Andaman Islands

Our relaxing and free of horn honking week on the Andaman Islands (AI) was amazing and such a treat. Going to the AI was not part of our original India plan, but things rarely happen according to plan. After spending a week in the freezing cold of Darjeeling, we were easily persuaded by some fellow travelers to visit the AI where warm weather, beautiful white sand beaches, blue water, and diving would await. Although a few weeks had passed since we left the cold and we were very much enjoying our time volunteering at the Mother House, we were still super excited.
Our flight landed us in Port Blair so we quickly headed to the ferry dock to catch the ferry to Havelock Island were we spent our week. Havelock is a little island that consist of seven beaches, or should i say six because beach six doesn't seem to exist. As we debarked from the ferry we were handed a flyer by the owner of Eco Villa promoting his hostel. Since we had read about it and the price was right we decided to settle down on beach number 2 at the lovely Eco Villa. Tired and exhausted from our travels, we enjoyed a nice dinner sitting under coconut trees at our hostel and just stared out on to the water and watched the moons reflection ripple on the water.
Refreshed and eager to dive, we headed to Dive India to book our Advance Open Water course as well as a day of fun diving. Our AOW consisted of five dives: navigation, deep, photography, naturalist and night dive plus a little book reading. Since a standard trip usually consist of two dives in one boat trip we were able to complete our course in two days. Viskos, our dive instructor was super nice and such a great teacher. He is from Goa originally but has lived on Havelock for the past three years and really enjoys being on instructor and working wit his students. Our course went smoothly and we both enjoyed it tremendously because we had a focus and purpose for our dives. For each of the dives we were able to photograph what we saw and learn how best to capture life underwater. Viskos also told us about different species of fish for example, it is most common to see angel fishes travel in two because they mate for life. During our night dive we focused on the micro living things. It is a bit scary not being able to see your surroundings but the night dive offers such a different outlook to the underwater world, we saw several fish sleeping, bio luminescences, basket star fish and much more. All together we saw grouper, school of barracuda, lion fish, shrimp, snapper, an electric clam, crocodile fish and so much more. At a few of the dive spots we visited it felt as though we were in a movie, like the movie Finding Nemo. The coral just covered the bottom for miles and there are just so many fish swimming around living their life. It is just such an experience to be able to breath underwater and watch them all live in their natural habitat. Our diving days were the best.
When we were not diving we were most often relaxing on the beach and hanging out with our Danish friends Mikael, Adam and Heidi. One afternoon the boys went out fishing and Mikael the lucky one he was caught a fish. The fish was massive and as kind as the guys were they invited us over to there hostels restaurant to enjoy in a lovely dinner. One of the chefs cooked up the fish as well as some side dishes, mushroom rice, tomato and cucumber salad, and garlic cooked vegetables. Turns out the dinner is one of the best dinners we have had on our trip. The food was delicious and there was so much of it we ended up sharing it with all the cooks. It was so nice to be sitting among friends enjoying this wonderful meal and all eating together at the same time. Thank you Mikael for catching the fish.
Our week on the island flew by and although we decided to skip Nepal so that we could come here we are so very glad we did. The weather suited us and our clothing much better. Of all the countries we have traveled to we both agree that India is definitely a country we will come back too. And although we have yet to visit Nepal we know for sure we will either visit when the weather is warmer or when we have more suitable cold weather clothing. We are young and our travel addiction has only gotten worse. . . who knows if we will ever return home?