Treks and travels: Baratang to Rangat

We had our lunch at a small restaurant near Baratang Jetty. It was 2PM and we had some distance to cover to reach Rangat. Before heading to Rangat, we had one more place to cover in Baratang. Mud Volcano!

Mud volcanoes are not true volcanoes as they do not produce lava. They emit mud like substance and gases. In India mud volcanoes are present only in Baratang Island and North Andaman. This should not be confused with the actual volcano present in Andaman. That is situated in Barren Island, far away from the main islands of Andaman.

From parking lot we had to walk for about 5-10 minutes to reach mud volcano. It was disappointing to say the least. Contrary to our expectation it was a site filled with mud and slush. We did not spend much time there. This was the only place in Andaman that did not leave up to our expectation.

There was another bottleneck waiting before reaching Rangat. It was the ferry to cross over to Middle Andaman. The ferry had just left when we reached Jetty. We had to wait for the ferry to return back. That took almost an hour as the ferry waited on the other side for more vehicles. Meanwhile on our side the vehicles had already piled up. All of them parked in a queue in a nice disciplined way. A Government vehicle with a Babu guy broke the role. No one expected them to be disciplined.

Here I witnessed a great phenomenon. I had heard that the sea was not standstill but continuously moves in the form of currents. It was clearly visible at Baratang. The sea was flowing like a river which I never expected!!

Another phenomenon was the rainbow. Rain continuously played hide and seek game that side and so was the sun. The result was a beautiful rainbow.

The ferry took nearly an hour to return back. The currents and rainbow had kept me busy for most of the time. The journey after Jetty was mostly through forests. It took little more than an hour to reach Rangat. The hotel I booked at Rangat “Priya International” was a newly built but a decent hotel. I did not see any other good places to stay in Rangat.