Sorry for not writing a post in a while. I’ve been so busy;

Our second Andaman trip was in 2011. I do remember parts of this trip but not all of it. First we visited the capital, Port Blair. Although affected by the Tsunami and 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. Port Blair survived and acted as a base for relief efforts for the other islands. They say that the Andaman islands got this name after a Hindu god Hanuman. Nicobar means land of the people. It is believed that Marco Polo was the first man who visited these islands from the west. It has a great part in Indian history as well as the world. These islands have lots of heartbreaking stories of thousands of freedom fighters in India, who suffered many cruel experiences during their life imprisonment period in the infamous Cellular jail here.

Next was Havelock island, we stayed here for 5 days revisiting some of our favourite places..

Next we took a local ferry to Neil island which is further south.It is 19 square kilometres and has no cars, is very beautiful and has great snorkelling and beaches. I met a good friend called Noah here who was from Slovenia. We did a lot of cycling and swimming.

From Neil Island we took another local ferry to Long Island which is very small with only one hostel. Long island is nearer to middle Andaman. There is a lovely beach called Lalaji beach reached either by local boat or through a trek through the jungle.

Long island to Maya Bandar. Maya Bandar is a town in the Northern part of Middle Andaman island. It was settled in the British colonial period by immigrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh and ex-convicts.

Diglipur is the largest town of the North Andaman island. We stayed for 5 nights in some lovely huts and met some great people. The snorkelling was fantastic.

Ross and Smith islands; Ross and Smith Islands are known as the Twin Islands of Andaman and Nicobar group of islands. Ross and Smith are actually two islands – Ross and Smith joined together to make a single group of islands. Definitely worth visiting.

We took the bus from Diglipur to Port Blair which took around 8 hours through the Andaman trunk road. We had to follow a police convoy as there are jarawa tribes people who sometimes fire arrows at the cars and buses. We saw them do this as we flew past, they were tiny and had no clothes on. It is a shame that there is a road running straight through the land they live on. There are five different tribes living in the Andamans including the Jarawa. Others are Onge, Sentinelese and Great Andamanese. There are hardly any left due to disease violence and loss of territory. Some tribes are already extinct.

From port Blair we caught another ferry to Little Andaman island which was the worst affected by the tsunami. It was 8 hours away.

Little Andaman island. The fourth largest island of the Andaman’s. The Onge tribespeople live here. We stayed a few days and explored by motorbike and on foot. There are lots of Nicobarese people here too who live in huts on higher ground since the tsunami destroyed most of their homes and village.

We took another ferry back to South Andaman and then travelled to Wandoor beach at the southern tip of South Andaman. It is known as the gateway to the Mahatma Gandhi Marine National Park.It was very peaceful and we had a great place to stay overlooking the paddy fields and close to the beach.

From here we took the trip to Jolly Buoy island which also takes you to Red Skin island, both of which are in the National Park. I remember when we came here the current in the sea was so strong they had a rope going out so everyone could hold on safely.

The last day was spent in Port Blair before we flew back to Chennai. We visited the cellular jail which was fascinating. I love the Andamans.