[Garth]

I had a week's leave booked for the last week of December 2021. Daughter was also off that week. Wifey agreed to take a a day or two off if I the destination is good.

That calls for a long drive in the Harrier, which hadn't seen much action since coming into the garage last year, blame Covid.

Sometime in November 2021 -
I am still flipping between Gandikota and Hampi. Well, there is nothing decent available in either of the two locations. Gandikota anyways had the half-decent and much maligned Haritha resorts.

Another factor is the slight increase in the Covid cases, and the Omicron threat. So we put off the decision making to later.

25th December 2021
So the Omicron threat is increasing but not to alarming proportions. We decide that if we find something good, we do the trip.

Hampi - Nothing
Gandikota - All of a sudden on Dec 25th, I find a room available for Dec 26th. I make the booking without a second thought

Great - So trip locked in now.

About the place
From what I have read, its literally in the middle of nowhere. The only accommodation options are tents or the Haritha resort with its 10 cottages which are usually booked weeks in advance. The drive itself will take about 5-6 hours with a couple of breaks. All networks apart from Jio are patchy.

So with this information at hand, we are ready for our trip.

[Garth]

Trip Day

Playlist prepared, FasTag loaded, bags packed, all set. The plan was to start at 6 am from Whitefield, Bangalore.

We start at around 6:15 am. We took the below route -

Whitefield - Budigere Cross - Devanahalli - NH44 till Kodur - SH64 till Boodili - SH61 till Kadiri - SH60 till Muddanur - SH28 till Ananthagiri - SH341 till Gandikota

Road conditions -
The work on the alternate airport is still not finished, so there are a lot of rough patches. Once you cross Devanahalli and hit NH44, its all smooth like a tarmac till Kodur. You can drive at good speeds. As soon as you hit the state highways, the quality of roads deteriorate. You can maintain steady speeds though. There are quite a few speed breakers, and potholes on this stretch so be aware of these. From Muddanur to Ananthagiri, roads are pretty good. And after crossing Ananthagiri, till Gandikota the road is very good and its a scenic drive right until Gandikota.

The resort is located about 500 m from the Gandikota Fort on the main road. You won't miss it.

The drive after Muddanur is a pleasure, through numerous fields, esp. the Sunflower fields are a treat for the eye. Absolutely no pollution and crisp and clean morning air. Absolutely minimum traffic meant a stress free drive.



PitStops
Ensure that you have your breakfast at Nandi Upchar just after Devanahalli. After this there are no decent food stops. Since we started early we thought of catching breakfast somewhere later on the way. We didn't find anything, and ended up having breakfast at a roadside Dosa joint somewhere after Kadiri. The dosas were delicious though.

Accommodation
Haritha resort is the only proper accommodation available at Gandikota as per all online resources. But in Gandikota there are a few small shops which have boards advertising tents and rooms. I know many people go to Gandikota for camping. We also thought of trying this, but read that clean washrooms might be a problem, so dropped the idea. After reaching there saw numerous boards on the main road advertising paid toliets and bathrooms. So not sure of these.

Just before Haritha Resorts there is a Adventure Sports Academy. They also have some rooms available.

The Haritha Resorts have 10 cottages, each one of them is a AC room, tariffs are slightly higher on weekends. The tariff is Rs 1500 + tax on weekdays and Rs 2000 + tax on weekends. They also have 8 bed dormitories available.

The property is a huge one. There is plenty of parking space available. There is a restaurant available on premises, nothing fancy available though. Just basic food. They have lots of trees planted (including many lemon trees). They also have a play are for the kids.

Our booking was from 2 pm. We reached at 11:30 am. There was no one at the reception. There were a couple of guys sitting and chatting away near the restaurant.

Me: I have a booking here
Man 1: From what time do you have a booking?
Me: I guess 2 pm
Man 2: The rooms have not been cleaned yet. You can go over to the fort and have a walk around, we should be ready in an hour.

[Garth]

We drive from the resort to the fort. Its hardly 500 m to the fort entrance. Just before the entrance of the fort, I see few cars parked and then about 8-10 shacks, mind you these are the only shops in the vicinity. I park my car and we decide to walk. It was very sunny, temperature would have been around 28-29 degrees, but it felt a lot hotter.

Then as we walk into the fort, we see more cars parked, and also see that there is shade also. So I get the car and park it in a place which had some shade, and then we walk to the fort. There is a small hamlet with some houses. as we walk through we start seeing some monuments, a jail, a temple but we walk on. We realise that we could have taken the car right till the fort. Anyways we continue, the target was the Penne River Gorge. We climb a few rocks (that's the only way to get to the gorge), and then we see this -



After spending an hour here we head back to the hotel hoping that the room is ready. One of the guys we met earlier takes our details and makes an entry in the register, tells us our room number and shows us the way to the room.

The room is in a state of disrepair and calling for urgent maintenance. The walls and roof of the room all showed signs of seepage. There was a king size bed available which was neatly made. The room is of a decent size. AC was not working in our room. There is a TV, but the Tata Sky is not activated. We didn't bother with either of the two. The bathroom itself is very small, though clean (as compared to the state of the room).

There are stone steps to go the terrace with no railings or restraints. People with kids be careful on these.

Food
The food at the resort is very basic as I said earlier, they had some white rice, dal, curd, rasam and some vegetables for lunch. For dinner, additionally they had Veg Fried Rice.

So after lunch, we decide to head over to Belum Caves, which is a distance of about 60 km from Gandikota.

[Garth]

Destination Next - Belum Caves

The drive to Belum Caves turned out to be an adventure in itself. So we head out of Gandikota and reach Ananthapur. There is a bridge to cross the Penne river, which is closed for repairs. There is a wall erected closing the entrance of the bridge. There is a mud road right next to it, and there were cars, buses and lorries taking that road.

But unfortunately Google baba is not aware of this mud track. As luck would have it, I decided to follow Google rather than my heart. It took us through a village, and then lead us into what looked like a forest. There was a very narrow road alright, but only vegetation and no houses or people now. Then we saw the river, unfortunately there was no bridge to cross it. Looked at the map, and it did show a line across the river, maybe there was a bridge at some point which got washed away or something. I didn't have any space to turn my car, so reversed for a few hundred meters till I found a spot. The dense vegetation was rubbing against the car body and making squeaking sounds. Guess will need to get a detailing session.
So after this adventure we hit back the proper road, and lo and behold, Google Map leads us right into another road and same story as earlier repeated.

Now I have had enough and decide to follow my instincts now. We head back to the mud track we saw earlier, and find out that it was the way we should have taken in the first place.

The road was very rough and patchy. Not a smooth ride at all. But it was a scenic ride 2 hour ride nonetheless. We saw a lot of fields, chillies, lemon and millets.

[Garth]

Belum Caves

So we reach the caves, and park our car in the shade, take the ticket to the caves and go inside.

Walk around a bit and come out. Having seen the caves at the Cradle of Mankind in South Africa, to be frank I was not impressed, so lets just say the drive to the destination was better than the destination itself in this case.

Just a few of pics -

[Garth]

Back to Gandikota
When we reach back Anathapur it was about 5:30 pm. We caught this beautiful sunset.



We catch a board saying "Boating at Mylavaram" and follow the board, and it leads us to Mylavaram dam. We see a pre/after wedding shoot happening. We just take a quite little walk around and drop the idea of the boating.

We head back to the hotel. We were hungry by now, and ask if we can grab some snacks/ tea. There is nothing available at the hotel. So we head to the shacks to grab a bite, and we realise that the only thing they have is tea, and no proper hot snacks. Maybe some chips and biscuits.

So we decide to check out the Adventure academy. They do have some stuff available. We order some Chilli Paneer. It was decent. The time they took to serve the snack made us decide to stick around and order dinner.

The dinner itself was ok. Nothing special, was a bit expensive for the place, but there was nothing much available anywhere, esp. non-vegetarian stuff.

Well, it was time now to head back to the hotel to retire for the night.

But before we went to sleep, we headed to the terrace and saw like a million stars in the night sky. It was absolutely clear night sky.

[Garth]

Day 2 - Sunrise

Sunrise time was 6:37 am. We get up around 5:45 am to realise that there was no water in the bathrooms. So I walk out to the restaurant, on the way, I see another guest outside and check with him. They didn't have water either. So we both walk to the restaurant and knock on the back door. And tell the guys about our problem.

Answer - "2 mins sir you will have water".

Looks like someone forgot to switch on the motor. Typical government servants and resort managed like a government office. What can you say?

So then we head off to the fort again to catch the sunrise. It was a bit chilly so we had our sweat shirts on.

We reach the view point again. It was a little bit cloudy to start with, so we don't see the sunrise for some time. We meet another family, chit chat with them, click a few pics and move on.

After this, we go to the granary. Its door is locked.

We move on, and go to the Madhavarya temple. Some structures in the temple complex reminds one of Lepakshi. This temple was built during the time of Sri Krishna Deva Raya in the 15th Century. The carvings on the temple are really good.

[Garth]

Couple of more pics -





After spending a couple of hours at the fort we head back. Try dosa at the shacks. Was not very good, so we head back to the resort and it was much better there.

We checked out at around 9:15 am and headed back to Bangalore.
The drive back was uneventful. Had a few stops for photo-ops, juice, ice cream and lunch.

Reached home by about 3:30 pm.

So overall I'd say that it was a well spent couple of days. And in the process we discovered a hidden gem of a place.

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[Shivam]

Glad, you had a nice trip!

It is definitely lot underrated and lesser known.

Meanwhile, in Belum caves, have they opened all sections or still some work pending?

[busydrive]

Nice travelogue. I am also planning for Gandikota for sometime. Any photos you have taken of the resort premises? Reviews are all mixed and this seems to be the best option out there.

[Garth]

Originally Posted by Shivam

Glad, you had a nice trip!

It is definitely lot underrated and lesser known.

Meanwhile, in Belum caves, have they opened all sections or still some work pending?

All sections are still not opened. We didn't spend too much time inside the cave. It was very stuffy and a bit crowded, so we came quickly out of it.

[Garth]

Originally Posted by busydrive

Nice travelogue. I am also planning for Gandikota for sometime. Any photos you have taken of the resort premises? Reviews are all mixed and this seems to be the best option out there.

I didn't take any photos. You can check it on the APTDC website.

There is an Adventure Academy next to the Haritha Resort. They have accommodation available. I am not sure if they take online bookings though. Maybe try calling them. I just think that their rooms might be in a better state. If they don't have, you will need to go for Haritha Resorts. Though not the best, it is not something that you cannot stay for a night. There are no high end hotels anywhere in the vicinity.

[Umash]

Originally Posted by Garth

Destination Next - Belum Caves

The drive to Belum Caves turned out to be an adventure in itself. So we head out of Gandikota and reach Ananthapur.

Good write up. To go to Belum Caves from Gandikota, you should have taken the road SH 67 via Jammalamadugu. It is a good road.

[Garth]

Originally Posted by Umash

Good write up. To go to Belum Caves from Gandikota, you should have taken the road SH 67 via Jammalamadugu. It is a good road.

That’s what we took. SH28 first and then SH67. It wasn’t a smooth drive.