26-Jul-2008 -- Having already visited Rayavaram village in January, 2008, Myself and Vasudevan decided to visit 14ºN 79ºE on 26th July, 2008. We started our journey by 1.00 PM from Chennai finally reaching Rayavaram village by 6.00 PM. Because of monsoon rains between Piler and Rayachoti, our travel was slowed down considerably. Though there was no rain at Royavaram village, the monsoon clouds above brought early darkness.

Mr.Vasudevan tried to explain our visit in Telugu language in vain to the villagers standing nearby. An old man called Sattar came forward to accompany us. Three of us walked in the semi-dark through the lanes and by-lanes of the village and reached the river bank just out of the village. Mr.Sattar returned back for his evening prayers. We found the village located just north-west of the confluence of rivers Pincha/Pileru and Bahuda/Cheyyeru which traverse towards north. Walking on the dry sands along the western banks for a mile, we found 79ºE. By the time, total darkness had engulfed us. With our GPS on, we easily located our confluence to be amidst the first rice field on the western bank of the river (Pic-1). Through a small bund, we both entered the rice field without trampling the paddy crop and took the GPS reading (Pic-2). We tried to take the customary photos (with flash) of all the directions but stopped with east (Pic-3) & west (Pic-4) for poor visibility of the terrain.

Satisfied with our venture, we came out of the field and climbed up to another field in the darkness. To our surprise, a lonely lamb in the dark was coming towards us along the motorable road, some 50 feet away. This was the only creature that we encountered since we left Mr.Sattar at the village outskirts during our hour-long trek. We both took snaps with the lamb (Pic-5 & 6) separately and proceeded towards our car parked in the village.

Only now we realized that our trek along the river bed could have been avoided, had we known this road which leads right upto the confluence point. Even at the drinking water pumping station (Pic-7), a few hundred feet away from the confluence point, none was available for talk. Finally, we reached the village with the help of our mobile illumination.

We cruised back and reached Chennai at 2 past midnight covering a distance of 614 Kms in total.

Coordinator's Note: Incomplete due to dark pictures (confluence surroundings not identifiable)