Borra caves & Ketaki Falls - 30 Oct, 2009

I had my tickets booked for the only train to Borra in the day, the 6:50 am one to Borraguhallu from the Vizag station. I was at the station at 6:20 and the train was there already. Good thing I had reserved my ticket in the sleeper section for 99 bucks 3 days back, as the unreserved section was as usual very crowded. The sleeper was filled up with people carrying on further to stations beyond Borra, while most of the people visiting Borra were in the coaches specially reserved for AP tourism tours. After the first hour of travel, we finally arrived at the hills. The view is completely on the right side, the left side has heavy forest cover right next to the train on a gradient, which doesn’t allow you to see much. The scenery is quite something in the bright sunlight, with the hills, the train passing through all the tunnels (a few of them exceeding 500 meters in length), and at times the single track passing over drops of more than 9-10 floors. As usual I spent most of the time at the gate, with my head out, the only way I know how to travel on a train!

Contraryo to what I’d read, the train took only 2 hours 45 minutes to the Borraguhallu station, I stood there at 9:45 am. Ignoring the jeep touts, there are a lot of jeeps standing outside the small station, I set out on foot. I took a wrong turn at the small settlement there and realized 20 minutes of hike on the roads later that I was en route to Araku valley, so had to turn back and head the other way. The Borra caves are about a km or 2 from the train station, so if you can’t handle a little hike on the slopes in the sun, you better take the jeeps. The ticket costs 30 bucks, and another 100 for a digicam. I was tempted to take a ticket for a reel camera, which was just 20 rupees, as I was quite sure that just like everywhere else they won’t bother to check here at the gates as well. As I’d thought, they didn’t bother to check my camera, but I had honestly paid a 100 bucks already!

At the entrance of the caves itself, you can realize how mammoth the structure would be, the mouth opening in front of you to give you a peek at the few illuminated areas providing a nice shadow dance on the walls. Beware of the rowdy monkeys here, who have their courage imbibed from Hanuman himself, and aren’t scared to lunge at any edible you have out (I witnessed a couple of food grabs by the tailed creatures here). The stalactites and stalagmites formed in the cave really present quite a view at some points. There are a few things that the guides point out, one referring to a rock formation to as, I swear this to be true, a ‘dinosaur’, some other as lion, some even as a Hindu god. The path here is lighted for the majority of the way, with railings on the sides so that the public doesn’t wander off into the deeper portions of the cave. The path towards the left goes to the bottom of the cave (at least till where its allowed), and you even have to bend down in order to pass under a huge boulder leaning onto the path.

The limestone formations next to the path present some sight. The lights at some point reflect orange and green hues which do make for a good snap, if you have a decent camera. In the middle of the cave, there is also a small temple; well its more like a rock formation in the shape of a shivling which is now prayed at a lot. It even has its own Pandit sitting there full time reciting prayers. The authorities have created a flight of artificial steps leading up to this place, I was hanging on to the railings all the time I was walking on this path (imagine being afraid of height inside a cave!). Near the mouth of the cave, there is a big hole in the ceiling, through which you can see a lot of trees, now that’s a site you wouldn’t want to miss, gazing out from the darkness into the trees some 100 or so feet up.

I rested for a bit inside the cave, watching the masses pass by and enjoy posing next to the walls, and then pushed off. My train back was at 4:40 pm, and it was just 1:00 pm right now. Fortunately I got a jeep driver who had space for 1 more person, and he was taking the rest to Ketaki falls nearby. I made sure that we’d be back in time to catch the train, and then joined the group of 10 already in the jeep. (You can haggle a bit with the jeep driver, I paid 70 bucks, though in 75, you can get a round trip from the train station to the caves, Ketaki falls and back) The 7-8 km drive took around 30 minutes due to the rocky slopes, the road is definitely suitable only for a 4 wheel drive, not for big vehicles though. I did see an auto on the way, but trust me, that ride would not be easy on the rear. There was a group of 8 kids coming from Vizag, and I befriended them on the journey. When the driver finally stopped, I could see no sign of the falls in the vicinity, turns out there was a hike of 3-4 km involved, as there was no motorable road to the falls from this point on. So we passed the rail tracks, and huffed and puffed the narrow, hilly route to the falls. I though I was the only one who was having trouble with the hike, but it turns out, all the people I met on the way were catching their breath resting on the roadside. I met a couple of people descending the slope midway to the falls, we looked at each other, no words exchanged, and everyone broke into a laugh at the way we were sweating and panting like dogs, each one empathetic to the plight of the other!

Finally we arrived at the falls, and it was beautiful, a small waterfall, not much water, but deep enough to reach almost your chest at a couple of places. The people were enjoying a lot, since most of them were young kids, shouting out and jumping into the water, posing for snaps. I limited myself to just a few sprinkles on my head as I stood under the falls for a couple of seconds, and my tee and jeans got drenched. The water here was quite cold and pretty soon people were shivering. Thankfully, the route back had plenty of warm sunshine to dry my clothes off. The surrounding forest cover is not that thick, but enough to warrant no un-guided forays. On the way back you can see a few tribals selling pure honey, and a little kid selling amla. I bought a few and shared the bitter fruit with my new formed friends from Vizag. We also posed for a few snaps on the rail tracks on the way back to the jeep, ready for the bumpy ride back.

Lunchtime, and we stopped over at one of the small shops, bypassing the more lavish ones. I sat down to eat on the banana leaf with everyone else, the daal and rice, and the vegetables seemed to be one of the best meals I had eaten, after the tiresome trek. Though I was the only one eating with a spoon, I enjoyed as one of them only, but still unable to match their 2nd and 3rd helpings of rice. I washed it all down with a small glass of butter milk as well, full up to the brim now. The supple meal cost me 40 bucks, a bit pricey maybe because of the tourism effect. With the sun now a light orange in the sky we got back to the station at 4:15 itself, where I said goodbye to my friends as they were staying back in Araku valley. Waiting at the station, I got into a conversation with another outsider there, Mohammed Asif, a chap who had come down from Hyderabad. He was also waiting for the train, and since it was more than an hour late, we sat in the nice evening sunlight and chatted away. The married fellow who’d been working in Kuwait for the last 5-6 years was here without his wife and kids, the former being down with fever. Talked a lot about his life outside the country, his engineering days, his family members near Vizag, and random stuff. When the train finally arrived, it was as usual full to the brim, but I had a first class ticket ( I had reserved it beforehand for 180 bucks so as not to get stuck here out of nowhere, where the trains were rare to come by).

The tunnels in the night, the dark outlines of the hills, the trees that you could still make out in the darkness of the night now, everything, well spent from the doors of the coach, where else?