Andaman Island Honeymoon!

If you are thinking what’s about ‘surviving’ in an Island honeymoon, wait till you read my experience. I literally survived our Andaman tourism package thanks to a couple of quick to react souls. My saying that I cannot swim and I can’t stand the smell of fish, let alone eat it will be a BIG clue to my experience in the Andaman Islands! To be frank, if you are one of those strange and rare specimens living in Kerala who can’t swim and do not the smell of seafood, this is not the place for you. Ok, there are quite a lot of attractions in the Andaman and Nicobar islands that made my dear husband book a surprise honeymoon to these otherwise fabulous islands. While the rest of the tour went cool, these two, especially one of the horrific incidents that happened will remain in my heart, and brain, for a while. It’s been around 15 years as of now, and ‘for a while’ would mean another 15 years more for sure! Not to be mean, Andaman tour packages would have been a great honeymoon escapade for any other honeymoon couple, but thanks to my vegan upbringing, I cannot stand the smell of fish!!! This created quite a havoc when we landed here in time for lunch and our resort restaurant had very few vegetarian dishes! It even made me think seriously about the rest of my married life with my husband whom I married after 8 long years of courtship! That too within 2 months of our marriage!!! Jokes apart, being a vegetarian has never been easy all through these years. I think people tend to think I was crazy to eat only vegetables, pulses and fruits to survive! So let me unveil the story of how I survived my honeymoon in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

A prelude to booking our honeymoon trip!

So as I just mentioned, we barely managed to get married after an 8-year long courtship that attracted many enemies from within our family. An inter-caste marriage was not so easy to digest in our family so easily. And finally, when it did happen, much to the dismay of my family, my husband decided to surprise me by booking our Andaman Honeymoon Packages from Chennai which was the nearest airport to the Andaman Islands. So far, I have heard about these islands in my history class and in the movie Kalapani which released during our college days. So it was only about the Cellular Jail in the Andaman Islands that I was aware of. Though I should have thought about it at least when I saw the tickets, it never occurred to me that the Island would be a seafood paradise! My poor husband, it never occurred to him that I will have so much of trouble even ingesting the smell of fish in the raw as well as cooked forms. 15 years of being married to the same old husband have not changed me still, especially when it comes to fish! The one thing that I am reminded of our Andaman holiday packages even now is the smell of fish that makes me go Yuck even after 15 years. But then, all that my loving husband wanted was to get us some relaxing time away from the family and work pressure. We had an entire life to worry about sorting out all those, so let us enjoy these golden days, was his policy. The funny part is that, even though I checked on the internet as to what to expect in these islands, they never told it will be difficult to get vegan food in these resorts which made me a little slimmer, though.

Arrival at Port Blair & the first shock of my honeymoon

After the inevitable delays and waiting at the airport for many hours, we finally reached our resort in Port Blair, which is the capital of the Andaman Islands. As we descended through the velvety clouds, the scene below was just out of a Bollywood movie. All around the green and golden island was the stunning turquoise sea gleaming. It reminded me of the typical helicopter shot of Bollywood songs and I was expecting a honeymoon nothing less romantic. I could hear some couples screaming out of joy to see the beauty of their chosen honeymoon destination. As we touched down, the cool breeze added to the ambiance and romance. We were received by our tour manager’s driver and taken to our beautiful resort in Port Blair. At the reception, we saw couple of other couples also on Andaman tour packagesbut were from Kolkata. They were making enquiries on the tour packages arranged by the hotel as they had chosen only for the accommodation and not the tours. I was thinking, ‘Wrong choice! They should have booked the entire package and enjoyed their holidays here!’. Little did I knew that I was about to get the first shock of my honeymoon! So it was well past 2 pm and we both were quite hungry after hours of waiting at the airport for the short 2-hour journey from Chennai to Port Blair. We spent another half an hour to breathe in the fresh air at the beachside resort we were booked in. The resort was looking out of the movies and my expectations were rising high too. So we got fresh and checked into their restaurant and ta.. da.. We get a menu and I get a shock of my life seeing a mostly seafood-centric food! That’s exactly when it occurred to me that the strange smell I was complaining about to my husband was in fact the smell of cooked fish in different varieties. Poor thing, since we were just into our wedding, out of the excitement, it never transpired to my husband that I will have this kind of an issue with seafood! To add to the maladies, I was very choosy about what I ate, especially during the travels to make sure that I don’t fall sick. And now I was left with only 2 choices – Rice and salads! Thank God, the resort was managed by Malayalis and they served typical Kerala food. Though I was not very keen on eating Kerala food, that was what helped me survive the entire Andaman Nicobar tour packages on our honeymoon!

Visiting the other Islands and finishing off the tour!

As for my dear husband, he was totally confused that I will have this much of issues with seafood. We decided to skip the restaurant food for dinner and lunch in the coming days as I told him clearly that I will go on hunger strike if I have to eat there! As for me, the smell was way too fishy and made me puke. That resolved, we settled with a vegetarian soup for the night and decided to stay put in the room. The next day morning, I was quite hungry as a foodie I am and not had proper food the previous day! Thank God again, the breakfast remained totally vegetarian and I filled up my stomach happily. We were looking forward to our Havelock island tour packages booked for the day and reached the beach from where we were to travel by boat to Havelock Island. I managed to hop into the boat and it had 3 more couples like us and a couple of locals also. As the boat started I completely lost balance and fell into the sea. I lost it completely this time! I was literally scared of drowning and had not learnt swimming because of this fear and there I was, plunged into the sea! Luckily, the locals were expecting it as they had previous experience and were quick to jump in after me and they pulled me back into the boat. It took me a while to get back to normal and when I was, I thanked them profusely. In my mind, I was totally furious at my poor husband for having booked an Island honeymoon. But by the time we reached the Havelock Island, all my anger melted away seeing the pristine beauty of the place. We had packed extra dresses to change just in case we got wet at the beach. So the first thing I did was to change myself into dry clothes and then totally enjoy the day at the beaches in Havelock. We even enjoyed an Elephant ride at the Elephant beach. As we visited each beach at Havelock Islands, I realised how romantic the place is and washed away all my anger in the sea!

The rest of the tour went easy as we now knew what to be careful about travelling in the Andaman Holidays. We visited many beautiful places in Port Blair, went on a trek too, visited Diglipur, the twin Islands of Smith and Ross and even mustered some courage for a banana boat ride too. In fact, the fall made me realise that the locals were really helpful and the sea was quite crystal clear. My husband was worried throughout as he did not want anything else to go wrong again on our honeymoon Andaman tourism packages. Though it started on a furious note, by the end of it, we fell in love with the Andaman Islands.