The Andaman Islands lie east of India in the Indian Ocean, nearer to Thailand than to India. The Islands are part of India and the tribes who live there are part of a program of tribal protection. The native tribes cannot be visited, as a rule.

The Andaman Islands can be reached by plane from either Chennai or Calcutta and one must get a special permit to visit there, easiest to get from an Indian Embassy overseas before traveling to India. Port Blair is the main town, where the airport is.

Most visitors take a ferry boat from Port Blair to one of the outer islands, where all the pretty sand beaches are. To get to the ferry to one of the outer islands you must travel first by bus. The bus route takes you through some of the tribal areas, where the natives are fierce, the bus cannot stop in route and usually has an armed guard on the bus! The guards and bus drivers are scared of the native people.

We hired a taxi in Port Blair to drive us around to the south coast ( magnificent giant trees) and we took a launch trip out to a tiny island where we snorkeled on the most exotic, exquisite undersea panorama we had ever seen. There is a strong tide so you are almost always snorkeling in a current.

Port Blair was just a small town, nothing particularly special except its' location. There is much to see in the Andaman Islands, you need time to do so.