Andamans Visit 1985- all is well which ends well..

TodayAndaman and Nicobar Islands are such a popular tourist destination but back in 1985 it had a certain amount of novelty with not many tourist and just two 5 star hotels one IDTC and one of ITC group then called Hotel Bay Islands. I have started my blog with the topic of Hotels since search for place of stay made our journey memorable. Bi weekly Indian Airlines flight to Port Blair from then Calcutta and Madras was only way to travel in addition to tough ship journey. Three of our friends Sadhu, Mukherjee and Jana with family were to travel to Port Blair prior to us and had planned to stay with accommodation booked by Jana's relative. Since there were no online booking of hotels or guest houses then, I had requested my friends to book one double room for us, our kids were 8-10 year old then. We had been advised that if in case of any issue we were sure to get accommodation in Megapode Nest.

Dining Together with Sadhu, Mukherjee and Jana family	Megapode Nest

Our story began once we landed at Port Blair and tried to contact our friends over given phone number repetitively from a telephone booth. Not connected / No response! Not knowing where to go, we took a taxi to Megapode Nest a government tourist home. Megapode is name of a bird found in Nicobar Is lands.
When we reached the tourist home, we were shocked and panicked to know that due to National Lawyer's conference we were not likely to get any room there and probably any where else despite taxi driver's continued reassurance. While in the booking queue, I noticed a phone, which was there for public use. I just momentarily left the Q and called my friend's relative. He was not at home but his domestic help informed that our room is booked in Guest House no. 1. We needed just this information, and immediately proceeded towards CPWD GH for booking

Group Photo	hornbill-nest Resort

Indian Airlines (IA) personnel use to have lot of clout in Port Blair and one Bengali gentleman of the airlines was also trying for a room for his guests. We both landed in GH-1 (CPWD Guest House) together to meet Er (engineer) Mukherjee who was in-charge. He preferred to tell both of us that there is no room and my hint that I am an engineer too did not work. He said there is one more GH numbered as GH-1 where we may check my booking and instructed the driver where to go.
It took about half an hour to reach the place and by the time we reached we had started doubting the taxi driver. It was a VIP guest house on top of small hillock near Corbyn Cove beach and a luxury star hotel was also nearby. We entered the guest house and made our selves comfortable while the care taker seemed surprised but went to open the room. But while he had half inserted the key in the lock and while we were appreciating the decor and the garden the care-taker asked are you sure about your booking Sir, and very politely asked for a letter or other document from authorities confirming our booking there. Lo! We were taken aback, we had no such letter. In fact room no 1 of this VIP Guest House no 1 which we were asking him to open was kept un occupied and reserved for very high officials or ministers so the care taker was rightly worried before giving this room. I have reserched out that the said guest house is now namned as "Hornbill Nest Resort" and is operated by Aniidco, a Government Agency. Its is a quite sought after accommodation with only disadvantage of lack of transportation to the city. I now also know it has only 3 VIP rooms and we were asking him to open one of such rooms without any authority letter or reservation !
Our ordeal had just started! We drove back looking for accommodation on our way back. The driver took us to the following dwelling and the reason we did not stay are listed.

1. Youth Hostel: Only bachelor dormitory type accommodation was available.
2. Bengali association: Accommodation was available only in library only during night. I decided to leave wife and kids in the association's veranda and go ahead in search of a room as the taxi driver was still waiting. Kids now frustrated were asking me Papa lets go back
3. Ranchi (means early settlers fron Ranchi) Association : Accommodation available in Gym during the night or when no gym-ing activity is there they would provide folding cots and beddings.
4. Tamil Association: Accommodation available since one gentleman agreed to shift to the hall, we kept this option open.
5. YMCA: They could not accommodate woman as per their rule but promised to take up with their HO via fax message.
6. Municipal guest house: No room available as per chart put us at a notice board, where the reception fellow directed me to see.
7. An upcoming half built hotel in the Aberdeen Bazar area, where the owner promised a room from the next day. Not taking any chance I immediately paid advance to reserve the room.

Bengali Club Chowk	YMCA

I was overwhelmed by the support and helping attitude of all the people I had to interact including the taxi driver- who not only spent his whole day with me and guided me like a brother. The aptly called it a mini India where people of all states have settled down with everey one speaking in Hindi as common language. Ranchi or Ranchiwalas are early settlers from present day state of Jharkhand who after conversion to Christianity were sent by British towards end of 19th century to settle in Andaman's jungles and do cultivation. Baratang an Island is also called Ranchiwala's Island due to this.As stated earlier I visited their club too for accommodation and felt at home.

Tired after above search for accommodation I came back to Bengali association planning to shift to the only "confirmed" accommodation available in Tamil Association. But was pleasantly surprised to find one room allotted to us at the Bengali association and wife and kids had already shifted in the room with luggage. Each one of us quickly used the common wash rooms and got ready for an outing. By now it was almost evening and we were famished. We walked to a nearby South Indian restaurant and ordered Dosa for us. It was too spicy for the children but no one complained. We decided to call it a day and were walking back when we noticed a person staring us while going on a scooter. The person stopped came back and asked are you from MECON Ranchi, Yes I gave a surprised look. His next question startled me "Are you Amitabh Sinha?" We were just wondering how some one knows me so well here in Port Bair, then we recognised him. He was Mr. / Er. Mukherjee whom we had met at Guest House no 1. He informed that our friends had in fact booked room for us Room no 1 at Municipal Guest House but he could not remember to pass the information to us- my friend's domestic help could not differentiate between room no and guest house no and gave misleading information. Mr Mukherjee asked us to lock this room else some one occupies it. He asked us to come along as he has kept a better room in another Government guest house for us. Every one paricularily kids were so tired by then and we had already opened our beddings, we decided to better shift next day.
However as suggested by Mr Mukherjee I visited the Municipal GH immediately, took possession of the room by putting a lock . Out of curiosity I went to see the reservation chart on the notice board again. I started cursing myself when I noticed that I did not read the full reservation chart after seeing no room marked as vacant, I had walked out of the GH. My name appeared against Room No-1. Anyways paid the room rent at Municipal GH for 1 night and locked the room and came back to Bengali Association.

Govt Guest House

So we had accommodation promised / available at 6 places including the one we shifted the next day. In fact no one refused us, we were overwhelmed by the helping nature where ever we went. Associations were so eager to accommodate us some how and one person agreed to vacate the room. Andamans is lovingly called as "Mini India" with people of all regions settled there. They had no intention to cheat visitors was evident. Hindi is the common communication language by choice. Cook at GH-2 even boasted that if we leave a suitcase at the road side you can find this at the same place even after weeks. Hope Port Blair is same even today. We enjoyed our stay at Port Blair and visited many places such as

Ross Island

Different Jetty

WIMCO Match factory

Cellular Jail

Near by Garden

Anthropological Museum

Marine Museum

A small zoo with animals and birds found only in Andamans & Nocobar.

Baratang Islanf GH

Ross Island

We also took a sea journey to Baratang Island.Where we got a glimpse of Jarwas across the sea from Baratang Island also called Ranchi Wala's Island.
Having lost one day in search of accommodation, I still had 5 days in hand. First day we went to Phoenix bay Jetty area and took a boat ride to Ross Island. Either the boat operator played a trick or he was truly telling the passengers that due to sea condition we cannot get down at the Ross Island and we had to be content with one round trip across the Island by boat.
We went to Cellular Jail - a memorial now and were anguished by realising how much torture our freedom fighters underwent. For the first time saw a hanging set up फाँसी घर। Oil mill where the prisoners were used as oxen, stretching machine where hands and legs of inmates were tied and mechanically stretched to torture them was quite moving.

Cellular Jail

Cellular Jail model

Some famous inmates of the Cellular Jail were Diwan Singh Kalepani,Fazl-e-Haq Khairabadi, Yogendra Shukla, Batukeshwar Dutt, Maulana Ahmadullah, Babarao Savarkar, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Bhai Parmanand, Shadan Chandra Chatterjee, Sohan Singh, Vaman Rao Joshi and Nand Gopal.
Jail is laid with cells in six rows at equal angle converging to one watch tower. This facilitated one sentry to keep watch on all cells. However main deterrence was that inmates were not sure when they are watched and when they are not. When we visited the museum was closed and one wing of cells was still used as jail and one wing was under repair. We were allowed a walk through the cell rows. We saw the hanging room, other torture gadgets and a board displaying names of all inmates
We went to a near by Aquarium and garden. In the night we went to our friends place for dinner.

Port Blair Aquarium	Port Blair Aquarium

We went to Anthropological Museum. Indigenous people of Andaman and Nocobar are ethnically quite different as are these islands. Andamanese are of Negrito origin and live as hunter gatherers. The Andamanese peoples include the Great Andamanese (endangered tribe of which only about 52 remained in 2010) and Jarawas of the Great Andaman archipelago, the Jangil of Rutland Island, the Onge of Little Andaman, and the Sentinelese of North Sentinel Island.
Jarwas and Sentinels had largely shunned interaction with outsiders, however now there are slowly making contacts with some even sending there children to school.
Nicobarese are also mostly hunters, gatherers with some agriculture and pig rearing as means of living. They have Mongolian features and speak dialects with Burmese mixed with it. We could not finish one Nicobarese coconut, which are very large in size. We were told that unlike hills and sea type of landscape of Andaman, Nicobar being coral Islands are completely flat.
In the mini zoo we saw to animals / birds only found in this part of the world.

Megapode Bird	Nicobar Pig

Next day we went to visit Sipighat Botanical garden and spice farms run by Government. We saw here herbs and spice plants we had not seen before. Seeing Pepper, Cinnamon, Cardamom plants were an experience for us. The place was quite far away and it took almost 2 hours to reach the place by local bus with one change in between.

Botanical Garden	Black Pepper Plant

We wanted to visit one of Nicobar Island and if possible Indira Point - the Southern Tip of India about 200 km off Indonesian coast line. There were no daily shipping schedule to these island and we needed at least 6 or 7 days for the same. We had no option but to go to a near by Baratang Island to experience a ship journey in open sea. It took about 4 hours by Ship from Chetham Jetty. Here we saw how Elephants were used for log felling and transportation. Logs were floated in Sea and pulled by Steamer to transport it to different places. We stayed in a Forest Guest House which had excellent room and food served was also good. With little interaction with local settlers we knew they are early settlers from Ranchi.
We tried hard to see any "Jarwa Tribe person across the strait. We were told by the locals that they Jarwas live across the strait and there were some stories also circulating about them taking away Iron materials from under construction bridges or roads.

Baratang Jetty	Chetham Saw Mill

Chetham Jetty was very near our guest house and was visible from the guest house. There is a saw mill in the Chetham Island and it has its own history. We saw sawing for match sticks for WIMCO match boxes.
Despite initial hiccups our visit to Port Blair was a memorable one. Since there are always new places to see we did not go there again and now I find the attractions, hotels etc which has come up and betterment of communication now in place there. We definitely long to go there again.