Why Andaman

This travelogue has been long pending. We went to Andaman for our *cough cough* (aaa I don’t like saying honeymoon :P). Anyway now you know…we had decided that it had to be a beach destination. There is so much to do, scuba, snorkeling, canoeing,  and of course frolicking in the beach and not to forget lazing on the beach in a hammock. So beach it was, but choosing the right one became a huge task (mainly because of budget constraints :P). Our first preference was Maldives, the pictures online were surreal and the resorts drool worthy. After a lot of internet trawling for reviews and deals, we figured out that it was just way out of our budget, so we dropped the idea.

2 main reasons why we dropped Maldives:

1.  Though the air fare from India to Male (Maldives capital) was manageable, the transport from Male to the respective resort was very expensive as they use private air crafts or speed boats to take you there.
2.  The room tariff was not high but we found out that the food bill was going to be ridiculously expensive. The packages with food inclusive were very high too. We were also concerned about getting decent vegetarian food.

Next Mauritius was in consideration, it seemed so picturesque and a lot of information was available as it seemed one of the favourite honeymoon (there I said it again :D) destinations for Indians. A few of our friends and relatives had been there and so we got a lot of first hand info. It was on the expensive side but there were quite a few resorts in our budget and the total cost was coming up to little more than what we had in mind.

But again we dropped Mauritius for 2 reasons:

1. A lot of Indians go there, it seemed like a mini India, especially the resorts in our budget. We did not want to travel all the way and spend so much and not even feel like we are abroad :P
2.  The food in the resorts we were considering was again predominantly Indian cuisine. So again same logic.

Somehow Mauritius did not entice us much and we did not spend much time researching more about it too.

           Next we started looking at options closer home (read Lakshadweep. We had a lot of preconceived notions about Andaman and hence did not even consider it).

Lakshadweep was a very good option, it was as picturesque as Mauritius or Maldives and that too at a fraction of a cost but there was a catch (there always is!). All tourism in Lakshadweep is handled by Govt. of India (SPORTS). What’s wrong in that you ask? Nothing, just that accommodation and all might not be suitable for a honeymoon (ok I can’t write this post without saying it :D). It might be a great option for a trip but for honeymoon, you need something more special J

           So we were back to square one (and on the verge of abandoning beach and going for Rajasthan or something) when one of Puneeth’s friend suggested Andaman and when we scoffed at the idea, he convinced us to check out Barefoot Resort online. And when we did check out Barefoot, we were hooked. It seemed just the place for us and of course no doubt Andaman is very beautiful. We had a lot of preconceived notions that the accommodation might not be that great and the beaches might not be clean, and to top it I even read a review where they suffered a very bad rash after insects attacked them in the beach!! Now after reading all this, we were very skeptical but the Barefoot resort seemed like a nice place and we thought that even if it is half as nice as what it appears online, it is ok (we were really running out of options and patience). So we zeroed in on Andaman and kept our fingers crossed :)

Glimpse of what was in store for us -

Psst: Day wise itinerary and expenses breakdown will be covered in the upcoming posts :)