SriSailam trip

We have been to SriSailam for Diwali and the trip went fine. The biggest mistake what we had done is that we started without knowing the route; the reason was that during our previous trip to Nagarjuna Sagar, we saw a sign board which said we can reach SriSailam from Nagarjuna Sagar so we went to Nagarjuna Sagar first and then found out that the way is too longer and its a village road so we had to cross many sheeps, buffalows on our single lane road; anyways it was a good experince and finally we landed up in Srisailam after travelling for about 500KM (The direct route from Hyd to SriSaialm is just 200KM)

Finally we reached SriSailam and felt relieved with the cool breezes on the mountains and this is the initial view of SriSailam and that building is a museum which is maintained by the chenchus who live in the forests. I was astonished after seeing this; it has got various tools, things, clothes and etc which were used by tribals and we can find their own implementation of many modern items like pressure cokker, rain coat, hot box, weapons etc etc. This museum is worth watching and we got some herbals also from this place. Ofcourse the guide is also a chenchu woman and she explained very well.

We got accomdation in one choultry there and paid (sorry donated) 500/- for one AC room and it looked decent; and food was free during our stay there. We then started to SriSaialm dam which was constructed on Krishna river and it is second highest dam in INDIA. It contributes 20% to the overall power supply in AP. There were 11 gaint gates and each gate costed 1 crore in 1980s; so imagine the cost now. The way how it works is they store the river water in seven tunnels and there will be turbains in each tunnel and the water which passes through this turbine produces power. Initially tehy did not allow us inside the dam; so we had to bribe (sorry donate) the police at the entrance.

After that we bought a book about Srisaialm and went through what places to see and what is the significance etc. Next day early morning our guide (in fact youngest guide.. 10 years old) came and we went inside the temple. That book was very helpful and we could know about all the places and stories beforehand. We visited all the temples and historical places and after having free lunch again, started our tour to Hyderabad (this time in the correct route i.e. 200KM). I would say that this was one of the beautiful journeys we had; the way was a ghat road but the weather, forests, trees.. everything was very nice. Finally we returned home in the night.

During this trip I came to know the greatness of hindu culture and I feel that we are not giving much importance to Hindu culture. It has got all the knowledge but somehow we are attracted towards foriegn culture. Mathematics, Science, Astrology, Medicine.. all these were invented in very early centuries (5th or 6th) and we had some of the greatest heroes in our history Sivaji, KrishnaDevarayalu etc. I read history of Sivaji only and felt really great about the way he raised from a normal man to an emperor (Chatrapathi). He fought with Moghals who occupied the entire INDIA and this guy started with just forty soldiers and one fort. Kudos to him. When I say Hindu culture, I dont mean that we should worship all our gods and do all sorts of poojas. In fact the hinduism we hear is not the real hinduism; it never talsk about our gods; our people have transformed it in multiple ways.

With this I'm logging out, _(Swarish)_

Paathala Ganga:



Bhavani donating sword to Sivaji; On the way to a war, Sivaji visited SriSaialm once and decided to settle down here by worshipping gods; ofcourse again his ministers reminded him the goal of protecting the hindusim from the moghals so he continued for the war.



We travelled on the river by small boats called teppas..



SriSaialm Dam:



Me teaching chenchu :-)