A weekend trip: Hyderabad to Suryalanka beach

Suryalanka is a small town/village off the coast of Bay of Bengal and has the honour of being the nearest beach from the city of Hyderabad. Many people make a weekend trip to Suryalanka to enjoy being with the sea. Five of us chose to do just that in a Hyundai Verna on a weekend in September.

We left at 6am for Suryalanka stopping only at a small dhaba for breakfast. A large part of the route is NH with great roads (and divider) enabling us to make quick time. After reaching Vijayawada, it is SH where too the roads were in good condition. We caught some traffic while bypassing Vijayawada and Guntur; we eventually reached Bapatla and thereafter Suryalanka at 1pm. It took us seven hours to cover close to 400kms.

A chameleon, found on the way

Row of trees, on the way

The first sight of the sea and the enormous waves was exhilarating. There is not much else to do in that town other than spend time with the sea. Our stay was booked at Haritha Resorts, a government tourist accommodation provided in many cities in AP. To book online, use the following link. After having lunch and a short nap which is right next to the beach, we ventured out towards the sea in the evening.

The sea waves came crashing upon us time after time. We played frisbee and catch-ball in the sea with the waves thudding into us. Learning to swim and float were other activities attempted by some of us with little success and lots of fun.

There were other activities like going on a scooter boat that were available there but something that we did not attempt. Searching on the web seems to indicate presence of nearby dolphins if one goes searching by boat; but we were told that happens only in the month of November.

With night-fall, the beach emptied swiftly as there is no activity on the beach at night whilst it remains absolutely devoid of human activity with only the waves making roaring noises and thousands of crabs coming out of their dug-up holes in the sand.

A crab-hole

There is provision at the resort to make a bonfire as we saw another neighbouring group do the same. After having dinner (food was surprisingly good at the resort); we played cards and the like before dropping off.

The next day, we woke up at 5am early morning to catch a glimpse of the sunrise. The pale blue skies with the incoming dawn delighted us as we went on to the beach waiting for sunrise. To our disappointment it turned to be a cloudy morning, with the sun nowhere in sight.

We spent some time watching early morning fishermen getting ready to set their nets in the sea as the tackled the waves in their humble boats. We also saw lots of crabs going back into hiding as the human population grew on the beach.

Fishermen braving the waves, early morning

After breakfast and checkout (the resort’s check in/out timings are 10am to 9pm); we left back for Hyderabad. Stopping occasionally on the way for good scenery, a heavy lunch in Vijayawada; we made our way. We also faced torrential rain for a brief period after crossing Vijayawada. Eventually, exhausted but happy we reached Hyderabad back by evening capping our weekend trip.

[Photo credits: Raunak Pandya]

Route:

View Larger Map