Made of 572 islands, the Andaman and Nicobar islands are situated around 1000 miles from the east coast of India, in the bay of Bengal.
It is currently off season, so we did not expect many people to be around but the islands really did surprise us.
From the capital Port Blair, once a British penile colony, you can get ferries to most of the other islands: South Andaman, Little Andaman and others. As a foreigner, you need a restricted area permit for 28days to travel the islands. The Nicobar islands are off limits on the permit and even the islanders will need a special government permit to travel there.
These islands are actually populated with local tribes, so the land is reserved for them... and some have not had any contact with the outside world at all, like Sentinelese on North Sentinel Island.
We spent most of our time in Havelock, the most developed island about 2.5hrs away from the capital: most of the population consists of people the Indian government has resettled after both the Pakistani and the Bangladeshi partition. The southern part of the island is a very green and thick jungle where no one could settle.
We did a couple of day trips while on the island: Beach #7, located on the opposite side from where we staying. We took a local bus on one of the two roads of the island (the local people called it "danger bus"... Indian driving!) and went for a swim in Neil's cove: we were the only ones there pretty much all day... We left a little bit of our heart there and also a wedding ring!!
On the same bus route and 1.8km away on a muddy track (monsoon season!) lies Elephant Beach. Again, very quiet and with a spectacular reef, it is a white-sand turquoise-water beach... Then we saw a couple of wild elephants feeding in the jungle just behind us! We kept at distance but it was the perfect ending to a few days in one of the most gorgeous places in the world!
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