The ferry from Port Blair to Havelock Island takes two hours in calm weather. The sea between them is a shade of green-blue that looks wrong — too saturated, like a desktop wallpaper chosen for its unreality. By the time the Makruzz catamaran docks at Havelock’s small jetty and you step onto an island with no traffic lights, no chain hotels, and a main street consisting of a few shops selling coconuts and rented bicycles, the feeling that you have arrived somewhere entirely outside the normal parameters of travel is complete.
The Andaman Islands are 800 kilometres from the Indian mainland, closer to Myanmar and Thailand than to Chennai, and they feel it.
Radhanagar Beach: The Case for Superlatives
Radhanagar Beach on Havelock’s western coast was named Asia’s best beach by Time magazine in 2004, and unusually for this kind of designation, the ranking does not feel like an overstatement. Three kilometres of fine white sand backed by dense forest. Water so clear you can see your feet at chest depth. Waves gentle enough for swimming and strong enough to be satisfying. No music. No beach vendors pressing parasols at you.
The best time is late afternoon. Arrive at 4 p.m. and stay for the sunset. The sun goes down directly over the sea here — Havelock’s orientation means you get a proper horizon sunset, the kind you have to travel a long way to find on India’s east coast. Watching it from the waterline, with the forest behind you, is the best two hours you will spend in the Andamans.
There are beaches in the world with clearer water. There are beaches with finer sand. But very few where all the elements arrive together, and where the forest and the open sea make the place feel genuinely, completely separate from everything else.
Underwater: The Real Reason to Come
The Andaman Sea is one of the top ten dive destinations in the world. This is not marketing. Visibility frequently reaches 25–30 metres. The coral is, in the better sites, genuinely pristine: branching staghorn in shallow lagoons, massive table coral at depth, and the soft coral gardens of Barracuda City that experienced divers mention in lowered voices as if describing something private.
For first-time divers, Havelock has two PADI-certified schools. A full Open Water certification takes three days. The price is substantially lower than comparable courses in Thailand or the Maldives, and the dive sites are comfortably their equal.
For snorkellers: Elephant Beach, accessible by a 30-minute boat ride or a trail through the forest, has some of the most accessible coral in the islands. Arrive before 11 a.m. before the day-trip boats arrive from Port Blair and the water loses its quiet.
The Cellular Jail: History That Needs to Be Witnessed
Port Blair is not the reason to come to the Andamans — the islands are. But the Cellular Jail demands a visit. The colonial-era prison where the British exiled Indian independence activists is an extraordinary structure: seven radiating wings from a central tower, designed so a single guard could see every cell. The evening Light and Sound show tells the history of its most famous inmates — Vinayak Savarkar among them — with an unexpected emotional force. Allow two hours and go with a guide who knows the personal stories behind the architecture.
Beyond Havelock: Neil Island and Baratang
Neil Island, 45 minutes by ferry from Havelock, is smaller and quieter still. One main guesthouse row, a beach called Natural Bridge where the coral comes to within a metre of the surface at low tide, and essentially no nightlife. Two nights here after Havelock’s relative bustle is a good way to finish the Andaman chapter.
Baratang Island, reached by convoy through reserved forest from Port Blair, has limestone caves and mud volcanoes — genuinely strange geological features that most Andaman visitors never see because the access requires an early start. The mangrove boat ride through the creek alone is worth the detour.
When to Go and What to Know
- Best season: October to May. Monsoon (June–September) brings heavy seas, most dive schools close, and the ferry service suspends. Do not visit in monsoon season.
- Getting there: Daily flights to Port Blair from Chennai, Kolkata, and Delhi. Chennai is the closest at 2 hours. Book 6–8 weeks ahead for December–February peak season.
- Accommodation: Havelock has very limited quality rooms and they fill early. Book February travel by November at the latest.
- Travel pace: Four nights on Havelock is better than two nights each on three islands. The Andamans reward those who stay still.