After a nice week on Havelock Island and a night in Port Blair, and about 5.000 km of traveling I am back in Bangalore.
We started on 5th of December, at 9:30pm with the train from Bangalore to Chennai. My first trip in a train here, AC2 Class, which means: Air conditioned trains with 2 beds on top of each other, in ac3 class it’s three beds. The trains are not the newest, the beds are made of blue plastic. But we got bed sheets and pillow, etc. so it was quite comfortable. The train started and we went to bed, to get up at 4:20am, where the train reached chennai. Train is a very good way to travel, mainly the sleeper classes, as you get in, sleep, get up and you are there. And it is a very cheap way to travel.
Now we had to go from Chennai Central Railway Station to the airport. As always the rickshaw drivers tried to rip us off, and we looked for a bus. But no sucess, so we took a rickshaw to the airport.
After 45 minutes through Chennai at break of dawn we arrived at the airport, had a snack and boarded the plain. Kingfisher red is a very good airline, no reason to complain. We started a bit late, but for India this is just normal 
. 2 hours later we landed in Port Blair, and left the plain. It was very warm, and the air was extreme wet. Inside the airport building all white people were forced to fill out forms. India People like filling out forms. On every occasion you get a form to fill out. This form was necessary to get our temporary permit for the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
After one hour of formalities we finally left the airport and found our driver, who brought us to the harbour where we boarded the ferry to Havelock Island. It took us there in about 3 hours. Finally we made it!
After 5 minutes in a Mahindra offroad car we reached Cafe del Mar, our resort. We booked 2 garden huts, very simple with just a bed and a shower/toilet. Island feeling came up. After check-in we jumped into the ocean for the first time, our resort was directly at beach nr. 3.
The next days my 3 fellows were diving, I had chosen to just read, sleep at the beach, go swimming, see the island. Again, I got sick for some time, but some meds from the island pharmacy helped me to get up again.
Havelock is a very quite, very natural island, you only find huts with palm roofs, buildt of wood, no concrete hotels or buildings like that. It is the right place to relax, calm down and get rid of stress. Real island feeling is guaranteed. You find beautiful beaches, lots of small restaurants (all in palm huts), and some houses of island residents.
The restaurants are very slow, if you go there do not expect them to prepare any meal in less than 30-45 minutes. In one restaurant we had to wait 1.5 hours until they even started cooking.
We also spent 2 evenings with having some alcohol at the beach. Booze is very cheap on Havelock, you can get a bottle of cheap rum for 150Rs. (2.50 Euros) and Bacardi or Smirnoff for about 300 Rs (5 Euros).
Everywhere are palm trees, so fresh coconut supplyl is granted everytime Cracking without tools is not so easy, but possible.
Beach Nr.7 is the most beautiful beach there, with white sand, clear water, and if you walk some minutes you will be on your own. I will show you some pictures as soon as the film is ready.
Most fun is to explore the island on a scooter, which you can rent for 200Rs a day. We were lucky to get a real helmet, many other guys where driving around with construction helmets… they do protect you from a sunburn, but not if you crash.
So after 7 nights we had to leave. As the ferry boats do not go so often we had to leave one night earlier and stay in port blair. We went to “Holiday Resort Hotel”, which was very basic, but good enough to stay one night. At night we visited a bar for a chat with the people there and some drinks, then we fell into the beds and were nearly killed by the mosquitos. (We had to switch on the lights again and killed nearly 30 of them in our room).
Next morning, 13th of december, we were taken to the airport again and went back to chennai, where I took the train and my fellows a plain to bangalore.
It was a nice trip, beautiful landscape, good chance to relax.
3 Responses
December 15th, 2008 at 16:37
I´am glad, that you had such a nice journey and that you returned well.
December 16th, 2008 at 02:23
Beach Nr.2… beach Nr.7… alcohol… nice price… and you are really sure that this was NOT Mallorca?
December 18th, 2008 at 20:50
moin matz,
meld dich mal bitte auf der mailadresse, muss dir was schicken.
bin zur zeit auch weit weg non zuhause. bei dir ist sicherlich waermer.