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ANDAMAN ISLANDS MAY 2006

For another of our many trips during April & May 06 we took a flight (well two flights) to The Andaman Islands.  The Andaman & Nicobar Island is a cluster of tiny islands in The Bay Of Bengal and closer to the Thai coast than mainland India.  Only a handful of the islands are open to tourists, many of the rest still contain tribal folk living virtually naked and surviving from the land.  Still to this day people are killed by arrows when they encroach too near their lands.  There have been attempts to domesticate these people but with only a small amount of success, these days they are protected. Our first pictures give further details about the tribes. The main island is Port Blair where you fly into, we found this to be quite a run down town and a bit uninspiring although historic and interesting.  Most of our time was spent on Havelock Island some 25 miles north and 4 hours by rough ferry.  We were there in monsoon season so one minute it was hot and sunny and the next it was chucking it down with rain.  Quite a sweet island with empty white beaches but disappointing service in our resort somewhat spoilt it a bit.  On our return to the airport our plane couldn't land in the monsoon rains so it turned back to Chennai.  This gave us an extra day in Port Blair that we didn't actually want and we had to spend an extra £350 with a different airline to get us home, but this did give us the chance to take a look at the famous and barbaric cellular jail.