Places around guntur-vijayawada

Guys,

It is my first blog and hope to finish it well. Here, i would like to share my guntur-vijaywada trip experience.

Guntur  గుంటూరు گنٹور is a city  in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, located 266 kilometres (165 mi) south east of state capital, Hyderabad.

We, a group of four, have started from Hyderabad on 27th Jan 2012 1.30pm in a car to attend my friend's marriage. We started off from punjagutta and took the route Khairatabad - Abids - Koti - LB Nagar Ring road and followed Nagarjuna sagar route. After travelling for about an hour and a half we came across palm Wine trees. We stopped and asked the guy to get the wine in fresh and full. He climbed the tree and got a pot full of tasty Palm Wine! We drank the wine in a leaf, traditional way.

The freshly taken out wine was tasty. It was arnd 4.30pm. After a journey of 2 hrs we reached Nagarjuna sagar. But it was already dark, and moreover we are running out of time to the marriage @ 10.30pm. We even had plans to visit GuthiKonda caves, but we couldnt make it. At around 9.30pm we reached Narsaraopet town near guntur. My friends marriage was at Satuluru a small village on guntur highway. After attending the marriage we stayed in a hotel back at Narsaraopet. There are several lodges around, with decent conditions. 

 The next morning, 28 Jan 2012, we started off to explore Kondaveedu fort on Guntur-vijaywada highway. It was around 45 KM. There is road till the base of Kondaveedu hill.We parked our car and before we started the trek, we came to know that there is an interesting place called "Kathulabavi". It is a basically a "wellconstructed by a priest to assassinate reddy kings, responsible for murdering his family. The priest built a structure resembling a temple over the well, and with a pitch darkness inside the temple one cannot even see a bit. Once a person enters the temple the priest used to take them inside the Garba gudi and push them into the well, the well is planted with swords! THis we came to know through a person named Jonny, a watchman near the Historical structure

The trek was around 45 mins and we spent an hour on the hill taking snaps and videos, but in order to explore the whole hill we need to have one complete day. Since we have other things in our mind we finished off our trek in 4 hrs and reached the base @ 4pm. The fort is an isolated but a beautiful place, with no one to look around its well-being. so pity! After reaching the base, we came to know of krishna temple.. Lord posing as a child... here are a few pics...

We had our lunch @ 5pm (lunch?) and it was already dark. Our initial plan was to cover undavalli caves near vijayawada on the same day but it didnt work. We drove towards vijaywada which was around 30km, and we took NH9 towards Hyd. After travelling for 25 km on NH9, and not to forget the traffic.. it was horrible of all sorts...we stayed in a resort called VUMA near paritala village. The next morning,on 29 jan 2012,we came to vijayawada 25 km back from paritala town. We had a nice tiffin at aptdc, near prakasam barrage. We reached undavalli caves 5km from Vijaywada. This is one more structural wonder, similar to ajanta caves @ Aurangabad, Maharashtra. The main attraction here is a very large Padmanabha swamy idol (Heard abt Kerala treasure temple?).
The idol was awesome.

We stayed for there for an hr, and we started our journey on NH9 towards Hyd. We reached Kondapalli Khila, 25 km from Vijaywada. It has a road till the top the hill. This fort is well maintained. It was ruled by Reddy dynasty but was later demolished by Muslim rulers. But it is still a nice place to hang out. It has narthansala a dancing stage, market yard, garrison, prison etc which are of interest. This place is famous for Kondapalli bommalu.

 We spent around 2 hrs and started back to Hyd. It was around 4pm in the evening. We even have a plan to see amaravathi temple. There is road route to amaravathi from vijayawada, but we are already far from vijayawada and on the other bank of the river krishna. There is steam boat from vijayawada





Upon enquiry in kondapalli village we came to know that we can go to a place called chevitikalu,  a 10 km farther from kondapalli. There we need to take left on the NH9 and travel a further 5km on a bumpy roads to reach chevitikalu. Now starts the fun, the krishna river is half dried up thereby exposing white river sand. We parked our vehicle, and started on a tractor to reach a place where the river depth is large. The tractor ride on river sand and water was superb.

Now we need to board a steamer to reach the other side of the bank. We visited the Amaravathi temple, had darshan and returned via steamer, and tractor. One interesting incident that happened to me during the course of the trip is, I lost my purse while getting on the tractor. But it fell into the hands of a nice village man. He called up my frnds and handed over the purse, and when i tried to offer 500 bucks he refused. When i insisted he took the money and told me that he will give that money to a temple fund. a lesson to learn for politicos!

 Finally we started our return journey on NH9. Dont EVER take this route for atleast a year as the roads are worst. Some repairs are going on, and it was one way through most of the journey. We reached Hyd @ 4am the next mrng when we started @ 7pm from Amaravathi.

Hope this post will be useful for a few ..

       contact me at gvdiwakar@gmail.com for any additional info.. Bye