Antarvedi - a place unexplored

A couple of weeks back, my boss called us for a sudden meeting at his guest house in Antarvedi. Thats when I looked it up on google maps. So Antarvedi is located on the banks of river Godavari in the East Godavari district of Andhra Pardesh. The location is beautiful because it is at this point that Godavari merges into the Indian Ocean.

Antarvedi has a sleepy village setting with all the paddy fields, the coconut leaf huts, the long unending stretches of coconut trees, very cheerful locals and of course the prawn farm landlords (earning crores of Rs).  It has a small but ancient temple with a story of Sage Vashishta associated with it. As I mentioned earlier as the river meets the sea you also have a beautiful, virtually unexplored beach. My boss has a few acres of land right on the banks of Godavari and has build a beautiful guest house over looking it. I had the privilege of staying there for a few days.

So if you do get to this part of Andhra and you are not a local and are wondering as to what you could do, here are a few tips
1) Walk around to get a true village feel. Check out the prawn and fish farms. The locals will be delighted to pull out a fish and show you. See if you can meet any of the prawn crorepati and get a few tips from them.
2) Lot of rare birds around. Take out your SLR and click away.
3) Ofcourse visit the beach. Make sure you do so either in the early mornings or towards the late evening. While you are at it, see if you can spot any dolphins swimming by.  I visited the beach in the morning and was very lucky to spot a few dolphins by just standing right there on the beach
4) Visit the local fish market and buy your share of the best quality prawn either dried or fresh
5) See if you can get yourself invited to any of the locals house. People in this part of Andhra are known to be generous with their guest and make amazing food. I got to relish a couple of crab and fish(chepala pulusu) dishes during my stay and they did taste yummy.
6) If all this is done and you still have time, find a comfortable place, settle down to read or even better write a book. 

Dophin swimming by

Sunset on river Godavari

Sunrise amidst coco palms

I think this is a Racquet Tail

Indian Roller or the Blue Jay

Cute crabs on the beach

Structure in the middle of no where

Fresh catch of the day

Fish from the farm

APTDC also has a resort in this region at a place called Dindi. I think there is another privately run resort just opposite the APTDC resort. Its hard to find any other accommodation here. The best time to  visit is the winters as Andhra as a whole has harsh summers.  The nearest towns are Narsapur and Bhimavaram.

Dandeli - a weekend getaway

A few weeks back I had been to Dandeli. For those who are wondering where Dandeli is, it is the Uttar Kannada district of Karnataka, nestled between the western ghats. Dandeli is almost synonymous with white water rafting in the south of India. The river Kali flowing through the jungles provide enough excitement for any novice rafter. Dandeli is also a bird-watchers paradise. Many species of birds are easily spotted here especially the 3 varieties of the Malabar Hornbill.

Our trip was on a tight budget and so we traveled by bus from Hyderabad until Hubli. Reached Hubli by 8:30 and were lucky to get a bus going to Dandeli from Hubli itself. The frequency of buses to Dandeli from Hubli is less. You can also go to Dharwad and take a bus from there to Hubli. Hubli and Dharwad are well connected with buses plying at regular interval.

Reached Dandeli by 12:00 noon. We had our bookings done at the  State Forest  Dept, Kulgi Nature Camp. These are the most economical, well maintained, and quite beautifully located accommodation you will find in Dandeli. The only disadvantage being that this guest house is located in Ambika nagar which is almost 30km from Ganeshgudi, and Ganeshgudi is the place where all the rafting and water activities happen. If you have a vehicle of your own it should not be a problem.  The resorts on Ganeshgudi are exorbitantly priced, and I feel only the Tree houses of Hornbill deserve those rates, because they are located just by the river on tree. If not for that, its not worth staying in Ganeshgudi.

Nature Camp -  Tents

Log Huts

Kulgi Nature Camp can be booked by calling the Forest Dept at Dy. Conservator of Forests,Wildlife division,
Dandeli, Karnataka, India, Phone - 08284-231585 and Fax: 08284-331585, 08284-232960, 08284-232981 or 9916218630 Kiran Fernandez(an officer in the dept). Once you confirm the availability over phone, send them a DD by fax or courier to confirm your reservation. They are priced at Rs 1000 per day for the tents and Rs 1500 per day for the log huts. Once in Dandeli, visit the Forest Dept office in Dandeli first, pick up your receipt before proceeding to Kulgi.  While you are at the Forest Dept Office, look around the tall trees and you are sure to spot at least one Malabar Pied Hornbill. The Nature camp has both tents and log huts. Both are well furnished with attached bathrooms and midst of forest. I preferred the tents to the log huts. The food served is decent.

That very evening we headed to Ganeshgudi for the rafting. Anyone in Dandeli can arrange a white water rafting for you. We got it done through the Nature Camp guys. The rafting was quite good with a few good rapids that we navigated. All along you will spot different species of birds, so do look out.

Malabar Pied Hornbill

Dandeli is also supposedly one of the few places in India where you can spot the Black Panther. A large birding group who was with us at the Camp supposedly spotted one, on one of their birding trails. We were unlucky though.

A kingfisher

The next early morning we went for the jungle safari. Spotted a few deers and some birds like the kingfisher and a brown flycatcher. Once back at the camp we went on a birding trail which you can take from Kulgi camp. It around 2 km walk through the jungle along a barely defined path. The only bird we spotted was a woodpecker and got bit by leeches all over. In the evening we headed to Syntheri Rocks This is a beautiful place. Surprisingly we were the only ones at the falls and so had nice serene experience.

The camp as such is a nice place to walk around and is surrounded by the jungle. There is a good possibility of spotting something while staying at the camp itself.

Syntheri Rocks

 The next morning we headed out of Dandeli towards Yellapur. Our drive took us to a spot which was a water reservoir or backwaters of some kind. It was a picturesque spot, early in the morning and looked so very peaceful.

The Backwaters I mentioned about :)

So go head and plan that Dandeli trip now :)