Trekking at Munda Pahad (Chidiya Tapu)

Munda Pahad popularly known as Chidiya Tapu is well known and is one of the popular tourist places in Port Blair. The distance from Veer Savarkar International Airport to Chidiya tapu is around 22 km on one side. If you are planning your trip to Andaman and Nicobar Islands you should definitely visit this amazing place.

Renting a bike is the best way to travel to this beautiful island. We rented a Honda Activa for Rs. 500 per day and decided to cover the route of Chidiya Tapu on the bike. The distance from Andaman Vacations Home where we booked our homestay to Chidiya Tapu was around 24 km on one side. The route starts getting interesting after you leave the main market area, till the market area the roads are not that good to ride a bike. After the market area, you have good long empty roads surrounded by greenery on both sides. The experience of riding the bike on the amazing snake pattern roads on the route to Chidiya Tapu is simply awesome.

You can easily visit the place as the locals here are super helpful and being an island there is very less probability of you being lost but still try to download offline maps in your mobile phones as there are a lot of network issues for Airtel and Jio sim cards. But you might not face such issues for BSNL sim cards.

Once you reach Chidiya Tapu Beach you can park your vehicle there and enter your name in the entry register and you can enjoy the beautiful scenery on the beach. If you wish to hike on Munda Pahad you need to visit Chidiya Tapu from 10 am to 3 pm, after 3 pm the officials will not allow you to hike as it is a 60 to 90 minutes hike to the top. On our first day, we visited some time after 3 pm and we were disappointed a little as we were unable to trek. We decided to visit again after finishing our plans on Havelock Island.

After three days of our stay on Havelock Island, we came back to Port Blair on a government ferry The Coral Queen. The next day in the morning we decided to complete the most awaited trek to Munda Pahad. We had a heavy breakfast and with high hopes, we rode our bikes for almost an hour till we reached our destination. This time we were early and were excited to start the trek.

After almost 60 minutes we were finally at the top of Munda Pahad. We hike regularly so it took us less time to reach the top, you can enjoy the path and trek at your own pace. We spent time enjoying the view from the top. You can see a long stretch of water as far as you can see and on the other side, you can see people playing around the beach. We decided to view the sunset from the top. Now you are not allowed to hike after 3 pm but you can definitely wait on top and return on your own time. But make sure you have a torch, keep your mobiles fully charged and if possible carry a power bank. Mobile batteries drain pretty fast as more power is utilized to find signals. Sunsets usually take place around 5 pm and it gets really dark soon after that. If you are with your family I would not suggest you wait on top of Munda Pahad after 3 pm because you may struggle on your way down the mountain.

This was my experience of our trek to Munda Pahad. My friend and I were very happy that we decided to go back the second time to Chidiya Tapu to finish this trek. I can only imagine if we would have been lazy and ignored this trek this would have been the biggest regret of my life. You can see on your own how this trek feels like a magical journey. I hope reading this article you got some idea about this trek and if you need any more information please comment below I will get back to you soon.