Visakhapatnam December 11

On the second day of field work, Sunday December 11, we returned to Bhimunipatnam and first went to see S. S. Roberts again. He had been instrumental in getting the Dutch cemetery cleaned up some years ago, and he showed us some old photographs of the clean-up work in progress.

One of Mr. Robert’s photographs showing the clean-up of the cemetery

We then went to the abandoned lighthouse keeper’s residence, which Ilse and Anja documented, while Medina and I went around the town locating some of the other historic buildings.

The lighthouse keeper’s residence

Ilse and Anja at the lighthouse keeper’s residence

 We met with friendly locals wherever we went.

Ilse with the family who lives next to the lighthouse keeper’s residence

We had lunch on the beach; a garbage-disposal cow there instantly ate any organic garbage that we tossed down to it.

The garbage disposal cow

 Along the beach are numerous statues.

A scene depicting an incident of local anti-colonial history

Then we investigated an unidentified storage building near the beach, which, like so many other buildings was largely intact, but overgrown with vegetation.

Medina and me in the overgrown storage building

We then walked around the town and looked at some other old buildings.

Anja at a column marking the perimeter of a now demolished old building

In the late afternoon, we dropped Medina off at his home and then went to Bavikonda, a major excavated early Buddhist site along the way back to Visakhapatnam.

The early Buddhist site of Bavikonda

Back in Visakhapatnam that evening we met Rani and her husband for dinner at the Palm Beach hotel.