The plane from Calcutta landed at the sleepy airport on Port Blair, the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar islands, 1300km east of mainland India. We were waved lazily across the runway to the small terminal from where we jumped in a tuk-tuk to the jetty so we could catch a boat to Havelock Island, our destination. We queued for 3 hours in the boiling sun only for a load of Indians to push in at the last minute and take the few remaining tickets. How we muttered and scowled, but Indians have no concept of queuing, so we ended up having to stay the night in Port Blair. A sweaty walk around the busy, noisy port town confirmed that this was not the paradise we’d been promised.

But the next day we did get a ticket for the boat, and off we sailed to Havelock. We arrived at night and the very next day was the annual Hindu festival of Holi. For weeks we’d been asked by other backpackers “so, where are you spending Holi?” in a manner that inferred their new found Hindu devoutness. “I dunno,” we’d shrug. “What is it?” What it is, is a wonderful, colourful celebration of something-or-other that involves covering one another in different coloured powder paints. The streets were lined with Indians, some with water guns filled with pre-mixed paint, some with tubs of powder, others with vats of narcotic milkshake. People would approach, paint your face, dump or fling handfuls of powder, shoot the paint guns at you, give you a hug and shout “Happy Holi!” Nobody was exempt. Eventually everybody congregated in the town where there was a speaker pumping out music and yet more of the riotous explosions of colour. Everybody was covered head-to-toe, clothes ruined, laughing, dancing, throwing paint. Absolutely magical, and one of the defining moments of our time in India.

Holi paintballs.

With Holi over we settled into island life. I can’t really stress just how mind-blowingly beautiful Havelock Island is. Initially we were aghast at the fact there was no Internet access, no hot water, and only one place that sells alcohol but soon came to realise that this sleepy seclusion is precisely the charm of the Andaman Islands. The calm ocean is a bright turquoise colour and laps at pristine beaches whose silky white sand creeps beneath overhanging jungle canopy. There is a single narrow road on the island and the main town is a dozen or so tin-roofed shacks with a covered fruit market. We stayed in a garden of wooden huts amidst bow-trunked coconut trees and their perpendicular betel-nut cousins and rented a little moped to get us into town or to the other beaches. Contentment settled on us like a disease.

First of all we bought some Marmite – a palliative to home-sickness – off of a West Country lad we befriended. And then we bought the only thing you really need on this island – a hammock. Because the beaches are completely deserted – no hotels, no sun loungers, no hawkers, no umbrellas – and the boughs of the trees have grown horizontally over the sea, all you do is find a suitable branch from which to string up your hammock, and then climb in. Often the tide will come in and you’ll find yourself swinging in the breeze with nothing but the crystal water gurgling beneath. Hours were spent just gazing out to sea. As the tide receded we’d lay in warm shallow pools left between the coral until our skin wrinkled.

Hammock Life.

It would be dark by 6pm so we’d stroll to one of 2 nearby restaurants that sold some of the best food we’ve had in India. By the time we’d eaten there’d normally be some sort of gathering around one or the other of our huts, and then perhaps we’d hear whispers of a party in a different resort so we’d all decamp, enormous bottles of rum in hand. It’s what you’d describe as a quiet social scene, in keeping with the environs.

Havelock is completely unlike anywhere else in India. It’s peaceful, becalming, heavenly, unspoiled, and it’s a marvel that destinations like this still exist in the world. Back in the hubbub of New Delhi, staring through a subway window we wonder if it happened at all. The only proof we have is a suntan and a well-worn hammock strapped to my rucksack. The Marmite, like our allotted time in paradise, is gone.

The moonset over Havelock.

Covered.

Even the beach wasn’t safe.

Home is where you hang your hammock.

“A teardrop on the cheek of eternity” is how Rabindranath Tagore described the Taj Mahal. And with prose like that it can’t fail to impress. We took a refreshingly uneventful overnight train from Udaipur to Agra, to see what is widely accepted to be the most beautiful building in the world. It doesn’t disappoint.

Needs no caption.

Words won’t convey the sense of peaceful perfection and solemn serenity, the wonderful symmetry or the subtle shifts in colour throughout the day; it seems almost alive, and there definitely seems a mournful sadness about it – you can see where the tear-drop analogies come from. There’s nothing like a tragedy to add some pathos either: In 1631 emperor Shah Jahan’s heart was shattered when his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal, died during childbirth. Clearly he loved her more than his first two wives and, through gritted teeth and a river of tears (one imagines), he announced that he would build her the best darn tomb to ever grace the surface of the planet. Construction began a year later and took 22 years and once he finished old Shah must’ve sighed aloud and known that he’d done his Mumtaz proud. He would’ve, I’m sure, loved nothing more than to live out the rest of his days safe in this knowledge but this was not to be. His bloody ungrateful son Aurangzeb usurped him and imprisoned him in Agra fort from where he could only gaze upon his masterpiece from afar. When he died they finally buried him next to his beloved Mumtaz beneath the Taj Mahal.

The Taj and Us.

“A blemish on the arse cheek of eternity” is how I’d describe Agra, the city surrounding the Taj. Actually it’s not that bad, not as bad as people would have you believe – it’s just the same as most other North Indian cities – but perhaps, juxtaposed against the Taj, anything would look abject. We spent an afternoon in the fort, awoke the next morning at dawn to see sunrise at the Taj Mahal, and then left the following day. The best thing about Agra are the rooftop restaurants where you can stare like a lovesick teenager at the Taj, like a resplendent, reclining octopus with dozens of large birds of prey circling it’s onion cupola. Further entertainment is provided by gangs of street monkeys running amok on the rooftops of Taj Ganj.

Sunrise at the Taj.

From Agra it is just a quick 4-hour standing-next-to-the-toilet train journey to Delhi where we had to fight to alight. I fell under the train but luckily it remained stationary. We tried not to let that colour our opinion of the place but still came to the conclusion that it is a little underwhelming. We stayed in Pahar Ganj, a neon-lit backpacker enclave where the clamour for custom reaches its zenith, and did enjoy riding the spotlessly clean subway (although it inevitably leads to more fights to alight!) It’s not that we particularly disliked Delhi, it’s just, well, Mumbai it ain’t.

Pahar Ganj.

Anyway, we’ve had enough of cities and forts and buildings for now so we decided to head to paradise – the Andaman Islands.

Agra Fort. In any city without the Taj Mahal, this would be the star attraction.

Arty.