Exploring the City of Destiny ~ Vizag

1st Day

   This time we opted for Vizag. With excitement, we left the house & reached the Howrah Jn. by boarding a local train. There we met our other tour partners. From there, we took the long journey train to reach Visakhapatnam. It was an overnight train journey & we reached there in the early morning of the next day. I was very excited because we were planning for this trip so long. At last, it was finally going to happen. I enjoyed the view of the train journey. It was a very nice scene to see the beauty of nature from moving train. At the train, I thought that we passed the Visakhapatnam during our journey to south India at least four times but I never imagined that this place had so much natural diversity in landscape and natural beauty to explore. This place is also filled with tourist spots. I became so excited to think that the place where we only took halts during our south India trips, finally I got a chance to explore that place and dug into its roots. Taking dinner in the train we went to sleep early as we had to wake up in the early morning on the following day. In the early morning of the next day, we reached the station. 

2nd Day

      We reached the station in the early morning and then we took an auto to reach our pre-booked hotel. As we went there in the early morning we had to wait until rooms were checked out and cleaned. It was a decent hotel near the sea. I was very excited. After taking rest, we hired a rental car and went out to explore the city. On this journey, our 1st  stop was at a temple which was not so large as the Tirupati temple. When we went through the roads I saw hills and seaside by side. It was an amazing feeling to see both of them together. Then we went to the hills by the car where the temple was situated. That was a very beautiful temple. I would recommend this to everyone. After visiting the temple, we returned to the hotel. We were prepared for the afternoon. I was very excited because in the afternoon we were going to visit the Submarine Museum. On the way to the temple, I saw the submarine & I could not wait for more to enter the submarine to see it‘s inside. 

  At first, we went to the beach. There we enjoyed the blue water along with the gentle beach breeze.

Then we visited the Kailasagiri park. It was an amazing park situated on the top of the hill. Just after a few minutes of travel, we reached the hills from the sea beach & it makes Vizag too attractive. The park’s view from the top of the hill is really amazing. We saw the huge statue of Lord Shiva and Durga Ma in this park. We also saw many model statues and a double darker toy train which took us on a ride in the park.  The ropeway is also available in this park.

Next Tourist spot was the most awaited Submarine Museum. We had to wait there in line for many crowds. There were posters about the submarine everywhere. At last, we entered the Submarine. We saw different portions of the submarine and instructors demonstrated how navy members operated & stayed there. After their demonstrations, I became aware of how our navy members face so many difficulties to protect us from staying in the submarine. The name of this submarine is INS Kursra & it played an important role in the war of 1971. It served the nation for 33 years. After that, from 2001 it was placed here. It took 18 months to put this to its current place.  

After that, we went to the aquarium. Where we saw many types of fishes whom I never saw in my life. I saw piranhas for the 1st time after seeing such dangerous fish in front of eyes I was terrified and also amazed. Then we saw eales, lionfish which had lion-like fins near its mouth and also starfish.  After visiting the museum, we returned to our hotel.

3rd Day

        We were energized as we were going to Araku Valley and Borra Caves. Araku valley is famous for its natural beauty but we were unfortunate as we didn’t get the tickets for the train. The real beauty was seen only by train when the train would go through the tunnels and the mountain tracks. We took the car and started our journey. I was very excited because it was the 1st time I would see a cave. We reached the valley and started climbing the hills by our car. It was an amazing scene of green mountains.

  We saw the crop fields in that place which were made after cutting the hills. We stopped our cars on our way to the cave. Then, we followed a small path down to mountain areas. There we enjoyed the wonderful scene. We saw one of the tunnels. Then we went further up the mountain and we visited a coffee garden where the coffee tree was planted. We saw red coloured coffee fruits in which coffee seeds were present. 

Coffee was mainly made by drying those seeds of the coffee fruits and then grinding them. Then we visited a viewing spot from where we enjoyed the view of the valley.  Many tourists took some coffee fruits as souvenirs not realising that someone did hard work to grow the plants to help their families financially. Anyone should not take those fruits like that.  Then we reached the cave. There, we had our lunch in a nearby hotel. There I saw a school at the top of the hill. It was a nice and interesting place for a school. Students had to reach school by climbing. On one side it was nice, enthusiastic and fun, on the other side, it was dangerous too. After lunch, we started walking towards the cave. This cave was discovered by one of the Britisher during his work at this place. It is mainly a limestone cave.

After buying tickets, we entered the cave. From the entry point, a stair comes down inside the cave. We went down by stairs for some time then we saw many stalactites and stalagmites in the cave. Many people were standing there and took photos with those. They witnessed many historical events. Also, they were formed by many decades of continued events. We went as deep we could but not to the end of the cave. We heard that there was also a Shiva statue inside of the cave. After that, we reached a museum which was a tribute to the trivial tribes. There we saw many things which were on display which tribes were used to. There were many weapons that they used to hunt. We saw many other things also. There was also the bow and arrow game in the backyard of the museum. We ate delicious bamboo chicken. In this method, they put the chicken in with all species inside of the bamboo then cook it on fire. It’s a unique way to cook the chicken. 

Then we visited a botanical park but as the evening started, we left the park and got into our car and returned to the hotel.

4th Day

 We went through the local markets for marketing. Then, we went to a park nearby. After that, we came back to the hotel. That night we took a train for Hyderabad saying GoodBye the Vizag.  

Writer - Ronak Pattanayak