1-2-5-6-7-5-2-3-4-3-1 in 5 days [Nandyal - Darsi - Vizag - Araku - Borra caves - Vijag - Darsi - Vijayawada - Annavaram - Vijayawada - Nandyal ]
Sounds like a hefty trip, but
can't really say that. A small Back pack and a series of [read it about 40] transport changes. What more can one ask from a trip which included, ordinary bus travel through western ghats or along western ghats,ticket-less late-nite train journeys, sleeper train journeys, Volvo bus journey, hitch-hiking [basically tripling on a bajaj scooter] and comfy back seat journey on a brand new Innova.
All the trip started with my cousin and me thinking to explore some place, basically got bored in home. Damn IIT !! - the holidays are long. So we planned to go "some" place, Some place but no idea wat it is, so I proposed "Let's go to a pleasant trip to paapi kondalu", my mom though not part of our plan replied "I ll kick ur ass !! not without me". Well!! thats a convincing way of "requesting" us. So he told lets go to Araku. Immediately checked out the trip details and here we start. Since it has been possible to book train tickets from IRCTC site using my SBI ATM card, I just book the ticket and then think about other details.
Packed with a pair of shirts-pants-shorts-underwears and other essentials, i set off to my cousin's place - Darsi. It's small little village near Ongole, with a very big-beautiful pond. His family lives there, had a little fun there for that night, packed our bags and started off for the trip of uncertanities. By the way his name is Nareen Kumar Reddy, we call him Chinni. We reached Ongole Railway Station , tickets still on Waiting List, and train 40 min late. Time now is 2 am. Slowly train arrived at the station, we got onto it only to find that tickets booked through internet and still on waiting list are equivalent to no-ticket. So we had to bribe the TC to show some way to reach Vizag through that same train, we were literally refugees in that train. He asked us to purchase a second class ticket in Vijayawada and pay the extra amount as fine, Sounded like a plan. So we did that and slept in broad day light as the train took us to the most beautiful city in Andhra Pradesh - Vizag.
Then we checked into a cheap hotel close to railway station to catch the train to Araku at 5 am next day. We just wanted to roam around a little in Vizag, I ve seen that place before - he hasnt. I told him let's go to some beach and hv lunch over there. As soon as I saw the sea, I dont know wat came into his mind, my mind got filled with the tasty sea food. We went to a small road side dhaba-style-hut food place [cant really call it restraunt]. Filled our bellies with tasty prawns and chicken. Started our expedition of beaches, we had real fun in Rishi konda beach, playin in waters. A small adventure here as well, we forgot our towels :P, and that beach is kind of out side the city - and less people over there.. So we found a little deserted hut over there, and changed clothes without towels- one watched if any one approached thr as the other one changed. Then we called up srikanth, he lives in that city, he asked us where he could join us, we asked him to come over to Rama Krishna Beach, A beautiful locality in the city itself. We had some fun & food, thought if we could watch any movies, then scrapped that plan, went to the hotel - GOOD NITE
.
Next Day started with a tension whether we got our seats confirmed or shd we hv to travel like refugees AGAIN. This is an important journey, probably the most beautiful of all i had. Its really important to get our seats confirmed, luckily the waiting list got cleared and there we start the journey to Araku valley. Hills [Cant really call them mountains] on one side valleys on the other- Beautiful water streams - Early morning bird songs- thick forests - uncountable number of tunnels some long some very short - a beautiful view of water falls- More of all : falling temperatures as we ascend. Mean while we reached the highest place on the Indian Broad-Gauge Railway network - Semiliguda. A few ups and downs on the track, there we reached Araku village.
As like any other exotic places the village itself hosts no interest, it has a museum and some places to hide our heads during cold winter.
Immediately we checked into a hotel, a cheap one. Took few things [didnt forget towels this time], started our expedition - no idea about what to see in this place and till wat time they are open. We just rushed out to catch with some localites - gathered some details abt local sights and booked an Auto for sight seeing. Basic deal was to take us to some place and show few other places there, not a typical sight seeing thing. We went to that place u can see the pic, flowing water-tall trees-forests with no wild life; got really excited to see that.
We started some random trek to an unknown place, just started walking along the ridges, paths that were already paved- reached no-where and followed back the same path. It ended as a pleasant trek. Then we rolled along the stream, had fun with other people and changed our clothes, headed back to the village. Then we headed to the local folk museum, it had interesting stuff As night fell we thought we could do some thing.. Arey we really thought...We had very-local-very-spicy Egg Noodles and roamed around a little in the cold..
So here's the real problem, people at Araku unfortunately sleep at 8' o clock... So roaming around the streets we were at a distance of atleast 2-3 kms from our hotel... And it was cold like hell, we didnt have any of our winter wear - remember we came out at 1 pm... and now its about 9:30 pm... My plan as always was crazy.. "lets walk back...". Hesitatingly he replied "oooooo kkk". Nobody on the streets not even one person, and its cold for me even. I don't know how Chinni was feeling. There was a honk, we looked back to find a scooter going by - we waved our hands..
and he stopped.. yippe - tripling on it, with bare shirt and pants on - in cold, cant really say it wasnt fun :)
Early next morning, we started on a bus journey towards Borra, We got down at ****** in search of a water-fall, it started as a small search and ended up as an expedition. Here a small incident took place, we asked an elderly woman probably in her 80s, looks very illiterate and pretty much in a small village, where "jalapatam"[telugu translation of waterfall] was. She answered if we ppl were looking for "water-fall", we thought really, India is shining.
Then an adventourous jeep ride towards borra caves and an awesome waterfall, we had to trek or ascend almost vertically a height of 150 m to reach the base of the fall.
The water there was cold like hell, still reaching there was a great achievement. Descent was a little adventurous. We reached Borra caves just an hr before train's departure, we took a quick tour of the caves and reached 2 min before the train arrived at the station.
Then we reached Darsi, from where i got a phone call to reach Vijayawada to visit a temple town Annavaram, then back home - Nandyal in the back seat of brand new Innova.
