Andaman Diary

It all started with the announcement of shutdown period in my firm. Initially it was for 10 days but due to cost cutting it got increased to 16 days. I am sure I could never ever get such a big break from work, till the time I am employed :) !!! Till now I am.

I read all I could find on all the forums. The best with no doubts is www.indiamike.com It has exhaustive details and lots of answered queries of the avid travelers.

The more I read about the beauty of Andamans the greater became my desire to go. Some of the descriptions I read were so real that I could feel myself standing on the beach # 7 at Havelock.

Getting to Andamans is not easy if you want to make a budget trip. Budget trip clearly implies to and fro journey by ship ( yeah ship !!! ). The ships are the lifelines of Andamans. There is minimum one sailing every week. Most of the consumable come from the mainland. The ships go from Chennai, Kolkata and Vizag. From Vizag, its once a month and rest of the sailings are from Chennai and Kolkata. I want to board the ship from Vizag as the dates suit me. It is supposed to sail on 19th Dec 2008. From Vizag it takes around 56 hours to reach. But mostly it gets extended to 3 days. I read somewhere that, many a times, ships wait for many hours for obtaining clearance to enter the ports. Shit happens !!!

Anyways, this whole thought of traveling by ship for such a long distance is very exciting to me. I have traveled for couple of hours but not for 3 days. I hope not to get sea sick.!!!

Coming back to tickets part, the tickets are sold by Shipping Services, to be precise, by designated agents appointed by the Shipping Services. The sailing dates are only confirmed a month in advance. And over and above this, there is no provision of online booking or mailing the tickets. Tickets have to be collected in person after filling an application form with 2 photographs. The best part, the tickets are sold only 3 days before the sailing. Well, there is a strong reason behind it. They start selling the tickets only when the ship arrives at the port. The ship takes the 3 day break and then sails back.

Buying the tickets on working Wednesday in Vizag was definitely out of question. An uncle of ours came to the rescue. I am deeply grateful to him. Thank you very much. :)

Today only, I have got the confirmation that the tickets are booked. Buying tickets is not easy. The rush is unbelievable, it’s a fish market there. Many thanks again to uncle for this brave work. The trip seems to have started well, I will leave tonight for Vizag. It takes a day to reach there. And then my ship sails to Phoenix Jetty on Friday morning 10AM.

My intention is to make this a very adventurous and as well as a very relaxing trip. If we reach there by 22nd morning, we will have full 7 days to spare. I am planning to stay 3 days in Havelock, 2 days in Neil and last 2 days in Port Blair. During this time, only diving, snorkeling, camping and sleeping under the stars (as I am carrying a tent :))
Lets see how this goes.