Port Blair, Andaman and Nicobar Islands's capital has recently been renamed Sri Vijaya Puram. Beyond the beaches, there are interesting places to visit in Port Blair that give you an insight into India’s freedom struggle against the British and the indigenous culture of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. You’d surely have enough beach time on the smaller islands of the Andamans, and you must plan your time wisely indulging in exclusive experiences and offbeat things to do in Port Blair.
We have covered our trip to the Andamans in 3 Chapters from the lens of travelling to the Andamans from any major city in India, experiences to include in your itinerary, island hopping in the Andamans, availability of vegetarian food in the Andamans, exploring the indigenous tribal culture and connecting the dots back to India’s freedom struggle.
You are reading Chapter 2.
Table of contents
Visit the Cellular Jail aka Kaala Pani ki saza (Things to do in Port Blair)
Visit the Zonal Anthropology Museum & the Samudrika Naval Marine Museum (Things to do in Port Blair)
Night Kayaking for stargazing and spotting bioluminescence (Things to do in Port Blair)
Explore limestone caves & mangroves at Baratang Island (Day trip from Port Blair)
Visit the Cellular Jail aka Kaala Pani ki saza (Places to visit in Port Blair)
The Cellular Jail dates back to India’s freedom struggle against the British, where many a renowned freedom fighters were imprisoned including Veer Savarkar, in whose honour the Port Blair airport has been named. This was one of the most severe forms of imprisonment by the British rule and was referred to as Kaala Pani ki saza as the islands were in the middle of nowhere, inaccessible by people on the mainland and there was also an old Hindu belief that once you cross the seas, one loses social respectability.
If you want to explore the prison on foot and visit the prison cells where renowned freedom fighters spent time, you should visit it during the day. However, if you’d like to be seated and taken through the history of the Cellular Jail and its significance during the Independence movement in India, the evening light and sound show is a must-watch. You must pre-book this coveted tourist place in Port Blair online as it tends to be sold out.
Visit the Zonal Anthropology Museum & the Samudrika Naval Marine Museum (Places to visit in Port Blair)
The Andaman & Nicobar Islands have indigenous tribes that date back to the Stone Age and still live like the early man. Few of the friendlier tribes like the Jarawa tribes do interact with the locals and have sought government protection. However, a few other tribes like the Sentinelese tribe refuse to establish any communication and attack anybody who gets closer to their island. The Zonal Anthropology Museum is a humble museum with information on the indigenous tribes of the Andaman & Nicobar Islands. If you are also taking a day trip to Baratang Island, you will have to pass through the Jarawa Tribal Reserve and you may spot the Jarawa tribals from a distance while in your vehicle. It is much more meaningful to have context on the Jarawas, their beliefs, and their culture before your trip to Baratang Island.
The Samudrika Naval Marine Museum is not eye-popping but has some no-frills attractions like a viewing point for the bay with a lighthouse that is imprinted on INR 20 notes and a huge skeleton of a blue whale. It also has an aquarium displaying the fishes around the islands and if you are planning to go scuba diving, this could be a good precursor for you to identify the marine life underwater. You can also geek out on the types of corals that grow in the region. If all of this is not your jam, then you can skip this tourist place in Port Blair.
Night Kayaking for stargazing and spotting bioluminescence (Things to do in Port Blair)
With the travel trend of noctourism picking up globally, travellers are keen to appreciate the beauty of a destination by night as against in broad daylight. This was our first time, trying a nighttime activity and I must say it was the most serene and fulfilling activity that I have ever indulged in.
We booked a night kayaking tour with Tanaz Noble (@kayakwalla on Instagram) who is a kayak expert and most importantly a great storyteller. She helped us with a hotel pickup in her adorable hatchback at 2 AM and we made our way to the bay led by torchlights and Tanaz. We stepped aboard a wooden boat that took us to a shallower part of the bay surrounded by mangroves and cats prowling at us from within the mangroves. Tanaz helped us with our life jackets and briefed us on the strokes with our paddles and we were all set to be pushed on our kayak with Tanaz on another one beside us at all times.
You need to check for these night kayak trips well in advance as it depends on the weather prediction and the tide situation for the day, but it was so well worth it. It was just us kayaking our way into the water with the silence of the night, the sounds of our paddles pushing away the water, and Tanaz familiarising us with the night skies, constellations, and stories from Greek mythology that helped us make sense of the names of each of the constellations and their respective positions. Now this was one of the most adventurous yet romantic experiences that we have been a part of as a couple.
We were then guided to this deserted house that was impacted due to the 2004 Tsunami. Post the Tsunami there were changes in the sea levels near the coast and the house which was once built on land was now partly submerged and a part of it was standing on top of the water in the bay. We kayaked inside the house to block out all the lights into the darkest accessible corners of the house to spot the phytoplanktons. This is bioluminescence and in Tanaz’s words, we did play around with it like pixie dust. The whole of the Indian peninsula has these phytoplanktons, however, because of artificial lights all around, we are unable to spot them near cities and developed regions. Our night kayaking trip was close to 2 hours long and it ended at dawn. If you ask me, I enjoyed this experience even more than kayaking in the Pacific Ocean in Fiji during the day as the sun ends up sucking a lot of your energy and you may feel like turning back in 30 minutes. But the moon’s rays were a lot more calming and we were not fatigued after 2 hours on a kayak listening to stories about the night sky like two curious kids.
Explore limestone caves & mangroves at Baratang Island (Day trip from Port Blair)
If you are travelling to the Andamans with young children or only want to relax then you can skip a day trip to Baratang Island. However, if you are in for a fun-filled day accessing multiple modes of transport from Port Blair to Baratang Island and back, then you must block a day for this adventure. You will have to book through a local agent as you need a permit to drive through the Jarawa Tribal Reserve to reach Baratang Island. We booked our day trip through Andaman Oceans (+91-7063934032) and it was a great experience.
We started our day at 3 AM with our driver picking us up at our hotel and the sweet staff at SeaShells Port Blair packing us some breakfast to go for our day ahead. There are very limited food options that you may like on this day trip, so it is indeed important to carry some snacks to munch on for the day. All the tourist cars queue up at a checkpoint near the Jarawa Tribal Reserve and if you want you can indulge in some local South Indian breakfast at shacks here as you wait for the 6 AM daybreak for your vehicle to be let into the restricted zone. This is a 1.5-hour drive and your car is not allowed to stop, so it's best to also visit the washroom before 6 AM.
This Tribal Reserve has been created to protect the tribal communities living in this region, the Jarawas in this particular instance. It may give you some deja vu if you have seen the Netflix show Kaala Pani as the population of the Jarawas has been reduced to a few 100s now and is on the decline. The government of India has been helping them with caretakers, clothes, and food as per their tribal culture and you may be able to spot some children or even adults on the road, mostly on your way back in the afternoon. To protect the privacy of the tribal communities and to respect them as human beings, we as travelers should not click photos of them, try not to interact with them keep the car windows shut, and just appreciate them from a distance. We were lucky to spot a couple that walked the road with a basket full of arrows and a bow in their hand along with three children, all of them with innocent countenances, untouched by the sinful strategies of modern civilisation.
We then reached a jetty, where our car was parked and we onboarded a government ferry to go reach the other coast. After getting off the ferry, we were guided to a speedboat and we entered a mangrove-filled area at Baratang Island. We then followed our tour guide on an hour-long hike through a forest to reach the limestone caves. More than the limestone caves or the mangroves, the multi-modal experience and the debatable experience of passing by a tribal reserve made this day trip worth a recommendation.
Once you are back from Baratang Island, there is also the option of taking another hike to a mud volcano, but it was a hot day and we did not hear great things about the mud volcano, hence we skipped it. (We had also seen a much better mud volcano at a geothermal reserve in New Zealand and hence were not very motivated to go the extra mile.) It was a long and tiring day, however, we were back at our hotel by 5 PM to get some early dinner and take to our bed.
Last word
The best time to visit Port Blair is during the Indian winters from November to March. Ideally 2 nights, 3 days in the capital Sri Vijaya Puram is a good enough time to explore all the tourist places. However, if you also want to do day trips to Ross Island and Chidiya Tapu then you may need an additional 2 days.
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