Last week of Dec-2019
This road trip took lot of planning. Destination was easy to find, accommodation was even easier to fix.
However, convincing my kids and wife was the tough part as they need to sit through the entire journey and literally do nothing.
Now the next step started, what do I carry for such a long journey? Its not that I was travelling for the first time. This was a new territory, longer duration and a new car also. All my earlier drives have been along a very familiar terrain of Western Ghats and at max of about 7 hours.
This was definitely different, challenges of different kind though.
Driving through plains, lone driver, with occasionally awake passengers, who wake up to munch something or ask time and how far yet to reach.
I think that’s enough of a prelude. Lets start with the experiences of the journey.
So, we started our journey on Sunday morning after waking up early and finishing all the morning rituals. Kids as usual got up along with us all excited (very fussy and sleepy when they need to go to school) and helping us pack the last few things.
We packed our South Indian staple breakfast (idlis and coconut chutney) as we knew we will not have too many options on the way.
By about 6:30 in the morning we were cruising well beyond sleepy Devanahalli on NH44 towards our next destination which was Hyderabad. Three hours on we were pretty close to Anantapur.
The landscape was getting more drier, small hillocks started appearing, and absence of vegetation or trees was getting evident. We saw lot of crops typical of these arid areas like, sweet corn, and other millets. Groundnut is a very major crop of these areas, but looks like it was already harvested, could not see anything similar to groundnuts as we drove by.
About 50KMs before the KIA factory, boards started appearing in Korean and English. Lots of advertisement of different things Korean. Apparently there is a good Korean supermarket, eateries very close to the highway. There were many factories, possibly ancillary plants for the KIA. Large Korean settlement was also visible. We finally crossed the KIA factory.
Once we crossed the KIA Factory, our frantic search began to find a suitable place where we could use the loo. We kept searching, breakfast done, beverages went in and pressure increased.
Me and my son used the vast expanse of traditional Indian way of “washing against the tree” , but women folk, decided to go slow on beverages and wait for a suitable place.
I am sure we all know the joke about “Washing against the tree”.
An Indian, new to England and its culture, was invited to dinner to his new found Englishman friends’ house. As soon as he arrived, his hostess asked him, “Do you wish to wash?”. He replied, “No, I already washed my hands”. The hostess smiled and said, “My dear Gentleman, to wash, means, if you want to use the bathroom”. Our friend was equally quick to learn and proudly said, “No thanks. I washed against the tree”.
Finally skipping all the dhabhas that dotted landscape, we could find a place called “Food Pyramid”, near Kanimetta, about 30KMs after Kurnool. This was also mentioned by many bloggers, good enough to park and use the facilities. Oh my god! This was the Oasis we were looking for.
There are many dhabhas on the way, which may have good food, but I definitely could not dare to eat at any of those places.
As we say in Kannada ” ರುಚಿ ಬೇಕ ಶುಚಿ ಬೇಕ ” — You want taste or hygiene?
Food Pyramid, gave us what we have been looking for a very long time. It also had an enclosure which had some rabbits. They were even selling rabbits. Don’t get wierd ideas, these are supposed to be pets. Does not matter what you do with them after you get home. I am told they taste very good and are now reared like poultry. Strange are the ways of humans.
Anyways, we had some quick lunch. But as fate would have it, we were early by 30mins for their famous north-Indian cuisine. We had to do with plate meals, which my fussy kids found too hot for their palate. Having our fill, we resumed our journey.
One thing needs to be mentioned, these guys had very thoughtfully put covered parking for cars. I am sure it will be very helpful in the summers, its really hot in these parts of the country. This guy has good connection with NHAI, they have made provision, so that this is accessible from either side of road. People travelling from HYD to BLR can also cross over and access it.
Refreshed, we were well on our way to Taj Banjara our next abode for next few days. The traffic scenario totally changes as soon as we get into Hyderabad. It’s much more chaotic than Bangalore, I would say.
Hyderabad :
Prominent places we visited:
1. Ramoji Film City
2. Salarjung Museum
3. Golkonda fort
4.Yadagirigutta (Lakshmi Narasimha swamy Kshetra)
5. Surendrapuri (mythological theme park, neat Yadagirigutta. This is better avoided)
6. Necklace road and Lumbini gardens
Taj Banjara — No surprises here. One of the oldest luxury hotels in the city. Taj hospitality top notch. We settled into our room. Planning for our city tour over the next few days.
Ramoji — We went to Ramoji the next day. Thanks to Google, I had to drive through all the possible narrow lanes of the old city. Finally reached our destination.
Well, it has changed a lot since I visited this place in 1999. It was a long time ago then. They have busses from the ticket counter/parking to the main gate, which is about 5 KMs away. It was overcrowded, given that it was the last week of the year.
Good manicured gardens, film sets, well organised tours, it was fun overall for the kids.
They have added a bird and butterfly park which are really good.
Charminar — Got to climbthe tower and have a view from the top. This is really amazing. This has been restored very well.
And of course the world famous Salarjung museum.
Visakhapatnam:
Places we visited:
1 Arku valley and Borra caves
2. Simhachalam temple
3. Ramakrishna Beach
4. Kailasagiri (this has the ropeway to reach the top)
5. War memorial
6. Submarine museum
7. Matsya Dharshini Aquarium
8. Vizag Port
After spending couple of days we headed out to Visakhapatnam. Its about 640KMs from Hyderabad. The route we took was Hyderabad-Vijayawada-Vizag. The roads till Vijayawada was very good. Fast tags work almost all the toll booths.
Crossing Vijayawada took us about 45mins, once we were out of the city, we were cruising well on the GQ. But I would say that the GQ was not unto the quality, the roads were uneven. This was probably due to heavy truck traffic. Again, its 4 lanes for most of the distance, bridges under construction, and village traffic on opposite direction. We were literally averaging around 70KMpH for this segment.
Again, this stretch does not have any decent eateries, where we could stop. We had to do with the packed stuff we had got from Taj banjara.
Finally we reached Vizag by about 5:30pm in the evening. Getting through the chaotic city traffic was some effort. Kids made good use of the sickness bags that I had bought (learnings from the past). I think the kids were exhausted by the long drive.
Finally we checked in to our hotel.
Fortune Inn Sreekannika : This is part of the ITC group. The entry was a major let down. Entry is at parking level, reception is one floor above this. The elevator is at the mercy of the security. We have to lug our luggage and get onto the reception. It was departure from the hospitality of Taj.
I had the privilege of staying with one more Fortune Inn, in Bhubaneswar, it was not as bad as this one. Anyways, the staff was clueless on how to handle situations, always looking over their shoulder for instructions.
We were given a big room, suite ?, not sure. It was partitioned into a sitting room and a bed room. We ended up hitting our feet on different pieces of furniture as we moved along. It was packed with furniture beyond what that room can hold.
It had a Gym, which had definite guest hours, but was generally locked. I had to request them to open this up. Food quality was average.
Anyways, this is what we had. We set about making plans for our sightseeing.
Vizag offers lots of places for sightseeing from Navy submarine museums, warfare museum, a few good parks and one park on the hill top. The highlight was the rope-way to reach the park. Vizag has a very good Narasimha temple (Simhachalam)
One day was dedicated to Arku valley. Very beautiful place in the eastern ghats. We visited the Borra caves in Arku Valley. Its a naturally formed irregular shapes in limestone. Beautiful place, but somehow the tourist department decided to light it up with some crazy colour lights to kill the natural beauty. Simple white/off-white lights should have done the trick.
Vizag has a very good beaches, some of them offer paragliding also. The beach road in the main town Ramakrishna Beach, has some lively festivals going on every time.
Having pent some good 3 days in Vishakapatnam, it was time to head home, through the same Hyderabad and Bangalore. It was a good return journey.
— Nandagopal
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