Trip Tales -Story of our Andaman Island Vacation Part 1

Travel Lust

I should proclaim at the very onset that this post is about our Andaman Island vacation adventures. And the jaggery cookie recipe is a short but sweet return gift. It has been exactly one year since our last family vacation. Yes, you heard it right! It seems one whole year has gone by in the blink of an eye. Last year Durga Puja was in the early days of October. We had planned to the T our first island vacation to the Andaman Islands.

Now planning for a trip in our household is an entire ritual in itself. It starts with taking out our travel planner and deciding about the destination. Then spending hours and entire weekends planning all the details. So after all our furious brainstorming and planning, that day (rather middle of the night!) had finally come when we set out from our house to catch the early morning AirIndia flight to Port Blair.

The Morning Rush

Due to the Durga Puja rush, no vehicle could come to our gates to pick us up for the airport. So in the wee hours of 3 am on Saptami (7th day of the festival), we set out, each with a travel bag in hand. We walked for about half a km to catch our ride to the airport. The crowds thronging the streets belied the fact that it was 3 am! I overheard a couple on the street. They were contemplating that since they were hungry, whether they should go for an Arsalan Biryani or make do with a Chicken Roll! At 3 am! So that’s how crazy the revelries in Kolkata become during the Durga puja.

Breakfast Tale

We reached the airport in good time. In high spirits, we boarded our flight. And we were on the way to finally experience the jewel blue seas and magic of the Andaman Islands. To our delight, there was a small note at our seat tables. It informed us that since it was Saptami, they would be serving us a special breakfast menu. Consisting of Bengali speciality like tikona paratha(triangular parathas), alu phulkopir chechki( potato and cauliflower curry),karaishuti kishmish chop and sitabhog(a sweet made with rice flour and cottage cheese). The joy in our hearts and our hungry tummies now knew no bounds. We could not wait for the flight to take off and getting our hands on breakfast.

Finally, we got breakfast. Hubby got the above-mentioned breakfast platter. And tragically poor me got a fruit platter consisting of a few cut papayas, apples, and grapes. You can imagine my utter dismay and disappointment. But unfortunately, it was all my doing. I had in a stroke of genius ticked on the fruit platter option for myself while boking the tickets. This is because I usually find flight food very unpalatable. But luck was with me. the steward was very kind, and he gave me an extra radha ballavi platter but without the special sweet. So, dearest hubby’s was sweet enough to share his sweet with me!

Cookie Surprise

To make it up to him, I fished out from my handbag with a magicians flourish, a tin of homemade jaggery cookies. I usually always pack some backup homemade snacks in all our trips. Lest we are stranded! And this time since we were going to an island, back-up “what-if-we-are-stranded snacks” were a must!! These cookies were super quick and very easy to make with only 3 ingredients. So they were very easy to make in the hectic days before travel filled with hurried packing and last minute to do’s. Read the recipe below.

Jump to Recipe

After enjoying our wondrous breakfast feast and the post-breakfast coffee and cookies. From the flight itself, we could see the breathtakingly beautiful Andaman archipelago.

We finally reached Port Blair. On reaching we found the weather was as sunny as our spirits were high. And we could not wait for our island adventure to begin. We were going to visit a total of 3 islands, Port Blair, Havelock, and Neil Island. From the airport, we hired a cab and reached the Peerless Resort at Corbyn’s cove. Corbyn’s Cove is a picturesque little stretch of beach and is the only accessible beach in Port Blair. So you can imagine our delight at the absolute perfectness of our Port Blair stay location. We had zeroed in on this resort after hours of happy google map reading (perks of being geologists!).

Cellular Jail

At Port Blair, we visited the Cellular Jail. We heard all the story of the sacrifices our freedom fighters made. The tortures that they faced in the hands of the British was very painful to hear.Here I made sure that I read the names of as many freedom fighters as possible from the engraved pillars. This is a must-visit place in Port Blair, though we missed out on the light and sound show in the evening.

We ended the day with dinner at our resort. At dinner, we enjoyed fresh and crispy fried small local fish. The fish was out of the world delicious and we ended up ordering two rounds of it.

With our tummies full and eyes drooping with sleep we called it a day. But our excitement for the adventures of the coming few days was palpable. The next morning was waiting for us with a cruise booked for Havelock island and a crazy roller coaster ride of full-on drama!

I will continue with the fun details of the remaining of our Andaman adventure in the next few posts.
Till then try out and enjoy this super easy cookie recipe, and be back for the next post.

P.S The little pieces of jaggery will be caramelized after baking giving the cookies a delicious crunch.

You can check out my delectable Dark Chocolate Jaggery Cookie recipe if you need that chocolaty punch.

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