Visakhapatnam to Araku Valley

This is the drive that Andhra keeps to itself. A hundred and twelve kilometres on State Highway 39, the first sixty of them flat and unremarkable through Pendurthi and Kottavalasa, and then a ghat that climbs continuously through the Eastern Ghats to a valley at about 910 metres where the coffee grows. Two things make it worth the day. One is Borra, 88 km up, where limestone caverns run to a depth of 80 metres — genuinely enormous, genuinely old, and lit like a wedding hall. The state tourism authority installed mercury and sodium lamps years ago and later added coloured LEDs, so a 150-million-year-old chamber now glows red and green and blue. Visitors say so repeatedly and they are right; go anyway, and go early before the crowd. The other is the railway. The Kothavalasa–Kirandul line was built to carry iron ore out of Bailadila and it runs through this same country on 58 tunnels and 84 major bridges. Shimiliguda, just past Araku, was the first highest broad-gauge station in India at 997 metres. Since 2017 there has been a Vista Dome coach on the tourist service, which covers 129 km in under four hours. If there are two of you and one is happy to drive alone, the best version of this trip is train up and car down. Araku itself is coffee, tribal museum, and a valley that stays cool when the coast does not. It is not a hill station in the Ooty sense and is the better for it.

The road and the railway both exist for the same reason, and it is not tourism. The Kothavalasa–Kirandul line, opened in 1966–67, was laid to move iron ore from Bailadila in Bastar down to the port at Visakhapatnam, and it was pushed through the Eastern Ghats at a gradient and tunnel count that no passenger service would ever have justified. State Highway 39 runs the same corridor. Araku became reachable as a side effect of hauling ore. This is also a Fifth Schedule Scheduled Area, and the coffee under the Ananthagiri hills is largely grown by tribal cooperatives on land governed by the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act and the Forest Rights Act.

The Eastern Ghats climb, Borra Caves at 705 m, the coffee under the Ananthagiri hills, and the railway with 58 tunnels running alongside.

Two-lane surfaced road the whole way. The first 60 km out of Visakhapatnam is flat plains driving through Pendurthi, Kottavalasa and S. Kota, and the ghat starts after about an hour and three quarters — a continuous climb through the Eastern Ghats to roughly 910 m at Araku. Araku takes about 1,700 mm of rain a year, almost all of it between June and October, and the ghat is at its most dangerous then.

Do the ghat in daylight and in the dry half of the year. The climb is not technical but it is continuous, and the drop-offs on the outside of the bends are real. Time Borra Caves properly. It opens at 10 a.m. and closes at 5 p.m., it is 88 km up from Visakhapatnam, and it is the one stop that cannot be shifted to suit you. Do it on the way up rather than promising yourself you will catch it coming down. Consider going up by train and back by road. The Kothavalasa–Kirandul line climbs the same ghats through 58 tunnels, and the Vista Dome service covers 129 km in just under four hours — a slower, better view of the country you would otherwise be steering through.

NO PERMIT IS NEEDED. Andhra Pradesh is not on the Ministry of Home Affairs list of Protected or Restricted Areas — those cover the northeastern states, Sikkim and parts of Himachal, Jammu & Kashmir, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and the Andamans. Indian and foreign visitors drive to Araku freely. WHAT IS TICKETED. Borra Caves, the Tribal Museum, the Coffee Museum and Padmapuram Gardens all charge entry, with separate camera and video fees at the caves. The state tourism corporation sells a rail-cum-road package that bundles them. BORRA''S HOURS ARE 10 A.M. TO 5 P.M. and it is 88 km from Visakhapatnam. It draws around 750,000 visitors across the October–January season, so an early arrival is worth an hour of sleep. ON THE SEASON. October to February; November to January is the best of it. June to October is the southwest monsoon and Araku takes about 1,700 mm a year, nearly all of it then. The ghat road in heavy rain is the hazard on this route. ON THE TRAIN OPTION. The Visakhapatnam–Kirandul service runs 469 km in about fourteen hours if you want the full line; the tourist Vista Dome, running since April 2017, does the 129 km to Araku in three hours fifty-five. Both climb through the tunnels. REMEMBER WHERE YOU ARE. This is a Scheduled Area and the coffee economy is tribal. Buy from the cooperatives rather than the roadside resellers, and ask before photographing people.