Papikondalu Archives - beautybrainblisss

9 things to do in your Papikondalu trip

Hello friends!!!! This post is most probably my last post from the Papikondalu series…When i was reading the previous posts. I realized that I did not mention few things that we did. So, I wanted to compile things which you should not forget to do, if you are going to visit Papikondalu.

1.Eat Bamboo chicken

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Bamboo chicken got its name from the process of making it. The raw flesh of chicken, is pushed into the hollow parts bamboo sticks after all the ingredients are applied to it. Then the bamboo sticks are cooked on burning coals. I can not comment on taste as I am a vegetarian. But, They say the whole process gives it a wonderful and special taste.

2. Get religious:

The trips to Papikondalu are either from Bhadrachalam or from Rajamandry. Either way you can plan a visit to the temple in Bhadrachalam. There is a very famous temple for Lord Sri Rama in Bhadrachalam. There is also an interesting story associated with the temple. Visit the temple and learn the story.

3. Learn Mythology

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There is a place near Bhadrachalam called Parnashala where the episodes of Ramayana are depicted through colorful sculptures. They replicated few of the scenes from Ramayana. You can get autos easily to get to this place.

4. Take a holy dip.

River Godavari is considered as one of the holy rivers in India. Enjoy your dip here. Forget about holiness, you can simply have fun while taking bath in river.

5. Enjoy ‘River food’

You get various special types of fresh water fishes and other things cooked with a tribal touch.

6. Forget everything.

Put your head in your lap and simply relax. World will not stop working, if you stop thinking for two days.

7. Leave social media to others.

Life has become sooo meaningless without facebook and waatsapp. Go to this place, You will never get a damn signal, even if you want to post a selfie diving into the water.

8. Learn to live basic

You won’t get fast food, even soft drinks are rarely available. Forget about A.C, you won’t get a fan here in the accommodation. ( Read my experience here). Once in a while it is needed to learn to live with basics.

9. Buy Handicrafts and encourage them

Tribal people here make beautiful handmade things with bamboo. They are pretty cheap. Buy them at least to help those people.

Read my other posts about Papikondalu here, here and here.

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Lemme stay here forever: Papikkondalu trip, Day 2

I still feel very bad that our Papikondalu trip lasted for only 2 days. It was such a relaxing and refreshing one that I seriously thought of settling down there as a Doctor treating the tribes. All those altruistic thoughts made me elated for quite some time when my husband explained other things like ‘No emergency services, no theaters, no restaurants, no internet, no online shopping’. Last thing worked wonderfully and pushed me back to the ground.

The second day of our Papikondalu trip started early for two reasons. One, I can not wait outside the toilets, so I wanted to be the early bird. Two, we were going for a forest walk and water sports in some canal that day. We finished our breakfasts early and started heading the way the guy at the accommodation showed. He said ‘walk for few minutes and you will find a board showing the place’. The few mins turned to be 35 mins. We walked slowly ahead of everyone, contemplating the possibilities of others beating us up if we get lost.( As everyone else was following us not knowing the fact that we were clueless).

We walked through a small tribal village where surprisingly every home(or rather hut) has TATA Sky and solar panels. All the small street lights were solar powered. We spoke to a small kid who told us that they have power supply 24/7.

The farming techniques and practices were also slightly different. The path went along a small canal from the main river Godavari, but mostly the was not accessible. The path finally led to a place which where the bank was wide and the depth of the water was less.

We were the first so we had a chance to click personal pics and we could chose one wonderful place to take bath. We spent some 3hrs in water. We went back in wet clothes. By the time of lunch we had to pack and leave. We got ready and clicked some super crazy pictures. We started by 1 in the afternoon in the blazing sun. The return journey was pleasant as the earlier one. We reached Bhadrachalam by 6 in the evening.

This pose I named as ‘Oh.. Priya priya pose’.( A famous song from one of the most romantic movies in Telugu.

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Night In the Cozy Hut: Papikondalu trip

I suddenly realized, to my dismay, that the hut has no door.

It was just an elevated bamboo platform from the ground, with bamboo walls and roof; there was a small opening in one wall for entry an exit.

It has infinite clefts or cervices which can allow entry of snake or any other crawling thing. Don’t forget about the leopard threat as we were almost in the forest.

I had never been to any nature trip before our Papikondalu trip. All were a planned, routine, city or ‘tourist places’ trips. So it is not wonder that I shook ‘head to toe’ when I was asked to sleep in the little hut.

Our first day in the Papikondalu trip went well. It was a new experience for everyone of us. When we saw the huts from distance, they looked cute and adorable. When we entered it in the evening, we were too busy playing to notice anything. When we returned after dinner to the huts, they started to look creepy and scary to me.

Huts looked cute and comfy in the evening, like this

Dad dozing off at the bonfire in front of the hut

Sibling time- Going crazy at the campfire..

The entire floor was occupied by a thin mattress, there was nothing else in the room. there was no fan, only one zero bulb hanging from the roof and no plug point to charge gadgets. There was only one plug point outside the office where there was a heavy Que.

My brother went on stroll around the place and got hold of one bamboo sheet to be used as the door. I was really upset and doubtful on whether I would be able to sleep in the hut. But once I was under the thick sheets, I immediately fell asleep as a result of the day long exertion. The night went happily and left me with a memorable experience.

If you have missed my other posts on Papikondalu trip, Click here and here.

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Papikondalu trip,day 1

Hello, friends!!!! This is about the first day of our ‘two-day trip’ to Papikondalu. If you missed the introduction post for Papikondalu, find it here. You can start your trip either from Bhadrachalam or Rajamandri. It is almost equal in distance either way. We chose Bhadrachalam as it was near and was in Telangana. So, we reached Bhadrachalam after an 8 hr night journey. We took a small hotel just for freshening up. We were ready by 7 am. We called the trip organizer and he asked us to meet him at a particular place. We were the first to arrive at that place( as it happens most of the times). We had to wait for almost an hour for others to arrive and the vehicle to start.

The vehicle was simply an extended ‘auto’ which took us to a ‘Pochavaram’ village after a two-hour journey. That was the launching station for boats. The system there is very simple and disorganized. All the travel agencies hand over their poor travelers to one man who is in charge of all the boats there. So no matter with whom you booked, you end up in a huge line with others. If you are brilliant enough and know the Que dealing tactics in a country like India, you can get into a boat in few minutes. It was just ‘survival of the fittest’. There is no difference in boats as well, they are filled in ‘first come first basis’ unless AC ones. We opted Non AC as there were much freedom and space.

Breakfast was served in a haphazard way. We begun our journey at around 11:30. The journey was so…pleasent and made us forget everything else.

The boat slowly moves crossing dense jungles, tribal villages and beauty is all around. The only trouble was the blazing sun.

We spotted so many interesting things as the journey takes you to places which are not much civilized. At some point you will be at place where is no other human being(except the ones in the boat).

One hour of the journey takes you to a tribal village called Perantalla palli. A huge, old tamarind tree welcomes you. You can buy some hand made items made of bamboo. They are cute and cheap as well. There is a temple called Ramakrishna muni vatika adjoining a small waterfall where you can spend some time. You can walk into the village to get some scent of the tribal life.

They say it is the house of one great warrior Alluri Seetharama raju

One hut and their vehicle in a 'No man's island' — One hut and their vehicle at a ‘No man’s island’

The journey starts again after about 30 mins and takes you deep to a place called Papikondalu where the river Godavari has been bordered both sides by hills which make the place look like ‘Papidi’ (partition in the hair). For few minutes, I wasI was sooo exhilarated witnessing the beauty.

We halted at a place called Kolluru where lunch was served and we were going to stay there for the night. Lunch tasted good but the serving was very messy and my parents couldn’t eat.People who opted for one day trip are taken back after lunch.

Huts look like that and I looked like this

Playing and posing in the sand and twilight

Kolluru is a tribal village on the river bank. Going to our accommodation needed almost a km walking in the hot sun and near boiling sand. We were so exhausted by the time we reached our huts that we slept almost immediately. When we woke up it was about five in the evening and we went to explore the surroundings. It was still hot outside and we saw one worker dropping wood outside our huts

We asked him the reason. When he told they were for ‘bonfire’, we almost laughed. Bonfire?we were about to get fried in heat.

He simply smiled and said “Just wait and see”

We played for hours in the sand and realised it was getting cold slowly. People who came in groups were indulged in sand sports like Volleyball. There were two groups of huts, one was near the river bank and was for youngster who come with friends the second was near the village and was for families.

After the dinner, we spent some time near our personal bonfire before sleeping.

There was no mobile signal, no power point for charging,no television and it was still amazing.

If you want to know what was my outfit that day click here

Bye till the next post.

Get lost in the nature : Papikondalu trip

I believe that everyone might have wondered at least once in a life time about being away from the modern concrete world.

TRip to Papikondalu

It is not as simple as we think , going back to the basic needs, minimalistic life forgetting the comforts and all . Thinking about a life without Internet,attached bathroom or electricity , simply freaks me out . But still We really wanted to experiment A life without all these. A short trip to ‘ Papikondalu ‘ will free your soul from all the restrictions & bonds( though temporarily ) and make it fly like a bird . It is not just sleeping in the lap of nature ,it is about embracing it ,It is about forgetting that you had been running all your life , you got lost in some competitive game . It is about losing yourself to nature and rediscovering your self . It is like a meditation with all your senses open .

God ,Even writing about the place is giving me a wordless warm feeling.

O.K ,O.K Coming back to the trip. Papikondalu is place of river Godavari walled both sides by foresty hills.

It is said to gain its name from their arrangement ,they are arranged in a special way in which River Godavari looks like a partition ( Maang ) between the mountains on each side, which are dark like hair .Maang or partition is called Papidi in Telugu ,that is from where Papikondalu got its name from.

What is the Papikondalu trip like….

There are different kinds of trips 1 day ,2 day and with different starting points.
There are many websites which organise the trips either from Bhadrachalam or Rajamandri. When you are starting from either of the above points the people (with whom you booked tour ) will take you by road to the Launch station which are at 40-60kms . From there your launch begins which takes you into deep ‘no other route available ‘ areas of Godavari.
You will travel through Godavari as it passes hills with thick forests on either side which are sparsely inhabited. The place which is called Papikondalu is some 3-4hr away from the starting point. One-day trip ends with lunch after which you are carried back to the original point. In two-day trip , after lunch you are taken to the bamboo huts in a small tribal village called ‘Kolluru’.

We took a two-day trip and had one full day free in that tiny tribal village on the banks of river Godavari.

I am going to write about the trip in detail in future posts.

Night in the cozy hut: Paikpndalu trip

I suddenly realized to my panic that the hut has no door.

The floor is a foot above the sand and has multiple possible openings for snakes or any crawling things to enter. No, I couldn’t sleep there, but I did.

Our stay place in our Paikonadalu trip’s night stay hut looked entirely different, by the time we came back after our “sand plays “. From outside you can see that they look like small cottages, but from inside, the huts looked sooo open, Sooo risky to spend a night in. We were 5 members and were given 2 huts . Those were nothing like I imagined them , they were elevated from the ground and had only one room. The entire floor was occupied by a thin mattress ,there was no fan ,a single zero bulb hanging from the bamboo roof and there was no door, just an opening to enter or exit. It was literally looking like a bed with four walls and roof.

There was no power(plug) point anywhere in the room. Only one extension box of power points near the office where everyone was in Que to charge their respective gadgets.
As it was very cold outside we spent some two-hour at the bonfire. My brother went for a stroll and caught hold of one ‘bamboo sheet’ to use as a door as I was very apprehensive for sleeping there without a door.

As I told you in my previous post, the beauty of the Papikondalu trip lies in our close association with nature. I never went for trekking or camping in the past. So, I had that understandable discomfort feeling there.
Once I was under the thick sheets, I immediately fell asleep.
It was a very new experience for me. It left me with a wish to go for some nature trips very often.

If you have not read my post on Day1 of Papikondalu trip, read here.

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