Tour to Hyderabad And Srisailam - Phase II

DAY III - SRISAILAM
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We set out for Srisalam in the morning at around 7 AM. We had hired a Qualis for the purpose. By car it took around 4.5 to 5 hours to reach Srisailam from Hyderabad. I had seen a blog earlier about staying at Srisailam. Searching for an good as well as an economical accommodation was not an easy taks. The AP Tourism hotel was charging about INR 1000 per night in Srisailam. In the blog, I had read about Ganga Sadan & Gowri Sadan - that they were neat and clean, as well as economical. AC room was for about INR 700-800 and non-AC for INR 500. The info on the blog was really helpful.

WHAT TO SEE IN SRISAILAM

Srisailam is mainly famous for one of the 12 Jyotirlingams of Hindus that is situated there. There is also a cave temple which we did not visit as people with me were not very enthusiastic about going there.

You have a DAM there on the River Krishna which is also called as Pathal Ganga. Fortunately for us, 5 of the gates of the dam were open on the day we reached Srisailam. The gates had been opened only 1/2 days back. The next day when we were returning to Hyderabad only 3 of the gates were open. The view of the water falling and then rising due to the curve made at the base of the dam was splendid. The gates would generally open in the rainy season as the river would be flooded with water.

For wild life enthusiasts, there is a Tiger Reserve in Srisailam. In fact, the whole belt from Nagarjunasagar to Srisailam - that area is a tiger reserve - under the Forest Department. Since none of us were interested in wildlife, we skipped it. Although we fed a lot of monkeys on the way to Srisailam and back.

There is a ropeway to go down to the river. There you can enjoy boating.

You can see beautiful sceneries form the ropeway area.

ACCOMMODATION

If you do not have a contraint on the budget, you may go for Hotel being maintained by AP tourism which can be booked in advance. You may also go for Ganga sadan and Gowri Sadan Hotels but these cannot be booked earlier. So if it an off season, you may take a chance but if you are visiting on a weekend or special religious occasion, you may book AP Tourism hotels in advance.

WHAT WE DID

Actually it was my plan that we go to Srisailam for 2 days as people I had talked to had said that it was a nice place. So after we reached the town, we booked rooms in Ganga Sadan and had lunch in the restaurant there. Thereafter we set out for the ropeway. There was nothing much to do there. Once you got down to the river, the only source of "entertainment" was boating - which we did in a steamer for about 15 minutes. And then after coming back to the top, we went back to the hotel.

I felt that I was the only person who was enjoying the scenic beauty of the place. I captured the beauty of the place in our camera.

In the evening, we went to the temple. There was a long queue for the darshan despite the fact that it was a week-day. We took tickets for special darshan and thus saved some time. Probably the long queue made us realize that the temple was quite famous. Otherwise we were taking it for granted.

The temple precinct was quite large.We must have spent 30-45 minutes in the temple after coming out of which we went back to the hotel, had dinner and slept soundly to get rid of the tiredness (We had traveled 5 hours in the morning!!!).

You may also go to Srisailam by AP Tourism tour bus. I think that would be more economical as well as convenient for those who just want to have darshan and additionally ropeway/boating.

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DAY IV
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Since we did not find Srisailam very interesting, we set out for Hyderabad the next mornning. After coming to Hyderabad, we visited the CHARMINAR and the bazar near it which is famous for bangles etc.

We also visited the HITEC CITY area (where offices of many IT and other companies are located), saw the "Cyber Tower" building, visited "SHILPARAMAM" - the handicrafts 'village' (in hitec city area!).

From there, we went to LUMBINI MALL in Banjara Hills mainly for "Brand Factory" - 120 brands - discount - 365 days etc. (For more details search the net ;-)).

Thus ended Day 4 in Hyderabad...