Sorry. This is a very long blog post with nearly 220 pictures and hopefully with some
information. I hope this is of use for some readers in the future.
Exotic Andaman - Holidays Package by MakeMyTrip (MMT). We booked this 8-days and 7-nights trip about 3 months in advance. The package included return air-fare, hotel stays, local tour transport costs, guide and entry fee costs, breakfast and dinner. They have Premium and Standard options.
There are no direct flights to Port Blair from Bangalore. They fly either from Kolkata or from Chennai only. But MMT had this package with a Kingfisher Airlines charter flight from Bangalore directly to Port Blair exclusively. In our case, since they did not get enough headcount bookings just before the travel date (they had only about 40 bookings), we were routed via Chennai, both for Bangalore - Port Blair and return, by the regular Kingfisher's flights.
Tour summary
Trip span: 6-May-12 (Sun) 7:00 AM to 13-May-12 (Sun) 6:00 PM.
Day-1 (Sun):
- Have your lunch at the hotel upon check-in at Rose Valley View Resort near Port Blair.
- Post-lunch: Visit to Viper Island and back.
- Sound and Light show at the Cellular Jail.
- Stay at Rose Valley View Resort.
Day-2 (Mon):
- Visit to North Bay Island, a.k.a. Coral Island: Snorkeling, coral view, water sports, etc. and back.
- Have your (something better than nothing kind of, basic) lunch at the North Bay Island shops.
- Visit to Ross Island.
- Stay at Rose Valley View Resort.
Day-3 (Tue):
- Cruise by MV Makruzz, from Phoenix Bay Jetty, Port Blair to Havelock Island.
- Have your lunch at the hotel upon check-in at Sea Shell Resort Havelock Island.
- Free time in the afternoon.
- Or, visit to Kala Pathar Beach in Havelock Island, at extra cost for MMT's transportation.
- Stay at Sea Shell Resort Havelock.
Day-4 (Wed):
- Visit to Elephant Camp Beach by boat on the other side of Havelock Island.
- Have your lunch at the hotel upon return from Elephant Beach.
- Free time in the afternoon.
- Stay at Sea Shell Resort Havelock.
Day-5 (Thu):
- Visit to one of the most beautiful in Asia - Radha Nagar Beach in Havelock Island.
- Have your lunch at B3 Hotel near the jetty before boarding the cruise.
- Cruise by MV Makruzz back to Phoenix Bay Jetty, Port Blair.
- Stay at Sea Shell Hotel Port Blair.
Day-6 (Fri):
- City tour in Port Blair.
- Cellular Jail.
- Aquarium.
- Anthropological Museum.
- Samudrika Naval Marine Museum.
- Forest Museum at Chatham Saw Mill, Chatham Island.
- Shopping at Sagar Emporium, Middle Point, Port Blair.
- Corbyn's Cove Beach, Port Blair.
- Lunch stop-over at Annapurna Cafeteria (Veg.) or Ananda Restaurant (Non Veg.).
- Stay at Sea Shell Hotel Port Blair.
Day-7 (Sat):
- Free day.
- For others, MMT arranged, at extra cost, a trip to Baratang Island.
- Start at 3 AM in the morning.
- Bus drive for 4 hours, 120 KM.
- Then a boat drive, and then a speed boat ride, then a walk.
- To see limestone caves, mud vulcanoes, and tribes in the forest en route.
- And return later in the night.
- This plan did not look practical for us.
- We considered a few places to go on our own and decided against those.
- Jolly Buoy Island
- Was just closed for the upcoming off-season.
- From 1st or 2nd week of May monsoon rains start.
- During our stay we had 3 instances of short rains already.
- Boats to Red Skin Island
- We were told that the only boat leaves early in the morning
- We were not sure to go there on our own and get stranded.
- Wandoor beach [
Mahatma Gandhi Marine National Park]
- We were not sure how attractive the beach there was.
- Was a little far away, and we felt there is not many interesting stuffs there.
- So we finally visited the following places by our own transportation.
- Science Center, Port Blair.
- Gandhi Park, Port Blair.
- Southern most tip of South Andaman at Chidiya Tapu.
- Biological Park, Chidiya Tapu.
- Munda Pahad Beach, Chidiya Tapu.
- We carried our packed lunch from Ananda Restaurant.
- Stay at Sea Shell Hotel Port Blair.
Day-8 (Sun):
- Late check-out around 9:00 AM.
- Departure flight at 11:55 from Port Blair, and return to Bangalore via transit at Chennai.
About the trip
Overall we had a great trip.
We learned that Andaman is not pronounced as Andhaman that we say in Tamil. It is Andaman.
The place has a lot of Hindi and Bengali speaking people. And a lot of Tamil speaking as well.
Port Blair is a nice little city. Downtown is well developed and maintained, has good roads, and traffic is well regulated too. The beaches are pretty good. The beaches at some remote places are the ones which are great with emerald blue-green crystal-clear water that is amazing.
Port Blair main as well as other islands are very green with lots of trees. We never imagined to see so much of greenery. It was 1st week of May, peak of summer, but still we never saw any dry or wilted vegetation anywhere. Many islands have a lot of forests, many of them completely uninhabited.
1st or 2nd week of May is generally when the monsoon rains set in. Andaman sees heavy rains and storms from later part of May and so, that will not be a good time to go there. We were also worried about rains, but luckily for us we had only 3 spells of short rains. Only one of that affected us a bit when we where at Elephant Camp Beach on Havelock Island.
While on the main island, we were always in South Andaman only, that is, Port Blair surroundings. The Andaman islands have very limited electricity generation options. Their Hydel power plant somewhere in North Andaman is said to be still coming up. Most of the islands get the power from Diesel Generator based power plants!
Our hotel stays, all with breakfast and dinner buffets were all nice. One of the menus had the very tasty Surmai fish that is popular in this area (see photo of price menu below). The stay at Rose Valley was outstanding. Sea Shell Havelock was superb. Sea Shell Hotel Port Blair was just fine.
Scroll down for more details about the places, a lot of pictures, and the Make My Trip experience summary.
