Background

There are certain destinations wherein travelling to the destination is equally enthralling or more engaging than the actual destination itself and we chose such a destination for our cousins’ trip, Vishakhpatnam. The most challenging and interesting aspect of this trip was that we had to cover 1000 KMS one way, a cool 20 hours by road. Vizag was always on our shortlist but we kept delaying it, considering Andhra may be one of the drier places. But Araku valley was too tempting to be delayed any further and we decided to take the plunge.

Lambasingi, the only place in southern India that had experienced snow before was considered but since we were travelling around October first week, we decided to skip it. There was also discussion on Bhadrachalam and Papikondalu boat trip. But bearing in mind it’s going to be a tedious four hour boat journey we decided to skip that too. Coincidentally then we got a news, that a boat carrying many, fatally capsized in the middle of swollen Godavari. So any temptation of going was also gone.

With the trip dates drawing closer, our excitements rocketing sky high, my cousin and I would have spoken more than to our spouses.

Friday evening/Saturday – 27/28th September

Our original plan was to start during the wee hours of Saturday morning. But taking into account the distance and traffic, we decided to start late in the evening the previous day and that means we were going to drive the whole night.

My cousins started from Electronic city a little before 4 PM and picked me up from Marathahalli. We decided to take the Chitoor, Tirupati route and reach the GQ highways at Naidupeta toll. As expected, Bangalore traffic took a toll on us and we hit the Hoskote highways only at 630 PM. A little after 730 PM my wife called me to enquire about my whereabouts and advised us to take dinner early. But I told her, that we were not hungry and were planning to take our food at Tirupati after 10 PM. Ten minutes later, we all felt hungry and decided to stop at one of the newly built complexes that hosts Maiyas and other food outlets. We blissfully ate rotis, dosas and bread omelets and started our overnight journey.

The roads that kept annoying us before, the Mulbagal – Chitoor route has been fantastically laid now and effortlessly we could maintain an average speed of more than hundred. At Chitoor bypass, we changed drivers and until Naidupeta toll it was a two way road. There was heavy truck traffic and after an arduous two and half hour journey, we covered 140 odd kms and reached the Naidupeta toll. It was nearing midnight and we decided to fill the beast’s tank so as to avoid any hardships during the wee hours of morning. At Nellore toll, we again changed drivers. We had driven close to 400 kms from Bangalore.

The journey till then seemed a bit strenuous having covered just over one third of the required distance. As a whiff of fresh air for the confined ones, we hit the most beautiful highways of our trip. The next 300 kms took us merely three hours and around four thirty in the morning, we were on the outskirts of Vijayawada, a well lit city. Even at four in the morning, our headlights didn’t make any difference as the entire highway (close to 100 KMS) was completely flood lit. By crossing the city during predawn, we escaped the much talked about Vijayawada traffic. We halted for an early morning tea, changed drivers and started again. Around six thirty in the morning having covered close to 800 KMS we stopped for another tea break. But that turned out to be our breakfast stop too as we saw a road side shop preparing fresh and hot idlis. The sour ginger pickle tasted exquisite. We devoured idlis and dosas and resumed our drive.

Hot piping vadas

We stopped on the Godavari river bridge and had our first round of photo session.

A Serene Godavari and a not so sturdy bridge – While vehicles crossed, we actually felt the bridge was shaking violently

Bridge to Heaven?

Temple on the banks

Unflappable Lord Shiva

Godavari river canal

We had one more stop on an uncharted railway bridge and the scenery was exemplary. Till date, we never really thought about Andhra, only because it was considered a dry state unlike the western ghats. But the scene before completely defied our myths.

Whimsical roads amidst staggering mountains

Live to Drive

Having had multiple photo breaks, we were suddenly looking at another 150 odd kms. Finally we started feeling the tiredness in our 1100 KM journey. Having gotten back into the car, we decided to take no more breaks and hit Vizag. Around 12 PM, we almost reached Vizag and decided to take our lunch instead of checking into our rooms. With the way we feasted our lunch, the servers might have thought we hadn’t had our food for ages. We filled our tummy and about 2 PM we reached our rooms and with that came the end of our 22 hour marathon journey. Between three of use we drove close to 1100 KMS.

After a couple of hours of rest and recharging our batteries, we decided to go to submarine museum. This is the submarine where the movie Ghazi was shot.

INS Kursura (S20) – A diesel-electric submarine of the Indian Navy. She was India’s fifth submarine. Kursura was commissioned on 18 December 1969 and was decommissioned on 27 February 2001.

Awe-inspiring

Unused Torpedo from the submarine

Inside the submarine – Dining hall, Operator’s room, Captain’s room, Dormitory

This is the actual connector between the submarine chambers. Even a five footer has to crouch and move across. Imagine the actual six plus guys. They have replaced them with actual steel doors for easier movements of tourists

Heart of the submarine – The engine

We also went to the aircraft museum opposite the submarine museum. This is another must visit place if you are visiting Vizag wherein you get to see the actual Tupolev Tu-142 aircraft. The aircraft served 29 years with the Indian Navy and had 30,000 hours of accident-free flying by the time of its retirement in 2017. The aircraft was flown in from Arakonam to its final resting place. Also, if you are not familiar with Telugu, there is a pre-recorded English audio guide available.

Fighter Jet

Majestic Tupolev Tu-142

Colossal in size

We spent a good two hours and had our dinner at a Punjabi restaurant. Food was good but there was no lassi in a Punjabi restaurant. We walked back to our hotel and slept as though there is no tomorrow. Huge thunders roared and reverberated across the town. Despite that we slept thinking it was all in our dreams.

Sunday – 29th September

We woke up late the next day. Our initial plan was to see the sunrise from RK beach but wish we had powers like Nithyananda to delay the sunrise as and when required. We had a good sumptuous buffet breakfast at the hotel.

Nice comfortable rooms

After breakfast, we started to Kailasagiri Hills. We reached the hill top and decided to spend our time entirely at the view point. We did not visit the temple.

Entrance to the temple

Radar station

Gorgeous… Isn’t it?

Did it resemble the Great Ocean Road? We decided to check it for ourselves

Rope Cars to the hilltop

We reached the Great Ocean “resembling” road and must admit this is one of the most beautiful places. With the blow of gentle breeze and a slight drizzle in the air, we felt hallucinated. It was an experience to remember for a lifetime.

After spending a good 20 minutes at this place, we started to Araku Valley. This was one of the most picturesque drives of our trip and the most anticipated one too. Around 1 PM we started feeling hungry and we saw Jungle Bells APTDC resort. They had only limited varieties of food. We all had briyani, lassi and butter milk. Interestingly the butter milk had ginger mango with a bit of lemon syrup. It was nevertheless yummy. We resumed our journey and our next pit stop was the Damuku view point. We enjoyed the panoramic view of endless mountains with a bit of chilling breeze.

Is that a hidden reservoir beneath the mountains?

Around 3 PM, we reached our stay in the backdrop of heavy rains. The rooms were very primitive. We ordered some snacks and dinner and you know what, we chit chatted until midnight. Then we became too tired to continue any further and out of compulsion we retired for the day. Isn’t this chit chat and gossiping the whole reason for our trip along with drive?

Monday – 30th September

We woke up leisurely and three of us took a stroll around the resort. It was a nice property with well maintained gardens containing colourful flowers. We were surprised to be offered complimentary breakfast and rest of the group woke up and came to the dining hall on hearing that. On top of the complimentary food, we again ordered food for another five hundred rupees. The bread omelet tasted really good and had a lot of chillies. We brought our cricket kit and found a nice place to express our batting and bowling prowess. After an hour of playing, we took bath and started to Borra caves.

Well maintained pool

Rain washed trees and pavement

Children’s Park

Pleasant greenery all around

Premium cottages

Enroute to caves…Swoosh..

We reached Borra caves in pelting rains. Unfortunately we were told that the caves are closed for lunch and they re-open by 2 PM. So we decided to take our lunch in one of the many Andhra Bengali outlets. There are so many of them and add to that the pestering from each of the restaurant representatives to come to their restaurant , I can assure you that one wouldn’t go hungry. We were served rice, pappu, rasam and two veggies. The hot food tasted divine in this rain soaked cold weather. The only annoying fact was that their dog kept loitering around us.

Borra caves entry and an APTDC restaurant.

Scrumptious meal with brinjal and potato veggies

Just outside of caves, a small stream in full flow

Climb down to enter the caves. Loads of steps.

Deep inside the cave – the paths are well lit

Beehive?

And then there was a series of steps to go up the cave. After a laborious climb, we saw a temple. But there was hardly anybody there. Only with flash we were able to see these. With no artificial lights, climb down was even more trickier.

After another backbreaking climb to the top, we treated ourselves to a nice cup of tea at the restaurant just outside the caves.

Enroute to our stay, we took a small break at Galikonda view point. Perennial mountains and valleys – Defied our mythical assumption of a dry Andhra.

Plateau – Reminded us of our Masai plateau trip.

Stacked up Bamboos – To make bamboo chicken

Like the previous night, we returned to our room, ordered snacks and dinner and had a long chit chat gossiping session. Since the following day was going to be a long travel day, we aborted our conversation at 10 (anyways we had another 22 hours to talk while driving) and retired for the day.

Tuesday

Unlike the previous days, we woke up early and got ready by 7 AM. Since the breakfast would be available by 8, we packed and loaded our luggages onto the car. We also did our mandatory group photograph. After devouring food, with the bill and checkout done, we started our marathon return journey of 1200 KMS. We took the Lambasingi route to get down from the Ghats and the journey was breathtaking with countless streams and valleys.

Chaparai falls

Before hitting the highways, we took a small tea break, and around 1 PM, we decided to have our lunch at ‘One’, food court. Food was excellent.

Tasty Andhra Briyani

With umpteen breaks and a relaxed drive we had covered just 300 KMS around 3 PM and determined to up the ante. The next 200 odd KMS was a breeze and the inescapable Vijayawada traffic slowed us down again. We exited the Krishna river bridge and decided to take dinner break at a dhaba. The break was a blessing in disguise as it gave us time to rejuvenate. We ate phulka with tomato curry and dal fry. With our tummies filled and the beast’s tank filled, we had close to 600 KMS at half past 9 in the night. We were staring at another inevitable overnight journey.

Normally during long journeys, we listen to songs. But this time around, since our journey got longer and longer, we started tuning into some reality show gossip-mongering (read as Solvathellam Unmai) series. But that kept us on hook and we munched kms without feeling the tiredness. In about three and half hours, we had covered another 300 odd kms and around 1 AM, we reached Kalahasthi. With Ilayaraja musicals, we covered the tougher roads of Kalahasthi and Tirupati. The journey that started at 9 AM on the previous day was still on and we had another 200 odd kms at 3 AM the next morning. The highways to Bangalore were superbly lit and at 5 AM, we finally reached Horamavu to drop couple of my cousins. Then I got down at Marathahalli at 545 and my cousins reached Electronic city at 630.

Postscript

When we started planning for the trip, we never thought we were going to do two-way night trips. Inevitably the overnight journeys happened and for that we have to thank each one of our family members who had utmost trust in our driving skills and gave us enough positivity to go for our crazy dreams.