Dolphin’s nose is the most prominent landmark in Visakhapatnam, India. It is a single and massive hillock of more than 350mts height, resembles the Dolphin’s nose hence the name. This is the evening view.
An alphabet tag is moving around in the blogosphere. A letter is assigned and one has to write about 10 things one loves that begin with that letter. Now Apar assigned me Q, Vishesh allotted B and Willow tagged me with M. You know from now on once I am tagged for a meme, I will put up a header image declaring “TAGGED FOR XYZ MEME” ..on the lines of shouting “don’t touch me” when someone tries to give you a new pinch. Hope you all know the custom of new pinch 🙂
Few weeks ago, Sulz had asked for help from her readers. She needed topics to blog about and I had suggested that she can write about “Ten good things that you have done in past one year. or maybe ten lessons that you have learned in past one year.” After reading her post I was impressed by my own suggestion and decided to write a post about my lessons. So I have decided to incorporate this tag with a round up of the important events of my life and the lessons I have learned in year 2008.
Here is the 3rd and final part to the series “Visakhapatnam Trip”
29th Oct 2008 – We had plans to go to RK beach early morning to watch the ocean with rising sun. But due to exertion from the Araku trip, we woke up quite late. We had booked the same driver (who was very impressed by my father’s good nature and vice versa) for the last day of our trip. It was almost noon when he arrived with his car. We left for Indira Gandhi Zoological Park in Vizag city. The park spreading over an area of 625 acres, exhibits about lots of animals and birds in open surroundings, except the birds of course! We decided to move around in car only. One thing we noticed in Vizag that at every tourist attraction there was a charge of Rs.20 for camera. AP Govt is surely minting money from tourism. There is a special house of nocturnal animals where owls, civets, porcupines, wild cats, loris etc are kept in total darkness with artificial dim light and air conditioned cave sort of place. It was both eerie and scary! We were wondering why they have done that as in natural habitat, these animals experience daylight! I found the answer on internet. Apparently the Hyderabad zoo has a similar section.
Here is the second post in the series titled “Visakhapatnam trip”.
28th Oct 2008 – As I told in part 1 that we had booked a tour of Araku Valley and Borra Caves. We were supposed to report to APTDC counter at station at 5.45 am. That we did with groggy eyes only to know the train leaves at 7.00 am! Aarghhh! There were lots of other tourists too on the same tour. The rail-cum-road tour included breakfast, lunch and evening tea + snacks too. We were served delicious idli along with chutney for breakfast. The train journey comprised of 46 tunnels, glorious view of the valley and hills of Eastern Ghats. One of the tour guides kept informing us of interesting facts regarding the journey.
View of Araku Valley from Galikonda View Point
As I mentioned in my earlier post, I’d gone to Visakhapatnam in Diwali vacation for four days. But only one post will not do justice to my experience so it is going to be three posts series. As Visakhapatnam or Vizag is only 12 hours from my hometown by train, we decided to go there on a short trip.
26th Oct 2008 – Train was at an unholy time of 6.00 am! And day journey in sleeper class (AC had no seats left for reservation) was bad due to heat. But the scenery was beautiful. We reached in late evening and went to the hotel where we had booked room. We had been told on phone that they will provide an extra bed. Unlike the hotel in Puri, here we were given an extra mattress without cot! But as it was late, we decide to stay on there only. Service was average but food was bad. Dad and I went to the nearby APTDC office and booked ourselves for tour of Araku Valley and Borra Caves on 28th. We also hired a car for local sightseeing on 27th. Move your mouse on the photos to see their captions.
Hope all of you had a wonderful Diwali. Making use of one of the perks of teaching profession i.e. 8 days long Diwali vacation, I’d gone to Puri last year. This year I went on a 3 day trip to Visakhapatnam with my parents. But more about it in upcoming posts and new header images 😀 Here is a sneak preview of what lies ahead on this blog.
View from Tenneti Park Vizag
My Random Thoughts 