The first day:
As we checked-in, first
thought that came to my mind was of food. We both, husband and wife are
strictly vegetarian and do not take even onion and garlic. To find a restaurant
in Andaman that can serve food to us was not an easy task. Fearing this, we had
some homemade ladoos, namkeen and Bread butter with us that we carried
along from Delhi. But how long it could last? The wife of my colleague brought
along puri aaloo that she specially prepared
without onion and garlic, keeping our requirement in mind. In lunch, we had
this. Immediate problem of finding lunch had solved and we were ready to embark
upon our journey to explore the Port Blair.
By 12:30 PM, the car arrived.
I took my camera bag on my shoulder and we were all set to go. The driver told
that the museums would be opened after 2:30 only and we had around 2 hours to
spend somewhere else. He took us to the Rajiv Gandhi Water Sports Complex. As
we alighted, we had the first glimpse of Andaman Sea-roaring in its full glory.
On the other end, grove of coconut trees could be seen. We later learnt that it
was ROSS Island and we were seeing it from Aberdeen Jetty- a place from where
boat is taken to go to the ROSS Island and to North Bay. We spent some time
there admiring the Sea, took some photographs and left for the Museums.
FISHERIES Museum:
It is situated adjacent to the
Rajiv Gandhi Water Sports Complex. It has some 350 different species of marine
life collected from the Bay of Bengal and the Indo-Pacific Ocean. Flash was not
permitted while taking photographs. We captured photos of some amazing fishes
that were there in variety of colours.
SAMUDRIKA Museum:
It is run by Indian Navy. The
museum has seven sections presenting Geographical information, Marine Life,
Archaeology and people of Andaman. It has good collection of shells, corals and
colourful fishes. We visited each of its seven sections and took photographs of
different kind of corals. Use of flash was not allowed in the aquarium. The
rooms were air-conditioned. Outside a big LCD was placed on which, a documentary
in Hindi featuring Tom Alter was being shown on Andaman Tourism. We watched it
for some time and then left for our next destination.
ANTHROPOLOGICAL Museum:
The next halt was at
Anthropological Museum. This museum was
started in 1975. It illustrates the four Negrioto Tribes of the Andaman – the
Jarawas, Sentinels, Great Andamanese, and the Onges. Besides, life styles of
two Mongoloid Tribes of the Nicobar viz; the Nicobriese and the Shompens are
also depicted. It beautifully defines the stage by stage development of these
tribes till the present time with the help of tools, weapons, art and
crafts. It contains a good collection of
photographs that help understand the life of these lesser known tribes of Andaman and Nicobar.
CELLULAR JAIL:
By 4:15 we reached at Cellular
Jail. There was a strong urge to take a cup of hot tea. The guide told us that
entry would be closed by 4:30. We collected entry tickets and hurriedly gulped
insipid tea made with milk-powder; I shall cover this later on, and entered the
Cellular Jail. I shall not be doing justice if I do not cover the Cellular Jail
in detail it deserves. That will be done in my next post.
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