Andaman Islands

So we left this.


For this... Pretty much a no brainer for us.
The Andaman Islands lie far off the east coast of India much closer to Myanmar and Thailand than India. They are all protected because of there amazing marine life and native populations. Foreigners are allowed to stay 30 days and can only visit certain areas of the islands and have to pay higher fees than Indian nationals. When we first arrived we landed in the only large town Port Blair. It's a really dirty busy town full of diesel exhaust and trash. We were a little disappointed. You have to go through Port Blair to go to any of the other island though so we stayed for a few days and rode around the South Andaman island on a motorcycle. We decided after a few days to take the eight hour ferry south to Little Andaman.

That cost us about 40 cents each. The ferry was surprisingly not that uncomfortable. When we got to Little Andaman we were pretty excited. The main (only) port is on a five mile golden sand beach with crystal clear water. Once we got to shore we found a little different story. Little Andaman was hit really hard by the tsunami and while there used to be some tourist hotels and restaurants there now is very little. We were the only tourists on the island that we saw. There was one decent hotel but no restaurants. One guy had a small food shack that was really good but he left town the day after we arrived. So we ate alot of dried nuts and potato chips. The island itself is gorgeous but what you can't see from the ferry is that almost every inch of it is covered in manure. Cow, goat, dog, cat and people. The golden sand arc that lines the bay is used as a cattle road and is completely covered in fertilizer. You really can't even walk on the beach without hitting a land mine. After a few days of non stop rain and manure we decided to head back to Port Blair ready for some hot food.

We were about to give up on the Andamans when we talked to a couple from Tazmania who told us that another island, Havelock, was worth a look.
Havelock is the main tourist island so we were going to give it a miss but after Little Andaman some tourist facilities sounded pretty good.