A quick drive to Hidden Castle.
Place is located around 100 kilometers from Hyderabad.
 
Road condition:
4-lane with very few diversions. Once you hit the highway, You will reach the destination in an hour.
 
Food options on highway:
Enroute you can find Haritha food court.

Exploring Yanam Part 1
 
Origin: Ramachandrapuram, East Godavari, Andhra Pradesh.
Destination: Yanam, Puducherry.
 
Route Taken: Ramachandrapuram - Tallapolam - Draksharamam - Kuyyeru - Yanam
Start Time:5:10AM
Distance: 27KMS
Time Taken: 1hr 
Car: Honda City VX i-VTEC
Mileage: 13.2KMPL
Road Condition: Mix of good, average, bad and worst. 
Scenic Views: Single lane roads with beautiful scenes at either side of the roads. The roads are surrounded by lush green farms on either side. 
 
Trip Report
 
 
Yanam, the place that I first visited in 2013, when I was 17. And this time again I wanted to visit the place only to know it better and love it more...
 
Started early in the morning at 5:10 and reached the area in 1hr. 
 
The only thing I thought I could do in the place is to take the initial sunrise photo touching the waters. That's a beautiful sight and I never missed that. But surprisingly this time I got more than what I expected. I got to know about the area more and explore the area and the backwaters. This time, unfortunately, I could take my favourite shot, the sun touching the waters because of clouds. But got a chance to explore the area a bit. 
 
It was 7:00 AM, the sun just started rising pushing the clouds aside. And there I saw a person in a white shirt and white pant, assumed him to be a local and approached him to inquire more about the place. To my surprise, he turned out to be the government boat operator. Upon asking him, he arranged a boat ride into the waters and at 7:15 I was on the boat moving gently on the backwaters. 
 
The boat driver Ramakrishna, is a very nice guy. I finished taking photos and started talking with him. he spoke many things, from the political situation in Puducherry and Andhra Pradesh, their lives, the local MLA and not to forget, the insider information about the place.  Yanam, a very beautiful place, mostly unexplored and left undeveloped. "Yanam chala manchi ooru Saru, Kani Chala mandi teliyaka raru. Tourists perigite maku income perugutundi" said the boat driver. 
Yanam indeed is a really beautiful place, there are many places to explore from Yanam. 
 
The first one, 
 
Bhairavapalem Mangrove Forests (Where we can find many rare migratory birds. It takes 2 hours to come and 2 hours stay on this island. Total of 6 hours. Price for 10 is 6000 INR) Koringa Mangrove Forests And many small unexplored islands (We can find many migratory birds)  
I think the area should be developed, but that development shouldn't destroy the natural beauty and serenity of the place. The local activities early in the morning, sunrise, birds chirping and the fishing activities are really beautiful and the development should not destroy these...
 
Part 2 coming soon... I'll be writing about the places that in have visited in part 2.  
 
Places to stay:
The Regency Hotel (best for families as per trip advisor) Sarva Inn Puducherry Government Guest House   
Few Pictures
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

Hi All,

This is my first travel story in India-Drive.
I have been working in Bangalore from the past few years.
Recently, I moved back to Hyderabad.
My last drive is from Hyderabad to Himalayas with India-Drive team.
It is my best and longest I have ever done in my Duster.
 
Surylanka drive


I have been to Suryalanka around 10 times, frankly speaking, I lost the count!
Last month me and my friend decided to go on a quick weekend getaway.
Plan is to start on Saturday morning and come back by Sunday evening. 
 
We all know that Suryalanka is overcrowded during weekends. 
So we constructed a strategy to beat the crowd. 
 
Route taken
Hyderabad --> Vijaywada --> Suryalanka
We took this route since we had accommodation(friend's place) at Vijayawada.

Best route from Hyderabad to Suryalanka
Hyderabad --> Nalgonda --> Miryalaguda --> Narasaraopet --> Suryalanka
I would suggest people to visit Chirala beach along with Suryalanka, we missed out due to time constraint. 

We started on Saturday around 11AM.
We took the famous the Hyderabad-Vijayawada section.
This is one of the best section after Hyderabad-Bangalore.(my personal favorite)

Maintained steady 110km/hr in my trusted Duster.
We reached Suryapet by 2PM and stopped over for lunch at Hotel 7.
Hotel 7 is one of the best in terms of Infrastructure/Food/Quality/Maintenance.
 
Suryapet to Vijayawada took us around 2 hours +.
Crossing Vijayawada is always pain. Multiple diversions and no proper signs leads to confusion.
One of our friend stays in Vijayawada outskirts, we reached his place by 5PM.
Decided to call the day off. 

Team :
 
Has anyone been to Philippines? Need help and information. I am doing quite a detailed research on this beautiful country and looks like the trip can be extremely surprising with 7000 islands and the vastness of the country.!
The distance and the accessibility between or across many islands can be little time consuming. Need guidance on the worth visiting spots and logistics for the planned itinerary. 
 
Thank you