Visiting the 2nd largest Christian Diocese in the world & more - Medak

Passing by the Narsapur Forest range road, there are these countless monkeys crossing the street and jumping and running here and there. Tempting as it might seem to halt, take some photos and play with them, the risk of being stormed by a dozen of them is always there. Be careful around them.

The road was pretty much empty as it was early morning with just a few buses crossing once in a while. After about an hour or so, I saw this water stream on the left that seemed interesting. I stopped my bike in a safe place and walked towards the stream. The view was pleasant with the water current flowing downstream cutting through the rocks. Took a 15 min unplanned break just sitting there listening to the current with no other sound around. Bliss!

Time to move on.

I reached Medak Cathedral around 07:30 AM (as calculated ;-)). I parked by the gate and took a stroll the grass areas surround the church. The church doors were still locked. There were people who were sitting, walking, relaxing around the place setting up small picnic like groups. Took some photos & talked to some locals here getting to know more about the Church and it's story.

The church is a solid white granite build with tiles brought in all the way from England, some marble brought in from Italy, It stands tall at ~173 feet (I got to know it could have been well higher than that, unless the then Nizam laid down a condition that this Church couldn't be higher than Hyderabad's Charminar!, seriously!!! ).

Hands down the most beautiful feature of the Church - a depiction of the gospel trilogy - nativity, crucifixion & ascension, a fascinating view during daytime with the sun rays lightening up the artwork.

After about 30 minutes, I left to go visit the Medak Fort and come back by 10 for the Sunday Service. Asking for directions from the locals, I took a path that goes up till the resort. This point is almost the starting point of the Fort. 2-3 km from the Cathedral.

As luck would have it, there was a Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan going on at the Fort conducted by the Collector along with a group of school students. They had an initiation session and then got into small groups to clean the entire area.

I, because of this, couldn't visit the entire Fort due to security reasons. :-(

Found a spot to sit and relax enjoying the city's aerial view. I sat there for about half an hour. The atmosphere was simply refreshing with the clouds and cool breeze.

I then went back to the Church, reached by 09:45 AM. I reached to the sound of the choir singing hymnals and people filling the church all over. After attending the church service I proceeded towards the next destination nearby.

I had heard about this Pocharam Dam nearby which was just 15-16 km from the Medak Church. I reached there after leaving from the Church around 1:00 PM. There's a rough road after about 14km from Medak Church that leads to the Dam.

Besides the road is a check dam which I guess during peak monsoon overflows in to a small waterfall like current, but that wasn't the case when I visited. There were couple of kids playing in the water there.

I went further to the main area which had a wall and water on one side. Water flows to the other side when the level rises. If you're the kind of person who loves to walk by calm water, feeling the cool breeze and sit doing nothing, then this is the place to be.

I left around 04:0o PM from Pocharam Dam for Hyderabad and reached home by 07:00 PM. A single day's trip that was totally worth it. You go to Medak without any great expectations, and you for sure will be surprised.

Let's see where the wheels take me next to!