Holidaying in Havelock Island, Andaman

If you have come here for pictures only, go to: http://picasaweb.google.com/emailkarthik/2008_02_Havelock#. There are a few bird pictures towards the end of the album.

Location:
Andaman is one of the union territories in India and is an Island located in the Bay of Bengal. Port Blair is the capital and is the entry point to Andamans. It has a large pocket of islands, some inhabited by tribals (tourists are not allowed unless we get prior permission from the government), some not inhabited, some islands drowned during the dec. 2004 Tsunami and a very few of them are open for tourists and a few people inhabit these islands.

Picture Courtesy: http://www.mapsofindia.com/Andaman (and Nicobar) Islands are to the east of Tamil Nadu and South of West Bengal. Port Blair is reachable by air and ship. There are a few airlines that fly to Port Blair from Chennai and Kolkatta.

Our chosen place for this trip was Havelock Islands. This is one of the many pockets of islands and is north east of Port Blair. There are ferry(s) from Port Blair and Havelock is around 2-2.5 hours away by Ferry. There are two ferries that leave from Port Blair to Havelock (one at 6:30 AM and one at 2 PM) and the return ferry timing is 2 PM and 4:30 PM. These schedules are usually released on a weekly basis but these are rough timings.


Picture Courtesy: http://www.indiaprofile.com/images/maps/andman-tourist-map.gifAndaman (Port Blair) is a very popular tourist spot and Havelock is a little less popular than Port Blair but nevertheless the trip required some pre-planning months ahead to have a smooth trip.

Flights: To and from Port Blair were booked 3 months in advance. You do have some choice of timings but to optimize our time spent, we took an early morning flight to Port Blair and took a morning flight back to Chennai.

Stay in Havelock: This was the most difficult part. The more you read, the more choices you hear and the more confused you become. A trusted place to stay is Barefoot (http://www.barefootindia.com/). Though this is expensive (around 4k per night for a cottage) it has a few positives like being located in Radha Nagar Beach (Beach No. 7, west side of the island). Radha Nagar Beach is voted to be one of the top 10 beaches in Asia. (It is a nice beach but there are better places in Havelock itself!). Barefoot is the only resort in Beach #7 and hence the higher cost. Barefoot is around 6-7 kms from the market area of Havelock and there are occasional busses to and from the market. One of my friend (http://nutandbolt.blogspot.com/2006/05/andaman-escapade-where-are-you-taking.html) had stayed at this place and was positive about this place. All other resorts are on located on the eastern coast of the island (near and between beach no. 3 and 5). Beach No. 5 is called Vijay Nagar Beach.

Radha Nagar Beach (No. 7) had a good stretch of blue beach but the stretch is not as long as the Vijay Nagar Beach Stretch. Vijay Nagar beach stretch is very long and is accessible. These are all white sand beaches.
This map should give a better feel for Havelock Island:


Picture Courtesy: http://wikitravel.org/upload/shared//d/d7/Havelock.pngThe above picture gives a list of the various resorts and the areas around Havelock. The link has a better/higher resolution picture.

Amongst the various resorts in the eastern coast of Havelock, Wild Orchid is a popular one (http://www.wildorchidandaman.com/) but I have read both positives and negative reviews about this place. This place is almost as expensive as Barefoot but from the reviews, it didn’t impress me much. Wild Orchid also offers a cheaper stay place: http://www.emerald-gecko.com/ and could be tried for budget travelers.

The government resort Dolphin Yatri Nivas (I don’t know of an official website but a google gives a lot of information and pictures). This is a decent place to stay and is cheap as well. You can try booking through travel agents or by calling/writing to the government office. Some details of websites are given at the end. The resort here costs around 1k to1.5k per night and is very reliable and trustable. Another friend of mine stayed at this place and didn’t complain. But from the pictures, these resorts looked like normal rooms (in any city) with a TV etc., and didn’t give the beach and natural setting. This is located on Beach No. 5 and is almost the last resort in that beach. Silver Sand beach resort (http://silversandhavelock.com/) is still south and is a secluded resort and is expensive.

After considerable deliberation, I zeroed in on one of the recent resorts called Island Vinnie (http://www.islandvinnie.com/). What attracted me most was their website which had honest statements and no flaunting. And true to the website, the place was very good and people were nice. The cost came out to around 1.5k per night and it was located in between Beach No. 3 and 5 and was (reasonably) close to the market place and the setting was idyllic. The resorts had a “natural” feeling to it compared to the concrete and bricks and the people were helpful and the dogs/pets in the resort were friendly to play with. It also turned out that they have a the best Diving group in the island which can also give certification courses.


A view from the Island Vinnie resortI had contacted Island Vinnie (Vinnie and Pritha are the contact persons) directly by email and they were honest and very responsive and did the whole booking via email and they offered (at extra cost) to arrange for the transportation from Port Blair Airport to the Jetty (Ferry loading point) on arrival and from Jetty to airport during the return and also book the Ferry tickets. From what I have read (and now seen), it does look like a difficult task to go and book the Jetty tickets on the day of your travel and hence advanced booking would do a lot of good. The Jetty and airport are not close by and hence taxi would cost you as well. We arranged our Port Blair travel (along with Jetty tickets) also through Vinnie/Pritha. This costed around 1000 per person (a little expensive but saves you the time and effort to arrange stuff on your own).


Tented accomodation at Island VinnieDates: 3rd to 8th February 2008
Our Experience:
Day 1 (February 3rd): Chennai to Port Blair to Havelock
We (Abhi and I) left from Chennai early (really early!) morning to take the spice jet flight (booked almost 3 months in advance) which was scheduled to leave Chennai at 4:30 AM. The flight reached Port Blair only at 6:30 AM. The flight journey was good with bird-view of the island pockets offering a good glimpse of what to come. We knew we won’t be able to make it to the morning ferry to Havelock. So we decided to spend half a day roaming around Port Blair.

We were promptly picked up by Island Vinnie (also called DIVEINDIA) and we bargained with him for a half-a-day city tour (as this wasn’t part of our original arrangement). It was drizzling when we landed and we asked him to take us to a good restaurant. Port Blair offers a mix of Tamil-speaking, Malayalam-speaking and Bengali-speaking folks. Of course, Hindi is always there. We got into some south-indian type restaurant called Annapoorna which was at best okay-types.

Since it was early, none of the “typical” tourist spots would have opened and the driver drove us to some temple (like the ISKON variety) near the top of a mound and we spent a few minutes at that place and our next pit stop was Mahatma Gandhi park. This park is a nice little place offering for a good walk. Then we spent a few minutes in the Cellular jail and since we had close to 3 hours left, we decided to take a trip to the Ross Island. There are ferries that take you to Ross Island (the timings are arbitrary). This island offers some old british ruins and a big banyan tree. We scrambled our way back to the Jetty (to Havelock) after a lunch.


The banyan tree at Ross IslandIt had been a long day already and we both were dead tired after all the roaming around. The Ferry has seats in the bottom and top and we choose a seat in the bottom and there are no seat numbers (there are seat numbers but no one follows the seat numbers – you pick your seats). We managed to comfortably doze off for the next couple of hours.

We reached Havelock around 5 PM, and we had a jeep waiting to pick us up to our resort. It was just a few minutes’ drive (probably 3 kms from the Jetty). We got ourselves comfortable in our cottage (more like bigger tents) and had a few minutes to visit the beach (the resort is actually on the beach) and enjoy the evening breeze and had an early dinner and hit the beds.


Havelock Island Beach-First LookDay 2 (February 4th): Radha Nagar and Vijay Nagar Beach
We were to stay here till the 7th of February and we didn’t have any rigid plans for the next few days except that we did wanted to try some snorkeling. We spent a good part of the morning strolling past Beach No. 5 (Vijay Nagar beach). We went past one resort after another and ended our walk along the beach in Dolphin Yatri Nivas and got back through the road. The slanted coconut trees were a treat to watch. I should mention that the weather got better today and was sunny. For some reason, it looked like a long walk on the road than on the beach.


Slanting coconut treesWe asked our resort folks to arrange for a bike (on rental) and we got one. Bike rentals are very common here. Just fill sufficient fuel and you can explore most of Havelock by road (except for elephant beach). We then went to Radha Nagar Beach (by bike). The drive itself was good, if only you care to look around for the green fields and hills and of course, those birds.


Series of parakeets.We spent (with a mini-break for lunch, in a road-side shop for a cheap chapatti dal combination) till evening (Sun set) in Radha Nagar Beach. Radha nagar beach attracts a lot of day-trippers and is a popular tourist spot. The crabs here at these beach shores were a good time pass.


The famed Radha Nagar BeachBut amongst the various things (the white sands, the turquoise beaches, foreign visitors, some barefoot-ers), there is one additional attraction which deserves mention. And that is the tender coconuts here. They are huge, I mean really huge and each costs around 15 bucks. They taste awesome and we both being a big fan of tender coconut hogged on these whenever we visited the place.


Radha Nagar Beach entrance and shopsThe ride back (after sun sets) to Island Vinnie was adventurous with no lights around and the bike barely managing to provide the light to maneuver the curly roads. And not to forget the mention of insects/bugs which hit you while you ride.


Sunset at Radha Nagar BeachWe reached the resort and had our dinner at our resort. The resort has a few choices to pick from and the food is good.

Day 3 (February 5th): South of Vijay Nagar Beach, and Beach hut
We woke up to the scene of folks from our resort packing up to go snorkeling and scuba diving. We had signed ourselves up for the 6th. We picked our cameras and started to walk along the beach. A collared kingfisher on a bare and lonely stem in the midst (actually around 100 mts from the shore) of the beach attracted our attention. It wasn’t shallow and I started to venture in and the waves were mild. As I went in I realized that this was a completely shallow beach with the depth increasing only after around 200 mts. Though shallow, the ocean/beach topography was not even. It had lots of uneven rocks and some long died corals. So watch your steps if you venture in. In these beaches it is easy to see the water receding during the late morning to evening hours and the waters comes back to the shore during the nights. We also spent time playing with the pets Sam and Freudo.


Collared kingfisher on the broken tree stem


The pets Sam and Freudo at Island VinnieAfter a very late breakfast, we ventured by bike towards the south side of Havelock by road. After we go past the various resorts and go past the last one (Silver Sand resort) there is a vast stretch of beach parallel and near to the road which is in its natural state (with minimal influence from humans). On this road, you and see an occasional house here and there. This stretch of the beach is crowned by hard wood tropical trees (some dead). The tides were a little high compared to the tides near the resort area. We stopped at various places to look at the evidently visible birds and later found a nice little open bamboo beach hut on the beach shore. This place was so nice that we decided to rest for quite some time to enjoy the breeze and merge into the natural sound of the waves. This beach hut is very close to the elephant training camp.


Unexplored beaches south of Beach No. 5


The bamboo beach hut south of Vijay nagar beach


Some dead trees lying on the shores..We came back to the resort around lunch time and left to Radha nagar beach (by bus). The plan was to spend the rest of the evening doing some jungle walk. The jungle walk starts close to bare foot resorts and goes parallel to the beach (towards the north). The trail is not well marked but you won’t get lost atleast for the first 1-2 hours of the hike. We didn’t venture too much into the trail (we stopped when it started to get steep) and wanted to be closer to the beach. Lots of foreign visitors camp along this stretch on the beach (I doubt if they camp over night, it looked like day camping with some chilling out on the beach). As you go through this trail, you can get onto the beach to get unexplored stretches of the beach with broken trees and dried, fallen leaves.


Glimpse of jungle walk

The only sore sight in the whole place..After drinking a couple of tender coconuts, we decided to leave back to Havelock market by bus. It was a tiring day particularly because the weather was humid and sunny.

Day 4 (February 6th): Snorkeling and Hammock-ing

This was the day we were set to go Snorkeling. We were set to hit elephant beach. This is the northern part of Havelock (refer to the map). One way to reach this place is to take a boat from radha nagar or vijay nagar beach. Another route, less popular, is to trek your way to elephant beach. From Radha Nagar (or Vijay Nagar) beach there is a marked trek route for which you can hire a guide. But the elephant beach has nothing else apart from a toilet and a small shop (open during the day for visitors who come for snorkeling). There is no place to stay but you could camp in the woods (if you have the permissions). Remember, that you would be the only human(s) around.


On our way to Elephant beachWe left around 7:30 AM, and reached elephant beach around 8:15 AM or so. We were the first ones to reach the beach that day. Elephant beach is a pristine beach with a very green/turquoise blue color of the water and we could already see a lot of corals and fishes and other creatures near the shore. In our boat there were around 10 people, one trainer and two people to ride the boat. Out of the 10, five had come for scuba diving. The trainer accompanied them and amongst the rest of us, one of them was planning to do a mix of snorkeling and scuba diving. The rest 4 were all beginners to snorkeling and it so happened that the 4 of us were Indians from Bangalore (and 2 couples). The rest all were from out of India.


Elephant beach...We were given the snorkeling gear (life jacket, goggles, the fins and mouth-breather) and were instructed on how to do. And as it often happens, none of (the 4 of) us knew swimming and were struggling to get the technique of mouth breathing. One of the boatman (he can be called the guide) saw our sad-state of affairs and decided to help. He also gave a couple of rubber tires (also called life belts) (for those who preferred a life belt to a life jacket).


our boat and group...The guide asked us all to hold the life belt and he offered to take us all to the midst of the beach to see the corals and the underwater world. But it was getting tough to just do plain mouth breathing leave alone doing it in water and at the same time watching the corals. The ladies decided to have a go and the guide took each one of them into the waters. The guide would swim and all they had to do was hold on to the life belt and watch the underwater creatures. Abhi did it first and successfully completed her campaign. We could see that she had gone easily 200-250 mts away from the shore. She was all gaga about the experience and the creatures and we were just too excited and couldn’t wait to venture. The other girl decided to go next and she started her campaign but we guys couldn’t get over our fear of getting into the water and doing multiple things (mouth breathing, holding on to the life belt, and see the underwater world all at the same time).

Finally, I gathered some courage to get into it and started to go in with the help of the guide. It just took only a few seconds to get used to the setting and I was comfortably doing the multiple jobs at the same time. The coral reefs were impeccable, the fishes and the various other creatures immaculate, the colors perfect. There is a whole new world underneath. We could see the small to the big fishes. Some of them get dangerously close to you but none looked like harming you. Some would also do a pin-prick but by then you would be lost in the under-water world. The corals by themselves were just beautiful with their shapes and sizes and the color made it a sight to look each one closely. The marine lives attached to the corals were breath-taking.

After I came back, the other guy left for his share. By then we all had enough experience to venture on our own. Everyone started our own ways and started going away from the shore to enjoy nature’s pristine beauty.

The only thing I missed that morning was an under-water camera. I completely missed taking (rather buying) one from Bangalore but assumed that I will get in Havelock. We did try searching for it the previous night in Havelock but the shop which usually stocks had run out of stock. Island Vinnie had some spare under-water camera which they usually do not mind giving for rent but since we were beginners (and were doing snorkeling and not scuba diving) they were hesitant. And more-over, during snorkeling there is a good chance (compared to diving) for the camera to get hit by the corals/rocks.

We spent the next two hours doing snorkeling on our own and left the place around noon. We stopped mid-way as the divers wanted to go diving in the middle of the beach. We were offered to snorkel and we readily accepted. This time though, there was no shore or place to stand and we had to snorkel and get back to the boat. This was a good experience and here we could see more marine life for more depth i.e., the visibility was high and we could also see the divers going almost to the bottom of the sea.


Both of us in Snorkeling gearOne interesting observation all around was the way group of fishes (big and small) would move together like in group of bees/birds. It was interesting to see the collective intelligence working. It was a fish colony, with no leader but working to perfection to meet their basic needs.

We had some snacks on the boat on our way back to the resort. Lunch awaited the tired souls and after lunch, we just decided to chill out in the hammocks in the resort besides the beach. Snorkeling costed us 500 bucks per person for a half day trip.

Day 5 (February 7th):Village area, agricultural lands and Tender coconuts
This was going to be our last day in Havelock and it looked like we had explored almost everything around. We hired a bike and decided to go still south of the beach hut (and the elephant training camp). We filled the gas tank of our bike and started driving south.


Cute little parrotWe went past the beach hut and to our surprise, there was a little village and open fields around. A school too! We went to the real dead end of the mud roads and there were houses few and far. Some ducks on the fields with green landscapes all around.


Village side and the green landscapes...On our way back, we parked for a few minutes at the beach hut, walked along the beach near the hut, went to the entrance of the elephant training camp and decided not to go in. Later we went to Radha Nagar beach to have some tender coconuts.


More broken trees...I love those fractal branches..It was lunch time by then, and we got back to our resort and packed our bags to get back to Port Blair by the 4:30 PM jetty/ferry. The ferry was completely packed and we had to literally find some seats to sit though we had tickets. It is a common practice for folks there to hold the seats next to them for either their friend or relatives to come. Sometimes, they would be alone but still hold on to the seats so that they can decide who sits next to them. We slept off slightly uncomfortably (we were sweating all along because of the bad air/humidity and no fans) and woke up when we reached closer to Port Blair.

We reached Port Blair at around 7 PM and our taxi guy was missing to pick us up. We had booked a flight to Chennai on the 8th (next day) and I had also booked for a place to stay for the night. We had the number of the taxi fellow and he arrived in a few minutes and dropped us at the place we were supposed to stay.

Since it was just a night stay, I didn’t book anything fancy but from the websites, I picked Palm Groove Eco resorts (http://www.palmgroove.com/). I had made this booking also through emails. The rooms were good but didn’t match to the website hype. We had the dinner at the resort and slept off early so that we could wake up on time for next morning flight.

Day 6 (February 8th):

We went around the hotel and were disappointed to see that it was just another normal hotel and not as advertised in the website (the pond was missing altogether, may be they were constructing). But the hotel was good for a night stay. The hotel offers free pick-up and drop from the airport and we availed their services to get to the airport. An Indian Airlines (sorry, Indian) flight with good breakfast got us back to Chennai.

Useful links:

Andaman, Port Blair General Info:
http://www.indiamike.com/india/andaman-and-nicobar-islands-f41/a-few-tips-for-the-andamans-t23248/http://www.indiamike.com/india/andaman-and-nicobar-islands-f41/

Havelock General Info:
http://wikitravel.org/en/Havelock_Island
http://havelockislands.com
http://www.indiamike.com/india/andaman-and-nicobar-islands-f41/havelock-silversand-vs-barefoot-t44591/

Hotels in Port Blair:
www.hotelsentinelandamans.com
http://www.andamanisland.com/hotels.htm

Hotel links from Government website:
http://www.and.nic.in/C_charter/IP_T/hotel.htm

Resorts in Port Blair:
http://www.barefootindia.com/
http://www.wildorchidandaman.com/
http://www.emerald-gecko.com/
http://silversandhavelock.com/
http://www.islandvinnie.com/

Another useful travelogue:
http://nutandbolt.blogspot.com/2006/05/andaman-escapade-where-are-you-taking.html

Some Useful Info:

There are no ATMs in Havelock. So take all the cash you need from Port Blair. But some resorts accept credit cards.

Another Island to explore could be Neil Island: http://www.tangobeachresort.net/PhotoGallery.html Contact No: +91-9444402584 +91-9434270454 / 03192-282583. But I hear that there is not much to do other than a one or max two days touring

There are a lot of tourist spots in Port Blair. These include: Cellular Jail (if you plan to see this, try doing it in the evening as there is a Sound and Light show which is apparently worthwhile), Ross Island, Gandhi Park, Corbyn’s Cove, Water sports complex, Samudrika Museum, Anthropological museum, forest museum, Chidiya Tapu (favorite for bird watchers), Zoo, Mt. Harriet, Under Sea View Park (MGMN park), and Red Skin Island.

If you want to plan through a travel agent, here are some information of travel agents at various places. I haven’t used them but my friend had used them and recommended them. But please bargain for the rates:a) Havelock: Prashato – 94342-91908, Nani – 94742-06219, b) Neil: (haverville nest), Nitta Nondo Saha – 94742-12840, c) Portblair, Trisha tours and travels, ph: 94342-64120

Island Vinnie offers kayaking. They did not have the equipment at the time we went. So if this interests you, here is something more to do.

Hammocks in the resort are very convenient to rest/relax. So make sure the resort you plan to stay has one.

Andaman has now more restrictions in terms of hiking to different islands and night camping at various places/beaches.

Short list of places and things-to-do in Havelock: a) Vijay Nagar beach, b) Radha Nagar beach, c) Jungle walk close to Radha Nagar Beach, d) Snorkeling/Scuba diving, e) Drive south of Havelock to see unexplored places and the bamboo beach hut and elephant training camp, f) don’t forget the tender coconuts in Radha Nagar Beach, g) most resorts have pets and they are friendly, take the time to play with them.

Don’t forget to take an under-water camera if you plan to snorkel or dive.