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Namaste,
As for every other trip to a new destination in India, we have again a story to tell about our journey to the Andaman Islands!
We had to be at the Shipping Cooperation in Chennai by 2:00pm on Monday, December 23rd as a bus would pick us up and bring us to the port. When we got there we saw a beautiful ship in front of us and couldn't hide our excitement -Bingo, this would be amazing Christmas! We were dropped off outside a waiting area and spotted a couple of other western tourists. For the first 90minutes nothing happened and then people started to move slowly. We first had to go through a health check ("Do you have any problems?" - "No" - ticket stamped with "Inspection Passed") before lining up for luggage and security check. Once everything was finished we walked outside and followed the crowed past the beautiful ship we had in front of us and towards the oldest and most unstable looking boat we have ever seen! This ferry was supposed to bring us across the Indian Ocean to Paradise?! Our disappointment was huge but in a way we had to laugh about our naivety. We lined up for boarding and final ticket check but some officers called us to the front together with every other foreigner for a separate passport and visa check. However, we had to wait until every single Indian was on board before someone would come to check our papers. There were 7 of us in total: Amanda (Spain) and Andrea (Italy), Tali and Juda (Israel), Sergei (Russia) and the 2 of us. Finally it was our turn to board after an officer briefly checked our papers. On deck we were greeted by some of the staff and told we should go to Information. Instead of getting real information we only had to drop off our passports. This request didn't go by very well as none of us felt comfortable to leave the passport with a stranger for several days. Traveler rule #1 - never give away your passport! We had no choice but made sure that we would get a proper paper with our names, passport numbers and the signature of the person in charge of our passports. Sergei took on the task of keeping the paper.
After all the formalities it was time to get to the lower deck and settle down in bunk class. What we saw there was beyond our worst imaginations, Cockroaches were running around everywhere and the bathrooms were dirty already! The conditions on the vessel worsened in the following 87 hours (was supposed to be only 60 hours) to the extent that the bunk class had a sour smell and we avoided using the bathrooms as much as possible. We lived through our worst nightmare, fighting with cockroaches and sea sickness, killing time reading books all day long, ignoring the fact that Christmas on a ferry is not as much fun after all (not even a ton of cookies could turn this around) and trying to get by with as less sleep as possible during the night.
The moment when passengers started to get the first cell phone signal everyone got excited and watched out for land. In the morning of December 27th 2013 at 7:00am we arrived in Port Blair.
Once we arrived we went to find ourselves a guest house, have a loooong shower and wash everything we wore the past few days. We had no intentions of staying in Port Blair very long but when we went to the ferry ticket office we did not expect to be on the boat again the same night. At 6:00pm we went back to the harbour and ran into Amanda and Andrea who took the same ferry to get to Little Andaman for New Years.
After another 10 hour overnight ferry with little sleep and accompanied by cockroaches we arrived on Little Andaman. With little options for accommodation outside of the busy bazaar area, it was 13 of us getting picked up by the manager of Jina Resort. He was stressed while we were nervous as nobody knew for sure that there'd be space for all 13 of us. While we enjoyed some chai, the staff was running around carrying mattresses and fixing up rooms. All 13 of us got a room and for our little shag we paid only 150Rs. - amazing and that over New Year's! Little Andaman is probably one of the quietest places on the Andaman Islands as not many make the long ferry ride but also because it is the least tourist friendliest place we have seen with hardly any restaurants and shops but still it has everything you need. The beach is a dream with white sand, crystal clear blue sea and accessible only by a short 2 minutes walk through the jungle like forest. Only downsides are the occasional crocodiles in the water and the sand mosquitoes (their bites did itch for several weeks) that make you not want to lie down on the beach. At night you can see the stars (tons of them) shining up high and planktons in the water. We spent some quiet days there, finally relaxing! New Year's Eve was relaxed and most people might find it boring but for us it was the first NY Eve in a long time which we didn't have to work. There was 10 of us in total (5 Germans, 1 Belgian, 2 Portuguese, 1 Italian and 1 Spanish) who ordered rice, chapathi and different curries for dinner - beer and other liquor we bought individually and together we celebrated into the New Year2014 - finishing off the night with a good luck skinny dip!
Already on January 1st the A-Team (Amanda and Andrea) and the 2 of us took the overnight ferry back to Port Blair only to hop on another ferry a few hours later to go to Havelock Island. While the A-Team went ahead with an earlier boat after agreeing to meet up at the same lodge again, we rushed into town to book our flight off the island (no more ferries) at the nearest internet cafe. From the beginning this seemed like a mission to fail!
After a 2 hours ferry ride (which cost 10 times the price of the 10 hours trip to L.A.) we arrived on Havelock Island - Tourist destination #1. Ricksaw drivers were lined up, waiting for tourists to pass the passport and permission check and take them on a race for the cheapest and/or best accommodation. We had the luck on our side this time or better we had the A-Team who left a note with a rickshaw driver saying the name of a resort they found and that a room is waiting for us as well. From our driver we heard that all resorts are completely booked but the expensive units. Out huts were fairly cheap and located in the jungle, away from beach and tourist crowds!
After running into Aniko and Mickey (friends we met in Amritsar) we spent the next 11 days in paradise. Since getting from our resort to the village or the beach is a bit of a pain (hitchhiked a couple of times with motor bike drivers) we moved for the last 4 nights (after the A-Team had left) to Beach 5 (beaches have numbers rather than names) and had a hut overlooking the ocean. It took us an entire week to sort out our flight and slow, very expensive internet didn't help. Besides that and the fact that the entire island went nuts because the President of India arrived on January 11th for 2 days (they fixed all the roads, flew in additional police officers, had a 25 car convoy and closed entire beaches) we made the most out of our time including diving days for Ann (she got to finish her Advanced Open Water with a night dive and a wreck dive), snorkelling on Elephant Beach (no elephants when we were there but an adventures trek through the jungle to get there), days on Beach 7 (Asia's most beautiful beach - and it really is breathtakingly perfect), bon fires, lots of sleeping, sun bathing, reading, eating and relaxing!
After 1 last night in Port Blair we left the Andaman Islands and India on January 14th with a big bang (sleeping the last night on the floor because of bed bugs and fighting with the owners in the morning over the rate, basically getting kicked out)! Our flight from Port Blair to Bangkok via Kolkata (stopover for 8 hours) was something we looked forward to - 3.5 months later we are closing the chapter India. We are proud of ourselves to have come to India (regardless what our family said), happy to have visited all these incredible places and consider ourselves lucky to have met all these amazing new friends. However, for now we are also happy to leave.
Thank you Amanda and Andrea for the fun times, together we created wonderful memories and hopefully one day soon we can all laugh about our ferry experience (by the way, you are true champs for taking the ferry back). We wish you all the best with your house on 4 wheels and hope to catch up with you in Australia, Italy or Mallorca. You truly are The A-Team!!
Thank you as well Aniko and Mickey for once again a great and fun time together. By the rate we are going we will run into you again one day and please know that we forgive you for the many jokes about cookies and instant noodle soup.
As for now, we are looking forward to some relaxing days in Bangkok before heading into the next adventure.
Cheerio,
Ann & Sabrina
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