Listed are some of my observations during my Andaman trip. It may help future travelers.
I thought Andaman is a 2-days place, it is not. It is at least~7-8 days places with many other things to explore other than beaches.
I thought Andaman & Nicobar are 2 tiny island sets. They are set of 556 small island with the longest spanning more than 360KMs inland.(That is like Bangalore to Chennai on an island).
Very few islands are open to tourists as most are either under the control of Navy or are inhibited by tribals.
I thought the social fabric of Andaman would be like Goa but it is more like Orissa and West Bengal.
I thought I would have huge communication problems, it is not the case, at all. There are abundant Hindi speaking people.
Andaman locals are absolutely friendly people and truly believe in Athidi-devo-bhav.
I thought the waters around Andaman is Indian Ocean, my geographical cut-off for Bay of Bengal was somewhere around Orrisa. But Andaman is still in Bay of Bengal waters. Part of it is called Andaman Sea.
I was told that BSNL and Airtel have good cellular coverage, the fact is none have good coverage. You can somehow manage with voice call needs, data connectivity is abysmal with any carrier.
You would experience significant call delays in a conversation(like they talk on Walkie-talkie…alpha-to-charlie…over.you would feel the same)
Carry enough cash as almost no shops accept cards.
Autos are the best mode of transportation in Port Blair. They are cheap and don’t cheat(unlike Chennai or Kerala). One auto-driver told me not to visit a particular place as the ticket counter would have been closed, he could have easily taken me to the spot and charged.
If you don’t like popular beaches of India(like Calangute of Goa, Juhu of Mumbai, Marina of Chennai), you better skip the popular beaches in Andaman also. Andaman claims to have the second most famous beach of Asia(Radhanagar Beach in Havelock island), I did not like it as much. I stayed at Dolphin resort with a private beach and it was marvelous.
All roads are beautiful and looked to be constructed with all civil engineering principles. There is a slight upward lift in the middle of the road so that water can slip on sides with each side having water absorption layers. So even though it rains heavily in Andaman, the roads remain dry, I could not spot a single pothole anywhere on Andaman roads.
For pure-veg food lovers, there are two recommended restaurants in Port Blair ie; Annapurna and Icy-Spicy.
Most of the local tickets(Jetty tickets to any island like Havelock, Neil, Ross or Light & Sound show tickets) should be pre-booked. The tickets run out very fast and the modes of booking are limited. Don’t leave any local ticket booking for the d-day.
There are Government ferries and Private ferries to reach each island. Government ferries are 40% the cost of private(~Rs.420 for one versus~Rs.1000) but difficult to get tickets, whereas private ferries would be fast and comfortable. Makcruzz, the most famous private ferry, takes 1.5 hours to Havelock island as against 2.5 hours of Government ferry.
December is the peak season for tourism. If you like rains, nothing beats September.
Don’t forget to try the local rosogulla, it’s heavenly.
Take Scuba diving, it is superset of snorkeling and sea-walking.
Cellular jail, as a historic tourist spot, is a bit overrated. You can wrap this up in 2 hours, 1 hour for sight-seeing of the jail and 1 hour for light-&-sound show.
It was heartwarming to see everyone following traffic rules to the hilt. No lane breaking, proper halts at red signals, maintaining speed limits, numerous signboards for penalty on high beams. I was amazed to see autos showing indicators on turns. Though honking was a huge problem.
Tsunami did not have much impact on Andaman though Nicobar was hugely affected.
The locals feel that one of the reason of peaceful harmony of Andaman is absence of political parties, MPS, MLAs. The region is a union territory administered by center.
PS: Observations captured as on Sep-2016.
