I’d originally planned to head to Goa for both Christmas and New Year and a couple of co-workers said don’t bother heading there as it’ll be overcrowded, overpriced and it’s not that great. Asking them for alternatives, two places came up – the Lakshadweep islands off the west coast of India and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands off the east coast. Calling and emailing a few places, Lakshadweep appeared fully booked and so I ended up organising for a ten day stay in the Andamans instead.

Organised through Andaman Holidays, I had an amazing stay on the barely touched Havelock Island snorkelling, swimming, resting on a beach and scuba diving. All that sun also guaranteed plenty of relaxation and a generous tan by the end of it. The island is pretty good for meeting nice people as well as it’s a pretty chilled atmosphere and met some people from India, and many others from all different parts of the world. Eating at some of the more local places also mean striking up conversations with some locals who have some pretty interesting lives living on the island.

Even though it’s peak season for the crystal clear, sapphire blue waters of the Andaman Islands, Havelock at most had probably two hundred visitors. Given that there’s fifteen or twenty resorts and eco villas littered around the shoreline of the island guaranteed the beaches stay ridiculously empty for the most part. At some points, it almost feels like you’re on a deserted tropical island somewhere.

I thought I’d kill two birds with the same stone and ended up completing the PADI open water scuba diving course. Being qualified opens up new opportunities to do different sorts of diving around the world and doing training in the Andamans means seeing some of the best underwater wildlife in the world.

A friendly Goan called Vikas who’d been teaching diving for the last six years in Goa ran our course, and kept telling us the visibility in the Andamans is amongst the best in the world – it’s clear, clean waters the perfect place to learn and to go diving. Compared to Goa where it’s limited to about a metre, we could easily see ten metres at a stretch on many of our dives. Diving at South Button Island also means fantastically clear water – even at the surface snorkelling, you’ll easy spot all the wildlife at the bottom that’s ten or twelve metres away. Unfortunately I have no photos of the amazing underwater world we uncovered on our dives. I can say we saw amazing beds of brightly coloured corals teeming with even more brightly coloured tropical fish and I can’t recommend it highly enough for people. We spotted all sorts of fish, my knowledge of their names quickly exhausted as I try to take them all in. My favourites definitely remain the tiny, tiny clown fish (think of Nemo) playing in the anemones. It’s amazing how close you can hover over them and watch them play.

Entry into the Andaman and Nicobar Islands is via Port Blair – a fairly industrialised and not very scenic island amongst the Andamans. It has plenty of historical significance as it’s home to Cellular Jail, the place where the British kept all the Indian freedom fighters during the time for independence. The easiest way to get to Havelock is via the government ferries that depart two or three times a day from Port Blair. Unfortunately the visit of India’s president to Havelock and stormy waters forcibly meant taking alternative transportation (i.e. hire a boat) to keep to the schedule.

It was pretty exciting to have the President of India visiting Havelock island though it meant that you effectively couldn’t go anywhere by the road and also screwed up many people who’d planned to arrive or leave the island the day of her visit. On the day of her visit, the sound of many helicopters arriving and circling also broke up the quiet sounds of the waves lapping on the sand though it was just for half a day in the end.

Time magazine also voted Havelock’s Radah Nagar Beach (also known locally as Beach #7) as Asia’s best beach. The beach, shaped in a moon-crescent fashion is undoubtedly one of the best swimming beaches I’d ever swum in. Its water remains consistently clear even with the tiny breaking waves and unlike many of the other coral-ridden beaches on the other side of the island is entirely made up of tiny, soft granules of sand. Barefoot resort is the only resort on this side of the island and is also home to two now-retired elephants that give rides and also go swimming in the ocean from time to time.

If you visit the Andamans, I’d highly recommend indulging in the fresh seafood available – it’s a staple food on the island and many of the restaurants in the various resorts prepare them in many different ways. The Burmese style-sauce of the Wild Orchid’s restaurant (and it’s sister one at the Emerald Gecko) is definitely worth trying one night, as is the Tandoor version from one of the other places. Pristine Beach Resort, home to the Poseidon restaurant also offers very fresh crab (you can pick one from the bucket out front).

Find the pictures from the rest of my trip here.