Monday, January 10, 2011

The false 'depths' of Araku valley

Call it the exaggeration of the locals or the extreme advertisement of the AP tourism or the bad taste for travel of the people of A.P, Araku is indeed not a tourist destination from any angle.
We had heard a loooot about the place and the unavailability of any pacakges from APTDC and the train tickets gave us the impression that it's not the place to be 'missed'.
As per our (me n S's) internet search and the local folks it was the train journey from Vizag to Araku that's supposed to give the best view of the scenic beauty.
May be it was a sign when we didn't get the train reservation that we were headed in the wrong direction which we didn't notice.
Actually we found it was through road that we could enjoy more rather than the crowded and ever screaming people in the train (screaming as the train passes through several tunnels).
The only hotels that are situated in the Araku are managed by APTDC whose service is utterly chaotic.
The sooo called local sight seeing places are nothing but a tribal museum and a botanical garden which give the impression of nothing more than our lifestyle in the village and a park respectively.
The whole tour was so depressive and the only ocassion when I laughed that day was when a lady in the so called botanical garden was showing her husband 'the pineapple TREE':0 in actual a decorative plant with light green leaves which stood tall and haggard.
Nothing could be more dissapointing than this!
Of course, our trip to the next destination the after that was more appealing and it compensated for the previous day.

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