Araku Valley and Borra Caves

The Araku Valley, about 115 km north of Visakhapatnam in the Eastern Ghats, is one of the best day trips or overnight excursions from the city. A tribal hill station at around 900 metres, it grows some of the most acclaimed coffee in India — the Araku organic coffee sold in Parisian cafes and marketed by the Girijan Cooperative comes from estates in this valley.

The Borra Caves are the main specific attraction: a vast limestone cavern system discovered in the 19th century, with enormous stalactites and stalagmites reaching 20 metres and an underground stream. The formations have been fancifully named (a family of monkeys, a human brain, a Shiva lingam) and the coloured lights are pure kitsch, but the scale of the caverns is genuinely impressive. Getting there by train — the scenic Visakhapatnam–Kirandul mountain railway — is far more memorable than going by road.

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The Borra Caves were discovered in 1807 by British geologist William King, who was surveying the Eastern Ghats. Local Kondh tribal people had known the caves for centuries — a small Shiva temple inside them predates the British survey by at least 400 years, and the tribals believe the cave formations are divine. The British discovery and the tribal reverence coexist without apparent tension.

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