Andaman Islands — Port Blair, Havelock & Neil in Four Nights

Met at the airport and into town. The afternoon is Corbyn's Cove, a curve of sand about seven kilometres out, and then the Cellular Jail — completed in 1906, three of its original seven wings still standing, built so that no cell faced another and no prisoner could see or signal a neighbour. The evening sound-and-light show in the courtyard tells the story of the political prisoners held here, and is the reason the jail is visited last rather than first.

The morning ferry across to Havelock, a crossing of about two hours on one of the private high-speed boats. Havelock is the largest of the inhabited islands after South Andaman and is where most people come for the water. The afternoon is Radhanagar on the west coast — two kilometres of white sand backed by rainforest, no development on the beach itself, and a sunset the island is known for. Swimming is safe within the flagged area; the current beyond it is not to be tested.

A short ferry south to Neil, which is smaller, flatter and much quieter — a handful of villages, bicycles rather than cars, and the pace to match. Bharatpur beach is the shallow one, good for a long slow swim; Laxmanpur is the sunset side. Between them, at Laxmanpur's northern end, the natural coral bridge stands out of the reef and can only be reached at low tide, so the tide table rather than the clock decides when the day goes there.

The ferry back across to South Andaman, arriving around the middle of the day. The afternoon is the Sagarika emporium for the island crafts — shell, cane and padauk wood — and whatever else the time allows: the Samudrika naval marine museum gives a decent account of the reef systems and the indigenous peoples of the archipelago, and the anthropological museum is the more serious of the two on the same subject.

Transferred to the airport for your flight to the mainland. Flights out of Port Blair are almost all in the morning, so this is generally an early start rather than a leisurely one. If your departure is later, Ross Island lies a twenty-minute boat ride offshore and its ruined colonial buildings, now held together by the roots of the trees growing through them, make a good final couple of hours.