Gandikota is a small village on the banks of river Pennar and is rightly called the grand canyon of India. It features a big, beautiful fort that was first built almost a thousand years ago and re-fashioned multiple times in the following years by various rulers who captured and ruled the area for years. I knew I had to go to Gandikota the moment I saw a picture of the gorgeous gorge featuring river Pennar and the Erramala hills of the Deccan plateau on some website and I knew I had to visit before it becomes a big tourist hub with the ropeway project the Andhra Pradesh government plans to initiate.
How to reach Gandikota from Chennai?
By road:
The driving route from Chennai to Gandikota is pretty straight forward:
Chennai – Tirupati – Rajampet – Gandikota.
Find the Google maps route here.
By train:
The railway station closest to Gandikota is Kondapuram which is only around 10 kilometres away. A train runs between Chennai Central to Kondapuram twice a day and takes less than 7 hours. From Kondapuram you can get a taxi to Gandikota.
Link to irctc.
By bus:
The bus from Chennai to Jammalamadugu takes around 10 hours. You could take a taxi from Jammalamadugu to Gandikota, the distance between the two places is around 15 kilometres.
Link to Redbus.
How we reached Gandikota
From Chennai, where I was to join my friend, Gandikota is a 7-hour drive (~400 km) or an 8-10 hour bus or train ride involving a change of transport multiple times. Reaching Chennai involved a 14-hour bus ride for me. Also, there were no public transport available from Chennai to Gandikota at a convenient timing. So we decided not to take another long ride on public transport to Gandikota. Both my friend and I did not have a car. So we decided we’d rent a car and drive down to Gandikota. In order to reduce the per head expense, we had to look for more people who wanted to visit Gandikota on the same weekend. We created a trip on Couchsurfing and two awesome people who were interested in the idea contacted us. As luck would have it, one of them even had a car. Both were not fussy about meager things and were very flexible with the plan and timings, this worked out in our favor as we are not the people you would call “organized”. So as soon as I reached Chennai, we met our two new stranger friends and started the drive.
The drive:
We started at around 11.30 AM from the SBOA school junction in a Baleno and filled fuel in the tank on the way. We made exactly 2 stops after this. One – at another fuel pump to use the restroom, two – for lunch at a restaurant just after we crossed Tirupati. Our entertainment for the 7-hour drive consisted mainly of getting to know each other, reproving my new friend for littering the road, discussing politics and stand up comedians among others. The roads are really good for most of the route. It got even more interesting when we started spotting some really beautiful hills on the road. As we were approaching closer to our destination, we saw a distant hill with many windmills and the sun setting in the background – spellbound!
There is absolutely nothing on both sides of the road – no hotels/ stores – just drylands with some agriculture here and there, so it is best you carry your essential supply of food and beverages. This beautiful and sparse road led us straight to the fort, but our priority for the day after so much traveling was to get some rest.
Accommodation:
My friend and I have recently developed this habit of traveling with our tent and sleeping bags, so our stay was sorted. In the case of our new friends, we had found the contact of a person who arranged tents for 800 INR per night for a tent. Right next to the place we were asked to pitch tents, we also saw a property of the Andhra Pradesh government which had somewhat posh tents. On the way to the fort, we also saw a lodging facility named Haritha hotel run by the Andhra Pradesh tourism department.
We visited on a long weekend, hence the place where we pitched our tents was very much crowded. This was on the banks of river Pennar and the night did not provide any great view. We were slightly disappointed with the stay. The person who arranged the tent also arranged dinner for us for INR 200 per person – roti, sabzi, and chicken curry. Later we talked about astronomy for some time while star-gazing. The night sky was clear and filled with stars (difficult to view from cities due to light pollution), so we always make sure not to miss any opportunity to stargaze. Just when we were about to sleep, the people staying in adjacent tents started getting drunk, screaming; I couldn’t sleep until they fell asleep around 4 AM.
Places to visit
We woke up early the next morning and were absolutely stunned to see the majestic river facing which we had pitched our tent. We then headed out to visit the fort and drove down the car as close to the fort as possible. I will try to describe the remains we saw, in the same order as we visited.
We parked the car right next to the watchtower and then as we stepped out, we found the jail, we just entered and the stench threw us out soon.
We continued walking to find the Jamia Masjid – a splendid structure. Right next to this is a granary, earlier used to store grains and food.
We walked past this and the Ranganathaswamy temple caught our eyes, but we decided to walk away for now as the excitement to get a glimpse of the gorge was quite hard to contain. We walked past and up the boulders to see the spectacular valley – as beautiful as it looked in the pictures I saw, the river mighty and full, forming gorges on the hills in between which it flows.
After spending some time allowing the feeling to soak in and taking pictures, we walked to the Ranganathaswamy temple. This temple had no deity – like most other Hindu temples that were looted during the invasion. The locals had arranged tents in this temple for the visitors to stay; we did not enquire how much they charged. This temple offered us a view of the pillars of the Jamia Masjid, the gopuram of Madhavaraya temple, and the windmills on the hills at a distance. 2 religions and a bit of science in 1 frame 😀
We then walked to the Madhavaraya temple. A huge gopuram at the temple gate welcomed us. By now the sun was completely out and it started to get scorching hot. We went around the temple, carved beautifully out of rocks, trying to analyze and discuss the architecture that none of us had a clue about.
After these, we decided to take a stroll on the trails around the temple. The trails were deserted and we only found a couple of people watering the lemon plantations. We walked without a destination, not knowing what was ahead, but we knew that we would somehow end up on the banks of the river, and so we did! After that useless but satisfying stroll, we got onto the car, drove back to the tents, packed, and left for Belgaum caves.
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