Visiting Ross Island feels like discovering a jungle-clad Lost City, à la Angkor Wat, where the ruins happen to be Victorian English rather than ancient Khmer. The former administrative headquarters for the British in the Andamans, Ross Island is an essential half-day trip from Port Blair. In its day, little Ross was fondly called the ‘Paris of the East’ (along with Pondicherry, Saigon etc…). But the cute title, vibrant social scene and tropical gardens were all wiped out by the double whammy of a 1941 earthquake and the invasion of the Japanese (who left behind some machine-gun nests that are great fun to poke around in).
