Vijayawada

We opened our eyes in the train in the morning and were amazed by the total shift. Instead of continuous human slums and settlements as in the middle-north India, train was only passing through greenery, palm tree and banana tree forests.


























As we stepped out of the Vijayawada train station, we looked around us and smiled to each other with big eyes.....no beggars, everything clean, beautiful, organized. At the same time the humidity and heat rushed into our face and nostrils. And for the first time during our India trip we got to know what does it mean to keep sweating and sweating through day and night.....


Vijayawada is situated on the head of the delta of the Krishna river, another river holy for Hindus. At first we wanted to go to visit famous cave temple some km-s out of Vijayawada, but we had a misunderstanding with the rickshaw driver, so he took us to the other temple instead.
We found out soon that it was not that bad option after all.
The picture that opened to us, kept us busy observing for quite some time.
The ghat near the temple was even more crowded than in Varanasi. But at the same time the atmosphere was something totally different, more like the happy people spending Sunday together bathing.














































The Durga temple itself was up on the hill. To our disappointment we noticed that there is a fee for getting in the temple, 50 Rs - the whole dinner.
As we were standing there in front of the fee sign with long faces, something happened that we would have never expected to happen in India - we were allowed to go inside for free, just because we were tourists..... it reminded us "the good old times" in Turkey.

That was actually the second time that we got something for free in India. The first one was in Kajuraho, where the Brahman that we got to know, invited us for the chai.












queue of people, each one waiting for his/her turn in getting blessed













we also got our blessing and the red dot in between the eyes - the third eye


As we had arrived to tropics, Branko fulfilled his promis, went to the first barber on the street and came out from there some grams lighter.













before...













after...
















with a jolly rickshaw driver





















If somebody is looking for the "Lenin centre", it is in Vijayawada.
















Vijayawada was one of the last cities in south of India, where we still noticed cycle-rickshaws