Part of me wants to say the Andaman Islands were rubbish...no one should go there, nothing to see, the boat crossing was hell (this bit is true, crammed in bunk class with cockroaches running over you all night and hundreds of Indians wretching up phlegm into the bin by your head, awww man, and I will NEVER recover from discovering a great big poo in the shower cubicle, I am damaged). However after the hell that was the (3 DAY) boat journey (did I mention there were little cockroaches running along the dinner table too?!) we spent an amazing week snorkelling in the Andaman Islands which I genuinely believe is THE most beautiful place on the planet. I will exempt the captial Port Blair from this which looks like every other town in India which is none too pretty a sight (man, I don't know how they do it!) but this is a tiny fragment in an otherwise paradise of islands. Seriously, I was nearly crying when I had to leave to catch the boat at the thought that I was leaving my pinnacle of beauty, once in a lifetime never to be repeated experience, pristine coral, crystal clear water, white sand, huge colourful fish everywhere, hut at the beach which cost us about 3 quid a day between the two of us. Pretty undeveloped though its starting hence why I am tempted to say the Andaman Islands is pants...don't go.
Amazing though just amazing, I am tempted to learn how to sail just so I can get back there. We could easily have spent a couple of months just exploring the islands, snorkelling, bimbling around in the leech free forests and generally not doing much else. There is nothing else to do, no nightlife, no nothing just up and to bed with the sun but really what more do you need in paradise?
The highlight was snorkelling off south button island which is a tiny little island (more of a boulder with a few trees on top) in the middle of nowhere (took us 1.5 hours on a boat to get there) and its edges just drop straight down to the sea floor which is about 20-25m down. All the way round the undersea wall of the island/boulder is just basically a wall of coral...like HUGE fan corals teeming with amazing, beautiful and fairly sizeable fish, so colourful, just calmly swimming around not caring about you at all, and the clarity of the water was something else, visibility from top to bottom and right out. At one point I even had a little yellow and black fish slipstreaming me for protection or fun, and though he was mostly just swimming under my chin, now and again he would be right in front of my mask, cool as but somewhat obscuring my vision and making me laugh which doesn't help keep the sea out of your snorkel. Between that, the crunching of parrot fish and shoals of giant travelli (which in shallower water would have scared the pants off me) it was something else, really. Fortunatley it was a luxury yacht that took us away so the pain of leaving was compensated for slightly.
I hope to return one day, mainly to snorkel and walk in the forest though perhaps to dive and see if I can hang out where the big stuff lives...but for the minute I shall content myself with knowing that we made it, out of India, via the Andaman and onwards to Asia with the no flying rule in tact. The bikes were a bit rusty from all that time at sea but with a bit of tlc they're still going strong and we're in Thailand. I'm feeling pretty darned pleased about that.txx
1 comment:
lush lush lush exected the poo bit and cawling cockrochers xxxxxxxxxx
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