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k and didn t look very closely the next day he said there was still a stain and had put more stain remover i then looked closely and there was this massive patch i m not sure whether it had already been there or was the result of v s stain remover efforts i was so upset with v for not telling me about this before putting on the stain remover and surprised he had not raised this with the curtain guy he says he didn t have the time honestly the whole thing felt like a metaphor for my life where every happiness has to be marred with some dark patch speaking of which at the end of the month my father in law passed away he had been low key unwell for a while but relatively ok until march when he was hospitalised he was not the same when he was discharged his began to lose weight rapidly had to have more frequent blood transfusions and worse started to lose his memory the last week he declined rapidly still i wasn t ready to accept he was at death s door because the doctor s prognosis seemed quite wishy washy and my own grandmother had been in a similar state for years not to mention v s mother who made a comeback the kids and i went to see him on thursday he looked awful was barely taking in fluids and couldn t recognise us the next day he passed away we had been mentally prepared for this eventuality and my attitude to old age is that a death without protracted suffering is the best one can wish for nevertheless it was a sad event and the end of an era nene who was quite close with his grandfather despite being barely able to communicate with him due to the language barrier broke down in tears when he saw the body and both kids had a good cry at the funeral which took place the next day after a busfull of relatives had arrived from kerala now there s a whole lot of admin to be done which is keeping v occupied and probably keeping his mind of the grief though the loss of a parent is the loss of a parent i started writing what i remember of my father in law and it turned out to be long enough to be a separate post so i decided to make it one may may be better but i m not holding my breath amazing andamans 27 monday apr 2026 posted by thebluebride in great escapes uncategorized 3 comments i had a few days off during the kids spring break and we initially wanted to go to the north east we narrowed down on shillong but then realised that the accomodation food and activities might not be to our pampered kids taste we then shifted focus to ladakh but i didn t want to skip pangong lake and we didn t have enough time to do the acclimitasation required given that the kids love beach holidays we settled on the andaman islands which have been a source of fascination not just because of their indigenous tribal populations but also the images of white sands and turquoise waters that have been doing the rounds we decided to mainly stay on havelock island now known as swaraj dweep but then realised it s best to book buffer days in port blair where the airport is in case of delays or cancellation of the ferry to havelock so that meant me needing to take an extra day off which now that i think about it might have allowed us to go to ladakh heh we landed in port blair in the afternoon and after checking into our hotel rushed off to see cellular jail this is where the british imprisoned indian freedom fighters including most famously vinayak damodar savarkar the originator of the hindutva movemenent when i saw the central watchtower with long buildings in spokes fanning out from it i was reminded of jeremy bentham s panopticon concept the idea was that instead of having many guards surrounding prisoners there would be one central watchtower which allowed a guard to watch prisoners without them knowing they were being watched so that they would assume they were always being watched and self regulate accordingly the french philosopher whose work has deeply influenced by own argued that in modern societies this form of surveillance is internalised as a soul apart from the design of the prison the complex is interesting because it highlights a part of indian history that wasn t played up in our history textbooks the militant violent resistent to the british it was too hot to do anything after that so we headed back to the hotel to cool off and then had a nice dinner at hotel s rooftop restaurant the next morning v nene and i went for walk to the marina again blazing hot we were impressed by the nicely built promenades the quality of the roads the infrastructure there is a well maintained sports field and a swimming pool and the clear water looking in the sea even here in the most developed part of the island we could see a few coloured fish and an octopus after breakfast we took a ferry to havelock and checked into the silver sands beach resort on vijaynagar beach in term of hotels in the andamans i found that they were either very expensive i e over rs1 lakh for two rooms or of the very basic variety i had some doubts about this hotel because there were some bad reviews and i got v to book two higher tier large rooms that had apparently been newly renovated well they turned out to be enormous enough for an entire double bed to be put into each unfortunately though the hotel only allows one single extra bed per room given their size the hotel could have done more with them in terms of decor there was a couch and a coffee table useful for playing card games but they could have had more furniture and decorative items ditto with the bathrooms which had twin basins but lacked hooks to hang a handtowels also the wifi was non existent in our rooms that said the hotel is located right on a stunning section of vijaynagar beach much is made of radhanagar beach rated as one of the top10 baches in asia but visually this one is more beautiful white sands and crystal clear water in shimmering shades of turquoise the only problem the water is extremely shallow knee deep probably until 100m in and the seabed is covered with little to large holes made by crabs and or kelp that had been uprooted this means that you have to ignore the possibility of crabs we did and they never bothered us and you can only paddle not swim the temperature of the water was warm all day the whole effect is of soaking in a bathtub with a particularly amazing view it s actually quite tricky to know what time to go to the beach because while the andamans follow indian standard time they are actually closer to thailand and should probably be 2 5 hours ahead the sunrise is around 5am and sunset around 5 30pm than one would expect 2 30pm is probably a good time to go to the beach equivalent to about 4pm in our parts vijaynagar beach is on the east side of the island and so the perfect place to capture the sunrise which v and i did one morning it was an experience i hope i won t forget another unforgettable experience was diving my sister in law is part of a diving school that takes groups out to the maldives her specialty is groups of kids and she s been asking nene and mimi when they re going to go since they were i don t know 10 i ve had reservations because i think diving is a relatively risky activity so many things can go wrong i am a water baby who spent practically every summer vacation as a child at a beach in goa diving into huge waves i ve spent months on an oil tanker as a child where we could see nothing but the ocean in every direction for weeks on end the sea is part of my soul but i also have a healthy respect for it it is not to be trifled with my kids have also spent a lot of time in sea as children growing up in hong kong but they don t have my fears nene will wade out deeper and deeper while i yell at him they are both stronger swimmers than me having done proper swimming classes where they learnt all four strokes and how to breathe properly but still it occurred to me that while i think my sil s instruction would be of higher quality it might be a good idea for them to do a diving experience in the andamans so that they could understand if they actually like it before committing to a trip of a few days so despite my misgivings i agreed to an accompanied diving expedition and then was roped into it myself v refused because he had a bad experience in malaysia years ago but when he realised there was nothing else to do out there for a few hours and they wouldn t let him on the boat if he wasn t doing anything he signed up to snorkle i have never particularly wanted to go diving and the more i heard about it the less i wanted to go given the possibly issues related to pressure the instructor did a little intro and practice before we got onto the boat where he instructed us on the basic hand signals and the mechanics of breathing under water if i have any quibble with the diving company it s how they just leave you to follow the trainer onto the boat through quite a rocky bit on the boat i realised that we are going to have a massive oxygen tank on our banks and have to topple backwards off the boat and had a moment of panic but there wasn t time to think too much and to be honest that is over in a jiffy and they had done something to ensure that we pop right back up descending i felt pressure in my ears and made sure to hold my nose and blow outwards gently to equalise once my ears poppped i had a glorious time looking at the many schools of colourful fish the coral and even a turtle another quibble is that the diver with me got me to touch the turtle which i didn t want to but also no way to say so i didn t know the diving signal for i m not touching the turtle we had about half an hour of diving during which they took some photos as well and honestly that was enough for me the kids say they could definitely do more and enjoyed it thoroughly they had no ear discomfort i had some the day later it definitely was an amazing experience and i m glad i did it on the way back from diving we got dropped off at a nice ish restaurant called nara where among other things we ordered lobster the kids were shocked at the cost of the lobster compared to the amount of meat one got for the price but they did thoroughly enjoy said meat i decided that we needed to lean into the watersports so we decided to book a kayaking experience the next day v checked with the fixer guy he had found and he said he could book us into a sunrise experience but we d need to be there at 4am which meant a 3 30am wake up time honestly i had already seen a glorious sunrise and was looking for something to do later in the day but after some back and forth we decided to do it the fixer picked us up and got us to the pier in good time then the kayaking guys never showed up thankfully he was able to arrange for us to join another tour by this time the sun was kind of up the sunrise itself was not spectacular but we enjoyed kayaking near the mangroves i insisted on going with nene who is a strong kayaker and mimi and v went together the last time i kayaked in hoi ha in hong kong was not a sucess the kayak rental place gave us no instruction and i unable to figure out how to make the kayak move in the direction i wanted this time the simple instructions given were effective while sunrise was so so the water was crystal clear and nene was fascinated by the coral and fish beneath us i enjoyed gazing at the mangroves too fortunately i managed to have a good nap when we came back so was refreshed enough to head to radhanagar beach on the other end of the island poor mimi had her period and couldn t swim and v was feeling unwell but hung out with her on the beach as you approach the beach there are lockers available for rs 40 only cash accepted and some touristy shops unlike goa there are very few of these in havelock or at least they weren t open when we were there people have said the beach gets crowded around sunset which is why i was reluctant to get there too late it is true that there were more people than our secluded stretch of vijaynagar beach however radhanagar beach is longer moreover most people don t go into the water this is a curious thing about india the relatively few people let s not even talk about women who know how to swim or even venture into the water in any clothing leave alone a swimsuit i was literally the only indian woman on that beach in a swimsuit the other woman in a swimsuit who took a brief dip was a white woman i do not let this bother me i wish more people would just go in regardless of costume but i also think that a swimsuit is so much more comfortable radhanagar beach which attracts people people from a diversity of social classes is one thing but almost none of the indian guests of our very upscale hotel got into the water anyway nene and i had a nice swim the water is super clean with just the right amount of waves v and mimi did a spot of shopping and then one of the photographers that roam the beach persuaded v to do a family photo shoot taking photos is apparently the preferred activity on the beach this was true of our hotel too which offered a photo taking service with props and whatnot honestly none of us were particularly keen but at rs 500 for 15 photos it seemed churlish to refuse i had hopes to eating near radhanagar beach for a change and our driver had recommended mohwa the restaurant of sorts attached to the beach v and mimi headed there while nene and i headed to the showers available for rs 30 again cash only which meant i had to persuade the mohwa staff to let me overpay for coke via upi and then to give me cash in change the showers weren t too bad but as per usual long queues and water and sand logged mohwa however was a real disappointment while they had wraps and burgers these were quite spicy not what the kids like but the main complaint is that huge mosquitoes plague the entire seating area we decamped to the benches near the beach hoping it would be better to no avail in the end we hastily called our car and made a quick getaway we had only half a day left in havelock and v was feeling quite unwell with a sore throat he blamed an unclear snorkelling tube which they refused to change but he had told me on the ferry over to havelock that his throat was scratchy and i had advised him to gargle with salt water which of course he didn t do until it was properly hurting the unforutnate thing about havelock hotels or at least our hotel is that they had a 9am checkout when we planned the trip v had asked me if i d like to take the early ferry out but i said no because at least in havelock we could make use of the beach however that left us with time to kill until 2pm and two people who didn t want to use the beach right next to our hotel was a punjabi restaurant called aoji khao ji attached to a smaller hotel with simple rooms we ate at the restaurant quite a bit during our stay options on our road were limited and so i arranged with them the use of a room for a few hours in the day which proved to be lucky as our ferry was predictably delayed we arrived in port...