An affair with nature @ Anantgiri,Vikarabad

It was a long Diwali weekend  and we decided to go camping, trekking, birding  &; exercising our new SLR at a nearby weekend getaway called Anantagiri. Away…away….. from the hustle bustle of the manicured gardens in the city to the lush green natural habitat of flora and fauna for a couple of days.  

Just around 90 kms from Hyderabad and 6 kms from Vikarabad is this hill station in a forest area. This is a surprising feature considering that RangaReddy district in which Hyderabad falls has a landscape of rocks and dry tracts of land.  This hill station is now an upcoming resort and a paradise for  people who love trekking and adventure sports courtesy Deccan trails. This is also the place where River Musi orginates, the river that flows through Hyderabad and divides the old city from the new city. This river is now a gutter in the old city.

 All along as we drove  through Chevella,  it was  a delight to listen to our favourite music and cruise on the road flanked with beautiful vegetable patches, sunflower farms and cotton fields.The whole route was a hub of activity with farmers busy in their fields harvesting carrots, tomatoes, marigold and selling their produce on either sides of roads.
 Our speed of the vehicle was checked by the flock of goats, buffaloes, turkey birds which crossed the roads often.

 We had prebooked our room at Anantgiri Haritha valley view and so guided by our GPS we comfortably reached the hill station. When we were at the gates of the resort, we saw an indicator for the Ananta Padmanabha swamy temple and decided to visit there before  our lunch.

So, we headed straight to the temple which was a km  away and  bang on the main road to Tandur. An ancient rock cut cave temple with a temple tank  dating back 800 years. The temple is beautifully maintained and renovated without disturbing the ancient feel.

The main deity is inside a small cave, The priest narrated the sthalapurana (history) of the temple . The idol was installed by Markendeya muni( Bhakta Markendeya a great devotee of Lord Shiva) and is supposed to be one of the biggest saligramas stone*. Sage Markendeya is supposed to have performed penance here. The temple is believed to be built by a Nizam(muslim king) who is supposed to have rested here during his hunting expeditions. The old  structures like a bridge, dam  around the temple bear testimony to the muslim architecture. 

The rear end of the temple opens to a  fllght of wide but steep platform stairs ( around 50) which leads to the  temple water tank(Pushkarni), enroute the flight down you are flanked by caves, tiny temples, huge banyan trees some as ancient as the temple itself and a dilapidated bridge like structure with arches. Nearby the pushkarni, I could see lots of small  stones arranged one over the other under a tree. The stacking reminded me of  my childhood game called Lagori( 7 stones). This game had  7 stones  stacked one over the other and a ball thrown over the stacking would disturb the arrangement. One has to arrange the stones before you are hit by the ball. Just in case you miss being hit by the ball, you have to stack the stones and shout "LAGORI". 

A similar arrangement here, only, this is a ‘Make a wish’ for devotees. The devotees arrange the stones, make a wish and once fulfilled they come back here, have a bath in the water tank and offer thanks to the little Shivalayam near the tank. The place looked so calm- the temple tank, the little temple with lots of weeds and small saplings over it, the wide expanse of greenery and tall trees clouding  around,  the chirping of the birds. Oh, Simply meditative!

The muddy track from the temple tank led to the forest which was our  trekking trail and one of the two trekking trails in the Anantgiri hills. But we were famished and had walked bare foot so far, we left our shoes at the temple entrance and so decided to come back later. Not that we were fussy about soiling our foot, but  we wanted to take caution from the wild insect bites.  We ascended back the steps over the seasoned granite which had a acupressure on our tired soles  and we drove back and checked into our resort which had a picturesque valley view.

The  buffet lunch was pathetic, very, very  spicy and had all the non-veg spices. Thankfully the "thayir saadam' ( curd rice) saved us. The afternoon hot sun & the late lunch took a toll on me and I suffered a migraine which spoilt the evening. Night dinner was simply awesome at the same resort. I think they have different cooks.

Uh..ho! That’s a pretty long post. Will break the post here and continue my trek story  in the next post. I also have  photos to share.

 (*The Saligrama stone is not believed to be just another stone found in the nature. It is found only at Gandaki River situated high in the Himalayas in Nepal. It is believed that the chakra symbols are formed by river worms called vajra keeta) 

                                                                    The cotton fields                                       

The cotton fields close up

The sunflower farms

                                                      The main gopuram of the temple from the main road.

                           The gopuram of the main deity as seen from the main road. It is at a  good  depth from                the main gopuram meaning you walk down a ramp from the main gopuram to enter the cave temple

                                 The temple tank (pushkarni) at a depth of nearly 50 steep steps from the rear end of the temple

a slice of the resort at night, the valley view was ethereal from our balcony but it was chilly and misty.

Will share more next week.........