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by Martin Fowler.
Original Post: Bliki: AndamanIslands
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While we were in India we took a week's vacation in the Andaman
Islands, primarily to indulge in some diving. We spent most of our
time on Havelock Island, which is a couple of hours by ferry from
the main centre at Port Blair. Here's some scattered things to
share from our experience.
The diving was good, but not as good as we've had in
Saba. Visibility was rather low and the coral had been
bleached by warm waters a couple of years ago. That said it was
still a fine diving experience with lots of life to see. (Other
divers who had been there before had had better visibility, so we
were just unlucky on that front.)
We did our diving with Dive India, one of the operators on
Havelock Island. They were one of the best dive operations we've
been with - both friendly and well-organized. Firmly recommended
should you be looking for some diving in this part of the world.
Dive India is attached to a small resort, which was booked up
long before we made our last-minute plans. It's backpacker-style
and fellow divers were happy with it. We made heavy use of the
restaurant, Full Moon, which gave us a good range of food during
our dive days.
Since getting around India can be a bit of a hassle, we worked
with a tour operator - Welcome Andaman
Travels - to sort out hotels and getting around. We were not
happy with their service and do not recommend them. (Yet another
reason to continue with our usual preference for independent
travel.)
On Havelock Island we stayed at the Silver Springs Resort. It
was ok - clean and simple. It's on the other side of the island
from the main block of resorts. As a result it didn't have a beach
(not a problem for us) and was in the middle of Indian farms
rather than diver-land resorts. While that was nice, it was a 20
minute bicycle ride from those resorts, which made getting around a
bit tougher - particularly at night. As a result, if we were to do
this again, we'd prefer one of the resorts in the main resort
area.
We spent a day or so in Port Blair, which doesn't have much to
recommend it. However a high spot was the trip out to Ross Island,
which used to be the main government centre in colonial days, but
the colonial buildings are now ruins being spectacularly reclaimed
by epiphytic plants. Well worth a couple of hours.
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