Hello friends, Wish you a happy, prosperous and healthy new year! I wish all your valid dreams come true. Hope you enjoyed your New Year celebrations. I had a great one indeed. It was one of the memorable trips I had. Our team included Pranav, Jeevan, Naveen, Prajwal, Dinesh.
Amidst the dilemma about the release of Sri Krishna Report and anticipated agitation, we had off to Vishakapatnam (Vizag) for three days, starting from Dec 30th (evening) to Jan 2nd. We haven’t booked any tickets well in advance. As our trip was very dynamic in nature (not sure how many gonna join and when). Our biggest challenge was about the date’s synchronization. As all of us were working, we had to decide days which every one agrees upon. Naveen did a wonderful job in making his dates flexible. Our initial itinerary was some thing like this.
Day 1 – Visit all places in Vizag-harbor, RushiKonda beach, Kailasgiri, museum, beach road drive, and New Year celebrations.
Day 2 – Train journey to Araku. Drop at BorraCaves, hire a vehicle and visit all the places along the way to Araku. If possible (based on availability of accommodation) night stay in Araku.
Day 3 – Off to Simhachalam, visit temple by mid day and visit any other places if possible and make it to station by train’s departure time.
Good part of our journey is – we almost had stick to our plan. 😉 It’s a great accomplishment eh?? I really appreciate my entire team for being part of this great journey and making it a memorable one.
Team at Borra Caves
After reaching Vizag on 31st morning, engaged couple of lodge rooms (a decent lodge near RTC Complex), refreshed and out to visit city places. We had been to RK beach (RamaKrishna beach) at around 10AM. Beach was good but not that great enough. As this beach is very much in the city, it’s very crowded and hence, obviously not maintained cleanly. Waves are not that stronger. No winds at all. Its quite a sunny day. After successfully completing the photo session in beach ;), we engaged a vehicle and went to fishing harbor.
Kali Maatha Temple near RK beach in Vizag
All the way along, you will experience a pungent smell of dry fish, which are being dried on road itself. Take care of your nose. Unfortunately, the cinema shooting spots of the harbor had been closed for visiting, as there was a death mishap that happened recently. We had a boat riding there. Duration of the boat riding was around 30 mins @ 40/- per head. Not so exciting when compared to NagarjunaSagar boat riding we had around 4 months back. But, it was good. After this, we set off to museum. Submarine museum was off. Its timings are from 2PM to 8PM. Later, went to Vishaka Museum, where the museum displays the importance of INS(Indian Navy Service) and impact on National Security and variety of ships available since history. After extensive photography session in the museum gardens, we went to a restaurant, had lunch there. The dhaba was almost neat to Rushikonda beach, (right after the Gitam University). The place is crowded by tourists. So, hardly you can expect good quality food. We were interested in sea food items, but it dint tasted awesome. Had cb, pb and few veg dishes and the bill for 6 was around 850/-. We then kicked off to RushiKonda beach. Comparatively, this is better than RamaKrishna beach. Crowd is still there, but is maintained clean and neat.
Dry prawns on road to harbour beach
Tides are stronger and you feel windy here. We had a bath for around 2-3 hours. We had a great fun time playing with waves. Waiting for a huge wave and when it hits us, we try to get on top of it. Woow!! I believe, kids can enjoy a lot more here. Then we headed to Kailasgiri. We had opted the ropeway route. This is my first experience with ropeway but, it was not so exciting when compared to some rides in exhibition. 🙂 We had some relaxing time on the hill. One can have a good view of the almost entire Vizag city from the kailasgiri hill. Pretty cool place to hand around with family during evenings.
View of partial Vizag city from harbour beach
We then headed to our lodge rooms, had bath, took a very short break and headed to RK beach. We heard that entire vizag meet there to celebrate New Year celebrations. We had dinner, had some fun time in beach. The only attraction that entire vizag has then was – beach road. People gathered in beaches, huge crowds, I say! On the other side, there are New Year special programs that are being conducted in gardens, parks, hotels and restaurants. Youth running, bike racing on roads, boozing, eating, playing, shouting..what not… one can see, how important, the new year festival is to Indians. 🙂 I and pranav almost lost our mobiles in the crowd there, but, my friends managed to find it back to us. Cheers!! We stayed there till 12 midnight, greeted each other with new year wishes and left to room. We had to catch early morning train to Araku.. !!! Uhh.. !!!
Train journey to Araku Valley
Well, I managed to get up at 4.30 in the morning. I woke my friends up, asked them to get ready by 6.30 and come to station. Myself and Pranav reached station by 6. We had booked tickets but failed to get seats. But, thanks to localities, who are selling each window seat for 30/-. We got 4 seats for 120/-. One issue what that – we got window seats to the left side of the boogie, to which side – you only get to see only forest and waterfalls. If we had got seats the other side, we get to see deep valleys of Araku hills. However, this was not that bad, we had a good experience. You get to see train going thru many tunnels. Almost 12! We got down at “Borra Caves” and engaged a jeep for around 2K. The program planned this way – Visit ABC waterfalls (half distance by jeep and then trekking for around 30 mins), spend some time there. Water there is so chilling that we could not stand in water for more than 1 minute. Yes, really! But, my crazy friends managed to stay in water for more than 20 mins for pics to be taken! 😛 hehe..
Ropeway trolley in Kailasgiri
We got back to borra caves, had lunch. Well, I wanted to say some thing here. Do not order food anywhere before going to caves. Food in Borra Caves is pathetic. Of course, at least where we ordered. I do not remember the hotel name, but, we had ordered 1kg of ‘native chicken’ for lunch, but, it did not taste good at all. Here I took New Year resolutions – not to eat non-veg outside, especially and strictly in tourist places. We then left to Borra Caves.
Borra Caves is one of the best tourist spots I have ever seen. Its really amazing, fascinating and worth seeing. You get to see huge formation of stalagmites since some lakh years old. According to me, it’s better to hire a guide available there. I really cannot certify the credulity of the information he provides, but , you can really enjoy the guidance. You get to know, few interesting points. There is a trekking path available there, thru caves, which takes you to the bottom of the hill, where, Gosthana River takes birth. We didn’t take ticket for camera for which we repented later.
Way to Araku Water falls
After which, we set off to Araku. The journey from Borra Caves to Araku is very pleasant and even more enjoyable during evening time. On our way to Araku, we had visited coffee plantations, few cinema shooting spots and ‘Galikonda’ view point. By the time we reached Galikonda view point, it has become slightly dark (around 6.30PM). On the way to Araku, you get to see good valley views of Araku hills on to your left side. Then we entered Araku. We had not booked any rooms in any hotel, but we are lucky enough that we managed to get two rooms for us. Rooms are not good / neat enough, but we had no other option but to go for it. We are so exhausted, that we had no plans to make any parties in the night. We walked to near by center, had tiffins, rushed back to room and slept like hell. One thing I wanted to mention here – we got really a good jeep driver, sharat, who is very friendly, he provided good information about local places, had provided valid suggestions about hotel rooms and food available there.
Train running amidst fields in Araku
Next day morning, we had a good time. I had got up early and got ready to leave Araku. While I was waiting for my friends to get ready, myself and two of us left out to have a good view of Araku. Since, its early in the morning, between 6 and 7 AM, we had a good greenery snapshots in fog. Later then, we had another outing with other two friends, where, I had a good snap of the train track in midst of fields. After a good photography session, we had breakfast and then we left to Simhachalam, in a jeep. The return journey is very cool; we had some good views of the Araku valleys and hills around. The journey in jeep is cool, as we get to see a good view of the sight seeig. We had never stopped anywhere for a long duration because, we had to visit Simhachalam temple in time, and the temple is scheduled to get closed by 2PM. We made to temple by 1PM. Since, there is no crowd, we had directly got into main temple, and had darshan of Lord Narsimha Swami. We had the prasadam as our lunch, then set off to RishiKonda beach, where we missed to see ‘erra dibbalu’ on day 1.
Erra Dibbalu in Rushikonda
Marine Museum - Complex Internals
We reached ‘erra dibbalu’ by around 4PM, which is around 15-20KM away from main city. ‘erra dibbalu’ is quiet a good place to hang around. Its on the other side of the sea shore. You will be walking thru a channel of red mud, covered by sand. As per history, the Gostana River that took birth near ‘Borra Caves’ used to flow thru this channels, and used to get merged into Sea. You never know, where you are heading to and you cannot easily track the path that you traveled, until you had put some marks or pointers on your journey. We had a good time there, walking with bear foot, feeling the smoothness of the sand is a pleasant feeling I experienced. Back to main road by around 6PM, on the other side of the main road, watched violent waves in sea shore for about 15 minutes and then, left to the city. We got down at beach road, precisely at ‘marine museum’. We had train at 8.30PM. So, we decided to visit it ASAP and then rush to railway station. But, the ‘Marine Museum’ is a must visit place. The engineering & technology used inside a marine is absolutely wonderful. Outside the marine, there was a board displayed great facts of the marine. We had some time spend there, took some snaps in and around marine museum, and then rushed to railway station. Our train was at 8.30 and our trip lasted till 8PM. 🙂 🙂 It was a pretty exhaustive one.
So, what’s next?? We set off to our home town the same night, to get back into our so called IT life. Happy new year folks!! 🙂
A traveler saga! 