To Warangal - Yet Another Biking Trip

It truly has been a vacation season with an extended weekend not the usual 3 day long, but thanks to those thoughtful IT companies, a 4 day long weekend to allow junta to take a real long holiday break.

The office spaces had been buzzing for over a month planning and re-planning most of the junta’s holiday plans, mine no different. With my Boss already on a Europe tour, all my colleagues spared no ends to plan their trips either to some exuberant locations or the more sober hometowns. I sure was left wondering, with my present home-town being Hyderabad itself.

Nevertheless, it didn’t bar me from deliberating about a short trip. With some pre-commitments getting cancelled just on time, I put my extempore mind onto some work and decided to go ahead for a trip to the Warangal district.

The objectives, though otherwise different, were quite clear. Clock a few miles on my bike and Click as many pictures. It had been quite long since I took my bike out on a long trip and used my lenses to capture non-urban images. When the excursion ended 14 hours after it had begun, my bike had traveled 540 kms and my camera had shot 150 photographs!!!

Read on for a day full of twists & turns & a lot of goof ups. The day, was 25^th December, 2008.

Coming home from office a bit late on the 24^th evening, I had just about enough time to plan my trip. And it included first and foremost loading my MP3 player with good music and then scouring the Wiki & Yahoo Maps. A couple of hours later I was all ready with a “definitive plan” for the next 2 days. I have rarely believed in planning and though very confident about this one, little did I know that to further strengthen my conviction, even this one will go for a complete toss.

For starters, Warangal is a beautiful district and is actually a city composed of 3 towns – Warangal, Kazipet & Hanamkonda. The district has a huge expanse of area under forest cover and houses a few famous wildlife sanctuaries. Dating back to History four centuries back, this region was ruled by the Kakatiyas and one can find glimpses of the Kakatiyan architecture all over the district.

The plan for Day 1 was to hit the highway, NH 202, to reach Hanamkonda by 10:30 and then to proceed to Pembarti, a village 60kms further away and famous for export-quality Brassware to catch a glimpse of the artisans at work. Head back to Hanamkonda by afternoon to visit the 1000 Pillar Temple, Warangal Fort and browse the Triple cities in the evening before putting up at Warangal. On Day 2 get going by 6:30 to visit Ramapaa Temple, (a temple from the age of the Kakatiyas and now in partial ruins, about 65 kms from Warangal) followed by a visit to Palampet Lake, Pakhal Wildlife Sanctuary and then head back to Hyderabad.

Quite incidentally of course, I couldn’t find a better day and a better route for this biking excursion. A light mist and a mild sunny morning made the weather more than perfect and was aptly supplemented by the beautiful, well maintained NH 202 with just light – medium traffic. From whatever chance I got to turn my head around to absorb the landscape enroute, it was just wonderful. Just the right intensity of the sun light and just the perfect angle of the sun rays weaved simple yet enchanting hues of greens, browns and blues. I breezed along quite merrily, gradually being able to hit the 90 km/hr mark. A quick stopover at Bhongir for a breakfast of hot Dosa at a roadside stall turned out to be heavenly, after he presumably prepared a special dosa for someone who all up in biking gear had stopped by his stall for some breakfast!

Later, gobbling up the miles, I reached Hanamkonda right on time and an enquiry later was very much on the next highway to Pembarti, much to my sheer joy of being able to keep up with the plan.

Not for long. After a few wrong turns including a double back of 10 kms, some more enquiries about the village from startled locals and creeping suspicions about my ‘the’ definitive plan I finally managed to reach the small but picturesque village of Pembarti. Just some 20 houses big, this hardly seemed the place I was looking for! After a couple of more enquiries, it turned out that the state of Andhra Pradesh has 2 places that go by the same name!!

Dazed but still enthusiastic after the small little adventure, I headed back to Hanamkonda and decided to advance my plan to visit the 1000 pillar temple and add a few local destinations later. Expecting it to be a tourist monument, it turned out to be quite the opposite. The temple was all decked up with temporary canvas tents and shlokas were recited out of the loud speakers, some big community havan in progress. Being the atheist, I nodded in agreement with myself not to disturb the Lords during the tryst with their devotees.

Out and out dazed this time around, I hard-braked my bike to take stock of the grave situation. Not used to such disasters, in true filmy style, a pair of twins had duped me about their true identities and akin the Vijay of Deewar, I refused to let the cosmos conspire for me any further. A few moments later, I decided to throw the entire definitive plan out of the gear box, and decided to ride upto Ramappa Temple with things to do next left dangling sine die.

Trusting one’s instincts is always advisable as the ride to Ramappa further on the NH 202 turned out to be quite blissful, with very light traffic. I breezed by some beautiful landscape comprising of lakes, farms, orchards, the distant hills and ‘tadi’ bars. I even ventured onto a dusty old track off the highway to witness some upbeat harvesting activities in progress.

Reaching the remotely located Ramappa temple, I quite unexpectedly found a lot of picnickers basking in the gardens adjoining the temple campus. The temple in itself was quite fascinating architecturally and I endeavored hard with patience to capture the architecture ‘sans humans’.

Though most parts lie in ruins, the temple itself is still religiously active with a ‘shivlinga’ situated in the inner sanctum of the temple where one can offer prayers. There’s a beautiful lake just 1 km further up the temple road. Another picnic spot, it also offers a 10 minute boat ride on the lake. There are also some fairly well-maintained cottages on the bank of the lake providing a good option for an overnight stay for Rs.400 per day.

Turning back, I decided to visit the Warangal Fort on my way back to Hyderabad. Yes, I had decided to curtail this into a single day trip. Though a little late to start back to cover the odd 150 kms in the fading sunlight, I decided to still go ahead for some night riding.

But while still in Warangal, the Warangal Fort, as it is called, is almost in ruins. The main spot looks like an AP Tourism garden with architectural pieces arranged in a particular pre-defined fashion. The outer walls and the gates, though, were quite impressive, reminiscent of the strong defenses this fort would have offered to its inhabitants. As the sun set over the western skyline, I bade farewell to this intriguing place to head back home.

With a single short stop at a small town, I managed to hit Hyderabad in pretty good time and in good nick as well. I was very well escorted by the Taveras and Sumos which gave me company as per my convenience and shielded those glaring headlights from the opposite direction.

Quite content with the day’s proceedings, sheer biking pleasure inclusive, I fascinatingly dwelled upon a longish hot shower, a peg of vodka and a sound 10 hours sleep to wake up the next day, with a definitive question on my mind. Where to… Next?

For more photographs, check out this link http://picasaweb.google.co.in/sragdharpatel/WarangalTrip#