Re: Intercity Bus travel reviews HYD-BPP-OGL-HYD TRIP
Hyderabad-Bapatla-Ongole-Hyderabad Trip
Did a mid-week trip to Bapatla, Ongole and back to attend a religious ceremony near Bapatla, and a friend's wedding at Ongole. Hyderabad to Bapatla was by Shambhavi Globus A/C, Bapatla to Ongole by train (Krishna Express) and Ongole to Hyderabad by APSRTC INDRA A/C.
APSRTC has, off late, started an INDRA A/C service to Bapatla. This service starts from the BHEL area, comes via Lakdi-ka-Pul, does not touch MGBS, and directly comes to Dilsukhnagar. On the day of my travel (27th November), this bus had (surprisingly) 100 % occupancy. APSRTC ONLINE drew a blank when I queried for this service on 27th. I had to go down to the neighbourhood APSRTC booking counter, only to realize that this bus was full. I wasn't too interested in the Super Luxury service, so headed back home and logged on to Abhibus.com, instead of redbus.
Of the options listed, Shambhavi Orange Service was the lone operator with a GLOBUS A/C service. Kaveri Kamakshi, Morning Star and a couple of others, had their regular non-A/C 2 * 2 services available.
I booked a seat, and was surprised when AbhiBus offered me a discount of Rs 19/-. The total fare, at Rs 361/- seemed far reasonable compared to Kesineni's Rs 500/- on their now defunct Volvo service, given the fact that the travel times were almost the same. I was given a reporting time of 22:55 and a boarding time of 23:10 and the boarding point was on the main road, opposite Sai Baba Temple near Dilsukhnagar bus stand.
So, I reached the boarding point, which was on the main road (Vijayawada Highway) at around 22:45, and called up the operator on the number listed on the m-ticket. I was directed to call another number, which was one of the crew's contact numbers. I was told that the bus was around 45 minutes away. Picked up a bread omelet, a bottle of water and continued my wait.
Waiting along with me for his bus to Vizag, was a foreigner. This guy was booked on a Sindhu non A/C 2 * 2, and was trying to get in touch with the Sindhu crew to confirm the bus's arrival time. Looked like he was unable to get through, so continued his wait. Frankly, I was surprised to see a foreigner waiting for a long distance service. Usually folks of his ilk, end up taking a train or a plane.
By around 23:00 to 23:15, a majority of the APSRTC and private buses started turning up. I could count at least 20 Kaveri Kamakshi services, apart from other services belonging to Morning Star, SVR, Dhanunjaya, Sri Kaleswari, Kesineni and others.
An umpteen number of APSRTC Super Luxury and Deluxe services also passed by, each of these had 70 to 80% occupancy. No wonder APSRTC continues to be the first choice amongst the travelling populace in AP, as far as buses are concerned.
My GLOBUS A/C turned up at around 23:40 hours. Took my window seat 6A, only to find the window all boarded up by a huge wooden plank. Never mind, all I had to do was to sleep! The Telugu movie played on board (Chhatrapati) played spoilsport to my plans to go to sleep, and finally, at around 01:00, I had to get up and ordered the movie shut.
Could catch a few winks of sleep - reached Guntur by around 05:00 I guess, and Ponnur by around 06:15, and finally got off near Bapatla New Bus Stand by around 06:45. Overall a decent ride on board the Globus A/C. Seats was comfortable, but the legroom was a problem. A/C was adequate, a blanket was provided, but no water bottle was provided on board. I would give this service a 6/10.
Bapatla to Ongole that same noon was by train (17406 Adilabad - Tirupati Krishna Express). Was surprised to see that train pull up nearly on time at the station (around 14:40 hours). It was a 1 - hour ride to Ongole, and the in spite of the having 4 halts en-route (Chirala, Vetapalem, Chinnaganjam and Ammanabolu), with a WAP-7 loco at the helm, the train managed to do the 65 odd Kms within an hour. The ride in the A/C Chair Car was comfortable.
Having visited the friend's wedding, I landed up at the Ongole bus stand at 23:30 to board the Nellore - Hyderabad INDRA A/C supposed to turn up at 23:45. As I turned up at the bus stand, a Garuda operating the Vijayawada Bengaluru Service was waiting to depart. KSRTC's multi-axle Mercedes Benz operating the Vijayawada Bengaluru service also turned up soon after, and left after a 5-minute halt. Amongst other services were a Chennai bound APSRTC Super Luxury, a BHEL bound Garuda, and Deluxe services to Tirupati and Vijayawada. Our INDRA finally turned up around 00:10.
Again, couldn't get proper sleep in the bus. The roads near Macherla were real bad, and our guy had to go real slow. Macherla came in at around 03:30, and again slept off. We finally joined the Vijayawada highway near LB Nagar around 06:30 and I got off the bus near Moosarambagh Cross Roads around 06:45. |