Little Andaman is a little beautiful unexplored place of Andamans. Famous by the name of its main village and the largest settlement –Hut Bay (rarely known by its other name Kwate-tu-kwage, this island is part of the Little Andaman Group (Little Andaman is the counterpart of Great Andamans).
At a distance of about 120 Kilometers by sea from the capital town of Port Blair, this island has become a tribal reserve from sometime near to 1957. This is considered home to the Onge Tribes, even though there are multilingual settlers of Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, and Ranchi communities.
Lying at the southern end of the archipelago, this island is the fourth largest island in Andamans covering an area of about 707 Square kilometers. Hut Bay Jetty is the only harbor for ships or boats coming into this island from the capital town –Port Blair.
Little Andamans is less explored due to the limited mode of connection with the capital town of Port Blair. The distance from the capital town to this rarely touched paradise remains unmeasured for there are no detailed facts that could make the travelers plan a visit to this place. We, being the local hosts and the island experts of Andamans, thought of going out there to the Little corner of our home- and measure out every inch of this paradise for you to get familiar with the place. When you complete reading this article, you’ll be seeing Hutbay through our eyes. We have been there ourselves, to make sure that the travelers within you know how this place can be accumulated in your trip plan.
When we stepped into Little Andamans after quite a few years, we found this place to be still back in time. It hasn’t changed except for a few infrastructural growths; some forest departmental actions and the help of the administration have given a slight upliftment to this place
The place: The major visitors traveling in and out of Little Andamans are either the residents of this island, the government workers or officials who travel for work/research duties, or the people (like us) who stay in other islands of Andamans traveling for an inter-island vacation.
The above fact must have made it clear in your mind that there will be lesser hospitality services available. People who stay there may not be very fluent in English, but they speak Hindi widely, and regional languages like Bengali, Ranchi, and Tamil & Telugu are spoken here apart from few tribal-native languages.
The major occupation of the people living in Little Andamans is either fishing or owning or working in plantations. The major plantations in Little Andamans are Palm plantation (Red Oil Palms), Lotus, water lilies, Cash crops like Coconut plantations, and Arecanut plantation; vegetable farms are also seen there. Spices like Nutmeg, Cinnamon, and cloves are grown in the farms of Agriculture departmental farms which also do bee-keeping.
There was once a palm oil extraction mill in Little Andamans, which is now closed. The palm plantation here covers a huge area of about 1600 Hectares.
There are some areas in Little Andamans which are restricted for visit by tourists under the protection Acts for Tribes (PAT). So as a visitor, you’ll have to follow some guidelines of DO’s and DONT’s as suggested by the people or government officials there.
Only BSNL and Airtel networks are available for call and text messages. Vodafone works in some part of Andamans, but in Little Andaman, the Vodafone network won’t work.
There are hardly a few broadband connections in Little Andamans which are available in commercial outlets. These shops can provide you with paid WiFi connections based on the connectivity (which comes n goes).
So before you land into this land, make sure you have the knowledge about the place and you are aware of the facts and arrangements required that can make your journey smooth and the experience better.
