On the 29th, my last morning in Puri, I walked out to the beach fronting the fishing village soon after sunrise to watch all the activity. The waves were smaller, so the boats had an easier time coming and going. I saw the shell and remnants of the carcass of an olive ridley turtle on the sand. The head was gone, as was most of the body. The two front flippers remained. A few crows picked at it until a dog shooed them away and pulled out some viscera to eat. Olive ridley turtles nest along the coast here in the thousands, usually during the full moon in February, I think. Back on the beach closer to my hotel, some women and girls were holding some sort of ceremony, with lots of marigolds and incense. They were making mounds and designs in the sand. After they finished, I noticed the mound was a representation of a woman delivering a baby.
I left Puri on an uncrowded train about 12:30 that first traveled about 25 miles inland to reach the main east coast line, and then headed southwest a hundred miles or so, passing the large, scenic, salt water Lake Chilika and lots and lots of rice fields, some being harvested and some already harvested. It was all very scenic, in the late afternoon sun, with little hills here and there. We reached the town of Brahmapur about 4:30, where I broke my journey and got a dirty, but friendly, hotel near the station.
I slept okay despite a thin mattress and the next morning ate a huge paper dosa for what the restaurant called "tiffin." A paper dosa is a particularly large, thin, crispy rice pancake (maybe two feet long), that you break into pieces and dip into little bowls of vegetables, yoghurt, and so forth. It was very good, and filling. My train for Visakhapatnam left about 11:45 and we soon left Odisha and entered the northeast arm of the state of Andhra Pradesh. We passed more rice fields, plus lots of palm trees and other trees, through a very scenic countryside. The Eastern Ghats rose to the west inland, and we passed lots of roundish, low hills. The sea, unseen, was to the east. The train was not too crowded, with the usual assortment of hawkers and beggars coming through the aisles. We reached Visakhapatnam, a city of well over a million people, about 4:15. I had great difficulty finding a hotel, and finally settled for a none too clean one near the station. I had trouble getting to sleep, finally felt a bite, and turned on the light to discover my sheets were full of bedbugs and other, larger bugs. I squished a few and they bled red blood: mine, I imagine. I changed rooms but it took a while to fall asleep as I kept turning on the light to check for bugs.
There is not much to see in Visakhapatnam and what there is is somewhat dispersed, so I decided to take a city tour offered by the local tourist office. It lasted from about 9 to 4 and wasn't too bad. We first visited a Hindu temple on a forested hill surrounded by other forested hills outside of town. As always, the crowds of pilgrims were interesting. There was a spot that appeared to be a place for the blessing of cows and calves, some of which appeared to have black eye liner around their eyes. I also saw what appeared to be a guru-mobile: a bus outfitted to look like a mobile temple, with a yellow clad guru in the back dispensing blessings. We visited a hill overlooking the city and the sea, the remains of a 2000 year old Buddhist monastery on a hill up the coast, a not so attractive beach (where we had a good lunch), a city museum and a Soviet built submarine used by the Indian Navy from 1969 to 2001. Our last stop was the very smelly fishing harbor.
I was at the railway station the next morning at 6 standing in a long, but relatively quick moving line, to get a ticket on the daily train that heads up into the Eastern Ghats. It cost me all of 20 rupees (37 cents) for an unreserved ticket to go all the way to Araku, a trip of about 80 miles. The platform was jammed with waiting passengers, and, following others, I leapt onto the still moving train as it reached the platform. Still, I had to fight for a seat. The train was packed, with little boys climbing up onto the luggage racks for a place to sleep. It was a Sunday and I figured most of the passengers were day trippers headed to the hills before coming back on the returning afternoon train, though another passenger told me there were also people returning from a festival in a town near Visakhapatnam. The train left about 7. I had some friendly women and girls in the seats facing mine and enjoyed the rolling green hills as we headed to the Eastern Ghats. Unfortunately, as we began to climb, all the views were on the opposite side of the train, and the aisles were so packed that you couldn't see out the opposite side windows. My views were mainly of the cliff along which the track ran. We climbed to over 2000 feet and reached the stop for the Borra Caves, where lots of people got off. Continuing, we were on a green, hilly plateau for another hour or so until reaching Araku, at about 3000 feet (917.803 meters, according to the wondrously precise sign at the station), about 11:30.
Araku isn't much of a town, and I found a hotel about 15 minutes walk from the station. Unfortunately, Araku and its surroundings were full of noisy Sunday tourists, with all the attendant speeding and honking. Lots of garbage, too. Not the pleasant hill retreat I had been led to believe. I had lunch and walked around a bit. I put on long trousers and wore my fleece for dinner.
It was somewhat quieter the next morning, but I left on the train at 11:30 and had a pleasant, uncrowded trip further up the line into the Eastern Ghats. We continued on the plateau, at about 3000 feet for the most part, following a river for a while and passing lots of rice fields, with people reaping and threshing the rice. We crossed into the southwestern part of Odisha state and reached the small town of Koraput about 2. Koraput is a pleasant little town surrounded by hills, and with quite a few hills in the town. It took me more than an hour to get a hotel and I ended up at the expensive one I had stopped at first. A room was 900 rupees ($16), but the other hotels were either full or the rooms terrible. I had a late lunch and then walked to a somewhat interesting tribal museum, with what may have been a century old poster of the world's three races: Negroid, Mongoloid, and "Europeanoid," with a drawing of a bearded European man. At dusk I walked to the hilltop Jagannath Temple, a smaller, newer version of the great temple at Puri. It was almost empty. A friendly young priest clad in yellow cracked young cocoanuts given him by pilgrims and then returned a half cocoanut with a small marigold inside it, for ten rupees a pop, it seemed.
The next morning I walked around town a bit and again climbed up to the Jagannath Temple. There were adivasi (tribal) women selling produce along the town's streets. Almost all seemed to have three nose rings, one through the septum and one other on each side. Most were barefoot. At about 11 I walked to the bus stand to catch a bus for Jeypore, 13 miles away, but was told that most buses weren't running because the Maoist Naxalites guerrillas in the hills had ordered them to stop service. Apparently, the Odisha state government has an ongoing operation to find the Naxalite leader in Odisha and the Naxalites are threatening the buses to pressure the government to stop the search. (They are called Naxalites because the movement started in the West Bengal village of Naxalbari, in the 1960's or 70's, I think.) Two young guys told me a bus from Andhra Pradesh would be coming through at noon bound for Jeypore. I guess the Andhra Pradesh buses either weren't targeted or weren't intimidated by the Naxalites. It arrived, but was far too packed to board. I gave up on buses and took an autorickshaw to the railway station. The uncrowded train arrived sometime after 2. My ticket for the short trip to Jeypore was seven rupees, about thirteen cents. It took almost two hours, though, as the rail route is longer than the road route and we had a couple of long stops waiting for trains coming in the opposite direction. We passed through very hilly terrain before dropping down to plains about 2000 feet in elevation. The station is about four miles from the town, so I took an autorickshaw on a bumpy road and then walked about fifteen minutes to reach a pretty good hotel. I wasn't feeling well, so I skipped dinner.
My stomach was still upset the next morning, but not too bad. I was very tired, though, and rested and slept most of the day, with a short walk in the early afternoon to the local high-walled fort, with a derelict palace inside. As in Koraput, there were tribal women on the streets selling produce. I felt better in the evening and had a very good dinner with four Americans living in Hong Kong who had just arrived with their own car, driver and guide. As I, they were hoping to go to the weekly Onkadelli tribal market about 40 miles from Jeypore the next day, but were unable to get permits to go there. Two Italians were kidnapped last February by the Naxalites, who style themselves protectors of the tribal people, and since then the state government has made it a lot harder to visit tribal areas.
I left Puri on an uncrowded train about 12:30 that first traveled about 25 miles inland to reach the main east coast line, and then headed southwest a hundred miles or so, passing the large, scenic, salt water Lake Chilika and lots and lots of rice fields, some being harvested and some already harvested. It was all very scenic, in the late afternoon sun, with little hills here and there. We reached the town of Brahmapur about 4:30, where I broke my journey and got a dirty, but friendly, hotel near the station.
I slept okay despite a thin mattress and the next morning ate a huge paper dosa for what the restaurant called "tiffin." A paper dosa is a particularly large, thin, crispy rice pancake (maybe two feet long), that you break into pieces and dip into little bowls of vegetables, yoghurt, and so forth. It was very good, and filling. My train for Visakhapatnam left about 11:45 and we soon left Odisha and entered the northeast arm of the state of Andhra Pradesh. We passed more rice fields, plus lots of palm trees and other trees, through a very scenic countryside. The Eastern Ghats rose to the west inland, and we passed lots of roundish, low hills. The sea, unseen, was to the east. The train was not too crowded, with the usual assortment of hawkers and beggars coming through the aisles. We reached Visakhapatnam, a city of well over a million people, about 4:15. I had great difficulty finding a hotel, and finally settled for a none too clean one near the station. I had trouble getting to sleep, finally felt a bite, and turned on the light to discover my sheets were full of bedbugs and other, larger bugs. I squished a few and they bled red blood: mine, I imagine. I changed rooms but it took a while to fall asleep as I kept turning on the light to check for bugs.
There is not much to see in Visakhapatnam and what there is is somewhat dispersed, so I decided to take a city tour offered by the local tourist office. It lasted from about 9 to 4 and wasn't too bad. We first visited a Hindu temple on a forested hill surrounded by other forested hills outside of town. As always, the crowds of pilgrims were interesting. There was a spot that appeared to be a place for the blessing of cows and calves, some of which appeared to have black eye liner around their eyes. I also saw what appeared to be a guru-mobile: a bus outfitted to look like a mobile temple, with a yellow clad guru in the back dispensing blessings. We visited a hill overlooking the city and the sea, the remains of a 2000 year old Buddhist monastery on a hill up the coast, a not so attractive beach (where we had a good lunch), a city museum and a Soviet built submarine used by the Indian Navy from 1969 to 2001. Our last stop was the very smelly fishing harbor.
I was at the railway station the next morning at 6 standing in a long, but relatively quick moving line, to get a ticket on the daily train that heads up into the Eastern Ghats. It cost me all of 20 rupees (37 cents) for an unreserved ticket to go all the way to Araku, a trip of about 80 miles. The platform was jammed with waiting passengers, and, following others, I leapt onto the still moving train as it reached the platform. Still, I had to fight for a seat. The train was packed, with little boys climbing up onto the luggage racks for a place to sleep. It was a Sunday and I figured most of the passengers were day trippers headed to the hills before coming back on the returning afternoon train, though another passenger told me there were also people returning from a festival in a town near Visakhapatnam. The train left about 7. I had some friendly women and girls in the seats facing mine and enjoyed the rolling green hills as we headed to the Eastern Ghats. Unfortunately, as we began to climb, all the views were on the opposite side of the train, and the aisles were so packed that you couldn't see out the opposite side windows. My views were mainly of the cliff along which the track ran. We climbed to over 2000 feet and reached the stop for the Borra Caves, where lots of people got off. Continuing, we were on a green, hilly plateau for another hour or so until reaching Araku, at about 3000 feet (917.803 meters, according to the wondrously precise sign at the station), about 11:30.
Araku isn't much of a town, and I found a hotel about 15 minutes walk from the station. Unfortunately, Araku and its surroundings were full of noisy Sunday tourists, with all the attendant speeding and honking. Lots of garbage, too. Not the pleasant hill retreat I had been led to believe. I had lunch and walked around a bit. I put on long trousers and wore my fleece for dinner.
It was somewhat quieter the next morning, but I left on the train at 11:30 and had a pleasant, uncrowded trip further up the line into the Eastern Ghats. We continued on the plateau, at about 3000 feet for the most part, following a river for a while and passing lots of rice fields, with people reaping and threshing the rice. We crossed into the southwestern part of Odisha state and reached the small town of Koraput about 2. Koraput is a pleasant little town surrounded by hills, and with quite a few hills in the town. It took me more than an hour to get a hotel and I ended up at the expensive one I had stopped at first. A room was 900 rupees ($16), but the other hotels were either full or the rooms terrible. I had a late lunch and then walked to a somewhat interesting tribal museum, with what may have been a century old poster of the world's three races: Negroid, Mongoloid, and "Europeanoid," with a drawing of a bearded European man. At dusk I walked to the hilltop Jagannath Temple, a smaller, newer version of the great temple at Puri. It was almost empty. A friendly young priest clad in yellow cracked young cocoanuts given him by pilgrims and then returned a half cocoanut with a small marigold inside it, for ten rupees a pop, it seemed.
The next morning I walked around town a bit and again climbed up to the Jagannath Temple. There were adivasi (tribal) women selling produce along the town's streets. Almost all seemed to have three nose rings, one through the septum and one other on each side. Most were barefoot. At about 11 I walked to the bus stand to catch a bus for Jeypore, 13 miles away, but was told that most buses weren't running because the Maoist Naxalites guerrillas in the hills had ordered them to stop service. Apparently, the Odisha state government has an ongoing operation to find the Naxalite leader in Odisha and the Naxalites are threatening the buses to pressure the government to stop the search. (They are called Naxalites because the movement started in the West Bengal village of Naxalbari, in the 1960's or 70's, I think.) Two young guys told me a bus from Andhra Pradesh would be coming through at noon bound for Jeypore. I guess the Andhra Pradesh buses either weren't targeted or weren't intimidated by the Naxalites. It arrived, but was far too packed to board. I gave up on buses and took an autorickshaw to the railway station. The uncrowded train arrived sometime after 2. My ticket for the short trip to Jeypore was seven rupees, about thirteen cents. It took almost two hours, though, as the rail route is longer than the road route and we had a couple of long stops waiting for trains coming in the opposite direction. We passed through very hilly terrain before dropping down to plains about 2000 feet in elevation. The station is about four miles from the town, so I took an autorickshaw on a bumpy road and then walked about fifteen minutes to reach a pretty good hotel. I wasn't feeling well, so I skipped dinner.
My stomach was still upset the next morning, but not too bad. I was very tired, though, and rested and slept most of the day, with a short walk in the early afternoon to the local high-walled fort, with a derelict palace inside. As in Koraput, there were tribal women on the streets selling produce. I felt better in the evening and had a very good dinner with four Americans living in Hong Kong who had just arrived with their own car, driver and guide. As I, they were hoping to go to the weekly Onkadelli tribal market about 40 miles from Jeypore the next day, but were unable to get permits to go there. Two Italians were kidnapped last February by the Naxalites, who style themselves protectors of the tribal people, and since then the state government has made it a lot harder to visit tribal areas.
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Home to India's largest ship building yard, this thriving industrial city of Visakhapatnam has come a long way since its days as a Dutch colonial settlement. For budget accommodation, check out these hotels in Visakhapatnam near railway station.
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