Let me first tell you what this blog is not about, once done you can easily figure what it is all about, pun unintended.
This blog isn’t about one person, one feeling or a regular account of a trip. So you see nothing very complicated or intense that’ll have you wondering if the author (me!) is trying to just vent out and start a fight or have you in a nice lullaby by the end of it.
I guess I have convinced rather begged shamelessly (in your words!) that you should read this blog now!
I’ll first outline the plan, so that I (while writing), and you (reading of course!) do not stray off track.
Vasudha (that’s me)
Guns (my hubby)
Kanth
Satti
Kafil
Naresh
Kiran
Sreeram
Rags
Rakesh (the last two joined us at Vijayawada, Oh! I forgot to mention we all stay in Hyderabad).
Ok so now back to the plan. This was a three-day trip covering Kakinada-Tallarevu-Kakinada-Maredumilli-Kakinada-Hyderabad. Though Kakinada (being my hometown) has been mentioned so often, the place was used more as a stop for boarding trains, qualis and buying Khajas.
As mentioned in the plan, I’ll start from the time we landed in Kakinada. At 8:00 a.m the sleepy and hungry 10 landed at Kakinada station. From here we digressed Guns and me, to our place and the rest of the guys to Tallarevu (this was where Suresh’s brother was getting married! I’m not getting his intro here as I have digressed enough).
Now what happened at Tallarevu first-half and last will have to be authored by one of the co-authors, as I do not have the first hand account of it. :)
Coming back to me, well I had a pretty tedious morning as I had to bathe my hyperactive and ‘I’m excited to see you’ dog … Boy we made some splash. After a sumptous breakfast and lunch (you’ll wonder why I’m specifying food, you’ll see for yourself later) we set out all dressed for Tallarevu. This was around 5:00 pm. It was cloudy and there was a slight drizzle. It was such a pleasant drive with the cool wind caressing your face and lush green rice fields a feast for the eyes. Now here you’ll find a proof of our hapless life in the city. A huge truck was droning slowly ahead of us, rustling huge amount of dust in its wake. And we enjoyed it. Crazy it may seem but living and driving in the city, we had forgotten the smell of earth; all we smelled was the metallic dust and pollutants that burned our skin and nose. It felt so nice to know how the earth smelled and that the dust is harmless as a wispy feather.
The 19 km route to Tallerevu passes through many small villages bordered along fields; some of them are just 3 kms apart. Along the route there were small kirana shops made of mud walls and palm leaves. A village that had atmost 10 shops made of cement was called a town and that area was the most happening place there. You could find everything there; the necessities of living included a kirana shop, shoe shop, sweets, bajji-bandi, tailor, cd-shop, a small jewellery store (made you wonder if they sold that stuff for toys) and most important ‘mandulu’. Now here I introduce you to a language called Telugu. In Telugu ‘mandu’ means medicine as a singular noun, the slang however stands for all mean spirits, aree alcohol! Local made J. ‘Mandulu’ is for actual prescribed english medicines. People in villages prefer tried and tested home-remedies, and trust me they work much better than any of these medicines. The doctors, well they work from home.
We reached our destination at about 6:00 pm. The wedding was scheduled at 8:30 pm, so we had time aplenty to refresh. I will not get into the details of refreshment here, as I want more time to talk about the wedding. Here were two people I did not know from adam, but the wedding was such a bliss! I have not seen such a beautiful and enjoyable wedding since mine (he heJ). A square patch of land between two brick-made bulidings, and surrounded by coconut trees whose long leaves dipped like a blessing towards the manadpam. Can anything be more beautiful than this? Yes! As we sat beneath the trees (don’t worry we had chairs to sit on) gazing up towards the mandap, it opened unto the starry sky. Complimenting this was the orchestra that made Kanth want to get married and have his life tuned by it. At exactly the muhuratham, i.e. ‘Jeelakarrabellam’, the night sky burst with all a beautiful pyrogenics,(for the vocab-impaired it means fireworks :P) . The spotlights in the mandapam were switched off, and the glow from the fireworks in the sky showered like blessings on the couple who were united in love in the very heart of nature. And for the climax there was slight drizzle after all the cracker-shows, we simply exhaled speechless, and took this as a sign from the Gods above to shower their blessings on this occasion.
We returned home at 11:00 pm, joined by Kanth. We scheduled to be joined by the rest of the group by 7:00 am so that we could leave for Maredumilli by 8:00 and reach by 12:00 noon, which goes to say that none of this really happened. So here is the pic of our kick-off at 9:00 am after many stops within a distance of two kms which ranged from fuelling, water bottles, batteries,.CDs etc.
Eight (u see Naresh and Kiran had to leave as they had other plans) to a Qualis, a driver and Illayaraja. I don’t think there is a single blog where I haven’t mentioned him.
Kakinada-Maredumilli route is via (plz do not be mislead by the names, they all are in India, in AP) ADB-Road towards Peddapuram outskirts where we take a right and after crossing Pandavula-Metta we take a left.
About 6 kms down starts the forest area, the agency is easily another 20kms away. To call it a forest area would be incorrect; though it has considerable foliage, it is pretty densly populated. Infact apna Ambani bhai and Raju mama have their holdings here. We could see a lot of construction work along the area. Our journey into the forest with a illayaraja song that goes ‘are yemaindeeeeeeee….’ And for your pleasure here is the video of our cacophonous renedition of it. ‘Feel vundaali mama…’
We stopped at this ongoing canal construction site for a break. You see humans evolved from monkeys, so we all have natural born instincts that make us cling and swing like this. Also Pavan Kalyan (you’ll be hearing a lot about him, coming up) too evolved from monkeys well he still choses to be one, so here is our Kanth pavankalyaning. Gosh! All the guys out there are going to kill me for this. That is actually a still from Pavan’s latest movie Jalsa. Whew!
So our noisy Qualis cruised along Kothapalli-Foulkspet>Ozubanda>M…(I forgot) Well at this M… place there was a ’santha’. Arre not santa-banta re, Telugu lo santha. Now what stopped us here wasn’t the santha alone, it was a autoload of kobbari bondams waiting to be devoured by us. We hadn’t had any breakfast and it was already 12:00 and we were hungry. You see kobbari bondam is very useful food item, if you have a sickle and the guts to actually hold it in your hand and hack it with the sickle. So back to the bondams, on an average we each had 3 bondams. Bought some kharjurapallu and jeedi. Did you know severe rascism exists in India? Well we also suffered the ignonimy of being called ‘thella-thokka’ and being charged extra for all the bondams, unless u consider 20 bondams at 5 rupees apiece and one extra bondam as a discount to be cheap.
After a sumptuous refill, the formerly noisy and now Jalsa rocking Qualis entered the agency area. Agency is another word for naxal. However all the naxals are too busy blowing up ministers cars and gunning the police to bother about a bunch of unimportant yet deliriously happy people like us. The guys were so busy admiring the curves (again forgive the pun, I’m a very punny person), have a look at this one and some more monkey business at another picturesque location on the way.
Each of us was totally mesmerised in greenery around us. Nature’s colors just imagine the green of the trees lit up by twilight and soaked in a drizzle. The smell of bark and mud mingled with the sounds of junglee crickets and bees. If sombody asked me the sound of silence, this was it. ‘Naaku Srinaga velli nattu vundi…(me), munnar laa ledu…(guns)…. Mama super vundi ra…(kafil)… arey Coorg kooda ilage vuntundi ra…(rags)…’ We didn’t want to define this wonder in our words; we simply enjoyed our interpretations and shared in the wonderment that was yet to begin.
We reached maredumilli at around 2:00 pm. Food was the only thing on our minds. We wanted to get to the guesthouse asap. At the very busy village centre we were told that the guesthouse is just 5 kms away. Hardly 5 mts ahead we spot a sign ‘AP Forest and tourism, Maredumilli’, and we drive away as it wasn’t 5kms yet. A few kms down when we felt 5kms long, on enquiring we had to drive back the same spot. You can now image how hunger impairs the mind and also my writing! So I take break here.
We reached the guesthouse, claimed our rooms. The rooms were very conviniently placed. In the heart of the woods and 10 steps from forest-office, restaurant (if it cud be called one) and the village center. We ordered food and were told that the food will have to be prepared for us so we had to wait for atleast 30 mins. Now we could wait but not our rumbling stomachs. Inspite of people telling us not to eat at the bajji-bandi, we cared a damn. We strolled down to the already crowded bandi to hog on the hot pakodas. Picture perfect, hills surrounding us, lush green trees and cool breeze when a lazy cloud decide it time to descend. Oho!! Under that small bandi with its shutter flaps drawn up, we munched the hot pakodas as the lazy cloud showered on us like stardust.
With some food in our tummies, and a partially clear mind we realised that we hadn’t called home for quite sometime now. (Agency area raa babu, mari intlo vallu khangaaru padara???) Oh! Yes we had our cellphones, but please don’t be mislead by that reliance ka ad. None of our services had network coverage, so we relied on the dabba-phone. Having finished with all conversations we landed on the lunch table like Ghatothagaja in Mayabazar. Each of us let out a big ‘dakaar’, in appreciation of the food and it was really good.
Post lunch we started to explore the area around the guesthouse. Towards the north were these huge trees, easily 20-30 feet tall, it reminded of those english movies where a single flute plays in the background and the camera lazily zooms on from between the huge tree trunks, rests on the cabin where the hero-heroine are sitting on a wooden bench by the very edge of the forest. Sigh! Facing the guesthouse a yard away was a campfire site. Ahead of it was a round platform sheltered by a thatched roof opening into a vast ground. I say a perfect area to play cricket J. Have a look at the pics. The lazy cloud that went by earlier, I guess wasn’t alone… his friends followed and were just as gentle.
Now from the guesthouse there is 10 km long route reserved for tourists. It starts with
>Coffee plantation
>Sugreeva Aayurvedasala
>Bamboo Garden (Oh, I forgot to mention, Bamboo is the most abundant plant here)
>Jalataringini (waterfall, I took a good fall there, so did rags and nearly everyone except satti and kanth)
>Madana Kunj Lake (this one had crocs, though we didn’t get a chance to say hello to any of them)
>Wooden Bridge
Now it wouldn’t be possible to cover so many places successfully before dark. So we decided to head towards the coffee plantation, check the wooden bridge and finally the waterfall and head back. Nothing much to say about the coffee plantaion coz without the guide it wasn’t advisable to go in and the wooden bridge, well have a look at it yourself.
The actual fun started at Jalataringini. As I already told you that the each of the wandering clouds decide to hug us, the walkway upto the waterfall was wet and slippery. We managed to get through carefully. In rainy season there would have been a lot of water right at the beginning of the fall. But now the water had receeded so we had to climb the length of it to get to a place where there was some water. At the beginning of the waterfall is a rickety bamboo bridge connecting connecting the forest landing over the rivulet to the foot of the waterfall. Exclaimimg and drinking in beauty of the landscape we kept climbing across the slippery rocks. We had lost sense of distance, till Kanth cautioned that we shall move further than here. Breathtaking! What more can I say about the scenery in front of us? Have a look.
Now from monkey business we all have become frogs!!! Yelling and leaping into the fall, under the cold natural water, we felt we were reborn. Well one special person was actually re-christened. Our Satti gadu became ‘Satti God’. Kafil decided to become a pensive sanyasi. Sreeram tried penance but thought better and decide to just splash around. Rakesh, well he did have the look of sly sanyasi on him. Me he he I was the mermaid who eventually slipped and bonked her head. Guns poor fellow as usual his job as the cameraman. Rags, well having hurt himself at Tallarevu, he slipped while climbing and not wanting to take any more chances was safely sitting on a rock. And kanth, whoooo boy just have look at him, words fail me.
Climbing up was easy, it was the coming down which unnerved us. We hadn’t realised that we’d trekked so far and climbed on such dangerously sloping rocks. Take a look at this video and you’d know how tough it is when gravity is acting in your direction.
Wet, exhausted and spent we came back to the guesthouse. The daylight had already faded. After refreshing ourselves, we had a lot of time to kill till dinner. So, we started a game of cards. Oh! Boy what fun it was, with me violating all rules and making a good bakra. Guns and Kanth however resumed their photography session; well kanth felt like God and wanted the exact emotion captured.
Dinner wasn’t very pleasant as the promised bamboo chicken didn’t turn up and the vegetarian food wasn’t upto the standards set in the afternoon. Well we decided that this dinner be compensated by providing us a campfire. The poor boy, left incharge by the manager had no choice but to comply. Starting the fire wasn’t an easy job. The fellow had managed to light up some twigs and leaves but there weren’t any big logs and kerosene to make a big fire. We somehoe caught hold of the old watchmen and bribed him with sweet words to get us some logs. Kerosene was out of question, so me and kanth set work by stoking the fire using newpapers. Everyone was into the act of building the fire.
‘Arey paina petta ra… (satti bringing the logs), vasu base daggara cheyyali..(kanth instructing me how to stoke the fire)…rey kafil gaa ikkada chesthunnam gaa… aarpesthaava yenti??(kafil was trying to hep by stoking in the opposite direction)’ We successfully got the fire going after what seemed like houres… then the party started. The qualis was brought around to the campsite and we pumped up with ‘sa re ga ma pada ne sa… are karo karo zara jalsa…aa ding ding….’. We rocked and swayed to all posiible songs, the poor qualis I guess had enough of the Jalsa on the way as the CD kept skipping in between. I do not know how good campfires are in winter, but I can tell you that if you are within 6 feet of a moderate size fire you feel like the ‘summer at 69’. Whew!
As the fire grew calmer, we too tired of dancing sat down and started a game of antakshaari. I’m sure the wolves that were supposed to howl out that night decided to keep their jaws shut and let us carry on with the howling. We played till the fire reduced to just glowing ambers. Under eerie moonlight we decided to take a jungle walk. Thought after walking about 10mts, all sense of adventure vanished and I demanded to go back. It was well beyond midnight when we retired to bed, we were supposed to be up quite early the next day.
‘Arey paina petta ra… (satti bringing the logs), vasu base daggara cheyyali..(kanth instructing me how to stoke the fire)…rey kafil gaa ikkada chesthunnam gaa… aarpesthaava yenti??(kafil was trying to hep by stoking in the opposite direction)’ We successfully got the fire going after what seemed like houres… then the party started. The qualis was brought around to the campsite and we pumped up with ‘sa re ga ma pada ne sa… are karo karo zara jalsa…aa ding ding….’. We rocked and swayed to all posiible songs, the poor qualis I guess had enough of the Jalsa on the way as the CD kept skipping in between. I do not know how good campfires are in winter, but I can tell you that if you are within 6 feet of a moderate size fire you feel like the ‘summer at 69’. Whew!
As the fire grew calmer, we too tired of dancing sat down and started a game of antakshaari. I’m sure the wolves that were supposed to howl out that night decided to keep their jaws shut and let us carry on with the howling. We played till the fire reduced to just glowing ambers. Under eerie moonlight we decided to take a jungle walk. Thought after walking about 10mts, all sense of adventure vanished and I demanded to go back. It was well beyond midnight when we retired to bed, we were supposed to be up quite early the next day.
I woke up at around 7:00, only to find that the others had already been up and ready by then. I quickly got dressed and walked outside remisincing about the night. I couldn’t help smiling to see a street dog lying curled up in the ashes of the fire with such a smug expresson on him. ‘Happiness… I thought isn’t relative. It lies within us. Today I have a skoda so I am happy and tomorrow is see a benz I wish I had it. That kind of happiness is insatiable. Look at that dog, even the Sultan of Brunei wouldn’t be as happy as him’.
Aaaand for some more monkey antics now: Guys!!! They will never stop, given a chance to display their power. Have a look at these powerful pics.
Aaaand for some more monkey antics now: Guys!!! They will never stop, given a chance to display their power. Have a look at these powerful pics.
We had already packed our bags and were ready to leave when the promised bamboo chicken arrived. The manager came along with a sheepish smile and apologised for last night. Chicken is chicken; there isn’t any specific time to eat. So, regardless that it was breakfast time, the guys hogged. After the chicken siesta, we headed to a hotel called ‘Shiv ….’ The chicken wasn’t enough and some us were veggies. At this breakfast place, (I’m sure the owner if he knew about drought in somalia, would have thought we were from there) we feasted on hot idlis,onio-dosa,pesarattu and beverages(coffee,tea and buttermilk.) While we were eating, the owner was mentioning how tourists who rely on the restaurant back there get cheated by the lure of bamboo chicken, adding that one particular tourist came to him and requested that some ‘chapala pulusu’ be made as the chicken could not be tolerated. And you can imagine the expression on our faces, priceless.
Fully fed and happy we started out to visit the places, we’d left out yesterday. The first being a nursery, here you’d get a bamboo sapling for 10 rupees. Well but please be forewarned that the sapling soon grows into 10-foot tree J. Here kanth acquired a bamboo stick with a sharpened edge, just to add to his already devilish intensions. He threatened to poke veryone in sight just to do his bidding. I too was near danger of being poked right in my back,no no not by kanth but by an extremely annoyed mother hen, as I ran around to just cuddle her chick. After the visit to the nursery, we took a walk into the jungle. Through the trees, along the path dodging the bushes and vines. I felt like an insect admist all the greenery. So happy and profound, save that insects do not carry walkman phones singing ‘swati mutya maaala…dinchak dhinchak dhin’.
Fully fed and happy we started out to visit the places, we’d left out yesterday. The first being a nursery, here you’d get a bamboo sapling for 10 rupees. Well but please be forewarned that the sapling soon grows into 10-foot tree J. Here kanth acquired a bamboo stick with a sharpened edge, just to add to his already devilish intensions. He threatened to poke veryone in sight just to do his bidding. I too was near danger of being poked right in my back,no no not by kanth but by an extremely annoyed mother hen, as I ran around to just cuddle her chick. After the visit to the nursery, we took a walk into the jungle. Through the trees, along the path dodging the bushes and vines. I felt like an insect admist all the greenery. So happy and profound, save that insects do not carry walkman phones singing ‘swati mutya maaala…dinchak dhinchak dhin’.
The bamboo garden is a really pictursque place. The garden had a ticket booth but no ticket collector. We are all law abiding citizens, so just because the collector isn’t there doesn’t mean we do not pay. Have a look satti’s purchasing the tickets as instructed by kanth. 
Having paid, we had all rights reserved to enjoy the serenty and the beauty of the garden.
After the bamboo garden we went to madana kunj lake. This is my favorite pic in the entire tour. The sign warned us not to get into the stream as it was deep and there were crocs. Well we went by to see if could say a hello to one of them. No luck there.
Here is where the guys found a good pasttime. The swing, I guess it reminded them of their chilhood, I had already swung enough so decide to jus sit and watch them have fun.
Well this being the last leg of the trip, we decided that though kiran and naresh weren’t physically there, we would make their presence felt. So here the short log is naresh anf the tall one is Kiran :).
We headed back to the guesthouse from here, had lunch and set off on our way back to Kakinada.
Some pics taken on our way back. ‘Piccharisky’, was the unanimous opinion of the beauty that we could behold .
All of us never stopped smiling for a single minute throughout this day; in kanth’s words ‘Today is god’s gift to us’.
Well this being the last leg of the trip, we decided that though kiran and naresh weren’t physically there, we would make their presence felt. So here the short log is naresh anf the tall one is Kiran :).
We headed back to the guesthouse from here, had lunch and set off on our way back to Kakinada.
Some pics taken on our way back. ‘Piccharisky’, was the unanimous opinion of the beauty that we could behold .
All of us never stopped smiling for a single minute throughout this day; in kanth’s words ‘Today is god’s gift to us’.