Beach Ride — Machilipatnam
What motivates a Rider the most, the unquenched thirst to explore the unexplored or to travel with his bike to all places one can dream of. We went on a somewhat similar expedition to the coastal belt of Andhra.
Six riders , riding with four Himalayans, one Classic and a Mojo, started from Hyderabad. Destination was Machilipatnam - a coastal town on the Andhra belt.
Not far from the town lies Manginapudi Beach with a vast stretch, surprisingly left mostly untouched by humanity. The crowd remains minimal all throughout the day with mostly locals, making beach ideal for biking adventure :D.
The Hyderabad-Vijayawada highway is considered one of the best highway stretch in Telangana & Andhra state region. With smoothly laid out 4 lanes and eye catching landscapes alongside , this highway makes up for one of the must do road trip in India for riders like us.
We started at 4 am in the morning from our homes and were able to cross Hyderabad before 5am. Since there were only 6 riders we tried maintaining average speed of 80–90 km/hr.
First halt was near the first toll, Panthangi Toll Plaza at around 6 am.
We had a small break for 15–20 mins, took few clicks , adjusted our luggage, GPS and got ready to continue.
Sun was up by that time and it was time to rev more throttle.
Next halt was Food Court 7 near Suryapet. Good for families as well riders in terms of facilities, food comes up at a cost here even for simple items.
We decided to go to the next adjacent dhaba for breakfast. We spent around an hour and half here.
From Suryapet next stop was Vijayawada. The by pass construction work is still going so we had to pass through the city. Clean roads and lush roadside greenery welcomed us into the city. We stopped for a small break and continued ahead passing through Prakasam Barrage.
It was above noon already , and temperature was at the day’s highest.We had to stop for a while near a roadside pond with some shade, which turned out to be a bliss and was quite evident from the happy faces.
Manginapudi Beach was nearly 30 kms from that point.
We finally reached there by around 3 pm. Checked into the hotel, ordered food and just relaxed on the balcony to enjoy the sea breeze.
Evening was spent chilling on the beach and night at the hotel which looked somekind of haunted place .:D
Next morning the fun began at 4 am .
We went to beach with our bikes well before sunrise and drove like crazy on the beach. Amazing feeling it is to drive on the incoming sea waves, though had to be little careful while driving towards the beach with hundreds of crabs digging out of their holes randomly.
From bikes falling on the beach on loose sand, to struggling to keep them standing, to cruising on the entire beach stretch, to everyone trying to get a best photo for himself, to getting mobbed by the curious kids and to getting drenched by the sea waves, we all had a gala time on the beach.
We were back in hotel by 9 am, got ready and started back for Hyderabad.
But first we needed breakfast and luckily we found a local canteen nearby only, Laxmi Venkatramana tiffin center, serving amazing food
It was run by an elderly couple with only few south indian dishes on the menu.
We ordered dosa and vada and they served it freshly prepared. Both the items tasted so good, vada itself was so soft, one can easily say that is rare to find, highly recommended for anyone visiting nearby.
We continued back till Hyderabad making few stops for food and water and reached back at our homes by around 9 at night.
