Roadtrip to Orissa from Bangalore Day 1

Roadissi   Day One

 
Day Plan : Non-stop drive to Visakhapatnam

Travel Route : Bangalore- Hoskote (NH 4) - Chintamani (SH 82)- Madanapalle (NH 205)- Rayachoti (NH 40) - Kadapa (NH 40) - Badvel - Pamuru (AP SH61) - Kandukur (NH 5) - Ongole (NH 5) - Guntur (NH 5) - Rajamundry (NH 5) - Visakhapatnam (NH5)

Distance : About 1000 km

Estimated Travel Time : 12 hours excluding breaks

Landscape at  Karnataka - Andhra Border

Welcome to Andhra Pradesh

We started right on time on day one and as usual, after offering prayers at  Lord Hanuman's temple  for a safe and happy journey, continued our drive. We stopped by for some breakfast at Madanpalle. Driving further, we had to take a deviation from NH 205 towards Rayachoti. Though the initial stretch of the road was under construction, later on, the condition of roads only improved. All of a sudden, something huge appeared before our eyes and caught our attention! It was the beautiful hill fort of Gurramkonda. Now, we were in two minds about exploring this place. After a few minutes of analysis and coming to a conclusion that it would take us at least three hours to explore the fort, and  since we had set ourselves a time limit, without wasting any more time, we quickly took a shot of it and  promised to visit this place again.

Gurram-Konda Fort

View of NH 40 from Kadapa Ghat

Via Rayachoti, we proceeded further towards Kadapa (famous for its stone slabs, popularly called as Kadapa stone). A few kilometers before reaching Kadapa,  a  short stretch of ghat section welcomes us to view the natural beauty of Kadapa. Hereon, we reached Mydukur and after crossing Badvel, we visited the Lord Rama temple by the road side. At the first look,  the temple looked like it was built by the Vijayanagar Kings, though not sure. It seemed to have undergone some renovations. A small well existed near the temple, which was built using Kadapa stones. The water level in the well was quite high and the construction was neat.

The Tall & Lovely Raja Gopura of  Lord  Chennakeshava Temple

Lord Rama Temple at Badvel

 Mosaic Designs

Lord Rama

The Well

Water Level in the Well

Our  Dear Travel Partner !! 

Proceeding further towards our destination, we reached a place called Duttalur at around 12:30 pm and  on reading our map for route confirmation, we realised the presence of a fort around by this place. We had traveled around 450 km until now. We allotted ourselves about thirty minutes to explore the fort as we had to travel 550 km from now on and reach Vizag before 10:00 pm. The Fort had much more to offer than we thought.  

The dance shall continue .........