The cave maze in Belum and Gandikota- Exploring the indian grand canyon

Belum caves the second longest cave system in India was on my must visit list since couple of years. Lack of time / Company and the distance prevented me from visiting this place. When checking for a two day visit which can be clubbed along with belum, I came across gandikota which has a stone gorge fort and view which resembles the grand canyon in US.

These two places were ideal to be clubbed as the distance between both was less and both could be covered in same day. Srikanth was ready to join me for the trip and we headed to belum on Independence Day,

An early morning start after a sumptuous breakfast saw ur cruising on the Hyderabad Highway till we reached gooty. One needs to take deviation at gooty and proceed towards tadipatri to reach belum. Belum is approx 40 kms from tadipatri.

A short break for snaps of the distance hills an we headed to tadipatri

Hills in the distance

The temperature and humidity was soaring by the time we reached tadipatri. Inquring the route we continued to proceed towards the caves. Another hour of driving and we could see belum caves written on the hill. We reached the cave by lunch time and we could already find lot of people there. Parking our car, we collected the tickets and proceeded towards the entrance of the caves

Entrance to belum

The caves are made up of limestone and run quite a long distance underground

Belum Caves

The  cave network is like a maze which runs deep underground. The government has maintained the caves well by providing lighting and marking the route for the visitors.With entry and exit points marked, it is easy for people to explore the caves. Some parts of the caves are still off limits. With humidity in the caves being high we were sweating a lot while exploring.

Roaming around the entire caves took us about an hour or so and we finally reached the main entrance. There was an fan kept at the top and we spent some time underneath it to get some relief from the heat.

With the cave exploration complete we had ample amount of time in our hands. Our next place on the list was gandikota which was around 60 kms from belum. Getting the route from google maps, we headed towards gandikota. The roads were pretty decent and asking for directions we soon reached the gorge fort after couple of hours of driving.

Gandikota is also called the grand canyon of india as it contains a steep gorge. Standing near the edge of the gorge one can experience the view similar to that of the grand canyon in US.

About Gandikota

The gorge also contains a fort built in 13th century. The fort contains ruins of temple and a mosque.

Fort Entrance

Scenes Inside the Fort

The gorge

Couple of mandatory selfies at the gorge and spending close to an hour taking photos and enjoying the scenary we bid adeiu to the place and headed to the car.

Selfie @ India’s grand canyon

Our initial target of reaching ananthpur took a serious hit as we left the gorge only by 5.30. Reworking our schedule we decided to halt at kadiri before heading back to bangalore the next day.

It was night by the time we reached kadiri which is famous for lakshmi narasimha swamy temple. After checking into a hotel we had our dinner and called it a day to give our aching muscles some rest.

It was an early start the next day and we were on our way to bangalore. A short stop for breakfast midway and we reached bangalore by noon after spending an hour in the newly opened decathlon sports store on airport road. I was home by lunch thus ending a long pending trip.

Snaps can be found here