W hen I mentioned I was travelling to the Andaman Islands, few friends knew precisely where they were. Some had a vague idea that they included “ the place they kill you, if you try to land ”. And that is, to some extent, correct.
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands are a couple of hours by plane from mainland India, and are governed by the country. Though they are off the east coast of India, they are actually closer to the west coast of Myanmar and Thailand. The beaches are paradise, there are regular power cuts, no happy hours and the days are short.
North Sentinel is one of the 836 islands, and you’re guaranteed either a quick death by arrow or spear, or at least arrest, if you try to land on it. Academics believe the isolated and crudely but effectively armed tribe there is descended from people who arrived from Africa over 50,000 years ago. The population has been estimated at between 50 and 200.
Other anthropologists say it could be higher, some say much lower. No one knows what language is being spoken by the Sentinelese but on the 13 islands that are open to the outside world, Great Andamanese languages are still used by certain tribes, though the language family is vanishing into extinction. Bengali, Hindi and Tamil predominate.
And, of course, English, helped by luxury tourism, which is starting to take off..
