White sandy Beach of Havelock Island one of the best in Andamans

A two-hour ferry ride away from Port Blair, Havelock lulled me deeper into the anxiety-fuelled fantasy, despite the off-season tourist heft on the ferry. As soon as we docked on the jetty, after a flurry of selfies against the charter, the merry crowds — mostly Indian honeymooners and families who are discovering the archipelago long after outsiders have — magically vaporised. The locals are gabby and plenty of them are Bangla, which probably explained the gabbiness.

Every resorts perched upon on every virgin beach across the world trumpeting its eco-credentials has become a bit of a snooze fest. Crowned Asia’s best beach by TIMEW magazine a decade ago, Radhanagar is valiantly hanging on that glory. I spent a couple of wonderful pre-lunch hours leaving my footprints on the sand and ran into a foreign gent deeply engrossed in his book and walking hand in hand near the immensely Instagram-my Neil’s Cove, which is at the other end of the public area. Upon hopping back to the resort in dreamy state, I was asked by the wry, resourceful, in-house guide Karthik, if I’d met the monitor lizards — a pair of shy, 5-feet lovelies who were given to burrowing in the sand when they weren’t slithering into the resort where the adoring staff fed them raw eggs. That story signalled the end of my Radhanagar romance.

But there’s always more to explore at Havelock. I walked to the remote and secluded Kala Patthar where the wrecks of the tsunami still paint a remarkable landscape, and trekked — through slushy jumbo footprints — to the mangrove-fringed Elephant Beach (tip: get there on a Sunday when the banana boats and snorkelers take a weekly off) , where a considerably smaller lizard, a blue-eyed gecko, posed flamboyantly against the mixed palette of cerulean, turquoise and aquamarine.