[octane78]

Last year 2010 me, wifey and a friend with his wife set out to explore Andhra towards the coastal side. So off we went to Rajahmundry and did a trip to Papikondalu on the river Godavari. We went to Coconut country Dindi to go on a boat cruise on a house boat but alas the boats were under construction, so wife was disappointed to the core. Prior to that 2 years in a row been to Konaseema with friends and spent time on the house boats relaxing and since the house boats were not available when we went with our respective wife’s they were even more furious that we were in that serene location enjoying natures beauty.

Year 2011 and it was it was just the start of monsoon and a long weekend for the 4th of July as it is Americas Independence day (Last 3 years we have been doing the trip to Konaseema during this time because of monsoon starting and the greenery around is pure nirvana).

Checked with my friend if he was ready to do the trip for the 4th time but he dropped out, checked with wife's sister and her husband if they were game for the trip but it did not materialise. So told wifey that we shall do it and initial plan was to start on the 1st of July early in the morning but due to some prior commitments was unable to start. This being a long weekend was really apprehensive if we could get the house boat booked for 24 hours. Visited APTDC booking office at Begumpet at 11 AM on the 1st and booking was confirmed. So the wait began, wife was supposed to finish work and come home by evening but that did not happen and she finally wound up work and was home by 9:30PM.

Initial plan was to start by 10:00PM but ended up starting by 11:30PM in the night. The whole journey till Vijayawada was uneventful and that is when it started raining and the time was 5:00AM in the morning. Did not cross 100 KMPH and the Scorpio gave an amazing mileage of 15.2 KMPL. Once we crossed Vijayawada NH 5 starts and it was a amazing road and I let the throttle open and the Scorpio (Maverick-2) was just amazingly blasting off on the roads towards our destination. The plan was to reach Dindi before 10:00AM as the house boat starts at 10:30AM. Since the roads were amazing after Vijayawada reached Dindi by 8:00AM

Route taken from Hyderabad to Dindi



Few teaser pictures

On the way to Dindi


Wet roads all the way




Haritha coconut country board welcomes you


A private guest house


Inside the resort


Way to the house boats


Docked houseboats


Jack fruit tree


Maverick-2 after being parked at the resort


To be continued.

[octane78]

Since we reached by 8:00AM we still had time till 10:00AM until the boat operators would come and do all the mandatory checks before we sail off.

Since we had time to kill we went to the restaurant and had breakfast which was pathetic. This was the first time that breakfast really sucked at this place as in the previous visits we never faced any problem with food. So half heartedly finished our breakfast and whiled away our time walking in the rain soaked resort.

We were advised by the resort management not to stay in the house boat at night as there was cyclone warning and the boat would toss us around and we were in a fix because all the rooms in the resort were booked.

Me and wifey were in a fix as to what to do if we do not get the room and so we decided to sleep in our beloved Maverick-2. All set and the time was 10AM and the boat operators arrived and we were let into our boat.

The boat has 2 AC rooms with an upper deck where you can sit and relax and since we booked the whole boat we had both the bed rooms for ourselves.

Since we just arrived and we first went in and freshened ourselves and the boat started. It was drizzling and the view was mesmerising and pictures would not do justice to the actual feeling that you experience.

The boat would go on a cruise on the back waters for about 3 hours and get you back to the resort for lunch after which it would start again and take you to another Island and dock there, where you could do a bit of trekking.

[octane78]

Pictures from the start of the boat journey.

Room no 1 of the boat


View inside the bedroom






The coffee at the resort was simply amazing it really helped me refresh after a nights long journey


We set sail leaving the other house boats behind.




Relaxing after freshening up.


You look left and right you will find thousands and thousands of coconut trees drenched in the rain.

[octane78]

Few more pics from the first part of the journey until we returned to the resort for some lunch.

That is Narsapur Village on one side


That is another village on the other side the name which I dont remember.


Back waters of Konaseema






That is the ferry that is used by people and their vehicles to cross from Narsapur to the other village on the other bank.




A fishing steamer


You can see an auto being ferried across.




Me and wifey on top of the deck






Beauty of Konaseema words cannot describe the beauty and aura of this place.






Wifey piloting the boat


Feels good to pilot a boat apart from the usual wheels (On the boat you need to steer right to turn left and vice versa)


Rope attached to the anchor


Final shot before we stop at the resort for lunch.

[octane78]

When we set sail we took the number of the waiter at the resort restaurant to order lunch. So we ordered lunch when we were half way back to the resort.

Strange thing that I noticed in most of the AP tourism resorts that they dont serve Rotis in the afternoon and would be served only in the night. Experienced the same when we went to Suryalanka in the month of May.

Lunch was ready as soon as we arrived which consisted of
1. Veg manchuria dry
2. One Jeera Rice
3. One Curd Rice
4. One Dal fry

Food was ok would rate it 6 out of 10. The quality of food has been going down at AP tourism resorts from last year.

Since I did not sleep from the past 30 hours I was feeling sleepy so I dozed off for an hour and instructed the boat driver to wake us up after an hour and we could start for the next part of the journey.

Got up fresh after an hour feeling completely refreshed and with the weather being so pleasant and the fresh air really rejenuvates you in no time.

It was lovely to sit on the upper deck with the cool breeze blowing around and sipping barley water .

The next leg of our journey was towards an island which is around 200 acres as told by the boat supervisor. You get to go on to the island and explore it. We had a lovely time here getting into the water.

It is said that this place is called "Ubhaya Godavari" and it is a good place to have bath which cleanses us of our sins or something like that as told by the boat supervisor. We did not have our bath but got into the water and collected some shells.

To be continued.

[octane78]

Some pictures from the second leg of the journey towards the Island (Honestly I dont remember the name of the Island which was told to us by the boat operator).

This is what kept our beverages cold through out.


That is a Pvt guest house owned by a US returned Doctor who resides in Hyderabad and he has another house on an Island to have parties and teh 2 boats that you see are to ferry people to that island (As told by the boat operator). The doctor owns most of the coconut farms around is what we heard.


Chinchinada Bridge


People busy with their daily chores


The uniqueness of this Palm tree is that it has 5 branches growing out of the main branch which is usually supposed to have only one branch.


Some more pics of the Palm tree.




More Coconut farms




Those tree stumps are placed in the water so that teh fisherman can tie their nets between them and the fish get stuck in those nets. Every year these are auctioned and the bid goes for around 2 to 2.5 Lakhs for the place between 2 branches (As told to us by the boat operator)


Docked at the island




Posing on the Island


Playing in the water








The sand is so soft that your leg sinks in.




Collecting shells




Our house boat docked




We have to be very careful at the edges of the island as you can see in this picture. The land abruptly ends and it is very deep which can be made out by the colour of the water.


Final pose before we are off from the island.


Shells




Beauriful sunset, this was the only time we could see teh sun in the whole day.




At night after 6:30 the boats are not allowed to ply on the waters failing so they would be heavily fined.

This is because after 6:30 the fisherman would ley their nets and the sound from the motor boats would scare the fish away.

By the way the engine on the house boat was a Mahindra tractor engine, the boat operator said that these are the only engines which last long and have traouble free maintenance.

We got down at the resort and drove down to Razole town which is around 9 kms away to buy some snacks and returned back to the boat and ordered our dinner which consisted of

1. Phulka
2. Tomato Curry
3. Curd

Dinner was good would rate 8 out or 10.

Since it was a Saturday wife does not eat non-veg so we survived on veg the whole day.

The boat attendant made me a nice fishing rod with a hook and string attached to a long stick and in the night I tried my luck but could not catch any fish so left the bait in the water the whole night but was unsuccesful as I could not catch any fish. Slept like a log due to the lack of proper sleep and the effect of barley water and woke up fresh the next morning. The weather here really makes you active and gets you rejenuvated.

To be continued...

[octane78]

It was a beautiful morning on Sunday with the weather being cloudy and we woke up and enjoyed the sound of the water hitting the hull of the boat and the chirping of a few birds. We were supposed to checkout by 9:00AM from the house boat but we could only check out by 10:00AM. We walked to the resorts reception to clear our bills and we were not in a mood to have our breakfast at the resort because of the bad experience we had the previous day.

Plan for the day was to visit a place called Antharvedi which is a place where the river Godavari meets the Bay of Bengal. The distance was around 25 kms as told by the people in the resort. Plan was to have breakfast in some town which we would be passing through on the way which was a bad decision as we could not find any place for having our breakfast.

Finally reached Antarvedi and the drive through the tiny villages was simply superb and the roads through out were good except the fact that they were narrow. From Antarvedi we went to a famous temple in that area and prayed there and then started our journey towards Vijayawada.

We had tried to go into the light house but there was not a soul around to let us in. Guess it being a Sunday it was closed.

Few pictures from the drive through the villages and Antarvedi.

Drive through the villages








The light house at Antarvedi


A construction site just opposite to the light house


Way towards the beach










This is where the river meets the sea. It was a beautiful site but the place around was not maintained properly.








View of the light house from the beach.


Maverick-2 standing tall.


That is the Laksminarasimha Swamy temple at Antarvedi.


We finally had Dosa from this place adjacent to the temple. The Dosa was simple awesome with some chutney which was out of this world.


Encountered this on the way back towards Dindi towards Vijayawada.

[octane78]

On the way back we stopped on Chinchinada bridge and took a few photograps and drove back towards Vijayawada.

Few pictures on Chinchinada Bridge.





That is the Pvt guest house of the Doctor which I had mentioned earlier.


That is the view of the house boats from top of the bridge




This is the way the water flows towards the Bay of Bengal




Final picture on the bridge

[octane78]

We reached Vijayawada by 4:00PM and went to my aunt's place had a great lunch and then bid bye to them and thought we would leave for Hyderabad but it was not be.

We were still in the holiday mood and we still had a Monday off so we decided to stay back at Vijayawada and visit a few relatives the next day and then start by 3:00PM on the 4th.

So turned towards M.G.Road and went to Garuda hotel which is a very decent budget hotel. The last time we stayed there we booked rooms for around 1500 per day, but alas there were no rooms. So we drove on to another hotel suggested by the hotel staff at Garuda which was Midcity which is a brand new hotel.

Rooms were awesome sand since it being a brand new hotel the rooms still linger with the smell of fresh paint which was very much bearable. I guess we were the first one's to occupy this particular room. The cost of room for a day was 2200 with complimentary breakfast which is all what we needed. We ordered dinner in the room itself which was awesome.

Dinner consisted of
1. Veg Manchuria
2. Tandoori Chicken
3. Roti
4. Cashew Kofta curry
5. Curd rice

Food was awesome would rate it 9 out of 10.

Would recomend this hotel to people planning to stay in Vajayawada.

Crashed for the night and had a peaceful sleep. Morning we were up by 10:00AM and we went down for the complimentary buffet breakfast which was simple superb. After the breakfast we visited few of wifes relatives and started from Vijayawada around 5:30PM with a VIP darshan of Maa Bhavani at the starting of Vijayawada.

Stopped for dinner at "7" after Suryapet which consisted of

1. Mini Veg thali for wife
2. One Chicken teriyaki 6 inch sub for me.

Thali was ok would rate it 6 out of 10.

Started from Suryapet and reached Hyderabad by 11:00PM and since it was a Telangana bandh for the next 2 days filled Maverick and reached home by 11:30PM.

Pictures from the drive back to Vijayawada and the hotel room in which we stayed.





This is where you take a left turn on NH 5 towards Dindi.


NH 5


Vijayawada Airport from far




Hotel room at Midcity




Food was yummy considering it to be a brand new hotel.


Buffet breakfast in the morning


The picture says it all


Enterance to the temple


Bhavani Island, AP Tourism has got a resort on this Island and we need to get there by boat.


parting picture from Vijayawada.


Temple on the highway.




Over all a great trip and we both were really rejenuvated to again start the gruelling work schedule.

Thank you all for reading.

Adios till the next trip.

[GTO]

Thread moved from the Assembly Line to the Travelogues Forum. Thanks for sharing!

[techn0l0gist]

Originally Posted by octane78

Final picture on the bridge
Attachment 577406

Whats that pointed knife like thingie in front of the bonnet for ? Won't it pierce and kill a pedestrian if you hit one ?

[dinesha]

^^^
Plastic cover covering the Indian flag on Bonnet Flag Rod (Old Style)

[Night_Hawk]

Originally Posted by octane78

It was lovely to sit on the upper deck with the cool breeze blowing around and sipping barley water .

Excellent Narration and nice pcitures. Your trip refreshes my thoughts of my recent visit to konaseema. Awesome place to relax and enjoy.Thanks for sharing the details

The low camera angle photgraphs taken at the island are superbly composed.

Originally Posted by octane78

Midcity which is a brand new hotel.
Rooms were awesome sand since it being a brand new hotel the rooms still linger with the smell of fresh paint which was very much bearable. I guess we were the first one's to occupy this particular room. The cost of room for a day was 2200 with complimentary breakfast which is all what we needed.

During our return trip we had stayed at VJA at a new hotel by name "Hotel Nagamani" just opposite to NTR health university. Decent hotel with a nice restaurant "Central spice" Rs 1200+ Tax

[gajadonga]

Nice travelogue and good pictures.Never knew that there are houseboats in AP just like in
Kerala.
Thanks for sharing

[techn0l0gist]

Originally Posted by dinesha

^^^
Plastic cover covering the Indian flag on Bonnet Flag Rod (Old Style)

I believe it is illegal unless it is the official car of certain high ranking government officials.