Andaman - A Tropical Paradise - Day 1 @ Port Blair

Like I said in my first post, I am just taking my baby steps in blogging. And, undoubtedly, my first official post has to be something about that I am very passionate about. So, here we go...

Myself and Dawn, have always been passionate about travel. It was 2 years back that we decided to do one or two real trips every year. I will sometime go back to the details of the trips that I have done previously, but for now, I will begin with the latest and the best of all - a tropical vacation at the Andaman Islands.I am breaking the post into different parts because - its going to be a lot.

This trip idea was conceived by us and then shared with my best buddy from college, Rama & her husband. Finally, we chose a good plan from Thomas Cook and picked the Feb 3rd departure from Chennai. 

Date : February 03,2013
Location : Port Blair

The much anticipated trip date came up, and we traveled from Bangalore to Chennai, and after an overnight stay at Rama's place, we arrived at the Chennai Domestic Airport at 6:30 AM, saddled with heavy backpacks(when I say heavy, i mean "HEAVY"!).

After an almost 2 hour flight journey, we started seeing the island group at a distance. As the flight neared the runway for touchdown, we couldn't help but notice how similar to Kerala Andaman was. We met with the remaining 12 members of the Thomas Cook group outside the airport and we were greeted by a representative from Barefoot Holidays. We were all given welcome kits and ushered into 3 cozy air conditioned Xylos, our luggage marked and loaded. The short road drive to the hotel gave us a glimpse of the beautiful city of Port Blair. The roads were clean and perfect. We reached Hotel TSG Emerald, and after a few hours of relaxing and lunch, we were off for our first day tour. We visited a museum that displayed various tribal artifacts that gave an insight about the history of Andaman. 

The next part of the trip was something that we were looking forward to - The Cellular Jail. It was almost similar to what I could remember from the movie Kalapaani. The high walls, the long corridors and the empty cells that once housed several freedom fighters from India's past. 

The guide explained in detail the stories of the past and explained the daily routine of the prisoners. We were shown around the places of work, the small sheds were prisoners worked to extract oil from coconut in quantities that were not humanly achievable. And then, the methods of punishment, when they failed to do so. We walked along the long corridors of the jail, and entered the cell where the prisons most famous inmate was housed - Veer Savarkar.

Later in the evening, we watched the sound & light show which is the narration of the history of the jail and its prisoners by a lone tree that has remained a mute witness to all that has happened within the walls of the cellular jail. 

Though major wings of the jail has succumbed to natural disasters like earthquake and the tsunami, the jail still stands by as a testimony to the gory past of battle for India's freedom from the British.


As we returned to our hotels, had a good dinner and curled up on our comfortable beds, we could still silently hear the cries of freedom fighters, the patriotic shouts of 'Vande Mataram', and above all ,a feeling of pride and respect for  the freedom fighters who lived and died for the today that we enjoy.