Vodarevu....

The last weekend was spent on the beaches of Vodarevu. It is a small beach resort located 70 km from Guntur by road. It was an outing with my friends in Google. I was undecided on going as I am not much of a water freak. However went ahead as I didn’t want myself to be labeled as a ditcher again!!

We reached the village at around midnight on Saturday, refreshed ourselves and headed to the beach at 1 AM!! Though it was dark, the first impression you get of it was its improper maintenance. We had a very good time that night though, with the cool sea breeze and the bright moon light dawning on us.

The next day was at the beach again. It was the day of Ganesh Immersion and so adding on to the waste particles lying around, a lot of the pooja stuff was thrown on the beach. You could understand it though as it is a major festival. However, It would be interesting to observe how this place is maintained on the other occasions.

There was an ITC Guest House nearby and it had the cleanest part of the beach. It turned out to be the major hot spot for us.

The place has lot of fishing boats with most of them being powered by small motors. The fishermen had agreed to take us for a ride in the sea @Rs 150 for 4 people. It was a good bargain and would have been worth the ride. Unfortunately, we got distracted by conversations and it got too hot in the day before we realized the missed opportunity.

During the day, we went around exploring the beautiful village. It is dominated by huts. We were told that about 2000 families stay here with each averaging 4 people. The USP about the village for me is its children. I had a great time teaching them how to take photos and making them take photos of myself with them. They took me to their playground near the school and played a game of Volleyball with them!! I was pathetic at it ;)

The accommodation is pretty economical here. A non- AC room would cost you Rs 200 while an AC room is available @ Rs 400. As per my talk with the Lodge in-charge, they tend to have rooms available most times of the year.

The part about the Village that caught my imagination was the number of posters of Chiranjeevi. Curious about his party prospects here, I chatted with a few people who were in their twenties about the political scene here. It is a Congress stronghold but they told me it would get strong competition this time as Chiranjeevi has the backing of the youngsters. Will have to wait and see for this interesting battle!!

Finally, Is it worth a visit? I would say Yes. It has a decent beach, good hospitality and is worth the money spent. I would discourage the female visitors traveling alone though as it doesn’t have many tourists from the Cities or abroad and so definitely a big NO if you are traveling alone. For non-drinkers, please do not spend more than a day here as there is nothing much apart from the beach and the liquor :(

I was curious about the reasons for the popularity of this place based on the above info (Vodarevu has ~3700 Google search results) – I was told by the locals that it has been used since the times of the British as the port destination and has always elicited positive responses from the tourists. Nah… I need a much more convincing reply than that.

It was interesting to note that the Govt of India decided to make this place a Shipyard and has served notices to the Villagers to vacate this place in the next 4-5 years. It appears that they would be given a compensatory land in Chirala and provided with jobs in the shipyard.

Good for this place I guess as I haven’t see much prosperity here.