Hello beautiful hearts.<3
Landscapes call me towards them, beaches roar and bring out the free spirit in me.
So when my surprise honeymoon was at Andamans, my happiness knew no bounds.
The entire wedding fatigue and nervousness disappeared.
This was the perfect time for me...Happy and free, best mood to discover more about my habibi and fall in love where literally love had the space to break free and be in air.
This trip was a prebooked tour, So the itenary may come handy for some of you who are planning for self tour.
This is how the fun unfolds...read on...
Mumbai—Andaman—Cellular jail
4:00 am –Cab to the airport. Sleep has won over my
travel excitements.
5:50 am – Am Flying!
The flight has taken off and my mind gets filled with the
pic I saw in my friends profile of Andaman. I was taken by surprise when she
replied to my comment that the place is Andaman and not Mauritius. An Island
famous for its saza-e-kalapani could stand to compete its beaches
internationally? Since then I wanted to see this for myself. It came as very
nice surprise from my husband for our honeymoon….I hope he surprises me with
Ladakh soon.
11:00 am – Andaman!
Voila…. Our step on the (is)land. How exciting
as till now I was bored in the long flight with half hour halt in
Chennai.
Ah, but again the wonderful breeze in the sunny day, the
picturesque landscape of the island, walking hand in hand with my habibi and a
female group commenting on our romance was enough to giveme the wide smile.
Andaman airport is small and thus bag
collection took almost no time.
This a prebooked vacation and we met the tour coordinator
who arranged for drop to hotel and the days itenary briefing.
2:30 pm – The adventure begins.
First stop – The cellular jail. History books mention
Andamans only with the cellular jail,under the “saja e kala pani”.
There is an entry fees (extra if you carry a camera). The
jail is non-functional and has a museum and a (shaheed smarak) martyrs pillar
built now. In the center is a hutment which showcases statues of prisoners showcasing
the work they did like extracting oil from coconut. There was a display of the
handcuffs used for them. In a corner of the room was placed a throne which the
then jailor would be seated on during supervision of their work. On the entry
to this room is a statute of a prisoner being held to a pillar and being
thrashed by a Englishman.
The cellular jail is an interesting structure. In the
center is a hexagonal 3 floored tower, each side of which connects to a jail
building. Aerial view it would look like:-
<img src: indiamike.com>
Each floor of the jail building has almost 20 rooms next
to each other. Swatantraveer Damodar`s jail room is the last room on the third
floor. From his room one can view the hanging place on the ground.
After sipping on some coconut water and devouring the thick
malai, our group heads on to the
beach nearby.
An active beach with water sports. We both decide on jet
skiing – my first time J
and yup it was fun! The charges are around 300 per head.
6:00 p.m. –cellular jail (Sound and light show)
Tickets show your seat nos. Its like an open theatre, we
take our seat and the show starts, wow..
they have used good sound system! The narration takes us back to the British
Raj era, it speaks of how and why this jail was formed and then follows it with
what all happened here till the revolution hit. The sound uses different voices
for some freedom fighters, horses, British, jail superintendents, a crowd of
people etc.. In the dark it just illuminates the peepal tree, (I ask my hubby, oh was it there when we entered?)
which seems to be speaking then that it was there when the jail was being
constructed and is the prime witness of everything that happened here since. It
has a story to tell and narrates it. The light dances around on the walls of
the jail, inside the prison, on the statues of the prisoners and on the stage
that is created with this atmosphere, changing its colors to the voice and the
empathy that the story holds…
And then after an hour and a half the show ended. My
opinion they can add more zing and techie ideas to the show; it would help do
justice to the era it holds… My hubby says I had dozed off a few times during
the show and my opinion doesn’t count…but hey you saw my journey till here, how
can you blame me for sleeping! L
8:00 p.m. – Hotel
After some rest, it`s time for dinner and next day
briefing.
As an additional but optional tour, we chose Baratang and
limestone caves. It was a 1 day excursion where we would be taken in a caravan
through the Jarawah tribe reserve
forest, then to the limestone caves, and finally to the mud volcano.
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