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Very heavy rains from about 3 AM and into early in the morning delayed out leaving Chennai. We wanted to leave at 5:30 am, but could leave at 7 AM only. To cover the first thirty km we took about one hour, The heavy downpour and stagnant water consequent to the last few hours heavy and incessant rains ensured that the traffic moved at a snail's pace.
The first toll Booth waved us through, maybe there was no power? However the unruly traffic at the toll did not help and the vehicles moved as if the toll was working.
60kms from home, the roads were dry and the rains ceased. The sky was heavily overcast and threatened to start raining.
By this time (8:30 am) we were hungry and looking for a place to have breakfast. Google told us that a Shyams group outlet was a short while away. 130 kms from home was the highway family restaurant, which was actually Amaravathi restaurant and serving vegetarian breakfast. The food was quite good and the toilets not too bad. Maybe restaurants should charge people for using the toilets, this would defeat the very high cost of keeping toilets clean in India.
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| Amaravathi Restaurant about 130 Kms from Chennai on the Nellore highway, maybe the best option for food when you start your journey from Chennai on that highway. |
At 10:30 am and 3.5 hours after we started we had done 155 kms. About 50 kms average per hour not bad considering the slow traffic the first 2 hours.
We reached Vijaywada at 3 PM and checked into our Hotel, After a late lunch we started our looking around Vijaywada.
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Sitting with the statues
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| Waiting for business - Vijaywada |
A little distance away from the Prakasam Barrage are the Undavalli caves. We were late and so could spend only a few minutes there and well worth the time and visit. One can see from the images below that there are figures of Europeans in the caves, I was not able to find much on this. It is believed that there is a tunnel from the caves to the Mangalagiri mountains but this is not confirmed..... Undavalli caves are an example of how many Buddhist artifacts and stupas in Andhra were converted into Hindu temples and deities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undavalli_caves
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| Vishnu lying down, no prayers being conducted here regularly. |
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| Looks like an Eurpoean right? No information though on these faces in the caves. |
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| Cells in which the buddhist monks used to stay, it is obvious that the sculptures on the pillars were added later. Mostly hindu figures.... |
Mangalagiri is a just a few Kms away from the Undavalli caves and the draw of this famous textiles centre could not be resisted. We visited a shop at "Kothapet" selling Mangalagiri cotton sarees and textiles and they had three looms attached to the shop, a novel experience and we would have been able to see the workers, weaving if we had gone there a little earlier. One can find a lot of information on the internet about the Mangalagiri sarees and textiles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangalagiri
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| Lakshminarasimhan temple, Mangalagiri |
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| Mangalagiri cotton looms |
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| It was late by the time we reached the loom and the workers had left for the day. |
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| Mangalagiri threads |
Our next stop was the famous Kanaka Durga temple in Vijaywada situated on top of a hillock, not much of a crowd at the time of our visit though being a Friday. For the first time I saw a small shed housing 2 cows being worshipped by devotees inside the temple complex. We had a easy entry and darshan in spite of fears.
http://www.durgamma.com/
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| Kanaka Durga Temple Vijaywada |
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| Pilgrims making their offerings |
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| Pilgrims getting ready to retire for the day in the halls of the Kanadurga temple. |
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Kanakadurga temple, Cows being worshipped
We drove through One town, Kaleswara Rao Market a wholesale market in Vijaywada, obviously very popular and doing a lot of business, noticeable by the crowd and vehicles in that area.
Dinner we had earlier decided would be at "Babai" a iconic restaurant famous for its idlies. We were not impressed though. The food was alright but the cleanliness and ambience was lacking and one may visit it once as a result of its past glory but not a second time.
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| Babai of Vijaywada |
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| At the famouos (?) Babai, my recommendation, visit, eat your idly fast and go somewhere else for dinner. |
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