Vizag and Araku Trip Report - 1

I have finally managed to shake off the procrastination demon perched on my and write this travelogue. Whew!
Months have elapsed since the vacation, so please don't bicker if I miss important details like the coach number of the train we took to Vizag :)

With a few days of holidays+leave under our belt, we embarked on a much-needed, much-planned trip to the cool hills of Araku. The Visakha express steamed on time into the Visakhapatnam Rly station on a nice January morning. An auto then whisked us to the APTDC Rushikonda beach resort (approx. 10 km from the Rly station), where we had booked an A/C room (you can get more information here.)

We were shown to rooms in the first floor of a cottage overlooking the sea. The rooms are clean, but expensive considering the rate per night [of course, this was classified as a "resort"]. It was a cool morning and we soon settled down to a hot cup of coffee, while getting our first view of the sea. Shruti was pretty excited when we told her we would go and play in the "lake" later in the day.

Having completed the morning rituals, we stepped out to have breakfast in the restaurant attached to the hotel. Idlis followed by tea - decent but nothing to talk about.

By this time, Shruti was impatient to go and play in the water, so we walked down to the beach.

Rushikonda has a nice, clean beach, where the waters are not very forceful. There are breakers (sand or rock formations) which reduce the "pull" of the water. The beach in the heart of the city (Ramakrishna beach) is more crowded and more dangerous to play.

We had a great time playing the water and an hour later, we returned to our room, tired but happy.

After a insipid lunch, we booked a cab through the reception to visit the city. A memorable trip through the submarine museum, and then some tea and pakoda at a roadside cafe.

We then planned an impromptu trip to Kailasagiri hill, where there is a open temple of Lord Siva. It was quite dark by the time we reached there, so we had to quickly return and missed the great views of the city and the sea.

Our next stage was Araku by train, which I will cover in the next post.

Note: More photos on Flickr - Badge on the left sidebar tagged 'Vizag'