Arrival on Havelock Island

A Christian Arab friend of mine arrived from Israel, and having had my veritable fill of Bombay, we decided to fly all the way to Port Blair, in the mythical Andaman Islands.

We ended up leaving the guest house at 9 PM for a 1 AM flight to Chennai, with a connecting flight to Port Blair at 10 AM the next morning. This ensured a white night and total exhaustion upon arrival. In that state, I was unable to appreciate the city, and took the advice of the Lonely Planet, which recommended Havelock Island for the best beaches. We stayed overnight in Port Blair and following morning, we were on the early ferry at 6:30 AM. In the pouring rain. It was the very end of the season and the monsoon had just begun. My backpack got seriously wet.

The ferry took three hours under cloudy skies and in choppy water, though the rain slowed to a drizzle. The islands we passed on the way were blanketed with rainforest of the most vivacious green. Carpets of palm and deciduous trees came up to a few meters from the shore. Visiting the Andamans had been a longstanding dream, and as we approached Havelock Island, I felt one of those surges of triumph that accompanies the final attainment of a distant goal.

We decamped at the Pristine Guest House, occupying the only tree house. It had an open air shower downstairs, with a bedroom of sorts on the second floor, up from a staircase that used a real tree trunk as a landing. I made a mental note not to navigate said staircase at night without wearing my glasses and turning the lights on.

Upstairs, there was a rattan sofa in front of a glassless window looking out onto a view that surpassed the perfection that my imagination could conjure up even in its most vivid flourishes. Some two kilometers in the distance was the equally lush and rainforested Neil Island, clearly visible across a calm strait of blue and turquoise waters. At high tide, you could see bits of coral rock just poking out above the surface near the shore. At low tide, a wondrous coral garden emerged. Huge trees that grow right in the water had their roots left exposed – quite an amazing sight. The first time I took in all this beauty, I was moved to tears of ecstasy.

About a kilometer or so from Pristine was a market of sorts: just a bunch of stalls and a municipal building. On our second day there, a Mexican traveler, who immediately brought to mind Subcomandante Marcos, had organized with some local business people and the middle school, a garbage collection drive on the island. This seemed like a worthy cause, and a chance to get to know people.

I went with the Class Nine boys. They weren’t terribly enthusiastic. I filled up two big jute bags in about 15 minutes. Once older local woman wanted to know why we were doing this strange task. The teacher told her that Americans pay dollars for the glass and plastic. She thought this rather amusing. Why else would anyone pick up garbage, if not for a financial incentive? It was doing just fine on the ground where it was! I guess you can put it down to cultural differences.