Anantapur Trip

I am not sure why I picked Anantapur, instead of Srikakulam for field trip.

It’s been more than one year.. I cannot be specific to details and I have no wish to bore you with the mundane office work.

After sending a friend off at airport, started my journey to Anantapur at around 10 AM.  Anantapur is 350KM from Hyderabad.  As I have traveled on NH7 so many times,  I got bored , so I am not going to spend much time writing about it.  I would like to mention few things though!

1.       Not many food joints or tea stalls between Judcherala and Kurnool.   If you are hungry, eat at Kurnool.  Very limited food joints and petrol bunks between Kurnool and Anantapur.

ISKON Temple at Anantapur

NH7 is kind of highway, you can enjoy if you are with friends and travelling by car. The highway is bland. The March Sun is not helping either. 

Reached Anantapur in the evening.  Checked in at Annapurna Hotel.  Rs. 300 per day.  Its cheap and relatively neat.

As part of my job, first I have to take the blessings and permission of District collector. Election time is bad time for any kind of survey project. On top of it, my project is on Right to Information Act. The single most law, all the govt employees collectively hate.  

On day one I visited museum . It’s a small one with sculptures without noses and all. It has the board displaying the evolution of Telugu Script.

Roamed around Anantapur for a while in the Evening.  I wish to write few things about Anantapur city and then will jump to tourist places I visited there.

Food

Cafes are good.  They are not like Hyderabad cafes , refreshing in terms of place, not so impressive in terms of chai.  Café usually, is an open area with lots of plastic stools and a Bamboo tent for shade. 

Uggani is the staple food in Karnataka and Rayalaseema.  Its ubiquitous.  Its cheap , its easy to eat.  Raagi Mudda is something everyone must try when they visit the place and Kushka (kind of pulao) , though my taste buds didn’t approve of it .

“Nannari” is the beverage you don’t want to miss there. Its counterpart of Rooh afza in Hyderabad.  And of course you will forced take lot of butter milk to put up with the heat.

Geography

 Let me give you a Geography lesson on Anantapur.  

Did you notice the stone-slab on which Dosa is made at Hotels?  Anantapur is that one big stone-slab. Rock, only rock and nothing but rock.  And you can practically see, how lack of greenery will increase the temperature.  

If you go from Hyderabad to Bangalore, on bike, the area where you are scared, sweat oozing like sprite from a shaken bottle, where you are depressed and start cursing yourself for not taking public transport, where you cross a dried up river, with no taddy trees, that’s Anantapur . No need to check Name boards.

People

People are generally cool and good at being hosts.   Even at Govt offices one thing you cant miss is the Rayalaseema Hospitality.  Top officials don’t shy to be good hosts and wont allow you take leave without lunch. 

Having said that,  I have to mention this thing so to give you an unbiased view. I have noticed, every Road divider on road were destroyed, when I enquired, they told me they have destroyed them, because they did not like the idea of  Andhra Pradesh state is getting divided. 

Tourist places 

These are the places I visited.

1.       Penukonda Fort (  I wrote about it in the previous blog post )

Timmama Marrimanu

2.       Kadari temple ( Didn’t go in there): I passed by it on the way to Timmamma Marrimanu. 

3.       Timmamma Marrimanu : It’s an old banyan tree, occupying vast area. It got a gunnies book record too. Negative is, one cant have a walk under the tree. A fenced path is laid. And there is tiny fort near it, not a must visit, but if you visit it, your idea of forts will change.

 If you enjoy the lonely road, that takes you to Timmamma Marrimanu. 

Idol of Yogi vemana

      Vemana Temple : Yogi vemana is one of the greatest Telugu poets of all the time.  He didn’t write to please gods or kings but shared his wisdom to common folk through poetry.  His famous poems were embedded into the walls of the temple. Except for architecture , it’s a normal Hindu temple, with a priest , Prasadam and all. In the nearby village you can locate his grave, in total contrast to the tiny village. 

After 22 days , I could not  sustain Anantapur anymore.  I had to drink two liters of buttermilk , one large bottle of Mirinda daily to avoid dehydration. Last two days, I stayed at Tadipatri, which is hell on earth.  The temperature flirts with 50 degrees centigrade mark.  

Tadipatri is a rocky area. Most of the polished stones which are used for flooring come from here.  You must of heard of Bethamcherla stones if you were a Telugu guy.  Residents got adopted to the frying temperature, and enjoy their hot snacks in the evening. They so used to the heat, they stopped building houses with normal bricks but use the spoiled polished stones.  

Thanks to Tadipari region MRO who let me get out of the furnace without delaying.  Selected the route map to Hyderabad via Kurnool, and I was good to go next day morning.

Woke up before dawn , woke the Hotel Manager and checked out.  Jumped on the bike to reach Home, but it refused to start. I had to kick it to make the engine roar. All electricals are down. No turn lights, no horn. 

No mechanic available at that hour. I thought of waiting for mechanic to open but piled up frustration due to sweat and heat all these days kicked me in the shin.  Decided to get it repaired at Kurnool. I have to be away from Anantapur even by walk. 

Two routes to reach Hyderabad.  One via Gooty , another via Betamcherla . I chose the second one to cover few tourist spots on the way home.

Got up early to start my journey before sunrise.    Bike wont start.  It want to spoil my plan. One kick  on its shin and engine roared with pain.  All the electrical of bike are down.  I thought fuse is the culprit.  I have theoretical knowledge on changing the fuse. I don’t have much time to waste with experiments. I thought of getting it repaired at Bethamcherla or Kurnool.  No indicators , no horn , no light. I have to go but I have to go slow.

Due to elections, all road works were come to a halt. Worse are the roads which are half laid. Traffic is confined to one half of the road leaving the other half for dogs to walk and rest.  Its becoming too hard without a horn.

A traveling for an hour or so,  i approached a cement factory.  The dry mountains , the early morning mist gave it an eerie look, like the eye-tower in Lord of the rings. Trucks are struggling on the half road to cross.  Reflex made me honk in the traffic and the extra horn shouted its lungs out on the bullies.

Yes, my bike has self-healing capacity. 

First halt is at Belum caves.  Its not on my list but I thought why not? Belum caves open at 10 AM, 3 hours to go. Had a tea and left to Yaganti. 

Taking a picture of Yaganti bull is the first thing on to-do list.

Belum caves to Yaganti route is single way with a bit of traffic. One should watch out for Tractors. 

On the way to Yaganti, these are the places I visited

1.       Veerabrahmendara swamy caves ( These are the caves in which he wrote kalagnyananm)

Hotel at Orwakal

2.       Arundhati palace ( The palace shown in Arundhati movie. Locals says , in the past , the local king built this palace to take after when he comes out for evening walk ) . 

3.       Yaganti . It will take time to explore the temple, but my point of interest is only Yaganti rock bull which grows with years. There is a board by archeology departments confirming so. 

4.       Orwakal rock hotel . Orwakal is a rocky area, APTDC constructed a hotel there.  Don’t expect much from this hotel.

It was evening by the time I reached Kurnool.  Bought cova-buns from Pulla Reddy sweets for Dixit.  He been asking for then since I landed in Anantapur. 

After one year, I don’t remember  inane details about the trip, but I reached home safely by  10 PM or so.