Thursday, January 12, 2012

Roadtrip to Orissa from Bangalore Day 1


Roadissi   Day One
 
Day Plan : Non-stop drive to Visakhapatnam
Travel Route : Bangalore- Hoskote (NH 4) - Chintamani (SH 82)- Madanapalle (NH 205)- Rayachoti (NH 40) - Kadapa (NH 40) - Badvel - Pamuru (AP SH61) - Kandukur (NH 5) - Ongole (NH 5) - Guntur (NH 5) - Rajamundry (NH 5) - Visakhapatnam (NH5)
Distance : About 1000 km
Estimated Travel Time : 12 hours excluding breaks
Landscape at  Karnataka - Andhra Border
Welcome to Andhra Pradesh
We started right on time on day one and as usual, after offering prayers at  Lord Hanuman's temple  for a safe and happy journey, continued our drive. We stopped by for some breakfast at Madanpalle. Driving further, we had to take a deviation from NH 205 towards Rayachoti. Though the initial stretch of the road was under construction, later on, the condition of roads only improved. All of a sudden, something huge appeared before our eyes and caught our attention! It was the beautiful hill fort of Gurramkonda. Now, we were in two minds about exploring this place. After a few minutes of analysis and coming to a conclusion that it would take us at least three hours to explore the fort, and  since we had set ourselves a time limit, without wasting any more time, we quickly took a shot of it and  promised to visit this place again.
Gurram-Konda Fort
View of NH 40 from Kadapa Ghat
Via Rayachoti, we proceeded further towards Kadapa (famous for its stone slabs, popularly called as Kadapa stone). A few kilometers before reaching Kadapa,  a  short stretch of ghat section welcomes us to view the natural beauty of Kadapa. Hereon, we reached Mydukur and after crossing Badvel, we visited the Lord Rama temple by the road side. At the first look,  the temple looked like it was built by the Vijayanagar Kings, though not sure. It seemed to have undergone some renovations. A small well existed near the temple, which was built using Kadapa stones. The water level in the well was quite high and the construction was neat.
The Tall & Lovely Raja Gopura of  Lord  Chennakeshava Temple
Lord Rama Temple at Badvel
 Mosaic Designs
Lord Rama
The Well
Water Level in the Well
Our  Dear Travel Partner !! 
Proceeding further towards our destination, we reached a place called Duttalur at around 12:30 pm and  on reading our map for route confirmation, we realised the presence of a fort around by this place. We had traveled around 450 km until now. We allotted ourselves about thirty minutes to explore the fort as we had to travel 550 km from now on and reach Vizag before 10:00 pm. The Fort had much more to offer than we thought.  

The dance shall continue .........

23 comments:

  1. too good...i'm out of words to say anything, its quite some time since i did a long journey as this, keep it coming :)

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  2. The 'dance' is off to a quiet and steady start.....

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  3. Seriously, too good and I can visualize the pleasure of going there...

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  4. Thanks for including us on your travels. You've shown the disadvantage of having a fairly strict schedule -- no time to explore unexpected finds along the way. Your pictures are wonderful.

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  5. Wow!! A great start to a long journey.. waiting for the next episode..

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  6. Awesome start to an amazing journey.


    www.rajniranjandas.blogspot.com

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  7. Waiting for the full story and of course the discoveries along

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  8. These are terrific captures.
    Great journey! Stay safe!

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  9. I envy you guys... Also i love you for the sheer passion of travel.. Excellent Start... Eagerly waiting for the rest of the journey...

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  10. I wanted to do Chennai-Vizag drive but it didn't materialize. Eventually visited Vizag by air & train in 2010

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  11. Awesome............giftwithlove.com

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  12. beautiful journey
    journey should continue

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  13. I loved the travelogue. The journey would have been a real endurance test. Gurramkonda literally means "Horse Hill"

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  14. Wonderful journey with interesting images. Look forward for more.

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  15. Must have been a terrific trip. Thanks for sharing and waiting to read the next part.

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  16. I love the title "Roadissi". It can't get more apt than this. Waiting for the next post now :-)

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  17. amazing photographs of the journey... u have got a superb eye for capturing places at an angle that makes the photograph perfect... all the pictures of temple and hills are superb... not a detail missed:)

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  18. Great start to a grand roadtrip. 1000kms in one day is not a matter of joke, hats off for pulling it off in style, wish you many more miles ahead!

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  19. the square construction round the well - that's so strange. never seen a well like that before.

    love the first line of the above comment. the kannadiga in me is smiling :)

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