[Mystic]

Being a local of Visakhapatnam living by beach at 0 feet above MSL, we take it for granted presence of Araku just 3 hours away reaching to a peak height of more than 4 K feet above MSL.

The last time I visited Araku was in 2002 when my son was 5 years old and we were just watching the old videos of that trip. My son who is a Professor now in USA came for a visit to India and suggested that we should go visit Araku again now and shoot videos at the same places as in 2002. As he is working from home on week days, I am forced to plan the trip on a weekend ( weekends traffic in Araku is a nightmare as per my friends ). I checked online for AP tourism resort accommodation and found that there is no vacancy on the weekends but available on weekdays. I kept on refreshing the page multiple times for a couple of hours, suddenly 2 suites were vacant and immediately I booked.

We started in the morning at 7 am and the journey for the first half was smooth as it is a state highway. The ghat section at the peak is gridlocked with cars parked on both sides for views and the traffic especially tourist buses in both directions cannot pass through the narrow place available in between. We were standing still at one place for about 2 hours and finally the police cleared the gridlock. Surprised to see the police with machine guns.

I drove through the western ghats multiple times and had experience on the hairpin bends. I never drove on eastern ghats as we usually prefer to go by train for the breath taking views through the tunnels. Now, we have vista dome glass coaches with revolving chairs but it is difficult to get seats unless booked much in advance.

Now that we have a mountain goat Jimny, we wanted to try this trip by road. The drive is a cake walk for Jimny. It went in D drive ( no where I disengaged the overdrive or put the car in lower gear manually in 2 or L ) all the way through all hair pin bends without a sweat. At some places there was a detour due to some construction work and my son was impressed by the way Jimny could handle the off road in those small stretches with ease due to its high ground clearance ( by the way he drives Audi A5 sports line with a ground clearance of just 4 inches in USA ).

We visited the Padmapuram botanical gardens and did the video shoot at the same places where we had shot 2 decades ago back. There is not much change in the garden but it should be appreciated that it is being maintained in the same state for decades.

The tribal museum is a must visit place with a lot of new additions done recently. Just beside the tribal museum, we have the coffee museum which is also very impressive.

We went to see the Chaparai waterfalls also. The place is very scenic and nothing much to talk about water falling ( We had seen many waterfalls like Niagara and hence not disappointed ).

Bora Caves. This is an amazing place to visit. Nothing much changed in last 2 decades wrt to facilities except for the modern lighting done by tourism department.

Lastly I am impressed by the Governemnt resort where we stayed overnight (The temp was 9 degrees centigrade as per the car dashboard in the morning at resort. The news says it is the lowest of the season at 3.8 degrees C ). The whole place is very well maintained including the room. No wonder it is very difficult to get accommodation there.

On our way back to Visakhapatnam, we stopped at an amazing place called Ramanarayanam near Vizianagaram. The temple was constructed over 15 acres area based on Ramayana and temple is designed like a Bow and arrow shape. The complete story of Lord Rama, from his birth to his coronation, is impressively depicted. We were told not to take photos inside.


Ghat Section views:










Padmapuram Gardens:






Tribal and Coffee Museums:




















Borra Caves:













Resort:

















Ramnarayanam Temple:





Chaparai Waterfalls:

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[ashkamath]

That was a very well written travelogue. Beautiful pictures and very fluid narration. Glad to hear that Jimny performed well and your family had a great time.

I shall make a note of these places for a possible visit in the future. I stay on the western coast (Goa) and haven't been to east coast, other than Chennai. Thanks for the awesome thread.

[Kkumar]

Nice travelogue with beautiful photos. Thank you for bringing out such a beautiful hidden gem. Just a small query, other than AP tourism are there any private resorts in Araku Valley. Keep on munching miles.