The Maldives quote came in at four lakh and twenty-five thousand. For six nights, an entry-level water villa at one of the mid-range resorts, all flights, all transfers, all-inclusive meals. We sat with the print-out on our dining table for two days.
Our honeymoon budget was one and a half lakhs. We had set it together. We were both salaried, the wedding had already cost more than expected (this is a sentence every couple in India types into ChatGPT at some point), and we were trying to be sensible.
Karthik suggested Andaman. I was unenthusiastic. I had been to Port Blair as a child and remembered only the cellular jail. He showed me a photo of Radhanagar Beach. I told him every Indian beach photo on Google is taken at the only one good angle.
He booked it anyway. I am writing this from the position of a person who owed her husband an apology approximately four hours after we landed.
Here is what happened.
The flight from Bangalore to Port Blair is three hours, direct. We landed mid-morning, took an afternoon Makruzz catamaran ferry to Havelock (now officially renamed Swaraj Dweep, though everyone including the airport announcers still says Havelock). Ninety minutes on a calm sea, in a vessel with air conditioning and surprisingly good chai.
We had split our stay. Three nights at a small beach property on Beach No. 5, owned by a couple who had moved from Calcutta in 2007 and never gone back. Two nights at one of the bigger resorts on Beach No. 7 (Radhanagar) for the romantic, candle-lit evenings I had been planning my whole engaged life. One last night in Port Blair at a hotel near the airport.
The small property had ten cottages, made of wood and tin, with a verandah facing the sea, about eight metres from the high-tide line. Mosquito net over the bed, two ceiling fans, no air conditioning. The owner-uncle, a Bengali in his sixties, brought us tea and a small plate of luchi the moment we arrived. We had not asked. He had clocked the time of the ferry and walked it backwards.
This is not a thing that happens at Maldives resorts. They are extremely good at the choreographed welcome, the flower garland, the welcome drink. The unprompted plate of luchi from a man who knew exactly when you were going to be hungry is a different thing.
Day two we did Radhanagar Beach (Beach No. 7) at sunset. You will read in every article that it is one of the best beaches in Asia. This is correct. The sand is white, the water is the postcard turquoise, there are no jet skis, no banana boats, no loud music. There is one chai stall at the entrance. We sat on the sand for two hours and watched the sun go down. There were maybe fifty other people on a stretch that could fit a thousand.
Day three we did the Discover Scuba Dive. Neither of us had done it before. The dive school in the village had a sensible English instructor named Sam (the family had been on Havelock for twenty years), and he took us out on a small boat to a reef called Nemo. The dive lasted about forty minutes. We saw a green turtle. We saw fish I cannot name. I cried into my mask, which is apparently a very common reaction to first dives.
Karthik, who has the emotional range of a man who once cried at a Liverpool goal, did not cry. But he held my hand on the boat back, which is the male equivalent.
Day four we moved to the bigger resort. This was the "honeymoon-tier" part of the trip. Private cottage on Radhanagar, the kind with a small plunge pool, the kind that staff call you "Mr. and Mrs." constantly. The food was excellent. The cottage had three different kinds of welcome flowers and a card the manager had handwritten. The next morning's breakfast came on a wooden tray to the verandah, and a small note said "we hope your sunrise was beautiful, please find your eggs underneath the warming cloche."
It was all very nice. To be honest, the small property on Beach No. 5 had been just as memorable, in a different register. The luchi from the Bengali uncle, that specific morning's high tide reaching almost to the cottage steps, my new husband's first attempt at making a sand castle on Beach No. 5 (collapsed twice).
The food on Havelock surprised me. There are small restaurants scattered around the island. A Bengali fish thali in the main village for two hundred and fifty rupees per head, more fish than we could finish. A surprisingly good Italian place near Beach No. 5 run by an Australian who had been on the island for fifteen years. A small chai-and-paratha place on the route to Radhanagar where the owner did not have a card machine and waved us off when our cash was short by twenty rupees. "Come tomorrow."
This is the comparison nobody makes properly. The Maldives is excellent at choreographed service. The Andaman is excellent at the human warmth that you cannot script.
The total cost for our six nights, two of us, came in at one lakh and thirty-seven thousand. Flights, ferries, all stays, all food, two scuba dives, one sunset cruise, taxi and tip money. We had budgeted one and a half lakhs. We came in under.
The downsides are real and I will tell you. No overwater villas (if that specific Instagram photo is your honeymoon dream, only Maldives delivers it). The service at the smaller properties is warm but unpolished. The internet is patchy across most of Havelock, which we considered a feature; not everyone will. The afternoon heat in March is heavy, you'll want to plan beach time for morning and evening.
The best time to go is October to early May. December and January are peak (cooler, more expensive, more crowded). October and February are sweet spots. Avoid June to September, the monsoon makes the ferries rough and many places shut.
On our last night at the small property on Beach No. 5, after dinner, we walked along the sand. The moon was full. We walked for what I am sure was a kilometre and saw nobody. The water was loud, the way a calm sea is loud when nothing else is making any sound at all. Karthik said, "I don't think Maldives would have been quieter than this." He was probably right.
I plan a lot of honeymoons at the office now. Couples almost always come in asking about Maldives or Bali. When the budget is below two lakhs, I send them to Havelock. About a third of them come back surprised. Most of those send me a thank-you message at the airport. A handful name their child something Andaman-related, which is statistically improbable and yet keeps happening.
If you are getting married, and your budget is closer to one and a half lakhs than four, do not assume Maldives is the only answer. Sometimes the answer is closer than the brochure suggests.
And sometimes, the answer involves a Bengali uncle with a plate of luchi who knew exactly when you were going to be hungry.