Trip Tales: Andaman Island Vacation-Part 2

Read Part 1 of Trip Tales: Andaman Island Vacation-Part 1

Andaman Island adventure-Part 2

We woke up the next day feeling fresh and excited for the rest of our Andaman island adventures. After a quick beach stroll at Corbyn’s Cove, we got ready and had our buffet breakfast.

We had to catch our Green Ocean cruise ship for Havelock Island from the Phoenix Bay Jetty at 9.30 am. Bidding adieu to Port Blair for the time being, we reached the jetty in the right time. The mesmerising blue waters of the Andaman Seas was absolutely breathtaking. Now, I could not wait for our cruise ship to arrive and our journey to begin!

Just before boarding the ship, it began to rain cats and dogs. In the downpour we dragged our luggages to the holding bay and handed them over. Finally we managed to board the ship and find our seats. Luckily we got window seats but due to the pouring rain, there was hardly any visibility.

Cruise from Port Blair to Havelock Island

The ship started to move and the light floating feeling and rolling movement of the ship was enchanting for me as this was my first time sailing. I truly felt grateful to Archimedes for discovering buoyancy!! In a while, the weather cleared and oh the view!! It’s difficult to express in words the beauty of those waters.

It took nearly an hour for us to reach Havelock Island. By that time the weather was clear and sunny. We got down and collected our luggage. I saw that both our suitcases were soaking wet due to the rains at Phoenix bay. Back to this later but, the view from the jetty at Havelock Island was enough to make me forget about it for the time being!

Havelock Island

We booked our stay at the Havelock Island beach resort and we were expecting a pick up from the jetty. But they were late. Very late! From that point onwards my mood started to spiral down.

The Wardrobe Malfunction!

We reached the resort. Oh! My disappointment was high! The resort was nothing like they had advertised. Our room was a cramped and small and very far from the resorts private beach. On top of that, I discovered that all my clothes in my suitcase were sopping wet! I had nothing to wear! So after a lot of waterworks, and turning our room into a dhobi ghaat in an attempt to dry my clothes, we decided to go out for a stroll around Havelock Island. Dearest hubby sweetly offered me all his clothes to wear since I had no dry ones! So I ventured out wearing his shorts, and one lone dry T shirt of mine.

Exploring on foot we discovered a small scooty rental just next to our resort. We decided that we would take a scooty on rent for our next day at Havelock. As luck would have it, just 200 m away from our resort, we discovered a beautiful resort with a cafe. It was just perfect for our evening cuppa and snacks. Finally, I was now happy. Since it was already dark we could not explore any more. We had our dinner at the nice resort and returned to our room to sleep. Then after clearing my semi=dried clothes from the bed and hanging them outsides to dry, we finally retired for the night.

The next day, we woke up to a beautiful sunny Andaman Island morning and had a breakfast buffet. Luckily, all my clothes were nearly dry now. And that meant I no longer needed to wear borrowed clothes! So we collected our rental scooty and helmets and set out to explore the beaches of Havelock.There are mainly two beaches in Havelock Island, Radhanagar Beach and Kalapathar Beach. I was very excited about bathing in the ocean and we were carrying changes of clothes in our backpacks.

Radhanagar Beach

Radhanagar Beach is one of the most beautiful beach I have been to! The sand was a beautiful white colour and the water was a breathtakingly beautiful blue. Recently it has been been awarded the prestigious Blue Flag certification. The Blue Flag certification is a globally recognised eco-label accorded by “Foundation for Environment Education, Denmark” based on 33 stringent criteria under four major heads — environmental education and information, bathing water quality, environment management and conservation, and safety and services at the beaches.

So at Radhanagar beach, we had a gala time bathing in the ocean. The waves were very playful and kept trying to roll us around like pieces of logs. After our exhilarating ocean bath, we changed into our dry clothes and realised we were famished. Just near the entrance of the beach, there were a number of hawkers selling fruit chat, juice, popcorn and other snacks.

Andaman Island special Fruit Chat

I don’t usually eat cut fruits from street vendor, but this particular fruit chaat intrigued me. The man was first showing the entire fruit, washing it and then cutting it. So basically we could customise the fruits that we wanted. There were a variety of tropical fruits like banana, pineapple, papaya, mango, pomegranate etc. One particular fruit which was unique was the “biliti aamra” which translates to “foreign aamra”.

Now aamra is a sour and tangy fruit called yellow mombin or hog plum. I had tasted aamra in Kolkata before, but they were extremely sour for my taste. But this one being “foreign” had a surprisingly sweet and sour taste. Since all the fruits were cut right in front of our eyes, they were very juicy and fresh. And the overall fruit chat tasted heavenly to our sun and sea parched palates. I have shared the simple and easy Andaman fruit chaat recipe at the end of this post. We even bought a few of the aamra to take back a bit of the flavour of Andaman with us to Kolkata.

Kalapathar Beach

After our binging on fruit chaat and having a fish meal at a local eatery next to the beach, we set out for Kalapathar beach at the other end of the island. The greenery of Havelock Island was mesmerising and gave us a feeling of being in a tropical paradise. We reached Kalapathar beach and realised it had lesser number of tourists compared to Radhanagar, but oh the beauty! It left me speechless. As far as we could see, the water was a plethora of all my favourite shades of cyan like aquamarine, turquoise, cerulean, sea green etc. The name Kalapathar was from the numerous black basaltic boulders that lined parts of the beach. We spent some quality time at this beach and drank some coconut water to rehydrate.

We set out from Kalapathar beach and witnessed the beauty of an island sunset. On the way back to our resort, we had some tea and crispy hot samosas from a roadside tea stall. With a filled tummy and a very happy soul, we returned to our room. After getting fresh we again set out to have our dinner at the iconic eatery Anju Coco Resto. Hubby enjoyed a local lobster, I had a kingfish steak and sweet ending was with a slice of banoffee pie. The food was out of the world tasty and our taste buds were actually singing after this meal!

On the way back we returned our friend, the scooty to its rightful owner. Then after winding down from our funfilled but long day, with the sand still between our toes, we went to bed. Next days was waiting for us with a cruise to Neil Island, and a subsequent two day stay planned there. Scuba diving and water sports were the yet to be completed to-do’s in our “Things to do in Andaman” list.

For the rest of our Andaman Island adventures, be back for the next post.

Fruit Chaat Recipe

Take diced tropical fruits like banana, pineapple, papaya, raw/ripe/both mango, pomegranate, and apples, grapes (basically any fruit of your choice) and mix together. Squeeze in some lemon juice. Add salt, sprinkle of Kashmiri red chilli powder (its not spicy), cumin powder and mix well. Serve immediately.

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