We’ve so many places in India which are amazing, beautiful, and untouched. These places not only offer you a relaxed holiday but also let you enjoy and undertake tons of activities like rafting, boating, swimming, nature trekking, fishing, surfing, and what not. One such “still not very commercial” gem of South India is the Konaseema region of Andhra Pradesh.
While planning a holiday to coastal Andhra, I found out about great Godavari backwaters and the leisure activities that you can undertake there. I read more about it on various blogs, wikis, and decided to take a trip in the long Independence Day weekend (August 14 – August 16, 2009.) The plan was to drive to a city called Rajahmundry besides the river Godavari, spend sometime there exploring local culture and cuisine later drive to the sleepy fishing village of Kakinada about 50kms from our resort and visit Kakinada sea port and beach. We came back to the resort by evening and had a great dinner, later went to the Isckon temple right besides the resort.
Next morning, we made a move to the village of Dindi about 60kms from our resort where we had pre-booked a houseboat. I am not quite sure what was better, the destination or the drive to the destination. Tall coconut trees sprawling the landscape with bright green rice fields, and beautiful huts made it one of the best drives I’ve been to.
We checked into our houseboat, but not before enjoying swimming at the Dindi coconut resort. The houseboat has 2 AC rooms but they will only turn on the AC at night. That said, you really dont need it because you want to sit on the second level porch of the boat and enjoy birds-eye view of the backwaters. We sailed for about 3 hours and came back for lunch to the resort. Later, we went sailing again and sailed for about 5 hours only to come back and park the boat near the resort.
Next morning we checked out from Dindi houseboat and visited the virgin beach of Antarvedi. It was a great sight to see black sand (the sand turns black when wet) and clean water. I couldn’t stop myself from taking a plunge and swam for about half an hour and enjoyed playing with local kids who looked at me as if I am coming from Amreeka.
Later, we drove back from Dindi to Vijaywada, the true Telugu city. You can feel the vibes of how close this city is too its culture. We took a moment to slow down at Bhavani Island and take-in the view and drove back to Hyderabad. On our way we stopped by at local dhabha’s. Unlike the great Punjabi dhabhas which I am used to in the north the Dhabha’s of southern part of India are small and modest. That said, they serve equally good food if you’ve a taste for South Indian cuisine. I absolutely enjoyed Sambhar, Rice, Curd, and Pappu meal. That said, I really wish I could bite into a big juicy piece Tandoori Chicken which was terribly missed. When I am road, I need my chicken 
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