Andaman and Nicobar Islands . Tropical paradise

After several discussions with Vivek I decided to come and see these islands for a few days rather than follow the more normal routes to see the Taj Mahal etc.

These islands are a part of India, but are 1200km (750 miles think Raleigh to Chicago) off the east coast in the Bay of Bengal. They have been a part of India since the colonial days. It is a similar distance to Burma (Myanmar) I think the only flights come from either Chennai or Kolkata (Calcutta), None from the east..

Briefly there are about 550 islands of which 37 are inhabited, and one of the others is home to a live volcano!. There are about 350,000 people and the principal town is Port Blair. That is not very big by Indian standards and has something of the feel of one of the Caribbean towns. I am reminded of Belize City but have limited Caribbean experience.

My hotel is about 50m off a sandy beach. Not the best beach on the islands I understand but pleasant anyway. There is evidence of fortifications everywhere and an abandoned gun emplacement is sitting on the rocks by the beach.

 

 

 

Part of my hotel package was a ½ day tour of Port Blair and I also had to find time to go through the excruciating experience of getting a SIM card for my phone. This was made more difficult because I did it here in Pt Blair. There are some restrictions on foreigners here and everyone has a permit that you have to carry with you. When you arrive you basically go through Immigration all over again.

My tour basically stopped at 4 places. 

 

A real Log Skidder!!

Log Loader with single top clamp!

The first is the Forestry museum and is located in the Chatham wood yard. This is run by the government and is a working sawmill albeit with some fairly antiquated equipment and is designed to provide wood from local forests for local consumption, although I believe some is exported either abroad or back to mainland India.

There appeared to be one crane for unloading ships and one large forklift for handling the incoming wood. One limitation is the gate from the unloading area to the mill. The gate is about 10 ft wide but lots of the logs are longer than that. The solution is to lift the load on the lift truck mast high enough to clear the wall (ICA for the Cat folks). Heaven forbid that someone should widen the gate! (PCA for the Cat folks).

My brother Steve would be in heaven as there are large supplies of unusual hardwoods and with his love of wood and the furniture making potential he would be a happy camper!

There was a small exhibit but the more interesting part for me was walking through the mill and watching the (limited) operations going on. An OSHA of HSE inspector would have an instant heart attack, and the US attorneys would be licking their carnivorous lips if they saw what was going on. Open belts and pulleys, an open circular saw blade and anything else you can imagine. Add to this the policy of allowing unsupervised groups of people to basically wander through the place at will, and I hope you get a flavor of what I am talking about!

At the end there was a stationary exhibit of a railway locomotive that was used to move wood around during the harvesting process. The Brookville Company in the USA built it and a Caterpillar engine powered the locomotive.

I have not had a chance to do any research on this but it does demonstrate the wide-ranging presence of Cat products over the years.

The other three places visited were the naval museum, the aquarium and the prison museum. I have to say that I had minimal interest in the naval museum other than some excellent photos, and in some respects the Aquarium was a repeat or at least very similar to the naval museum.

 

  

Inside my taxi. Note symbol on top left of windshield.

The Prison museum was a totally different story and had a profound effect on me. I would not be doing it justice to include it here so I plan a separate post, that might just include some rants and raves on human rights issues and stupid strategies. As I said it really had a profound effect on me.