide in the sea nothing was visible. After putting Kayak gears we were given training for 5 minutes. At that moment we felt that we will easily manage the kayak boats but the actual was very different. Me and Ankita were on the same boat while Himanshu was accompanied with the trainer. We all started together and since beginning we were running the different direction. For the next 15-20 minutes we were struggling to get in a same direction, many times we took 360 degree turn to get the boat in the right direction that too in the middle of the sea. That was total scary fun in 20-25 minutes. Our trainer showed us the plankton, illuminescence effect that looked gorgeous but due to scary travel we were in a hurry to move back.
At 8 pm our kayak program was over, went to the pure vegetarian restaurant to have dinner and then slept by 11 pm.
Early morning we went to kalapathar beach to watch sunrise took couple of pictures and went back to hotel. we got ready to catch our return ferry to Port Blair. Our hotel host offered a ride in his car till the boat boarding. After reaching we inquired about our tickets but the staff informed that our tickets has been rescheduled for next boat at 3 pm. That was very disappointing for us. We had no choice but to wait outside as we didn't planned for anything else in havelock and our mood was completely spoiled by the services provided by the cruise guys.
At 3 pm we boarded the cruise. Excitement part was that it was an open deck cruise, icing on the cake was cruise staff played bollywood songs to the maximum volume and it was fun to see people dancing. Although, similar to last time we suffered sea-sickness to the extent that Ankita vomited thrice.
At 6 pm we reached Port Blair and took cab to take us icey spicy restaurant and then to our hotel.
Hotel was decent and very near to the airport as planned. That will help in catching the flight early morning and save taxi charges as well. :-P.
We all were tired and slept early. Early morning we all were chatting about our trip and then had breakfast and then left for airport by walking 1/2 the way then took auto as we were running late.
At airport we were missing that we didn't purchase any souvenir but that shops at the airport helped in fulfilling that wish.
