A day's trip to Srisailam The trip to Srisailam was awesome! I was the one who was the most excited to make this happen. With friends getting busy with their lives and getting married, its a bit difficult to convince people for this trip. Finally I could convince 3 of my college friends and when my wife told the same thing at our office, 4 of our colleagues also got ready. So overall we were 9 people in 2 cars and we decided the trip date as 17th Feb.
A slightly late start was a bit concerning as we were late by almost 1.5 hours.... but once we started there was no looking back. 4 of my office friends also joined, 3 guys and one lady. Overall we were 7 guys and 2 ladies in two cars, Estilo and Alto.
I was enjoying my drive in the Alto and lots of pics were taken enroute..... of sunrise, when we had tea in Kandukur (if i'm not wrong), in Dindi at breakfast, in Dindi at the reservoir.... the morning was beautiful. Dindi is about 110 kms from Hyd.
Then when we started for the ghats it was again wonderful although the sun was a little harsh... we were literally sitting on the road and taking pics just before the ghat section starts.... finally we started ascending and the twists and turns were exciting, so were the monkeys.....
Finally after crossing a check post at Mannanur, we reached the tiger reserve's gate where we clicked some good pics with the tiger (the unreal one obviously :-) ). After some good smooth roads through the forest we reached the road that takes us to the waterfalls (Mallelateertham). It was a muddy road (almost 8 kms, just muddy road with rocks and sand) with the car having to take a lot of strain..
Finally we reach and descend down (some 200 odd steps) and have an awesome time at the beautiful waterfall. This is unlike other waterfalls and looks very scenic and untouched. The water was very cold and it was lots of fun and a little painful to stand under it! But everyone enjoyed, thats important....
Then after spending almost 1.5 hours at the waterfall we started climbing those 200 odd steps to reach the top.... It was sooooooooooo tiring..... guess we all are growing old now.... :-)
We started frm there, reached the main road, took some snacks and started for Srisailam. From here the roads are mostly thru the ghats and the jungle. It was lovely, and suddenly Gerry and Rose decided to sit in the dikki and they had fun sitting there and waving at the other car in which my office friends were cruising behind.
Finally we reached the dam site, although the gates were closed, the dam and the reservoir on the other side are a great sight to the eyes....
We crossed by the bridge to the other side and started ascending again to reach Srisailam. Just 9 kms before Srisailam we had lunch, it was almost 2... Then finally wle reached the main Srisailam by around 3. The temple was closed and everyone decided to go to Patalaganga.
One not so good thing that happened was that one of our office friends wasn't feeling well, probably suffered from Motion sickness.... and he was vomiting for almost the last 20-30 kms to Srisailam.
Aft reaching Patalaganga, we took tickets for ropeway and boat ride. Only 6 of us went 4 guys and 2 gals, with 3 of them staying back with the unwell friend as he wasn't in a situation to come.
The boat ride was awesome as we all were sitting at the front edge of the boad, something like titanic, but we didn't stand :-) It was an awesome experience.... But we didn't go in the round boats, which I guess are also fun to go in but a little scary for ppl like me :-)
Aft having a good time there we started back for Hyd at around 6:15 and once darkness set in at around 7 it was an adventurous and a little scary drive through the forest with just the moonlight. You just have to experience this drive to believe it.... IT is really adventurous.
We encountered strange things on this way. At one place lot of ppl dressed like Sadhus were walking on the road, Madhu told us they were some bhakts. Rose thought they were naxalites :-) got a little scared. At another place a group of youngsters who had come in a sumo or safari were dancing in the middle of the junge aft parking their vehice with lights on and were shouting at cars passing by....
The ride back was good but once we descended from the ghats, the ride got a little bumpy as the speed increased and I missed about 2-3 speed breakers due to bad light and no road signs.... My friends at the back were cursing me for not spotting those speed breakers.... Sorry guys!!!, I guess I need to be a little slow and more careful the next time.... :-) The car took a lot of brunt, but brought us home safely.
I was just dying to get home and get on the bed. My eyes were sore as i slept for only 2 hours the previous night. Finally reached home at around 11.15PM and that was the end of an exciting, funfilled, adventurous and a tiring day. :-) |