Kondaveedu Fort - 'The Hill Fortress' is located in Kondaveedu Village, Guntur District, Andhra Pradesh. The Fort was built and was ruled by the king of Reddy dynasty in fourteenth Century and later on it was concurred and was ruled by many kings starting from Vijayanagara Kings, Qutub Shahis from The Sultans of Golkonda have fought for this fort and after that it went into the hands of French and finally The Britishers.
Apart from the main fort,
there are two other forts nearby. All the three forts are now in ruins.
It is said that treasure hunters are the main reason to vandalize this
fort. The fables of abundant wealth buried underneath continues to draw
the attention of the treasure hunters and desecrating the few remains of
the fort by digging away. Though we have not noticed any such
miscreants all through our trek. Not sure if the miscreants have found
some treasure here or not but the fort is completely ruined. There's
only a small portion of the fort left out by which one can at-least
recognize that its a fort.
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| Kondaveedu Fort |
We have planned to hike this Kondaveedu Fort up the hill. Seven others have joined along with me and laxmi. We have planned this trip well in advance and booked the train tickets that were in waiting list. Finally till the day before the journey the tickets were not confirmed and we were pure unlucky in the Tatkal scheme by IRCTC and thanks for the super slow server of Indian Railways!! Since it's just a Six hours journey from Hyderabad to Guntur we have decided to travel with general ticket. So, the task is to get hold the seats for all the nine people. My self and Vishnu got into the running train on the platform and yes!! we blocked the seats for all nine. Task accomplished!! Luckily the train got delayed by an hour.. lucky coz the main person in the group, our celebrity 'Sreenath' was stuck in traffic. (Celebrity coz he look alike Virat Kohli). Our first travel in general compartment and this is what I noticed... On one side the passengers were waiting to grab the seats and other side the vendors selling the stuff... people climbing up and making the luggage place as their berth!! Train started.. but Virat is still not here!! All of us got settled... and here... got a call from Virat saying that he boarded the train and he is in other compartment, will join us in next station. Pheww!! Journey started with intro followed by a fun games and trying to bluff each other. Our destination was still two hours away, so we decided to take a power nap for couple of hours. and here we are in Guntur... that was a different experience, traveling in General. Hired a private vehicle and started the journey towards the Fort. Enroute had a delicious south Indian breakfast. And here we reached Kondaveedu Fort base!!
The fort is located 1700 feet above sea level, which has steps that takes you to the peak. What's so adventures if we take the steps to climb all over the top? So we decided to explore the place and started hiking from a different route. We have chosen a pretty long route to reach the peak... the group was full on energetic!! none of them got tired till we reach the top. Hike includes lot of scrambling and little climbing. Climbing was little challenging as there were no proper handholds.. we have used a little bit of palming technique to climb up. One by one started climbing and our cameraman 'Saiteja' was busy clicking!!
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| Hiking |
In the midst of hike we found a huge tree with vines!! and guess what..
Its time for some Tarzan swing!! We spent some fun time in swinging and
relaxed and continued the hike. After five hours of hiking.... there we
are on the top of the fort!! The view from the top was amazing!! a
small village at the base surrounded by fields and the blue sky!! It was
very hot though. Relaxed for sometime and clicked few group pictures
directed by Aparna and stared descending.
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| Tarzan Swing |
Descending was the toughest part though we have chosen a short route, coz it was already noon and the sun shines hot. Rocks burning like hot pan!! and the worst part is descending in hot sun without having a drop of water. Pranav, Akhilesh and Abhilash descended little fast and reached base and were waiting for us at the home at the base village, where we kept all our backpacks. Here ends the hike to Kondaveedu fort and started the journey towards Surya Lanka Beach.
Suryalanka is one amongst many beaches... but with less crowd and less polluted beach. The specialty of Surya Lanka is it's an 'estuary beach' a place where fresh water from the river flows into the ocean and blend with salt water. It was almost dark when we reached the beach... first we setup the tents for camping just few steps away from the beach and ordered dinner at the local hotel and went on for a walk in the beach. Spent some good time at the beach chatting about haunted stories, movies and all... by the time our dinner was ready!! Steamed rice with fish curry was the menu for dinner! and the moment after we had dinner Akhilesh started dozing!! and he is the one in whole group who was sleeping most of the time. We all wanted a good, long sleep now...so that we can wake up early to see the sunrise.
Next day early morning five.. it was little cloudy. Behind the clouds is the sun... Hiding! Raising slow.. we had to wait for long time, but the sun rise was not that good as expected nevertheless we enjoyed the view.
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| Sun Rise |
Early morning at the beach...sunrise time and who doesn't want to get into water..! after spending some good time in the beach we started walking towards the place where river water flows into the sea. It was amazing to see sweet water from river mixes with salt water and at the same time i pity... many people on earth lack drinking water and here it is wasted. And buried with sea water.
It was Eleven O'clock when we reached back to the camping place after spending some good time at the estuary. We still have enough time to spend, so we decided to visit Amaravati Temple near Guntur. Goodbye to Suryalanka!! Came back to Bapatla and started searching for hotels... and Its being a weekend, most of the hotels are filled up... and it was too late till the time we checked-In at a hotel. At last we have to cancel the plan to Amaravati and passed the time with some music and thanks to Abhilash for entertaining us with his mixed and funny facial expressions!!
A wonderful weekend spent with incredible group hiking all along the fort and beach!! Everyone got acquainted very much and decided not to sleep in the return journey as this will be the last night we gonna spend together. Eleven O'clock in the night we boarded the train and all our seats were not allocated in serial numbers... tried swapping seats with other passengers.. but no luck, we just have to go and have a good night sleep!
Back to Hyderabad on Monday morning and ready for corporate slavery!!
