1 day trip to Papikondalu

Date of travel  : 13 Jan 2013
Transport : Train, Tata Sumo, boat

Papikondalu mountain range are part of Eastern Ghats and are located between Godavari and Khammam districts. The beautiful hills are accessible by boat from Rajahmundry and Bhadrachalam. It is preferred to plan for a 2 day trip which covers Bhadrachalam, night stay in bamboo huts and possibly a forest trek. We planned for a day trip one week before Sankranti weekend. Due to last minute decision, that too during festival time, we had to limit our trip to one day due to unavailability of tickets.

From about 1 hour before Rajahmundry we can see lot of greenery with farms all around which is a pleasure for eyes specially for people like us who live in concrete jungles.

We managed to get reservation in a special train and due to heavy rush in the trains and with special trains included, our train was delayed by 3 hours. We were scheduled to reach at 5:30 AM and report to the boat tourist operator at 7:30 AM but due to our train delay we reached Rajahmundry at 8:30 AM. Thanks to my cousin who joined us in Vijayawada who made this trip possible, talked to the boat operator and arranged a taxi to pick us up and drop at Gandi Pochamma temple which is the first halt of the trip which starts from Purushottam revu.

It is a little over 1 hour ride to this place but the roads made the journey tough.

The road journey was not a pleasant one at all. It took us a little over an hour to catch the boat. Particularly 5 km stretch after crossing purushottapatnam revu is muddy and bumpy road which is nothing less when compared to a swing.

Passed through Polavaram project canal en route Gandi Pochamma.

We passed by a narrow one lane road which is about 3 km stretch and then we spotted our boat which just halted for 15 mins to let the tourists visit the temple.

These are the first pictures of beautiful Godavari river taken before boarding the boat.

The next halt was at Devi Patnam which is a mandatory stop for the boats to log their entry in police station. This PS is famous for the legendary freedom fighter Alluri Seetaramaraju which is said to have attacked this PS along with 4 other PS on a single day and that too at same time. The noticeable part of this attack is that he is said to have informed them one day in advance and then attacked all the 5 PS at once.

The locals believe that even though Britishers left India post our independence they still hang around this place in the form of bats. If observed closely, among the lively, green trees all around this place, there are 2 trees, one on either side of the PS which are completely dried out without leaves which is a house for hundreds of bats.

 

Finally after around 2 hours of ride, we enter the Papi kondalu range which can be seen as great walls from long distance.

At this point, the river is as narrow as 300m which eventually widens to about 2.9 kms near Rajahmundry. It is also said that the river is very deep at this point.

Some information on the ride. In all boats at this place, there is a guide who provides information about each of the places that we pass by. Special mention about the guide in our boat was his ability to imitate the famous Rao Gopala  Rao and other film personalities. One gets a feeling with the amount of information provided by him is that this place surely needs promotion to attract more tourists. Apart from this, there were few dance numbers performed by kids and other entertainment programs are common in these boat rides like mimicry, tumbola, etc..,

I would not say that the boats here are extraordinary but are well maintained. It is the scenic beauty that mesmerizes tourists here but the facilities are not up to the mark when compared to other places in India like Kashmir or Kerala. After staying in Alleppey house boat in Kerala, I always wondered why can't AP have something like this. The answer to that is YES, definitely there are opportunities with back waters which can be matched with the likes of Alleppey, our tourism department should invest on developing the facilities and do sufficient promotion. There is no doubt about the potential to make it a popular tourist destination and I urge the APTDC to take the necessary steps.

More details are provided in the next post. Click here to read further.