Road to Vizag...

This weekend was going to be interesting. Venkata had arranged a weekend road trip to an area called Vizag, about 700km away from Hyderabad. Now given how Indians drive and the general state of the roads, some might think this was a tad foolish - but I was up for an adventure.  You have to take advantage of these opportunities. We were joined by Jayachand (JC for short), who would be sharing the driving with Venkata. We set off at 3:30pm on Friday.  It was nice to get out of hyderabad for a change and leave all the crowds behind. The scenery became more rural, and I saw lots of buffalo & goats being taken back to their pens for the night. Sometimes they were on the road, but this is normal in India. The road at this stage was good, but sometimes you'd get a car going the wrong way, heading straight towards us! Ventaka said this is normal - no rules in India! We stopped for dinner after about 6 hours in a busy town on the river Krishna. We had butter chicken with nan bread - really nice. It was dark now and we still had another 6 hours to go! I managed to get some sleep but not much.

Sunrise over Araku Valley

At about 6:30 am we entered a region called Araku Valley - famous as a region of outstanding natural beauty and an indigenous local tribe who inhabit the area. We started climbing up into the mountains and had a great view of the sun rising. We also spotted some monkeys who seemed very interested in us - much to the dismay of JC, who quickly got back in the car! We continued to our hotel - The Hill Resort in the town of Araku. The location was fantastic - looking out over part of the lush valley, with paddy fields and jungle in the distance. We had a late breakfast, then had a rest in the rooms. After an hour we got back in the car and went for a drive, ending up at a tribal village. The houses were very basic, with old clay roofs. They grow all their own food, and keep goats, chickens and buffalo.

The markets we saw were filled with amazing looking vegetables - all organic of course. We returned to the hotel late afternoon. For dinner Venkata had asked then to prepare a local speciality - chicken cooked in a piece of bamboo on an open fire. They put out a table for us right by the fire. It was a great end to the day - sitting outside, chatting, drinking beer and eating great food. At one point a whole colony of large bats flew overhead.

Vegetables at local market

Preparing the chicken in bamboo

Talk of  recent tigers sightings in the area caught our attention.  Apparently one of the locals had seen a tiger cross a road beside a small temple where it drank from a pool before heading into the jungle further down the valley. We were considering heading out to that area to see f we could see it - probably the beer talking, then thought better of it. The chances of seeing it were negligible, plus the roads at night would be very dangerous. Still, it was nice to know that they were out there.