Five days in the Andamans, and a jail built to keep people apart

The water does not look real

You have seen photographs of the Andamans and assumed the colour was pushed. It is not. The water actually does that, a band of pale green over the sand turning to proper blue where it drops off, and it does it every day whether anyone is looking or not.

The colour of it

Five days in November, which is the tail of the monsoon and the start of the good season. Some rain, mostly not.

Blue, further outPalms and sand

Islands, and the ferries between them

The Andamans are not one place. They are a long chain, and you spend a fair amount of the trip on boats between them, which is not a complaint.

Out on the water

The islands themselves are small and green and mostly empty. One road, jungle either side, and the sea appearing at the end of it.

The road across the islandShade, when you want it

Beaches, plural

There is a lot of beach here and they are not the same as each other.

Some are the postcard kind, white sand and shallow water you can walk out into for a hundred metres.

White sand

In the shallowsFurther out

Others are rock and dead coral and driftwood, which are better for looking at and worse for swimming.

The rocky endOn the shore

In the surf

And one of them has a natural rock arch that the sea has been working on for a very long time, which you can only reach at low tide.

The natural bridge

Somebody's sandcastle

Where we stayed

Low red roofed blocks in a garden, five minutes from the water, which is about as much as you need on an island.

The resort

Beach hutsThe road at dusk

Cellular Jail

Then Port Blair, and the part of this trip that is not a holiday.

Cellular Jail is a colonial prison built so that no prisoner could see or speak to another. Seven wings radiating from a central tower, each cell facing the back of the next block. That was the design, and it was deliberate, and it worked.

The gateThe tower at the centre

One of the wings

Three of the seven wings are left. You walk down a corridor of identical doors, and each one is a small room with a very high window, and it is quiet in a way that is not restful.

The corridorStanding in it

The avenue outside

It is worth doing, and it is worth doing before the beaches rather than after. It puts the rest of the islands in a different light.

A memorial by the waterAnother

The end of the day, every day

The sun goes down early out here and it does it properly.

Sun through the cloud

Last light

Worth knowing

• November is the shoulder. Cheaper, quieter, some rain, and the sea is calm enough for the boats to run.
• The ferries between islands book out. Sort them before you land.
• Do Cellular Jail early in the trip, not on the last day.
• There is no phone signal worth speaking of on the smaller islands. That turned out to be the best part.