Yanam – Tuni - 106 km
The route to Tuni hugged the Coringa Wildlife Sanctuary, which
incorporates India’s second-largest stretch of mangrove forest and is
home to the endangered white-backed and long-billed vultures.
Amusingly, mentioning that you are cycling to the next town, a
hundred kilometres away, was akin to saying you were venturing into
outer space. As one man pointed out, Tuni was 60 kilometres away
and too far to go by bike—better to go to the next village which was
10 kilometres away. He was adamant it wasn’t possible to cycle to
Tuni in a day. Although everyone in India cycled (it’s, after all, home
of the Hero bike), no one goes far, generally merely to the market.
Two more newspapers reported about our journey, and people
flagged us down to show us the reports. No sooner were we in Tuni
than a TV crew spotted us and gave us a lengthy interview. At least
the excitement and all the attention made up for the dreary room.
Not all Indian hotels were substandard but choosing budget options
made getting a dirty room highly likely.
Tuni - Visakhapatnam - 110 km
From Tuni, the highway to Visakhapatnam was shared by bicycle
salesmen stacked high with everything imaginable, from plastic chairs
to pots and pans. The excellent road made it easy to ride into
Visakhapatnam, or Vizag, as it’s commonly referred to.
Vizag was significantly larger than anticipated and had plenty of
budget accommodation around the train station. This time our
lodging had clean sheets, which made me as happy as the proverbial
pig.