Hyderabad Weekend Getaway: Medak

Medak is approximately 100 KM away from Hyderabad and it roughly takes about 2:30 hours to reach there. My initial research about the city revealed that, there isn’t much to see except for a beautiful church and some ruins of a fort. The only reason I decided to visit Medak was because I wanted to visit it.

We started at around 8:00 AM in the morning… had breakfast at the outskirts of Hyderabad and reach Medak by around 11:00 AM.

It was a Sunday morning and Medak Church was jam packed. Spend an hour observing people in the Church… most of them had no clue about Christianity but were there because they had problems and someone had told them to visit this Church. Post the sermon, people gathered in a queue to take the blessings of the father. Unlike they show in movies, where there is separate chamber for discussing stuff with father, here, it was all in open. Will describe what I heard in some other post.

After lunch, I visited the fort. There isn’t much left in the fort, although government is renovating the fort. One can visit the fort, which is situated on top of a hill to get a good view of the Medak town.

Started the journey back from Medak around 5 PM in the evening and reached Hyderabad by 7:30 PM.

View of Medak town from the top of the Medak fort:

Hyderabad Weekend Getaway: Gooty Fort

About 300 KM away from Hyderabad towards Bangalore, Gooty is a small town that will be one day famous as the town where a Nobel Prize winner was born. For the time being, Gooty is known for a historic fort. About 10 Km away from Gooty, archeologists have discovered a stone on which constitution belonging to Ashoka is written. This means, that this area was inhibited by civilized people since 2000 years. The fort of Gooty is an amalgamation of Hindu-Islamic architecture. The most hurting aspect is that, Archeological department of India and Andhra Pradesh Tourism has done nothing to protect/preserve this beautiful fort.

Trip Details:

Gooty was earlier situated on NH7 but now NH7 bypasses the town. It’s approx. 300 KM away from Hyderabad and the distance can be covered within 3.5 – 4 hours. We started around 6:00 AM in the morning and reached Gooty by 10:00 AM in the afternoon. We were told that, best time to visit the fort is on any festival day… as lot of locals would be visiting fort and it would be lot secure.

It takes approximately 2 hours to climb the fort. If you are photography enthusiast, then you would be spending well-over 4 hours to climb the fort as there’s lots of stuff to be photographed. There are no restaurants/food carts on top of the fort… you need to carry the food along with you.

 

 

Hyderabad Weekend Getaway: Sagibanda Tanda

The motive behind this trip was to visit an unexplored territory. After lot of researching, I found this place called “Sagi Banda Tanda”.. a small village somewhere inside deep jungles of Andhra Pradesh. So, what’s there in Sagibanda tanda? Well, there’s nothing. People living in Sagibanda tanda are sufferring with no water and food. Moreover, this is considered as a naxal area. I felt, visiting this place would give me a view of India that I haven’t been able to see in my life. So, the journey began. Btw, this place isn’t that far away from Hyderabad.

Route: Hyderabad – Nagarjuna Sagar Rd till – Gangal – Bodakonda – sologutta tanda – sagibanda tanda – Ram das tanda – Mallepalli – Nagarjuna Sagar Rd till – Hyderabad.

Total distance of the journey is around 225 Kms. Started the journey at 8:00 in the morning. We had packed food for breakfast and lunch.. and some extra food for the locals if at all we meet needy people.

Overall, the journey was Ok. There are places were roads aren’t that good.. but good enough for Tata Safari to march on.

For the first time, I clearly understood, why people vote for politicians who promise 1Kg rice/white for Rs. 2...or politicians who promise free electricity. These people have nothing but a little hope.. that someday.. one of those politicians keeps his word. They hardly get food twice a day… hardly there is rain in the region… and hardly there is any scope for employment.

Hyderabad Weekend Getaway: Suryalanka Beach and Kotappa Konda

Finally, we decided to visit Suryalanka Beach. Got two cottages booked at Harita Beach Resort for Saturday night.

Along with Surya Lanka Beach, I also wanted to cover a place called “Kotappa Konda” as part of this trip. Therefore, I planned the following route.

Hyderabad – Miryalaguda – Narsaraopeta – Bapatla – Suryalanka Beach (night stay) – Kotappa Konda – Narsaraopeta – Miyalaguda – Hyderabad

The above route is slightly tricky. Below are the route maps for your reference.

We started at 8:00 AM in the morning from Hyderabad and reached Surya Lanka Beach at around 6:00 PM. We could have travelled at a faster speed but since it was family trip, I asked the driver not to push the acceleration peddle much. My didn’t have high expectation from the Harita Beach resort. I was expecting cottages with minimum facilities. But I was so wrong. The cottages have all the facilities that you would expect in a 2-3 star hotel. And the best part was… these cottages are right in front of the beach. Also, Harita Hotel has a good restaurant..

After a good night’s sleep, we hit the beach at 5:30 AM in the morning. Sun was just about to rise..

After breakfast, we started towards Kotappa Konda. This place is close to Narsaraopeta. Kotappa Konda has several temples on top of a hill.






At 12:30 PM, we started the return journey. Had lunch at a small town called Piduguralla. Reached Hyderabad by 8:00 PM.

Hyderabad Weekend Getaway: Hindupur, Puthaparthi and Lepakshi Nandi

This post is about my two days trip to Hindupur, Puthaparthi and Lepakshi Nandi.
Route: Hyderabad – via NH7 – Kurnool – Hindupur (night halt) – Lepakshi Nandi – Puthaparthi – NH7 – Hyderabad.
Places of Interest: Wind Mills, Kumbakaran park and Mosques in Hindupur, Lepakshi Nandi statue, Puthaparthi (prashanti Nilayam).

We started the journey from Hyderabad at around 9:00 AM in the morning. Took Nehru outer ring road from Gachibowli to reach NH7. Had breakfast at Hotel Munawvar at Jedcharla. On the outskirts of Anantapur (at NH7) had lunch at a dhaba. As you approach, Hindupur, you would notice number of wind mills installed on the hills. If you carefully notice, you would find that, there is a ‘kaccha’ route on each hill to reach the wind mills. So, we decided to take these kaccha route (note that, this route is dangerous, unless you have a good driver, don’t attempt this).. reach the hill-tops to observe wind mills.

Kumbakaran park at Hindupur:


Church at Hindupur:
Mosque at Hindupur:
There are several good hotels at Hindupur for accomodation. I forgot the name of the hotel we stayed. It was a two star hotel with decent facilities. There are several vegetarian and non-vegetarian restaurants in Hindupur. As such, you won’t face any difficulty in finding good food.

Next day, we started from Hindupur at about 8:00 AM in the morning and reached Lepakshi Nandhi by 8:30 AM. Lepakshi town is about 17 KM away from Hindupur. The famous Nandi Statue is in the middle of the Lepakshi town. For a moment, you would wonder, whether this is the actual one. Apart from the Nandi Statue, there is a huge temple in Lepakshi. The priest at the temple, showed me the a stone which had foot prints engraved. He mentioned that, these foot prints are of Sita and Ram. Out of curiosity I asked the priest, how come their marks got engraved on the stone.. were they so heavy? The priest smiled and said… ‘no, they stood on that stone.. and later their foot prints were carved on the stone’. I couldn’t resist myself.. I said to priest.. ‘so.. the person who carved the stone.. actually removed the portions of the stone on which Ram and Sita stood.. what I mean is, the stone you have was never touched by Ram and Sita. The portion of the stone they touched.. is removed’. I guess, the priest had never encountered a tourist who posed such a question. The priest had no answer.

Temple at Lepakshi Nandi:




We started our journey towards Puthaparthi at 10:00 AM. Puthaparthi is about 70 KM away from Lepakshi. The journey was smooth and roads are decent. Reached Puthaparthi at around 11:15 AM.

As such, I didn’t have any plans of going inside Pranshiti Nilayam (the palace of Sai Baba). One thing that you would notice in Puthaparthi is the number of people from Nepal. I wonder what they are doing here. Remarkably.. many of these Nepali guys appear to be drug sellers.. as shown in 1970s Indian movies.

At 12:30 PM, we decided to return to Hyderabad. Reached Hyderabad by 7:00 PM.