A journey to Radhanagar Beach in the Andaman Islands, off the coast of Myanmar (though technically part of India), is not for the weary: You fly to Calcutta, connect two and a half hours to Port Blair, take a 90-minute ferry to Havelock Island, then drive another 30 minutes on a bone-rattling road. The payoff, though, is huge—a one-and-a-quarter-mile strip of blinding white sand wedged between electric-green trees and the bluest water you've ever seen. You might instantly proclaim it one of the most beautiful beaches in the world (if 3G signals weren’t nonexistent, you could summon rankings to back you up). But Gautam, the kayaking guide steering me through the island’s mangrove forest, is harder to impress. “You think Radhanagar is beautiful?” he asks in Hindi. “South Cinque island has a beach so beautiful, so beautiful, that if you set them next to each other, no one would even look at Radhanagar.”
By geography, the Andamans make more sense as part of Myanmar or Thailand than India, to whom they actually belong. Of the 572 islands, only 38 are inhabited and 26 are open to visitors—and for decades, the atoll's remoteness and lack of infrastructure, but abundance of coral reefs, have attracted serious divers, adventurous backpackers, and intrepid A-listers like Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet. Havelock also had ferry-loads of Indian honeymooners disembarking, brides easily distinguishable by their wrists covered in red bangles. More than 100 resorts cater to them, but options ranged from budget to basic—until now.
The Andamans’ first luxury retreat—newly opened Taj Exotica Resort & Spa, a 46-acre spread along Radhanagar Beach—was nearly a decade in the making. The islands’ heritage is evident throughout, from the Nicobari welcome song to the 72 villas on stilts with domed roofs modeled after huts of the region’s Jarawa tribe. For the Settlers restaurant, executive chef Kaushik Misra traveled throughout the archipelago to source recipes from Indian communities that migrated to the isles: steamed grouper fillet in banana leaf from the Keralites in Diglipur; lobster pepper fry from the Tamil community on Mayabunder; and a raw banana cutlet from the East Bengali refugees now living on Havelock.
And though Taj's nearly deserted beachfront is perfectly conducive to five days of hardcore relaxing, doing so would kind of be missing the point of visiting the Andamans. You'll want to take a fishing trip to John Lawrence Island, dive near Neill Island, or hike to Elephant Beach. You can (and should) kayak through the mangrove forests of Havelock by day, and again by night to see bioluminescence sparkling like fireworks around your paddle.
It's also imperative that you tack on a couple nights in the villa, or one of the six rooms or suites, at Jalakara, a two-and-a-half-year-old retreat surrounded by betel-nut and banana trees in the rainforest on Havelock Island. “Havelock is Maldives meets Costa Rica meets India of yesteryear,” says Mark Hill, an English chef and entrepreneur who, along with his fashion designer wife, Atalanta Weller, run the boutique hotel. Many were skeptical of their decision to steer clear of the beach and focus instead on an interior, but the couple had other plans. “The beach is the beach, but the forest encapsulates the extra wildness that comes from the Andamans.”
Hill and Weller sourced the accessories that decorate the seven-room haven themselves, haggling with fishermen across boats in the middle of the mangroves, or uncovering—from a trash heap in Kerala—the vividly painted wooden cow’s head presiding over the bar. Guests often run into their three-year-old daughter Juniper frolicking by the pool.
This summer sees the relaunch of the Andamans’ only live-aboard dive boat: Infiniti has six cabins and a crew, and takes serious divers much farther afield— to North and South Cinque, Brother, Sister, and Lawrence Islands and beyond. Travelers can hear the cackling of thousands of parakeets on Parrot Island, go diving near India’s only active volcano at Barren Island, or witness four types of turtles nesting on one beach in Middle Andaman. One of the most untraveled corners of the world is finally opening up in a big way this year—and what Jacques Cousteau called the “invisible islands” won’t be invisible much longer.
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