It has been really a very long time - more than a year - since I have updated the blog about my trips, not that I didn't travel but with so many other priorities in life, just couldn't find enough time to update the travelogue very frequently. With the recent trip with my family, I thought its high time I resume blogging about my travel.
Last couple of weeks in December being a holiday season, took vacation for a week and planned for a trip with the family. It was one full week of back to back travelling starting from Bangalore, to Chennai, Nidadavole, Anakapalle, Vishakapatnam, Araku Valley, Rajahmundry and back to Bangalore again.
Day 1 (21/12/2015) :
Me, my wife and my parents boarded the train from Bangalore to Chennai and landed in Chennai by around 8:45 PM. Reached my brother's house at around 10 PM and dozed off. Nothing exciting to start with :-)
Day 2 & 3 :
The second day, entire family of 6 members including my brother's family boarded the train to Nidadavole (my wife's native). We left from Chennai at around 5:20 PM and reached the destination by 7:00 AM next morning. It was very scenic in the early morning as the train passed through the different villages in Andhra.
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| Sunrise captured from Train |
Had sumptuous food at my in law's house and took complete rest the entire day and was getting geared up for the planned travel in the upcoming days to Vizag.
Day 4 :
It was good to add more and more family members every day as we reach a new destination. This time, my parent in laws also joined us and we all (8 of us) started from their house at around 8:30 AM in a Chevrolet Tavera to Anakapalle (a town near Vizag) where my other in laws are residing. Took a short coffee/tea break near Annavaram by 10:30AM, grabbed the prasadam from the temple and resumed the journey. Reached Anakapalle by 11:45 AM. After spending an hour or so with my in laws there, we visited the famous Nookulamma temple in that town. The temple indeed was special and got a good darshan of the Nookambika Goddess in the temple. Went back home after darshan for lunch and took a short nap for an hour before proceeding further.
In the evening, started the journey again by 4:00 PM towards Vishakapatnam, On the way to Vizag, took a deviation inside the Vizag Steel plant premises and got a glimpse of its infrastructure. We drove through a toll road (I forgot the name of the road :|) where you could see a lot of industries on both sides of the roads, it was nice to see the stretch of different kind of industries alongside. From there got into the RK beach road, got a glimpse of the lovely beach and the Tenneti park from outside as we passed through them and reached Kailasagiri by around 5:20 PM.
I have never seen such a scenic place before where the mountains oversee the sea. The view from the top of that small hillock was absolutely stunning and breathtaking.
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| View of the beach from Kailasagiri |
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| View of the city from Kailasagiri |
They also maintain a small park there, and big idols of God Shiva and Goddess Parvathi. There is also a rope car service which will take you from hill top to bottom and back to top. It was pretty exciting for me, as this was the first time I had ever got into a rope car :) I would say its a must to experience the rope car to enjoy the awesome view of the city when you go down in the rope car. The park also has a train that goes around and gives a 360 degree view of the town from the hill top. Since we went in the rope car, we skipped taking the train. Then we moved towards the core attraction of the Kailasagiri the Shiva and Parvathi Statues. NO words to describe the beauty of them, the pic has to say it all. Took a lot of pics there and started to descend down and drove to our next destination Simhachalam.
We weren't aware of the closing time of the temple at Simhachalam, which is 7:00 PM during this one month. Though we managed to reach the temple and get inside by exactly 7, we couldn't get the darshan of the God. We all were little disappointed with that, but convinced ourselves to plan again for this place and left back home. Reached back Anakapalle by 9:00 PM, had dinner and dozed off.
Day 5 :
With another addition of 2 more people, the ten of us started in two cars (Tavera + Innova) to Araku Valley by around 8 AM. We managed to take a short break half way through Araku from Anakapalle and had the breakfast packed from home! The drive through the ghats to Araku was very nice and scenic.
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| Train to Araku passing through the mountains |
It wasn't very steep as other mountains I have been, but it was little special and new for me as this was the first one I have ever visited in Eastern Ghats. So far the hills I have visited - Ooty, Kodaikanal, Panchgani, Mahabaleswar, Kemmagundi hills, Madikeri, Coorg - are all from Western Ghats. There is also a train leaving from Vizag to Araku by morning 7 AM, it will take around 4 hours to reach Araku, but I was told, Train is THE BEST way to experience the mountain range. I decided I should plan another trip via Railways next time.
We stopped at Borra caves by 11:15 AM first which is about 40kms downhill to Araku, It was heavily crowded there and there was a huge chaos in the ticket counter, we spent close to an hour getting entry tickets to the caves.
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| Crowd outside Borra caves for buying entry tickets |
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| Lightings inside the caves |
But I must say once we got inside the caves we all were awestruck seeing the beauty of the caves and how they were naturally formed like that. We spent around 2 hours inside the cave enjoying the beauty and the formations inside it.
Left from there by 2 PM and drove uphill to Araku Valley for lunch. Stopped by Hotel Rajdhani for lunch around 3:30 PM. Food was good there, I felt it was little expensive though. Next we went to Tribal museum within Araku Town which maintains different collection of items used by the tribal people.
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| Masks used by Tribal people |
Luckily, the day we went there was the starting day for Araku Valley festival and so the atmosphere was completely festive and good to be around. Started to descending down the mountains, reached downhill took a short coffee break and managed to reach back Anakapalle by around 9 PM.
We learned that we had to stay in Araku Valley to cover most of the places over there and also to enjoy the serenity with nature!
Day 6 :
Started back from Anakapalle to Nidadavole by 7:30 AM, took breakfast break near Annavaram by 8:30AM and managed to reach Rajahmundry town by 10:00 AM. Just stopped near the main Pushkar Ghat in Rajahmundry where you can get a complete view of the mighty river Godavari.
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| View from the Pushkar Ghat, Rajahmundry |
Reached back Nidadavole by 11:00 AM. We had our train back to Chennai by evening 4:30 PM to end the awesome Andhra trip.
Day 7 :
Reached back Chennai by early morning around 6:30 AM. Spent the entire day at my brother's house discussing about the good times and memories of the trip we had in the past 5 days :-)
Day 8 (28/12/2015) :
Boarded train back to Bangalore to end the leisurely vacation.
Overall, it was a great get together for the entire family. It was such a refreshing trip, though we didn't cover a lot of places, the time spent with the near and dear ones were priceless. This trip has definitely created a lot of great memories to cherish for all of us.
