Ross Island, Andaman Archipelago

Photo © Biswarup Ganguly

Standing in stark contrast to the bustling and colourful Andaman Island capital, Port Blair, is its British predecessor, Ross Island.

The Andaman Islands were a penal colony when India was under British rule, and tiny Ross Island was the seat of the British administration.

Taken over by the Japanese during WWII and then abandoned because locals thought the island was sinking after an earthquake, the self-contained luxury of the British colonials’ swimming pools, churches and mansions are now being slowly reclaimed by nature.

Eerily derelict, you can still almost imagine moustachioed colonels sitting on verandas, sipping gin, watching the empire slip away. Tennis anyone?

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