Havelock (Swaraj Dweep)

Havelock lies about 39 km northeast of Port Blair, a ninety-minute catamaran ride across water that shifts from ink to jade. The island was settled in the 1950s by Bengali families displaced from East Pakistan, and its five villages, Govind Nagar, Vijay Nagar, Krishna Nagar, Shyam Nagar and Radha Nagar, still run on paddy, betel nut and fish rather than on tourism alone. Boats dock at Govind Nagar, from where a single road runs 12 km to Radhanagar Beach, a two-kilometre arc of powder-white sand backed by rainforest that TIME named Asia's best beach in 2004; come at five in the afternoon, when the light goes gold and the shallows stay warm long after sunset.

Kalapathar on the east coast is the opposite mood, black rock and mangrove against sunrise. Elephant Beach, reached by a twenty-minute boat or a muddy trek through the forest, is where most people first put their face in the water. Serious divers come for Dixon's Pinnacle, Johnny's Gorge, The Wall and Jackson's Bar, where trevally, napoleon wrasse and manta rays patrol; the dive schools cluster on Beach No. 3.

On dark nights, kayaks slip into the mangrove creeks near Kalapathar and every paddle stroke lights up with bioluminescent plankton.