The Rustic Encounters - Day 1

It was 3 of us coming from 3 different places and bound for one common destination, The unknown. We spread an AP map before us at the Breakfast place and decided that we head towards the east coast on our first leg of journey. We hitched a bus ride to Tada which was on the border of AP and TN and decided we go up north from along the coast.

3 hours of a rocking bus ride later, some guy mentioned of a good waterfall near Varadiahpalem. It was only later that we came to know that these were the Tada Falls. We hired an auto to take us there for 150Rs To and Fro. After about 4 kms from the point the auto dropped us off, we reached a stream and a Tree House. The actual falls were another 3 kms from here. The tree house was more of a platform to construct a rope way across the trees. We negotiated with the officials to let us stay there and the charge was 150 per head. We spoke with the local watchman for food and that guy agreed to make us some at 50 per head. After all the arrangements for the night stay were made, we set out for the falls.

The route to the Falls was an amazing one. The first 3 kms were through a jungle followed by a km where we had to cross the stream through the boulders. It was quite a risky one as the boulders were slippery and hence the fun. It took us about 45 minutes to trudge the final stretch. The falls were really something of a spectacle. The waterfall was cold, high enough and clear. We stayed there for about an hour. We had a tough time fending off the the monkeys who tried stealing things off. We returned back to the tree house by 6 and it was almost twilight. Dinner was served by 7 and that was one of the best meals we have ever had. All we had was breakfast since morning, So owe to the hunger, tiredness or the taste we ate up like there was no tomorrow!

The night was something else. We arranged for a fire by the night and we sat by it till 9. We had a tough time letting the fire burn as we had to find the appropriate wood. We crept up the tree house and decided to call it a day. Sleeping with the constant rumbling of the stream, looking up to the clearest skies I have ever seen and on a tree 10 meters above the ground is something I can't possibly describe in words.

Do check out the pics at Tour Pics

A story of a Night-out, a highway and a Bus!

It was 4.30 in the night... on the Hyderabad Vikarabad highway! 2 cars were cruising along at 80 kmph.. all of a sudden one of the cars meets a bus coming from the opposite side on a narrow bridge and what was to follow was described as a "near death experience" (as described by Gundz). Sounds like a Gult movie flick with an awesome screenplay?? .. The whole story follows ... read on!

There were quite a few members of the Ol' gang who happened to be in Hyderabad on a particular weekend. So some of us decided that we all meet somewhere and do something exciting. As always 'something' always turns out unplanned and a fusion of a series of whims. The planned meet turned out to be a real crowd puller. What initially was intended for 4-5 guys ended up with about 10 of us. Busy people traveled from far off lands to attend this sammelan leaving their assignments behind.

Strangely as planned, all of us met at Hotel Paradise for a round of Hyderabadi biriyani. The next destination was Runway 9. After 2 hours of karting, TT and snookers we all sat down discussing the plan for the night. Given that it was raining all through the day, we left our bikes at a Kompally and stuck with our cars. We then decided that we head for the city and decide the next course of action over dinner. We ended up eating a 5 course meal for about 3 hours. Soups, starters from Peking Palace, Ameerpet and Icecreams from Ohri's Banjara.

At 12.30 we left the city to go to a small hillock located beyond Shamirpet. For 3 hours in the pitch of the night we sat there discussing about college.. jobs .. anything and everything! At about 3.30 we decided that we go and see the Anantagiri forest near Vikarabad. Little did we know what was going to happen next!

Anantagiri is about 70 kms from the city. Driving at 4 in the morning was no easy task.. The road was almost smooth with some exceptions. This actually happened when we almost reached Anantagiri. We went ahead of the Indica and so all I have is a third person account of what happened. The road was really smooth and so the cars were cruising at 80kmph. At one point there was a bus coming in the opposite direction... It was not untill the car almost reached a narrow bridge that they realised that it could not have accomodated both the vehicles. The car managed to stay on the road... the left set of tyres hit the parapet on the bridge leaped half a meter in the air and landed. The rim was bent and tyre punctured.

After half an hour of repair, it was finally fixed and we all strode back ending up skipping the whole forest part. But that was definitely enough adventure for all of us! Some of them were almost sorry that the car did not fall into pit below .. where some where least bothered and busy in scaling their own peaks when others were repairing the car!

That my friends is the story of a night-out, a highway and a bus!

Kuntala - Hyderabad : The Road Trip

Blame it on Murphy's law but that was just the best weather to sleep. Rainy.. dark.. cloudy... and Cold! Well it could be attributed to the fact that we all woke up at 5.30 to begin our trip. With hazy eyes and heavy hearts, we hit the road. We were out of the city by 6.30 as we cruised along the Medchal highway. A couple of drizzles and a railway gate later, we stopped at an obscure village to have awesome sambar idly and piping hot Upma!

Originally we planned to cover the stretch of 250 Kms from Hyderabad to Kuntala falls in 4 -5 hours. But given our regular pit-stops every other hour to admire mother nature took us about 7 hours to reach Nirmal which is 210 from Hyderabad. We stopped to admire lush green meadows at one point and an old dilapidated sentry tower which resembled the scenes from "Dil Chahta hai" a few kms later. These detours turned out brilliant!





Once we were at Nirmal we finished with out lunch at Hotel Mayuri which was supposed to be the best in town(hated it though). We picked up a few beers and headed for Pochera Waterfalls.
The route to the waterfalls was pretty scenic and also included a small stretch of ghats along the NH5. There was greenery all around. The whole day we never caught sight of the sun which made it even more perfect for such a trip.

Though there wasn't too much water around, we enjoyed getting soaked under the water and even ventured into areas we werent officially supposed to go. After about 2 hours at this place we proceeded to Kuntala which was 10 kms off the highway. The walk down to Kuntala was about a 1000 steps and the waterfall was the highest in AP. We once again treaded on the slippery rocks, and climbed the rocks along the waterfall. We managed to give the camera a dip in the holy Kuntala water after which it refused to function anymore.

The most difficult part of the journey was the night drive along the NH5. We started back to Hyderabad at 6.30 and had our dinner at Kamareddi. Owing to the asshole lorry drivers who wouldn't dim their lights on the highway and the heavy downpour, we reached Hyderabad at 11.00.


Route: Hyderabad - Kamareddi - Nirmal - Pochera - Kuntala - Hyderabad.
Vehicle : Maruti 800 (10 years old) - A whopping 17kmpl !!
Cost: 4 of us and 600 for each including fuel, food and beer!

The Tankbund night-out

The only thing that was preplanned to what actually followed was the movie "The Dark Knight". Here is a chronological turn of events and we ended up staying all night!

5.30 pm: There we were frantic calls as nobody had an idea what the schedule was going to be.

8.30 pm: We initially went to the Seventh Heaven in Panjagutta where we kicked off with a chicken Cantonese soup and Chicken Tikka. Owing to the penchant for Chinese I suggested that we go to Peking palace in Ameerpet which serves mouth watering Chinese dishes. Moreover the fact that the food here wasn’t too great didn’t help the case either.

9.00 pm: Peking palace has the best seafood soup and is must try for any of you who adore Chinese food. After a sumptuous dinner, we suddenly got the itch to drink late at night after the movie and hence went to pick up some rum.

10.30 pm: we finally headed for IMAX. The dark knight was a brilliantly executed movie packed with a series of action scenes and powerful dialogues. Heath Ledger and Christian Bale were near perfect.

1.45 am: We headed home and started hogging upon the Snickers and Twix a friend got for us from US. After about an hour of fooling around, we got bored, tired and hungry all at the same time. So we decided to take a small trip in hunt for food at 2.30 in the night.

2.30 am: We knew a couple of places which were open at 3 in the night and on of them was a bread-omlette guy near PVR central mall. Somehow none of us felt like getting back home. So we thought we go pay the Necklace road and the lonely statues at Tankbund a visit. There were also a couple of suggestions like the shamirpet lake, gandipet lake, durgam cheruvu etc.. but finally we settled for the Tankbund

3.00 am: We sat on the wooden benches by the lake side and started discussing issues ranging from Life at USA to the Best of Hollywood. We spoke about gladiator, departed and matt demon and de caprio and the whole world. We didnt know how time passed and it was 5 before we knew it.

5.00 am: we then decided to walk the whole length of tankbund to and fro which was about 4 kms. By now we were completely exhausted due to lack of sleep and so we thought it was high time for some food again

6.00 am: we headed for Swathi Tiffins, near secunderabad railway station and had steaming hot sambar idly, dosa and a cup of coffee.

That is how we ended up roaming on hyderabad city streets, sleeping on tankbund and saw the sun rise!

P.S: tank bund by night courtesy : http://www.flickr.com/photos/harshapvss/232939128/

Hyderabad to Hampi -- A road trip

Hampi, about 450 Kms from Hyderabad, is a heritage town well known for ruins and beautiful temples. Embedded among the boulders is quaint little town with scores of temples dotted all across. Sitting on the banks of the Tungabhadra river, Hampi is a site with great historical and architectural importance.

We had an auspicious start to the journey by getting high on the highway. With 5 of us on board, the Scorpio turned out to be a pretty comfortable ride. We left the city at 10, though it was about 12 by the time we left the outskirts. After an eventful 7 hour long ordeal which essentially included playing 29 and listening to Chirutha songs, we eventually reached Hospet.

Owing to festive season, we found it really hard to get a hotel.The next day we set out to see the ruins and temples of Hampi. We visited various places under the supervision of an ass of a guide whose name I cant even recollect. Virupaksha temple, the aqueduct, King's bath, archeological museum, pushkarini, elephant stables to name a few. Vitthala temple really stood out among the rest with impeccable architecture and the musical pillars. It was about 3.30 by the time we completed all sight-seeing after which we proceeded to the mango tree restaurant. I wonder if it was the hunger or the exhaustion, but we just loved the food and the place. This place provides a wonderful view of river tungabhadra and the whole experience makes you want to come back atleast for this.

It turns out that liquor in Hospet is pretty cheap. So we had a small party going on for us and it was ... wait for it.. wait for it... Legendary!! Although it was just a 3 day trip, which included 2 days for traveling, it was worth it.

Enroute to Palar Trek

This trek is organized by the Govt. of karnataka forest dept. It starts at M.M.Hills and is a 2 day trek. The first day halt is at naagamale and the trek gets finished at Palar. It is rated very difficult by the website mysterytrails.com. M.M.Hills is supposed to be a pilgrimage of some sort dedicated to lord Shiva.

We all started from Bangalore on a Friday morning and it took about 7 hours by bus to reach from the Bangalore bus station to MM Hills. Given our large group it was a comfortable bus ride. We took a night halt at MM Hills and started the trek the next day. Accommodation is fairly difficult to get owing to the fact that MM Hills is a pilgrimage spot. One might want to plan this part in advance.

On day 1, we started the trek at about 11 in the morning. It was about 14 kms from MM Hills to naagamale. The first half of the trek was fairly easy as the terrain was relatively smooth except for a few areas. Given the higher altitudes, the climate is really cool and welcoming. We encounter a couple of dainty little towns along the trek. There are a series of uphills and downhills which aren't for the faint hearted. The first day though not very adventurous, was a spectacle to some breath taking views on the way to naagamale. There is a good spot where you can rest for a while and enjoy the view. The whole of the 14 kms to naagamale doesn't take more than 4-5 hours. So make sure that you stop regularly and enjoy any location that you might feel like enjoying. We reached naagamale at around 3, where we had lunch. We took some canned and ready-to-eat food fearing the worst. However there is a small hotel kinda thing that serves sambar rice. Post lunch we went to see the Shiva temple at naagamale where the rocks form a serpent shape around the temple. There are no guest houses at naagamale. We had to stay at a warehouse (Looked like one atleast!) where we slept in our sleeping bags.

The best part of the trek was Day 2 where we headed from naagamale to palar. We started at 7 in the morning when the sky was fully cloudy. The visibility was hardly about 10-15 meters. It was about 8 kms from naagamale to Palar. This route was a lot more complex than what we encountered on day 1 as we had cross 3 mountains. Treading the boulders we moved on towards palar. There was a good location to stop in the middle where river flew once. We rested there for about an hour and then proceeded to Palar. This part of out trek was far more challenging physically.

We reached palar at about 3 where we had to catch about 3 buses in order to reach Bangalore. It a whole different story once we reached bangi as it involved teachers and tequilas and what not!!

What to carry : Sleeping bags, Water(Lots of it), Some ready-to-eat food stuff. Tents were not really necessary.

Difficulty : Moderate

Whom to contact : The website provides all the details of the phone numbers and addresses

Overall cost : It was one of those cheap ones that cost you around 2000 INR.