My Life On Two Wheels: April 2017

When: 15, 16th April 2017.
Destination: Rajamundry, Annavaram, Rampachodavaram.
How and who all are: Myself and Anudeep. (Yamaha Fz)
Route Map: By Train: Bangalore – Rajamundry
By Bike: Rajamundry - Annavaram – “Rajamundry- Gokavaram - Narsapuram- Bhupathipalem- Rampachodavaram - Rajamundry.
By Train: Rajamundry - Bangalore.

Short and sweet description:

I rather prefer to call this trip as “Trip To Taste Bamboo Chicken” than a trip to attend colleague's marriage.

Apart from that, the Aarthi on river bank of Godavari in Rajamundry (like Aarthi near river Ganga in Varanasi) is worth experiencing.

Train journey from Bangalore to Rajamundry, Bike ride through villages of Coastal Andhra is memorable.

Travelogue:

Day 1:
Time - 7AM.

Yaaaaaaawning…!!

It’s been 12 hrs of train journey. Just came down from my seat(upper berth) to have a look outside the train.

As I opened door, I felt the morning golden rays of Sun and fresh air from the paddy fields refreshing.

Train must be moving with a descent speed, I just leaned onto the door with a relaxed standing posture and enjoying the view of beautiful Paddy fields.The glimpse of

villages are just vanishing in eye blink, by the time I realized that the beautiful view which I just saw has disappeared… another beautiful lush green view appeared in front of me.

Sometimes I feel roads and lakes alongside are travelling with me.

Quickly checked the running status of the train. Another 20 mins train will be reaching Vijayawada. Meanwhile, I could hear someone wishing me Good morning Naveen.

Myself: Hey Rakesh, Good morning.

Hope you guys had good sleep??

Rakesh: Arey no yaar, our coach is having some issue.

Whole night, it was unbearable noise. Couldn’t sleep at all.

Myself: If you want to sleep, you can use my berth man.
Rakesh: Now, I don’t feel like. Did you wake up just now?

Myself: Yeah man, just 10mins back. Let me see whether everyone woke up or not?!! [while searching for tooth paste]. Woke up Anudeep, we both are in same coach. Remaining all are in another coach.

Btw, we are of 13 members going to attend one of our colleague’s wedding reception in Rajamundry.

As the train approaches Vijayawada, I could see the famous “Kanakadurga Temple” which is situated on top of a hill.
It just reminded my 10+2 memories. 10 years back I’ve completed 10+2 from Vijayawada. It is kinda nostalgic moment.

As the Train reached Vijayawada, we just got down to have breakfast. Train halts here for 10mins. Quickly finished breakfast, myself and Anudeep are back to coach door.

Who wants to miss the chance of witnessing the coastal Andhra beauty?

Another 4 hours of journey from Vijayawada to Rajamundry. Couldn’t feel the time as we are busy in clicking snaps and chatting.

Paddy fields view

Waiting for signal :-)

Bridge enter Vijayawada

Train and Bus bridge in one snap

Vijayawada Temple

Junction

Paddy fields view after Vijayawada

Myself

By 11.30AM, we have reached Rajamundry,

It is summer, we could feel the heat.

As per plan, checked in to hotel.

Myself and Anudeep had plans to roam around Rajamundry and visit all the possible places.

I’ve already booked a bike in online via http://www.jagooriders.com/

We quickly got fresh up and collected bike from Jagoo riders office.

It is Yamaha fz v2.0, from her looks itself I could feel it’s a new bike. Hardly 5K kms ran.

Finished lunch, ( It is heavy Andhra meals :-p ) and said bye to our group, requested them to attend Evening Aarthi on riverbank of Godavari at Pushkar ghat.

Me and Anudeep, started our bike ride towards Annavaram.

Our plan is simple, first destination is Annavaram and then decide, if time permits visit Kakinada beach. Otherwise return to Rajamundry by evening 7PM to witness the Aarthi.

With the help of google map, we’ve got onto the highway which leads to Vizag.

Annavaram is 80kms from Rajamundry, the highway is pretty good. It comes under “Golden quadrilateral stretch of India”.

As it is Summer, I could feel the heat on tar road.

Inspire of hot weather, we could able to reach Annavaram in 1.30hrs.

Quickly finished darshan and spent some time to finish Prasadam.:-)

It is 5PM, if we plan to go Kakinada, we may miss Aarthi at riverbank.

So decided to skip Kakinada and ride back to Rajamundry.

The return journey took ~2hours as we are hit by evening traffic within the city.

By 7.10pm, we are able to reach the Pushkar ghat where Aarthi is taking place. As we are already late, rushed to parking lot , found a place to bike and ran to catch the glimpse of Aarthi.

As we enter the Ghat, could see lot of people took their seats and witnessing the Aarthi.

Myself and Anudeep, able to grab a seat from where could have full view of the ongoing event.

It took another 20mins to finish the Aarthi.

The rhythmic drum beats, Brahmin chantings, lights, fire and the ambience of the river literally gave me an electric, trance like feel !

While returning from Annavaram

Aarthi at Rajamundry Pushkar Ghat

Remaining members of our gang has missed the event.They were sitting in another ghat, we went to catch up there.

Had some quality time on the riverbank of Godavari.

While on the way to Hotel itself, we finished our dinner. As the next day we have plans to ride towards Rampachodavaram in search of tasting Bamboo chicken for breakfast, I dozed off early.

Day 2:

Around 6am, Myself and Anudeep left Rajamundry. Plan is to ride through ghat and forest stretch in and around Rampachodavaram, have Bamboo Chicken and back by 12PM to attend reception.

“Rajamundry- Gokavaram - Narsapuram- Bhupathipalem- Rampachodavaram “

It is 65-70kms of stretch.

Right from starting, the ride is quite refreshing.

Riding through villages, coconut tree farms everywhere.

The mist on the paddy fields is like a thin layer.

As the Sun is rising, the mist is vanishing magically.

The first pit stop is near by Gokavaram to have tea. That’s the usual ritual of every trip which starts in the mornings.

Ride through Village roads

For Chai

As we proceeded further, slowly the paddy fields are getting vanished and the dense forest stretches are welcoming us.

For me this the first trip enjoying the journey as a pillion rider.

Seeing surroundings quite different from usual(rider) views.

This helped me to click snaps and enjoy the nature bit closely (as I no need to keep a watch on road).

Anudeep is enjoying riding the machine on curvy and butter smooth road.

Crossing each curve is giving a breathtaking views.

At one point, we just stopped to click snaps and couldn’t get over it.

It is like clicking snap of same pose again and again to get the better output.

As we continued further, reached Bhupathipalem reservoir. The backwater View is worth a stop to grab some more memories.:-)

Bhupathipalem reservoir

Anudeep

Myself

Crazy moments

Bike is running on reserve fuel. There is no sight of fuel stations. Sometimes, you will end up buying fuel from local shops by paying more price for less quantity.

In another 10-15mins reached Rampachodavaram.

As we entered this place, I could see most of the home turned hotels preparing chicken in Bamboo.

While crossing one such home, stopped and ordered 1KG of Bamboo chicken.

We thought of covering near by Waterfalls by the time Bamboo chicken get ready.

As expected, waterfall is completely drained due to summer.

Without wasting time, returned to the have breakfast.

Actually, we both are very much excited to eat Bamboo chicken as we never had it before.

After having a chat with Aunty and Uncle who are the owners, got to know that, cooking chicken by stuffing inside a bamboo, keeping it over flames until the oil kindof substance comes out free from fat.

Quite good to know.

Anyway, had 1Kg of Bamboo chicken with Chapathis. Another 1Kg took it as a parcel so that others can have it.