7 state driving trip : On the 14^th of November 2013 (at more or less the same time in the afternoon ) Tasneem and I took off on a drive. Quite a long drive actually; we covered a total of 8670 km, traversing seven different states over an 18 day period. It was a fascinating experience especially when we would drive into the evening in one state, watch the daylight slowly fade away, and then find ourselves in a different state, often with very different weather , topography and vegetation when the sun rose the next morning.

Today my post will be on the 1^st leg > 1000 km from Bangalore to Vishakhapatnam. We set off around 4 pm in the evening, heading towards Chittor on the old Madras road, the on towards Tirupati and then towards Nellore where we got onto the superb east coast road (NH5). Till Nellore its quite an effort, narrow road ( the 4 lane highway ended about 100 km out of Bangalore ) , heavy traffic towards Tirupati & lots of bends on the ghats. Once on NH5 driving was a pleasure, and with us taking turns at the wheel while the other slept on the long bench seat at the back we made excellent progress during the night , passing Vijayawada, and reaching near Rajahmundry by sunrise.

Shot from the car near Rajahmoundry

Near Vizag 

We clicked a few pictures from the moving car, and stopped for breakfast at one of the small roadside eateries of the kind we soon got comfortable with on the trip. Then it was on to Visakhapatnam, reaching our hotel by 11 am. 5 hours later, rested and well fed we headed out towards the beach which was just 3 kms from the hotel where we stayed.

Heading to the beach 

We parked the car and walked along the beach promenade and were pleasantly surprised to find a 90 feet long submarine on the shore looking a bit like a beached whale. On closer observation, we found out that we had stumbled upon the “INS Kursura Submarine Museum” the 1^st submarine museum in SE Asia and the No. 1 attraction in Vizag according to redoubtable tripadvisor.

 We could not resist the temptation to take a look, and after looking at some of the attached pictures you will get some idea of what it felt like to be there. The navy men were quite enthusiastic showing us the different parts of the submarine and answering questions and it was dark by the time we got out. We rushed back to the hotel, where I was going to meet my XLRI classmate Subbarao after a gap of almost 25 years. He took us out to dinner and then for a drive in his car and took us to the Ramakrishna beach which was totally deserted. We walked around and took a few pictures but unfortunately were chased away by cops patrolling in a jeep.

Fortunately, we had Subba with us, and they became quite friendly once he told them he worked for BHPV. Our last stop was for some icecream before heading back to the hotel to get some sleep before the 2^nd leg of our trip ; to Chilka lake and then on towards Puri where we were scheduled to stay two nights at a beach side hotel.