Trip to Nagarjuna Sagar DAMMMM

It was almost 3 weeks I was giving one or another excuse to my lovely wife, Shikha for not going to Nagarjuna Sagar Dam. I don't know how much she accepted the false facts I had produced in front of her to avoid it, she finally rejected all my efforts and pass her final sentence to take her on Nagarjuna Sagar on this long weekend. It was a complete festive season and she finally decided to celebrate her vijayadashmi at Nagarjuna Sagar Dam.
It was Sunday morning 4:00 AM when she wake me up to start our journey. My mom was also waiting for my final words so that she can take further decision on sleep further or get ready for this trip. I think she was not very excited for this trip but didn’t tell anything because of Shikha’s interest.
As I slept very late last night, it was a tough call to start the journey of 300+ km with a sleep of 5 hours (usually I took a 8+ hour nap) but it was hard to refuse the call of my home manager, especially on weekends, as she was too much excited about this trip. Finally all chose ends with my request of a cup of tea and everyone started to get ready for the trip.
We started at 5:30 AM from home with drizzling and dark night. We thought to take a breakfast at Siddhartha Hotel as Shikha's office mate told her that it is a good place to have breakfast.
Although we were fully loaded with whole day meal and popcorn's, which Shikha prepared early morning.
I got the first shock of traveling just after 15 mins as I realized that the mobile GPS is not working in the way I expected it to work!! I was looking for Golkonda Rd near lenger house as directed by google map and my GPS was unable to get satellite connection!!..So I took a decision and turned to Koti as I was aware of way..but it added few kms in my journey and wasted my 10 mins.
At Koti, we took the traditional way of traveling in India i.e. stop aside and ask someone for Driving directions. One thing always impress me that every one use to very excited to tell you the complete direction and every one will have his own way to reach the same place!!
Finally at 6:30 AM we somehow managed to reach Nagarjuna Sagar rd, which is a straight road to take us to Nagarjuna Sagar dam.Mom took advantage of this chose and had a nap on back seat till this time.
As it was a straight road, there was nothing much to do except seeing road, listening music and saving my car from the ppls jumped at sudden in front of it from sidewalks and "Expert" drivers coming from opposite side and enjoying wrong side driving.
At 7:30 AM, I saw a big Sai Baba Temple, when I was approximately 65 km far from my destination. I showed to Shikha who was sitting next to me and at sudden Mom wakes up and asked me to show the temple to her. As I was also feeling a bit tired, I thought that it would be a good place to get some rest and make everyone happy as well. So I stopped there.
I can say, it was not a bad decision as it was really a good temple. Apart from temple they had very cute pigeons, white ducks and rabbits.We entered into main temple and realized that it is some special day as there was some special arrangements were going on.Pujari ji (Priest) told us that the main pooja(prayer) will start at 8:15 AM so we decided to wait there for the same. Meanwhile they were playing some devotional prayer which Mom and wife enjoyed a lot. Even I was trying to enjoy it but could not able to do so as I was start feeling hungry by that time.
Finally at 9:00 AM, pujari ji started pooja which finished after one more hour. I somehow bared it with my hungry stomach and tiredness because of less sleep. After pooja everyone queued up to take Prasad and being non violent in nature we ended with last place in that queue. I asked Mom to leave the Prasad and start for further journey but she refused to it.
Finally she agreed to go for a breakfast first and then collect the Prasad as I was about to cry because of hunger and ppl were not moving forward.So I got my brunch at 10:00 AM finally!!!, I refused to go back to collect the Prasad and stayed back in car for a short nap. Mom and wife went back to temple to collect the Prasad and clean up the utensils which we used during breakfast.at 10:20 AM, Shikha waked me up again with Prasad in her hand and we started the rest of our journey once again. After 30 KM we saw the board of Hotel Siddhartha but we didn't stop as we were done with brunch and running short of time. We decided to stop there during return journey as the hotel was looking pretty decent.
at @11:00 AM, got the first glimpse of Nagarjuna Sagar Lake. It is really a huuuuuggh one. I thought to stop over and have a bath into it but stopped myself immediately after seeing "crocodiles in water" board. I think I heard somewhere the story of why they place crocodile in lake build because of dam so there was no reason to ignore the board and we continued.
Good News of the Day!!!!..my GPS and GPRS both started working and I found that it is showing me somewhere inside Nagarjuna Sagar Lake when I was sitting inside the car!!..I looked outside to confirm that I am not off road and satisfied with Black color tires on cemented road instead of blue water with green crocodiles and in meanwhile Shikha opted the traditional way to search the way. She jumped out from car and start asking ppls roaming there about the directions.
At 11:15 AM, I got a first view of Nagarjuna Sagar Dam, Woooow, it was really huge. I recalled the Hover Dam in Vegas and I can say, I found it not lesser then hover in any point but Shikha got disappointed. She was expecting some open gates to some water coming down but Mother Nature and Dam engineers disappointed her. None of the gates were open. Fortunately good weather helped her to keep her mood unspoiled and she asked me to move to Ethipotala waterfalls, which was 25 km away from Nagarjuna Sagar. I must say that she is pretty good in her homework and she didn't give me any chance to provide excuse to avoid further driving.
At 12:00 Noon, we reached to exit way for Ethipotala Water fall. It was a toll road and person asked for Rs 15 to get on the road. I am not sure about the charges are for vehicle or per person as he charged Rs 20 from the car ahead, but I kept my mouth shut on it.
It was a one lane road on which vehicles were coming from both directions. Good part was ppls don't come on Caravans to see such places otherwise it would impossible to drive on this road.
After 4-5 Kms of driving we reached to Entrance gate of water fall. We purchased tickets to get the view of this waterfall.There was a freeway to see this waterfall from closure but I ignored it as if Shikha would get that way, her adventurous cum money saver part would get provoked to take that way, which I was not in a situation to bear.
I must say that it was worth watching place. It was very beautiful and very fresh. Not like the common Waterfalls in south where it is difficult to differentiate between water fall and a leaking water pipeline :)
We stayed there for almost 1 hour and had some snacks there. In between some monkeys tried to steal the chips packets from us which got survived because of shop keeper who sold that item to us. I then realized the additional price on MRP must be because of this reason only.
At 12:50 PM, Shikha invented another touring place, a boating point, called Launching station, near to Dam and ordered me to take her there. Because of this waterfall, I got a little confidence on Shikha and decided to go there. Only problem was the timings as we come to know that the last boat left from there is at 1:30 PM so we started immediately.
At 1:15 PM we reached to Launching station. It was very near to Nagarjuna Sagar Dam and was on bit height. Launching Station is the place from where we can get the boats (called as Launch).I asked Shikha to rush to ticket counter while I tried to get parking place.
After car parking, I reached to ticket counter and found that Shikha and Mom were standing in queue to get the ticket. They were 4th or 5th number to get the tickets. It gave me a hope to get the tickets but very soon it got broken as the two Ladies took 20+ tickets and counter got closed as the boat got fully loaded. It was quite heartbroken for Shikha as she was too much excited to get boat ride. Moreover she was quite upset with this close defeat to get ticket but very soon we realized that the there is some more boats and we still have good chance to get a boat ride today. Security person told us that they will start distributing tickets in next half an hour once the boat come there.
I asked Shikha to come out of queue and I stand there in place of her so that she can get some fresh air.At 1:45 PM they started ticket distribution once again and we got the tickets happily. by this time I was start panicking about the timings as I come to know that this boat ride will take 3 hours and I don't want to drive after getting dark but I didn't said anything as all of us were quite happy till now.
At 2:00 PM we went to get seat on boat after taking some snacks and realized that there is another line for getting onto the boat so we rushed to be a part of this queue. On ticket screening place, security person asked about museum tickets which we had not purchased till now. I asked Shikha and Mom to step forward and reserve a seat for me and I rushed to get the museum tickets.On ticket counter he gave me six tickets in place of three, even I asked him for three tickets. May be he was interested to sell as much tickets as he could be or it was easy for him to remember the table of 10 in place of 5 ;)
Finally we just got a so so seat in boat and we started the boat ride @ 2:10 PM.It was quite a good weather and quite windy as well. We enjoyed a lot on this boat ride except some ppl, who were fighting for a good seat earlier, now trying to stand in front of face to enjoy good view but boat driver saved my day as he asked them to sit back on their seat as it was difficult for him to drive the boat.
At 2:50 PM we reached to an Island, inside Nagarjuna Sagar Lake, having a museum. I asked Shikha and Mom to be at boat only as it would be dark for me to drive if we went for museum visit. They got my point and stayed back on boat.After some hassle, boat started its return journey at 3:10 PM and we reached back to launching station at 3:40 PM.
We saw some small round fisherman's boats, called 'Doungi' in our return journey. It was quite thrilling to see the way it was moving in the lake having crocodiles but I think it is part of their life now.At 4:00 PM sharp, we started our return journey. By now, even Shikha also started feeling nervous as she knows the difficulty of driving in dark. Anyways we thought to cover as much distance as possible to daylight time and dropped the plan to have food at hotel siddhartha.I think I was driving with the maximum possible speed and crossed SaiBaba Temple @ 5:05 PM. I was thinking that with this speed we can reach city by 6- 6:30 and then only the twist came out and it started rain and made visibility lower. I had no option left but to reduce the speed then but luckily we were not too far from the city area and reached the street light zone by 6:45 PM.
I don't understand why end of one problem begins with another problem and as soon as we reach city, I lost the driving directions once again and GPS got down :(
We reached to Towly chowky, a place near to my home, by 7:30 PM and on the request of Shikha for chow min, Mom asked me to stop on a restaurant. We had some bad Chilli Paneer, chicken Manchurian and so so noodles.
Finally at 8:00PM we reached to our home sweet home :)