Aberdeen Bazaar, Port Blair (Sri Vijaya Puram): What to buy and visitor guide

Useful facts

Aberdeen Bazaar facts at a glance

Location

Central Port Blair, around the clock tower on MG Road

Experience type

Open-air market district with shops, a fish market and eateries

Known for

Shell and bamboo handicrafts, the Ghanta Ghar clock tower, and a lively evening atmosphere

Architect/Built

Longstanding commercial district; clock tower a well-known landmark

Time or schedule

Roughly 9 am–9 pm; evenings busiest

Why it matters

Why Aberdeen Bazaar is worth your time

As the only real market district in Port Blair, Aberdeen Bazaar is where the town's practical, everyday life, banks, a fish market, small shops, sits alongside its tourist trade, giving visitors a more rounded sense of the city than the monuments alone provide. It has also long served as a social and commercial anchor for the wider Andaman community, not just for travellers passing through on their way to the islands.

For many first-time visitors, it is also simply the introduction to what shopping and eating look like in the Andamans: modest, fixed-price, and shaped by what the islands can source locally, shells, bamboo, coconut and seafood, rather than mass-produced souvenirs.

Highlights

What not to miss

1. 01

   The Ghanta Ghar clock tower

   The bazaar's central landmark and an easy meeting point if your group splits up to shop.

2. 02

   Shell and handicraft shops

   Rows of small shops selling shell jewellery, wood and bamboo carvings and tribal-motif souvenirs.

3. 03

   The Mohanpura fish market

   A working morning fish market that shows the town's everyday life beyond the tourist trade.

Plan your visit

How to experience it

Aberdeen Bazaar is Port Blair's commercial heart, a grid of shops, eateries, banks and a fish market centred on a landmark clock tower, or Ghanta Ghar, that has become the informal meeting point of the town. Shops here sell souvenirs made from local materials, shell jewellery, wood and bamboo carvings, papier-mâché tribal masks, alongside everyday clothing, electronics basics and fresh produce for residents rather than tourists alone.

The morning market, particularly around the fish stalls in Mohanpura, is worth a look even if you are not buying, for a sense of the town's working rhythm rather than its tourist face. In the evening, the same streets fill with lights, food stalls and a livelier crowd, a better time to shop for souvenirs or simply walk and eat.

Because it sits centrally, most visitors weave Aberdeen Bazaar into the same day as Cellular Jail, Sagarika Emporium or a meal at one of the restaurants on its edges, rather than treating it as a separate outing. Prices here are generally fixed rather than negotiable, which makes it a relatively low-pressure place to shop compared with bazaars elsewhere in India.

Know before you go

Timing, access and comfort

Area

Central Port Blair, around the clock tower on MG Road

Time needed

1 to 2 hours

Best time

Morning (10 am–noon) for a quieter browse, or evening (4 pm–9 pm) for the fuller market atmosphere

Walking level

Easy

Senior comfort

Mostly level pavements and roads, though crowded and busy in the evening with some uneven footpaths. Shops and eateries offer plenty of places to sit and rest between stops.

Tickets and access

No entry fee; this is an open market district. Fixed pricing is more common here than haggling, unlike bazaars in some other Indian cities.

Plan it with

FAQs