An eco-warrior on the trek route in Havelock Island

Trip: Port Blair and Havelock. February 2012.

Walking through dense forest is what this post is going to talk about!

Our stay in Havelock had been nothing short of heaven so far. We were almost three govt-ferry hours away from Port Blair and had already completed our introductory scuba dive. We had bicycled our way to Kaala Pathar, a beach on the East face of the island, explored a village on our way, chatted with an Andamanese family, eaten grilled Red Snapper on one night and prawn biryani on the second night… we were tired, happy, heady, smiling, and a part within us did not really want to go back to Port Blair so soon.

The previous day had been hectic and tiring and we were in no mood to get up too early… yet the charm of a cool morning on the island is too difficult to resist and we did wake up in time to see the sun slowly getting reflected in the glass panes of our cottage.

The morning sun reflected on the glass pane of our cottage on Havelock

Another view of where we stayed in Havelock.

The undulating terrain and the forest cover on the island are obvious.

‘We could easily have caught the sunrise even today,’ complained my wife, ‘after all we’ll be leaving this evening.’ We had managed to get tickets on the 4 o’clock ferry M V Makruzz, though I wasn’t a bit excited about that as I knew that the ride on the top deck of the govt-ferry on our way to the island was unbeatable. We had watched numerous flying fish, sighted a couple of dolphins, chatted with the captain of the ferry, watched the sea change colours as the ferry changed its course, felt the cool wind dissipate the heat… and had gone ashore with genuinely wind-blown hair that made us look like a couple of very happy travellers! I knew all this would never happen on M V Makruzz as we’d be sitting inside and looking out through the large window panes… ‘but that cruise is still far away,’ I softly told myself, ‘let us remain focused on the day.’

‘Why don’t we walk from our resort to the main market?’ I asked, and then continued, ‘Our diving instructor did tell us that we’d be able to get a local bus there for going to the Radha Nagar beach.’ And soon enough we were on our way, walking towards the main market, watching the locals hurry to their jobs and the Indian tourists packed in jeeps and vans rushing to the fabled beach here.

‘Why don’t tourists from India opt for cycling or walking?’ asked my wife to nobody in particular. I knew she was wondering aloud, so I did not reply until we reached a gift shop just before the main market began.

‘It is good that not everyone prefers walking,’ I said, pointing out the beautiful motifs and designs done on the walls of the gift shop, ‘Or such local attractions would be invisible because of crowds!’

‘Look, this one is made from beer bottle caps!’ said my wife in an excited voice, and then continued, ‘reminds me of all the Tuborgs and Kingfishers we’ve had ever since we came here.’

The artwork on the wall of an emporium near the main market.

Beer bottle caps used to create artworks…

The best thing about walking is that you are able to get intimate with a new place very fast. You stop and talk to people, you wait until you get the right angle for a photograph, you are able to see and feel the texture of walls, you hear words that you never hear if you just rush along in a noisy jeep… it was on this day that we also found that we just might be able to go to Elephant beach also! Three students waiting at the bus stop gave us this vital information.

‘You’re students here?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why aren’t you in school then?’ I got another petrifying glare from my wife as I said this.

‘We’re late and so we’ve opted to wait here until the morning prayer is over,’ said one of them with a mock seriousness and a twinkle in his eyes, and then he asked, ‘You must be going to Radha Nagar beach?’

I nodded and before we could ask them another piercing question about their academic life, the boy said, ‘You can also ask the bus to drop you off at the trek point and then walk through the forest to reach the beach.’

This sounded interesting and I asked him how long the trek would take. We were told that the trek is through a dense forest and it was easy to lose one’s way there as there were a lot of uncharted pathways there. One of the boys did admit that he had completed the trek once in around an hour.

The main market where colours and sensibilities had ‘holiday’ written all over…

Care for the environment is obvious on this small island…

I looked towards my wife and seeing her look I knew that the forest trek was approved. No words are needed when excitement stares in your face for you simply have to get up and take the first step in the right direction. Every adventurous moment is born thus.

Forty-five minutes later we were standing alone at the base of a kuchha track with a forest department placard pointing that way to Elephant beach. Even the February sun in Havelock was enough to drain all the energy out of us in less than five minutes of an uphill trudge. We were right now in a bushy area with a lot of bamboos all around and could see tree tops beyond the top of the hill that we were climbing, which meant that the denser part of this tropical forest was still some distance away.

The local bus dropped us at the place where the forest trek began.

The denser part of the forest is still ahead…

Meeting Lakshman Choudhary, the eco-warrior coconut water seller!

Lakshman talking intelligently about environment issues…

Quite unexpectedly then we literally bumped into Lakshman Choudhay. Each step in the forest can reveal an entirely new scene… and this is exactly what happened and just one step brought us right next to where he sat in a small clearing with a few green coconuts and a handful of suparis spread on the ground.

Truth is we were tired and wanted a short break. ‘How much for two coconuts?’ asked my wife.

‘I sell for fifteen rupees each here.’

‘OK, give us two.’

As he went about his job, he added, ‘I can also be your guide if you are going to the Elephant beach.’ We knew we had just enough time to be able to trek through the forest and back, catch the local bus to reach Radha Nagar beach, spend an hour there, get back to our resort, collect our baggage, and reach the main jetty to catch our ferry at 4 in the afternoon. Phew! Even thinking about this was making me sweat, so the coconut water that I was sipping really helped me cool. It was at this point that I noticed that I was sipping through a bamboo shoot inserted in the open coconut!

Almost simultaneously this fact was noticed by my wife too, and she asked, ‘Bamboo shoot as a drinking straw?’

‘Yes,’ answered Lakshman, ‘It takes me quite a while to choose the right ones, cut them in the right size, and keep them here. The other pipes in the market are made from plastic.’

The next five minutes saw him explaining to us the need for people to be environment friendly. He said, ‘I do the entire trek every day and pick up any plastic bottle or bag or any other junk that some trekker may have thrown in the forest.’

‘How many tourists go this way?’ I asked.

‘Many. Mainly foreigners. Indian tourists are few…’ he stopped, thought for a while and continued, ‘they prefer to reach the beach by boat and just sit around doing nothing.’ There was a pause before he began again, ‘I mean, I don’t see any Indian of your age walking this way.’

We were obviously thrilled as this immediately put us at par with the younger and more energetic lot. But all I did was give a modest hmmm… and he smiled and said, ‘True. What I say is true. Maybe this is one reason why the forest is not littered so much.’

‘I will write about you, Lakshman. I will write all this.’

‘No fear. I will say again that Indians need to litter less.’

I wish I could’ve video-taped all this, but all I had done was the part where Lakshman was telling us about the bamboo straws. Here, watch the video before we move on with the story.

In just a few minutes we had found another friendly soul on this island. We did not hire him as a guide as we wanted to navigate through this amazing forest on our own, so we went on deeper into the forest… the two of us, with not another soul in sight anywhere.

Further on, the route got obfuscating indeed as there were diverging paths and no forest department pointer to show which path to choose. We had only our instincts with us… and decided to follow a path that had massive foot marks that were deep and dried. We could make out that these were the foot marks of elephants. A couple of times we saw strange geckos cross our path, there were dried leaves strewn all over making it difficult to see which parts of the path were slushy and which were dry. Trees that grew high, creepers, vines, massive roots seemed to be getting denser with every step.

…and the forest gets denser…

Elephants have been this way!

Massive footprint of an elephant clicked for you…

‘Are we on the right track?’ asked my wife in a tone that was almost asking to retrace our steps back to a safer zone.

‘Isn’t this fascinating? We’re in nature’s cool zone.’ I replied, offering her the water bottle. The path wasn’t straight… it went down and then went up a steep incline and we knew that the return journey would not be a cake walk. After walking for a good thirty minutes, I heard the far away drone of a speed boat and I stopped to listen more carefully.

‘Some animal?’

‘No. Sounds like a speed boat. We must be nearing the shore now.’

But we couldn’t hear the sea yet and the boat’s drone had also faded away. So we trudged on until we came to a point where there was a steep descent. I hesitated because I knew that every descent meant a steep climb on our way back.

‘There… look… people there…,’ said my wife. A couple was slowly inching up. We took a few fast steps and reached them.

‘Hi there! Coming from the beach?’

‘Hello,’ the man huffed and puffed, ‘Couldn’t reach the beach. There is knee deep water there all around. We’ve probably taken a wrong turn somewhere.’

We, however, kept going down and reached the edge of the forest and saw an astounding sight that brought us face to face with the famed mangroves here on the island. The tide was probably in and yes, there was water all around and reaching the beach would’ve been a messy affair. But we did click a few pictures and then began our climb back.

The lovely sight at the other end of the forest…

Still water reflects well… but we opted out of wading through this…

Breathtaking view after a good 45 minutes of forest trek.

We seemed to be climbing and walking faster than the couple from Brazil and soon caught up with them. That was when we came across another group of European tourists coming our way. One of them did confirm that this was indeed the right way and that one did have to walk through ankle deep sludge to reach the beach.

Though we did not reach the Elephant beach, we did see a lot of elephant marks, realised that it was the foreign tourist who were more adventurous than Indians, that one need not be an urban activist to be an eco-warrior, and that when you are seemingly lost and want to turn back a few more steps can reveal the best that any place has to show.

We did meet Lakshman Choudhary again on our way back and he even gave us two bamboo pipes to keep as souvenirs.