The complete guide to the Cellular Jail and Ross Island
Two days in Port Blair is enough for most travellers to see the things worth seeing. The Cellular Jail and Ross Island are both of those. Here is how to plan one efficient day around them.
Two days in Port Blair is enough for most travellers to see the things worth seeing. The Cellular Jail and Ross Island are both of those. We get asked how to plan one day around them, so here is what we tell people who ask.
The Cellular Jail
The Cellular Jail held India's freedom fighters in solitary confinement during British rule. Today it is a national memorial, preserved roughly as it stood. The central tower, three radiating wings of cells, the gallows room, and the small hospital block survive.
A guided tour takes about ninety minutes. You walk through the cell of Veer Savarkar, see the gallows, and climb the central tower from which the warders watched all seven wings. Government-certified guides charge ₹500. We can pre-book one for you.
Open Tuesday to Sunday, 9am to 5pm. Closed on Mondays. Closed on national holidays.
Ticket prices: ₹30 for adults, ₹15 for children under ten. Foreign nationals pay ₹100. Photography is another ₹25.
The evening light-and-sound show
This is what people remember. A one-hour narrated dramatisation of the jail's history, with the building itself lit up as the central stage. It runs in English on alternating days, Hindi on the others.
Two shows every night: 6pm and 7:15pm between November and April, 5:30pm and 6:45pm in October. The show does not run if it is raining heavily.
Tickets are ₹100 and they do sell out, especially the English shows in peak season. Book the day before if possible. We can arrange this with your trip.
Bring a light wrap. The shows are outdoor and the breeze off the harbour drops the temperature in the evenings.
Ross Island
Officially Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Dweep. It was the British administrative headquarters of the Andaman Islands from 1858 until the 1941 earthquake left it uninhabitable. Today it is an open-air museum.
Handles the ferry holds, the resort coordination, and the 24-hour WhatsApp during peak season. Has personally booked over 3,000 trips and knows every Phoenix Bay jetty staffer by name.
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