In Jagdalpur on the morning of the 11th I was looking forward to the leisurely and scenic train ride through the Eastern Ghats back towards Visakhapatmnam and the coast, but when I got to the train station I was told the train had been cancelled and that it wasn't certain for the next day. There is only one train each way per day, as this line appears to service primarily a huge iron ore mine at Kirandul in southern Chattisgarh. I had seen many freight trains on my way from the coast, each with more than fifty open top freight cars, full of iron ore on the way to the coast and empty on the return trip.
I made my way to the bus station and was told there was a bus at 10:30, arriving in Visakhapatnam at 9, which didn't sound appealing. Two Indian guys at the bus station approached me and suggested hiring a car to take us to Visakhapatnam. We were charged seven rupees a kilometer for the 644 kilometer round trip, so a little over 4500 rupees, over $80, a lot more expensive than the train fare of less than $2. But I decided to do it and enjoyed the trip. After making the arrangements, we left soon after 10, crossing flat terrain at first and reaching the Chattisgarh-Odisha state line after about half an hour. Some of the roads in Odisha were terrible, but it was by and large a comfortable and interesting ride. We passed many bullock carts, often filled with rice. A few hills appeared as we neared Jeypore and we had a steep climb on a terrible road through the jungle covered hills on the way to Koraput. From Koraput we did not follow the train route through the Araku Valley, but headed southeast through other scenic hills on a road rising to 3500 feet on the way to Andhra Pradesh. We made a lunch stop near Salur just after crossing the Andhra Pradesh state line and reaching the coastal plain. We reached Visakhapatnam soon after 5, but with the rush hour traffic we didn't reach my hotel until about 6. I tried for a room at another one than the one I had stayed in before, but no rooms were available, so I ended up where I had been before, but with no bedbugs.
The next morning about 10 I left on a train heading about 125 miles southwest to Rajahmudry on the Godavari Delta, arriving about 2. The train was crowded, but I got a seat with some engineering students headed from Ranchi to Bangalore and opposite a family from Kerala. The Eastern Ghats were visible to the west as we passed rice fields and palm trees. In Rajahmundry I checked into a good hotel at 800 rupees per night just across from the train station. There wasn't much to see in town, but I did look around the train station, where a long freight train full of coal was waiting. For dinner I had a south Indian "Full Meal" for about a dollar that included lots of rice, plus dhal, three vegetables, curd, papadam and a banana for dessert. Andhra Pradesh is one of the four large southern states of India, all four organized on a language basis. The languages of the south are Dravidian, not Indo-European like those of the north, and have different alphabets, too, with very curly letters. (Odisha, though it speaks an Indo-European language, also uses a different alphabet than the north, and it, too is very roundish and curly.) The people of Andhra Pradesh are generally much darker than those of the north, too. The state is huge, with over 80 million people, though there is a movement to break it into two states.
The next morning I headed to the banks of the very wide Godavari about 7 and about 8 headed north along the east bank of the river on a bus for about an hour and a half on a narrow road through many little villages, with Christmas stars and even posters of Mary and Jesus here and there in celebration of Christmas. I saw a few small churches, too. We got out of the bus along the river and about 10 left on a tourist boat headed up the river to the gorges of the Papi Hills. This was a scenic journey through lovely, green, forested hills, with some rocky banks here and there, and sandy ones, too. We passed thatched roofed villages and a few canoes. Lots of herons flew along the river and I saw large numbers of bats in several riverside trees. But the boat was packed and noisy, with very load music and an annoying emcee. I was the only westerner. We made several stops along the way and had both a breakfast and a lunch on board. At about 2 we reached a spot called Papikonda, with a temple and very small waterfall, and spent maybe 45 minutes there. The trip downstream was better, quieter and with fewer passengers (as some were spending the night along the river). We disembarked about 6, just as it was getting dark, and took the bus back to Rajahmundry, passing lit up Christmas stars along the way. There were also large numbers of very overloaded sugar cane trucks, moving very slowly.
I didn't leave Rajahmundry until about 11:30 the next morning, on a train bound for Vijayawada, further southwest, traveling through the rich green farmland of the Godavari and Krishna Deltas. These two major rivers of southern India rise far inland, near Bombay. The train wasn't crowded, but the scheduled three hour journey took five hours, with a very long delay just before reaching Vijayawada. We passed lots of stacks of rice, lots of water and lots of palm trees. The terrain was flat, except for a few hills near Vijayawada, which is on the banks of the Krishna. I had trouble getting a hotel, and finally ended up in a not so good one for 850 rupees, far overpriced. It was on a quiet street, though. The street had several shoe stores on it. I've seen this before in India: streets that have store after store all selling the same thing.
I thought I might spend two nights in Vijayawada, but couldn't get a room in a better hotel the next morning, so decided to skip a trip to the ancient Buddhist site at Amaravathi, 30 or 40 miles away. Amaravathi had India's largest stupa, though it is now only a pile of dirt with a nearby museum. Before leaving Vijayawada, a city of more than a million people, I did pay a visit to Victoria Jubilee Museum, a very small building built to commemorate her 50 years on the throne in 1887. Inside was a massive portrait of her, maybe ten feet by six feet. Below that, oddly, was a much smaller portrait of Napoleon, and surrounding it were copies of paintings by Raphael, Rubens and Rembrandt. The building had a frieze of elephants, camels and dogs, and a statue of a turbaned guy out front. In the garden were Hindu sculpture and massive Dutch gravestones from the 17th century, some of the gravestones seven feet high. At a 1921 meeting of the Congress Party here, the tricolor Indian flag was adopted, with the wheel in the center added by Gandhi.
Soon after noon I left the city on a crowded train heading away from the coast and into the Deccan towards Warangal, about 125 miles away. We passed through green countryside with hills to the east before the terrain flattened out. We rose from about 40 feet above sea level to almost 900. The countryside, though still green, became drier, and while there was still rice growing, there were other crops, notably lots of cotton and some corn. I began to see outcrops of giant boulders. The train arrived in Warangal about 3:30 and I got a nice, but relatively expensive (840 rupees, about $15-16) hotel near the station and right next to an outcrop of giant boulders that towered over the three or four story hotel. After checking in, I walked around the train station and found an interesting notice on a bulletin board put up by the All India OBC Railway Employees Association. It contain three demands: Reservations in Promotions for OBCs; Abolish Creamy Layer; and Enhance OBC Reservation as per Population Ratio of OBCs (27-52). OBCs are "Other Backward Castes." The 1950 Indian Constitution made special protections for certain "Scheduled Castes and Tribes" and years later other low castes (the OBCs) claimed that they, too, need protections. A big issue in India now is whether a certain proportion of promotions should be guaranteed to SCs and STs, and even OBCs. There already exist hiring quotas for SCs, STs, and OBCs. I find it interesting that they described themselves as "backward." And I liked the "Abolish Creamy Layer," whatever that refers to.
I made my way to the bus station and was told there was a bus at 10:30, arriving in Visakhapatnam at 9, which didn't sound appealing. Two Indian guys at the bus station approached me and suggested hiring a car to take us to Visakhapatnam. We were charged seven rupees a kilometer for the 644 kilometer round trip, so a little over 4500 rupees, over $80, a lot more expensive than the train fare of less than $2. But I decided to do it and enjoyed the trip. After making the arrangements, we left soon after 10, crossing flat terrain at first and reaching the Chattisgarh-Odisha state line after about half an hour. Some of the roads in Odisha were terrible, but it was by and large a comfortable and interesting ride. We passed many bullock carts, often filled with rice. A few hills appeared as we neared Jeypore and we had a steep climb on a terrible road through the jungle covered hills on the way to Koraput. From Koraput we did not follow the train route through the Araku Valley, but headed southeast through other scenic hills on a road rising to 3500 feet on the way to Andhra Pradesh. We made a lunch stop near Salur just after crossing the Andhra Pradesh state line and reaching the coastal plain. We reached Visakhapatnam soon after 5, but with the rush hour traffic we didn't reach my hotel until about 6. I tried for a room at another one than the one I had stayed in before, but no rooms were available, so I ended up where I had been before, but with no bedbugs.
The next morning about 10 I left on a train heading about 125 miles southwest to Rajahmudry on the Godavari Delta, arriving about 2. The train was crowded, but I got a seat with some engineering students headed from Ranchi to Bangalore and opposite a family from Kerala. The Eastern Ghats were visible to the west as we passed rice fields and palm trees. In Rajahmundry I checked into a good hotel at 800 rupees per night just across from the train station. There wasn't much to see in town, but I did look around the train station, where a long freight train full of coal was waiting. For dinner I had a south Indian "Full Meal" for about a dollar that included lots of rice, plus dhal, three vegetables, curd, papadam and a banana for dessert. Andhra Pradesh is one of the four large southern states of India, all four organized on a language basis. The languages of the south are Dravidian, not Indo-European like those of the north, and have different alphabets, too, with very curly letters. (Odisha, though it speaks an Indo-European language, also uses a different alphabet than the north, and it, too is very roundish and curly.) The people of Andhra Pradesh are generally much darker than those of the north, too. The state is huge, with over 80 million people, though there is a movement to break it into two states.
The next morning I headed to the banks of the very wide Godavari about 7 and about 8 headed north along the east bank of the river on a bus for about an hour and a half on a narrow road through many little villages, with Christmas stars and even posters of Mary and Jesus here and there in celebration of Christmas. I saw a few small churches, too. We got out of the bus along the river and about 10 left on a tourist boat headed up the river to the gorges of the Papi Hills. This was a scenic journey through lovely, green, forested hills, with some rocky banks here and there, and sandy ones, too. We passed thatched roofed villages and a few canoes. Lots of herons flew along the river and I saw large numbers of bats in several riverside trees. But the boat was packed and noisy, with very load music and an annoying emcee. I was the only westerner. We made several stops along the way and had both a breakfast and a lunch on board. At about 2 we reached a spot called Papikonda, with a temple and very small waterfall, and spent maybe 45 minutes there. The trip downstream was better, quieter and with fewer passengers (as some were spending the night along the river). We disembarked about 6, just as it was getting dark, and took the bus back to Rajahmundry, passing lit up Christmas stars along the way. There were also large numbers of very overloaded sugar cane trucks, moving very slowly.
I didn't leave Rajahmundry until about 11:30 the next morning, on a train bound for Vijayawada, further southwest, traveling through the rich green farmland of the Godavari and Krishna Deltas. These two major rivers of southern India rise far inland, near Bombay. The train wasn't crowded, but the scheduled three hour journey took five hours, with a very long delay just before reaching Vijayawada. We passed lots of stacks of rice, lots of water and lots of palm trees. The terrain was flat, except for a few hills near Vijayawada, which is on the banks of the Krishna. I had trouble getting a hotel, and finally ended up in a not so good one for 850 rupees, far overpriced. It was on a quiet street, though. The street had several shoe stores on it. I've seen this before in India: streets that have store after store all selling the same thing.
I thought I might spend two nights in Vijayawada, but couldn't get a room in a better hotel the next morning, so decided to skip a trip to the ancient Buddhist site at Amaravathi, 30 or 40 miles away. Amaravathi had India's largest stupa, though it is now only a pile of dirt with a nearby museum. Before leaving Vijayawada, a city of more than a million people, I did pay a visit to Victoria Jubilee Museum, a very small building built to commemorate her 50 years on the throne in 1887. Inside was a massive portrait of her, maybe ten feet by six feet. Below that, oddly, was a much smaller portrait of Napoleon, and surrounding it were copies of paintings by Raphael, Rubens and Rembrandt. The building had a frieze of elephants, camels and dogs, and a statue of a turbaned guy out front. In the garden were Hindu sculpture and massive Dutch gravestones from the 17th century, some of the gravestones seven feet high. At a 1921 meeting of the Congress Party here, the tricolor Indian flag was adopted, with the wheel in the center added by Gandhi.
Soon after noon I left the city on a crowded train heading away from the coast and into the Deccan towards Warangal, about 125 miles away. We passed through green countryside with hills to the east before the terrain flattened out. We rose from about 40 feet above sea level to almost 900. The countryside, though still green, became drier, and while there was still rice growing, there were other crops, notably lots of cotton and some corn. I began to see outcrops of giant boulders. The train arrived in Warangal about 3:30 and I got a nice, but relatively expensive (840 rupees, about $15-16) hotel near the station and right next to an outcrop of giant boulders that towered over the three or four story hotel. After checking in, I walked around the train station and found an interesting notice on a bulletin board put up by the All India OBC Railway Employees Association. It contain three demands: Reservations in Promotions for OBCs; Abolish Creamy Layer; and Enhance OBC Reservation as per Population Ratio of OBCs (27-52). OBCs are "Other Backward Castes." The 1950 Indian Constitution made special protections for certain "Scheduled Castes and Tribes" and years later other low castes (the OBCs) claimed that they, too, need protections. A big issue in India now is whether a certain proportion of promotions should be guaranteed to SCs and STs, and even OBCs. There already exist hiring quotas for SCs, STs, and OBCs. I find it interesting that they described themselves as "backward." And I liked the "Abolish Creamy Layer," whatever that refers to.
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