Weekend Trip: Kotipalli cheruvu, Ananthagiri Hills near Vikarabad, Andhra Pradesh, India.

Date of Journey: 07-Jul-2013 Distance from Hyderabad: 100 kms. Start Time: 9.30 AM Return Time: 7.30 PM Accommodation: Not required.

Hi, I would like to share my experiences of weekend trip to Kotipalli cheruvu/reservoir and Ananthagiri hills located near vikarabad. I was searching in the net on weekend trips from Hyderabad and came to know about Kotipalli cheruvu and decided to explore the location. As usual my family will be ready to accompany me and we were ready at home by 8.30 and had a heavy breakfast. My wife also prepared the food stuff for lunch as I told her don't expect good hotels in the journey. At 8.30 my younger daughter requested to attend the parent's meeting also and by the time we concluded the meeting it was 9.30 AM. So we started from Balanagar and taken the route of high tech city --> outer ring road--> exit at appa junction--> Narsingi junciton-->Chilkur--> Chevella and Vikarabad. Before chilkur there's a Mrigavani Deer park and bird santuary is located. We haven't planned this visit, but one can include a short span of time there if properly planned. The route is a double lane road with no dividers and the road conditions are OK. The good part of the journey is that there's little sun shine with cool breeze. After chevella, either side of the roads are filled with lush green trees and get thicker as we reach the vikarabad. We can see beautiful banyan trees with the branches [tarzan ropes] dangling from the tree. We made a small halt and my daughters dangled on the branches. With few haults here and there, we reached Ananthagiri hills around 12.30 PM. On the way we passed through the TB sanctorium and reached the temple. Hanuman statue welcomed us and we parked the vehicle at the premises. I enquired with the parking guy on the places to visit here. He replied to visit the temple, and take the route to the next lane near the temple where one can find the temple pond (called as Koneru in local language) and further away leads into the deep forest. Some one who's interested in the trekking or forest walk can explore this part. After the quick darshan, we reached the pond. The water is not good and hence we dropped the idea of enjoying in the water.Next we moved little deep into the forest and explored the tress and rocks. The dangling huge branches and rocks is a visual delight. After spending around half an hour we returned back to our car. We started to Kotipalli river and it is around 10 kms from the temple. After Dharur villgae we took a right turn and suddenly the roads appeared deserted with no man's land. After going through 4-5 kms we encountered small village there we enquired the route to the lake and came to know that we took a wrong route. So we returned and followed a small metal road lane (kaccha road) near a masjid sign board. After travelling for a kilo metre we found the lake. I was amused by the size of the Kotipalli river. With its huge length,breadth and fresh water and cows grazing at a distant place is a visual delight. The good part is that we can take the car nearby the shore. The area seems to be not a popular tourist spot as the crowd is very less. We picked a spot where rock boulders are immersed in water yet suitable to sit and dip our legs in the water. My daughters started shouting in joy and quickly jumped into water. I too couldn't resist and joined them in the water. After playing in water for one hour I returned to bank. Now the time is around 2.30 PM, I started feeling hungry. Listening to songs from the car deck and in a lake cool breeze I had completed my food on the banks of the rivers . My kids played for marathon two and half hours in the water and finally I asked them to return. They quickly came to banks had few bites of food and jumped into the waters again. They spent another half an hour and returned back to car. After drying up thenselves and changing their dresses we returned to Hyderabad. We lost the way at Vikarabad and had to return back and took the correct way to Hyderabad. The kids were exhausted and fall asleep in the car. Near Chevella rain has started and marking the completeness of our journey. Listening to old hindi and telugu songs I reached Hyderabad around 7.30 PM. Overall it was a fantastic experience. I had visisted Godavari river in Bhadrachalam, Basara, Rajamundry and other popular places in Kakinada but I never found such a big clean lake similar to Kotipalli. All these were filled with dirt and huge visitors. Kotipalli is extremely good with fresh water, huge size and located in a serene place with less people. The other lake I was impressed is Ramappa lake near warangal. This was also a huge fresh water lake but no bathing is allowed there.