Drive To Ananthagiri

The Place

Ananthagiri Hills are located about 85Kms east of Hyderabad. The mini hill range is known for its thick woods and trekking possibilities. I would have added more content here, expect that we never really made it to the hills :) (the Vizag Tourism link should be enough to get you excited about the place). However, the drive was one of the most interesting ones we ever embarked upon....

The Drive and The Experience
You can call it sheer laziness, but given the usual Friday evening (rather Friday late-night) vellagiri, it was impossible to leave early Saturday morning for the trek to Ananthagiri. However, it is important to note that lazy folks are very good at justifying laziness.
We therefore unanimously decided that dawn drive is the usual stuff people anyway do, we should rather go for a dusk drive through the grasslands !

With the above unquestionable logic and solid 10hrs of sleep, we left for Ananthagiri after packing some chips and coke at 4pm.
The route to Ananthagiri is fairly straightforward. All you need to do is hit the HimayatSagar Road from the Nehru Outer Ring Road and its a straight route to Ananthagiri from there.

The drive itself is an experience if you are following the setting Sun. Its amazing how much clearer and picture-perfect the sky is once you drive away from Hyderabad.

The roads are clear and traffic was fairly sparse during the onward journey. There are few landmarks to look out for while driving, like the Sree Swaminarayan Gurukul. With Akshardham temple like complex, its quite a building for a school.




As we drove with the sun setting on the horizon, the picturesque landscape and sunflower farms offer quite a sight and excellent photography opportunities.

For those wondering about the loss of color in the above image, don't ask me. Our photographer Sonali has a thing for Black and White these days..

We took a LOT of pics during this drive, its hard to not to put all and make this entry a series of pictures with some subtitles. However, a few more wont hurt..

We decided to turn back as the light was fading fast and a night-trek wasn't really an option. We went for the final roadside walk and took this picture of the lake.


I guess that's the difference between an early morning and a dusk drive. The evening drive does not really have a destination. The sun simply fades away, stars take over and you can return home with great pictures and an enriching experience !