List of things to carry while travelling to Andaman and Nicobar Islands

 1.       Cash (Indian currency) as per requirement needs to be carried as the network is poor in certain places and Google pay or any other mode of online payment might not work.

2.       Driver’s license is required if you want to rent a self-driven two-wheeler. On the smaller islands, these are preferred mode of transport.

3.       Comfortable cotton clothes are preferred due to the humid weather. You will also end up visiting many beaches. So knee length dresses would be ideal. Wearing jeans may be uncomfortable and will get filled up with beach sand.

4.       Footwear also needs to be suitable for walking on sand. Shoes are not good for these. Floaters or flat slippers would be fine.

5.       Mosquito repellent can be carried if you are very sensitive to mosquito bites. Generally, this is not a concern.

6.       For pandemic times: You will either need a Covid testing report (within 48 hours prior to arrival) showing negative status needs to be taken with you from the mainland or will need to done upon arrival at the Port Blair airport. The cost of the RAT (Rapid Antigen Test) being done at the Veer Savarkar Airport is 500 INR.

7.       Extra clothing and large towels would be very useful while visiting the beach areas. Numerous water sports in addition to swimming and bathing in the ocean are possible.

Most of the things can be purchased at Port Blair. A good option is the Mubarak Hyper market located at Biggie Line, Port Blair, 744101 (Remember the Pin Code as this is asked in some forms that need to be filled upon arrival). 

Calculating instruments built by Rajput king Sawai Jai Singh II - The Jantar Mantar's

The most fascinating monuments in India for me are the Jantar Mantar's. Literally the word Jantar Mantar means "calculating instrument", but the term also has a mystical feeling of something very unique or even magical. Unlike other monuments that were built as forts, palaces, universities and religious sites, the Jantar Mantar's are arguably the only ones devoted to pursuit of science. Unlike a university that is largely involved in teaching, these are actual astronomical instruments. It is believe that the instruments were built to have a more accurate calendar that could be used to decide auspicious days for the royalty to undertake important tasks. 

The Jantar Mantar's (in five different cities) were built by the Rajput king Sawai Jai Singh II (3 November 1688 – 21 September 1743). Note the link to 3rd November and JA. The biggest of the Jantar Mantar's is located in Jaipur, the capital of Jai Singh II. As fate would have it, i visited this Jantar Mantar recently. It has 19 different instruments built to do fairly different tasks. The pictures are posted on the English wiki. While Jai Singh's contributions are well recorded, his chief astronomer Pandit Jagannatha Samrat is probably not as popular. It is conceivable that Samrat played a very important role in the design and construction of the Jantar Mantar's as it has to be noted that Jai Singh was also involved in conducting the royal duties of ruling and conducting war. Samrat is credited with writing Siddhānta-samrāṭ and Yantra-prakāra which provide useful details about the design, construction and use of astronomical instruments. A more recent general article that provides a comprehensive idea about the Jantar Mantar's is written by N Rathnasree. 

In this post we start with the Unnatamsa Yantra. Unnat meaning elevated and Amsa: division or degree of arc put together gives the word "Unnatamsa". The word Yantra meaning machine is added as a suffix to each of instruments. This instrument is used to measure the altitude - the angular height of an object in the sky. It consists of a large graduated brass circle that is hanging from a supporting beam and is pivoted to rotate freely around a vertical axis. A sighting tube is provided at the center of the circle at the intersection of two cross beams in the vertical & horizontal directions. The sighting tube can be moved in the vertical direction to align it towards celestial objects. The pivoting used in the Unnatamsa is analogous to the Alt-Azimuth mounting used in modern telescopes.

Unnatamsa Yantra

The altitude of celestial objects can be measured by looking at the graduations on the rim of the brass ring after locating the object using the sighting tube. The graduations on the rim of the circle are able to distinguish upto one tenth of a degree. Larger deviations of 1 degree and 6 degrees are marked with longer graduation marks. 

Ann Arbor to Chicago union station - a train journey via Amtrack

A train journey from Ann Arbor to Chicago is an easy way to travel. Amtrak runs multiple trains throughout the day on this route which actually starts from Pontiac. The journey of approximately 4 hours can frequently be delayed by upto 30 minutes. Apart from experiencing this first hand, I also overheard a very upset American complaining that this delay had resulted in him reaching 30 minutes late to his job interview. Hopefully, he will still get the job as the interviewer seemed sympathetic to his cause. 

Ann Arbor, Amtrak station, Front entrance in March 2017

The train route meanders down from Ann Arbor through Jackson, Battle creek, Kalamazoo, Niles, and New Buffalo before entering the state of Illinois. After stopping over at Michigan city, it heads into Chicago to stop at the union station.

Kalamazoo is approximately the mid-point (for travelers from Detroit) located 142 miles from Detroit and 138 miles from Chicago. The phrase Timbuktu to Kalamazoo (both real places) commonly used by English speakers to refers to journeys between exotic places. The word is thought to originate from native American's of the Hopewell culture. The journey ends at the historic Union station of Chicago.