We left our friends early on Sunday morning and got a taxi the shortish distance across south Delhi to Indira Gandhi International for our flight to Chennai. We got to fly out of the new T3, just few days before they had finally switched over the domestic flights to the new terminal – around 3 months behind schedule. Similar to the terminal 5 fiasco at LHR. As terminals go it was very nice, security is pretty strict and our Air India flight was delayed by around 50 minutes.
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We got to Chennai around lunchtime, and having heard nothing good whatsoever about the city we instead booked into the Radisson, handily placed next to the airport. It was a very strange feeling being met at the airport by a white suited driver, complete with bell boy hat and driven the 1.5 km down the road, not even enough time to neck the water and read the first story in the newspaper that were provided! After a dip in the pool, it was time to make us of the free in room internet, calls were made to the UK based Davis’s and dinner was by room service. 3am the next morning we were up to check out and head back to the airport for our flight to Port Blair, the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, this time on Kingfisher Airlines (as in the brewing company). As we hadn’t left much time before the flight left we were fast tracked through security, on board then up and away, heading towards the sun rising over the Bay of Bengal. An uneventful flight until 2 hours later when the archipelago started to come into sight, and a view that was guaranteed to raise a smile. We landed and strolled into the basic terminal, filled in all the forms, as this is a restricted area you need to get a permit to visit. Next stop the Port Blair wharf to get the 08:45 catamaran to Havelock Island our home for the next week. 90 minutes later we had finally made it to Barefoot Scuba Resort, the 1st half of our accommodation at Havelock.
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