A short tour to Visakhapatnam

Visakhapatnam was always an enigma to me. A slithering town bloomed to a smart city that sports four lanes traffic, all around in the old city and six lanes otherwise everywhere. What surprised me is the city is litter free, no dug up road, no diversion and last but not the least no aggressive drivers. Visakhapatnam is an industrial city without any lustre of industrial fineness. There is no morning hooters from the large factories for waking up the workers that we were habituated hearing many tunes of hooting sound emanating from various factories in Jamshedpur!

Visakhapatnam has an integrated steel plant of SAIL, Bharat Heavy plate & vessels, Hindustan Shipyards and also Indian Navy’s Eastern Command & Control HQ, a large and modern port to handle eastern side of India’s import & export business.

We have an option of visiting Araku Valley, but we decided not to visit there. Araku valley is a hilly area with train & Bus journey that moves like a serpentine. But, we belonged to South Bihar and hills and ranges are no strange matter to us. I have never forgotten my first train journey from Muri Junction to the table top valley of Ranchi. The gruelling hissing of Steam locomotive trying to push all its energy into twin ALCO Steam Engines going up the hill like a serpentine. And I think Araku Valley stand nowhere in comparison to the serenity, beauty and natural panorama that is bestowed by almighty in the whole of Chotnagpur sub division of South Bihar (Now Jharkhand).

We had tickets for a day visit programmed by Andhra Pradesh Tourism. They provided a nice bus with a helping guide. Simhachalam temple is a shrine; Buddha Stupa and a nice beach are main attraction. Nowhere in India have I seen a beach that has a sweeping down Mountain range nearly touching the sea. No matter British named this place as ‘Brighton of India’.