The Islands Of Adventure

Present day Andamans offers scenic beauty as well as a peek into its chequered past. This is one trip that leaves you wanting more. M Venkatesh.

- M Venkatesh.

The evening of November 8, 2016 was probably the worst time to land in an unknown place with unusable cash on your hands. My friends and I were sitting in a bayside restaurant at the Fortune Resort Bay Island in Port Blair, sipping a drink, when the first lot of WhatsApp and text messages gate crashed the party. “What nonsense!” was the first thought as the news of the demonetisation came in. It was only when the midnight gong struck that the magnitude of the crisis hit us. In the morning, it was disconcerting to discover that the money you had could not buy you anything.

Despite accommodation at the Resort (the Andamans has many resorts dotting its main islands), we had booked ourselves into the GO’s Mess, Police Headquarters, thanks to our friends. The transit house for police officers is perched on a hill overlooking the serene Andaman Sea on three sides.

Starting point

I notice that I have jumped far ahead. The journey from Kolkata (flights from and to Delhi stop over in Kolkata) was unusually enlightening with a pilot in the neighbouring seat. He explained quite a few aspects about flying to the Andamans. That the plane had to carry extra fuel just in case there was a need to go around and fly back in case of any emergency. Bad weather over the Andamans is certainly an emergency.

It is extremely difficult to land at the Veer Savarkar International Airport in inclement weather because the runway is unidirectional—planes land and take off in the same direction, whatever be the wind conditions.