Rachakonda Fort “The Unexplored Ruins”

Waking up early in the morning and going for a weekend adventure trip is itself a hard way to live life and enjoy it. But it’s just a matter of minutes before you changed your state of deep sleep to the energetic adventurer. A similar adventure trip is been implemented by us during the trip to Rachakonda Fort.

Myself, Sudeep Bhatta, with my wife Sapna Lodh, started this trip from home in Hyderabad at 6 in the morning with all our camera gear. As the main counterpart of our team. Mr. Vamshi and Mr. Nethaji joined us at Moosapet metro station at 6:15 am sharp. The eye of both of them was a bit sleepy but we still have some eagerness to explore more places, so we moved forward toward our destination.

At around 6:45 am we took a tea break at a tea point near Koti. Then we set up our Google Maps and moved forward toward the Rachakonda Fort. I have not included any history lesson for Rachakonda fort, it is just what I felt while traveling. If you really want to learn about it, the best place is Wikipedia

The path was straight like butter, just hovering over multiple lanes of the road and feeling the aura of the morning. We thought of having food at any outlet near the fort. With a drive of 60km, we reached Rachakonda village. The food game changes there, as there was no food outlet nearby. We all were very hungry but had no options. Soon we saw one store where we bought some bread and namkeen.

Now from the village to the fort is just a 5-10 minutes ride, so we rode over there and parked our bikes. That location was really a parking location in the open, but without any security. Somehow we got the courage and parked it, packed our gears, and moved on to trek Rachakonda Fort.

The location was rock hilly, with a cold breeze continuously flowing which supports our artificially made air-conditioned body.

So the start was with a small monumental architecture od pillar, which not even attracting anyone, but we got the courage to get ourselves attracted to it and take a fine look through it.

As this was morning time so the sunlight was soft and creating luminescence for nice portrait shots, so Vamshi and Nethaji started posing and as their so-called travel photographer, I started clicking their shots at different angles.

After a session of photography, we started our motion towards the fort entrance, which was a small gate. As I have earlier traveled to many forts, where the entry was very secure, but here it’s not, maybe due to some natural calamity.

As we moved more towards the pathway, there was a lake in the hidden valley, whatsoever it is called, but the view is capturable, so I captured it, without wasting much time.

As the staircase pathway made us move forward, the tiredness also started to be born in our muscles again, as the corporate slaves’ category is so this type of hiking or trekking is not so much familiar to us.

On the way to the top, with the support of the staircase path, there was many stone architecture that was mostly destroyed and the renovation was anyhow not done by the government.

Now as a matter of surprise, there was a stone painting of Goddess Durga on a large rock, which is a piece of attraction to all the visitors who arrive at this location.

We got to stay here under the blessings of the Goddess and took some sips of water to re-energize ourselves. In the meantime, we all four were continuously discussing how bad our own corporate lives are, and how great other corporate lives are. It’s a totally controversial topic that was continuously going on between us, and really, it’s diverting our minds from the unexpected tiredness.

Soon with the arguing and never-ending debate on who’s office life is better, we reached the nearby top of the hilly fort, which comes out to be a grassland. But it’s not the end.

We saw a few people moving from some hidden staircase to the top most location, so as a weekend adventure enthusiast, we moved ahead to get the view from the top.

I asked my wife, and my life Sapna Lodh to stay at the bottom as she had slippery shoes which may cause some serious accident, and the trio of boys moved ahead.

The path was from the edge of one big rock to another. With all the camera equipment on my shoulder, I was frightened of losing it or damaging it. But as I earlier said, this is a courageous trek, so I gathered some pints of to and moved ahead.

The view from the top was nice with lots and lots of flowing wind. The purpose of reaching the top is achieved and we started clicking pics with again some more posing.

Suddenly I saw my wife start climbing to not much higher rock, but was worried so asked her to go back to the plain grassland.

After the small hilly descent to grassland, we were quite hungry, so started eating some bread and namkeen which we bought from the store before we enter Rachakonda. And then had some fun time dancing to the music of other travelers who brought speakers and making some loud music in the peaceful valley of Rachakonda

Now after some good interesting fun time, it’s our time to move once again and check other areas of Rachakonda Fort.

The next move was towards another hilltop lake, which catches our attention as the water was stone calmed and the noon light was brilliant, so once again our gathering for the photoshoot started.

But in addition to that, as it was stagnant water, there was a pungent smell, but the breeze tries to take it away. So we are in the middle of competition between the smell and wind, for which the result was unanswered till the time we stayed there.

In front of the lake, there was a master of stone balance example was available, where a large, maybe around 1000 tons of stone the placed in a very precise balancing way over another base stone, which makes all of our mechanical engineering concepts of center of gravity and CG balancing concepts, but we still till the whole journey was not been able to figure out this case.

But this was not the only example, there were others after we crossed a gate, and reached to the edge of the fort campus.

Now at this stone, there was a vessel placed, which might be used for some local rituals by the localities at any specific time of the year, but the placement and positioning are attractive and our eyes cannot control to stop staring at it.

The view from this edge was not just great but fabulous. We stayed there for some time to take some shots as this type of place as the background is not our daily routine, so the hunger for clicking photos and selfies is to be fulfilled at every cost.

Now every one of us was tired and now we had filled our hunger to trek and click pics, so after resting for around 20 minutes, we started our next stop at the open parking of Rachakonda Fort.

In around 30 minutes of descending walk on the staircase, we reached the open sun environment of the fort hilltop to the greeny jungle of the fort valley.

This is how we have covered one of the nearest gateway destinations from Hyderabad. The trip was enjoyable, a bit of losing the morning sleep, but the result was great, and all 4 agree and appreciate each other.