Hyderabad Weekend Trip: Pillalamarri and Alampur, Mahabubnagar.

Dear Friends,

I am coming back to blog tales after a short hiatus.
I planned to go to a small summer vacation before the school reopens and decided to go to kurnool trip for 4 days. I planned to cover the places of Pillalamarri, Alampur, Yaganti, Belum caves, Mantralayam and Adoni. Since the focus is on Hyderabad weekend, I will cover up the details of Pillalamarri and Alampur and share my experiences how these two places can be planned in a single day.

I know the USP of pillalamarri site is a large banyan tree. I was not sure whether it's really worth to see it because I was under the impression that do I need to travel that much long and spend time just to see a big banyan tree? So I clubbed this in my kurnool trip but found out to be a surprise pleasant site.

Giving the details below how I planned the trip:

1) Mode of travel: Car (hyundai i20).
2) Start time: 8.30 A.M.
3)  Distance : 100 kms
4) Time to travel: 1 hour 45 minutes.
5) Return time: Evening, same day.

We (me and my family) started from Hitech city and took the outer ring road near Gachibowli. From outer ring road it's a traffic free journey till our destination. I switched on the GPRS in my mobile and headed towards Kurnool highway. Near Jadcherla we need to take right turn, so we get down from the highway bridge and took a right turn. From here onwards it is a normal two way lane and there will be no sign boards or milestones showing about Pillalamarri. But my GPRS is showing the same route. I crossed checked with locals whether I am following the right route or not. They confirmed me the route is right.

On the way crossed a railway lane and reached Mahbubnagar. Took a right turn at one of the junction and found a welcome board of Pillalamarri. After few kilometers I reached the spot. There's a good parking place available and I parked my vehicle there and took the tickets at the counter. It was around 10.15 A.M when I reached the site.

At the counter I enquired what places we can see and came to know that apart from the tree, there's a mini zoo and temple. So bit relief to me because apart from big tree there's also other places to see.

After a few steps we were into the park and found the banyan tree. This tree is really big and we were surprised to see how branches of trees are rooted into the grounds and emerged as one more tree thus making it visible as a large banyan tree. Came to know that this is a third generation tree.

We were not alone and saw few families already occupying the places under the shades of the tree. It was a working day but good to see these visitors. We roamed the place and my kids climbed the branches. My kids were very happy to see such a kind of tree, why not? it's a unique tree and we cannot see nearby our localities.

Under any shades of such tree, the primary activities of the visitors is to eat and dine. We too completed our breakfast. Now don't expect any hotels or restaurants in this site. We need to carry our own food and drinks. The toilets are totally unhygienic and I recommend to use the mini zoo toilets as these are much better than near the tree.

Following are few pics of the banyan tree for your glimpse.

 

There's a tomb in the site but I don't see much significance for this one in the site. So after spending substantial time we moved towards zoo. We need to take the tickets again and visited the mini zoo. The mini zoo contains small bird sanctuary and a deer park.

The bird sanctuary has some colorful birds and after clicking few snaps we moved to deer park. We found two deers at the long site and one deer came to us running, expecting some food. We don't want to feed the deer with human eatables and fed some leaves. We were very happy that deer came for us and spent some time for us. Took some close up shots of the deer. 

I am not posting the snaps of birds or details of zoo as I don't want to spoil your fun revealing everything. I will post the deer snap shot which came very near to us.

 

So we completed the site seeing in two hours including the breakfast. Now the time is around 12.00 and we have resumed our journey to our next destination.

Pillalamarri is a perfect destination for a short weekend trip from Hyderabad. In 5-6 hours we can complete the sight seeing and return back to Hyderabad by afternoon.What else, you can plan a movie or shopping in the evening also. If some one wants an extended site seeing one can add Alampur temples which is 2 hours journey from Pillalamarri and 130 Kms.

I switched on the GPRS for direction to Alampur and it showed a different route to Alampur avoiding the Bangalore highway. But I preferred the highway route and returned back to this route and switched on the GPRS again. This time it showed the highway route directions.

We need to take left before 30kms from Kurnool and by the time we reached it's around 1.30 P.M. The parking place is congested but I managed to park the vehicle. We came to know that temple is closed during that time and it will reopen at 2.00 p.m. again. We spent half an hour time finishing the lunch for our kids and checked the dam near the temple. After 2.00 p.m. the temple is opened and we completed the formalities. Following are few snapshots of Alampur.

Nothing exciting in the temple site to me but may be a joyful visit for a traditional pilgrim. We can wrap up the site seeing here in 1 hour and return back to Hyderabad by evening.

Overall Pillalamarri is a good trip and if we go with minimum expectations we can enjoy the site seeing. Add the Alampur temple visits if you are looking for a full day trip.

If time permits I will come up with details of my Kurnool trip.